Day #5, June 21st
CEP 955 Summer Hybrid 2013
Jack Smith
Michigan State University
Overview
 Week 1 focus: Elements of the front-end
 Specific focus today: Structuring the literature review
section
 Pivot next week to the study design
 But… instructional sequence is semi-linear, but thinking
and development process is cyclical
 Today will focus time on lit reviews and allot time other
front end issues
 Does someone want critical attention to their RQs?
 Second theory bit to go with Amy’s?
 Book review of GCR: major theoretical perspectives
RQ Lab
Homework check-in
 What was useful, if anything, in GGB, chapter 4?
 Was anyone surprised/upset by the negative assessment
of overall quality of published research in education?
 How many tried outlining their literature review
section?
 Decisions about framing theory in your literature
review section?
The work of review
 The cycle of engagement with sources
 Search and find/select (electronic & “dumb” and eyes-on
and “smart”)
 Read (use of the scarce resource of time)
 Evaluate and characterize
 Look for patterns across sources (results, methods,
framing theory, limitations)
 Structure your synthesis (communicating the patterns
you see)
 Note: The work of review is never complete (despite
our proposal writing needs and wishes)
Refining our source typology
 From your CEP 901B papers and top-ten work:
Empirical vs. theoretical
 Empirical is pretty easy to recognize (common
structure)
 Theoretical focuses on the statement and
justification of general principles
 But E & T are insufficient as types of scholarly writing
 Other types?
 Review your top-ten
Writing interlude
 Would 20 minutes of literature review think, outline,
and compose time be welcome?
Theory Bite(s)
 Introducing Amy’s Practicum
 Amy: social constructivism
 Q&A; discussion
The Role of Theory (generally)
 Seeing is a conceptual act => we see with our ideas
 Looking, observing, recording, interpreting are all
conceptual actions (applications of our ideas to raw
observable data)
 Frameworks direct our attention to particular features
of the world that we could notice, label, and record
 No explicit framework does not imply no framework
(implicit, intuitive, unconscious frames)
 Researcher’s responsibility and reflective practice: Try
to be explicit about what guides your seeing
Theory Scale (or “reach”)
 In educational psychology (at least)—as in other fields—
theories differ in the range of phenomena they address
 “Grand” theory: All of human learning and/or development, e.g.,
Skinner’s operant conditioning theory
 Outside of education: plate tectonics in geology
 Many other theories narrow the range of their target
phenomena; “medium” to “small-scale”??
 Examples:
 TPACK: phenomenon = what teachers know about educational
technology
 Wentzel: phenomenon = how social support, motivation, and
achievement relate
 But scale is also dynamic; small-scale theories can be adapted to
account for a wider range of phenomena (e.g., “perceived loss”)
Grand Theory (of thinking, knowing & learning)
 Greeno, Collins, & Resnick (1996) provide a very useful top-level
categorization of their families of theories
 Three broad perspectives (groupsof theories)
 Behavioral theories
 Cognitive theories
 Situative theories
 Situative (sometimes called “sociocultural”) theories focus on
participating (as knowing) and on individual and collective
knowing



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Rogoff, cognitive apprenticeship
Brown, Collins, & Duguid (1989) “situated cognition”
Jean Lave
Etienne Wenger
 Perspectives form a temporal progression of the field (B->C->S)
Homework for Monday
 Focus: How do the framing part of my proposal (front end +
RQs) shape my study design
 Texts: Review SRIE, chapter 5; Creswell, chapter 1
(worldviews & major research traditions)
 Writing: Update the entries in the Google doc (front end,
RQs, study design
 If you need to, open a second row for yourself
 Other ways to move ahead
 Refine/improve your problem statement/introduction
 Show your ps/intro to a peer or Jack
 Work on your literature review as the next section (outlining
or composing)
 Work on your RQs and “defining” your key terms