Handbook of Research Design in Mathematics and Science Education by Kelly Anthony E. Lesh Richard A. & Richard A.Lesh

Author:Kelly, Anthony E.,Lesh, Richard A. & Richard A.Lesh
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Education
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd
Published: 2000-04-01T05:00:00+00:00

Credibility

Verification of information by the participants in a study is a critical part of an interpretive study. Because one of the goals is to understand the actions of the participants from their own perspectives, researchers are endeavoring to construct texts that address two broad issues: What is happening here? and, What are the reasons for what is happening? In arriving at answers to these questions, there are many levels at which interpretation requires researchers to produce texts that purport to capture the perspectives of participants. Member checks place these interpretive documents in the hands of participants and ask them to indicate whether or not their perspectives are depicted accurately. Participants might be asked to mark up the text, suggest changes, make elaborations or clarifications, and provide examples to enrich the text. The purposes of member checks are to test the accuracy of researchers’ interpretations, by indicating the extent to which participants agree with them. The procedure allows participants to critique the interpretations of the researchers and is an additional source of data for a study. Examples of member checks are the provision of field notes, research texts, and interpretive extracts to participants to review and to indicate specific areas of agreement and disagreement. In the case of young children, we have undertaken such checks orally, explaining to them what we think is happening and why we think it occurred. Their comments are analyzed as member checks. No doubt there will be occasions when researchers will argue that even though a participant claims the researcher has not understood something correctly, an interpretation is retained because of other evidence available to support the assertion. Although the member check is a critical part of interpretive research, the notion that different perspectives can add to the richness of a study permits a researcher to include the differing perspectives on interpretation as another layer of informative description that increases the potential to learn from the investigation. In one study in which a teacher-participant disagreed strongly with the interpretations of our research team, we developed a new research text that included his points of view with ours, evidence for readers that our interpretations and the belief set that supported them were disputed by the teacher (Tobin, et al., 1988).

Erickson (1986) described two challenges for interpretive researchers as making the familiar strange and the strange familiar. The insider’s view is essential in an interpretive study and, for that reason, attention is paid to the voices of the participants and such mechanisms as member checks. Those with an insider’s view face the challenge of making what is familiar to them seem strange. As necessary as the insiders’ perspective might be, it also is essential that a study have an outsider’s judgment of what is happening. The outsider’s view concerns making the strange seem familiar. More often than not, researchers are from the outside and do not belong to the community that they are studying. Their perspectives are enriched by the theoretical frameworks used to make sense of what they are seeing and to frame what is relevant and noteworthy.

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