Educational Inquiry

Completion of the HALE program required TE891 - an Educational Inquiry and Research Methods course. Because my work with online courses put me in proximity to primary investigators on a few research efforts related to the scholarship of teaching and learning I had some familiarity with human studies procedures and methods associated with collecting data or interviewing subjects. This course was my first pure introduction into research design. We learned about various quantitative methods such as forced answer surveying and how to compose a sufficient sample size to yield an accurate and representative pool of data with an adequate response rate. We also learned about qualitative methods such as interviewing and composing focus groups.

One of my greatest takeaways from this course came from Vivian Paley's "White Teacher". Paley's message reinforced that even if we don't see ourselves as researchers or seek publication, we can still benefit greatly from incorporation of rigorous inquiry into our professional roles. As educators our professional ethos should be focused on supporting students and faculty as best we can, which requires continuous learning and adaptation.

The course presented the challenge of formulating a project to conduct some form of educational inquiry that was worth conducting. We were asked to base our research on existing knowledge in the field. We had to design our methods and get approval in advance prior to proceeding. For my project, as is commonly the case, I needed to negotiate access to my subjects and gain some administrative consent prior to proceeding. I chose to interview faculty that were simultaneously engaged in developing for-credit and not-for-credit e-learning or at least had committed to doing both. Such commitments derive from administrative strategies to maximize reach and value for the sunk cost of development. I was curious if this was a practical exercise for faculty and how successful they were in reaching both objectives. My report on this is attached and the bottom of this page.