Professional Development Workshops

• *Please note that times are in Pacific time*

Intersecting Qualitative and Mixed Methods Designs

2 hours

Tuesday, June 15, 2021 ~ 9:00-11:00am (Pacific time)

Description:

This workshop is focused on integrating qualitative with mixed methods research designs. Qualitative research is a systematic process of inquiry that relies on open-ended data and emphasizes inductive reasoning, collecting data in natural settings, and understanding participants’ points of view. Mixed methods research involves the integration of qualitative and quantitative data within a study. Intersecting refers to integration at the level of research designs, methodologies, or theoretical and conceptual frameworks. While qualitative and mixed methods research may rely on general descriptive qualitative approaches, the most rigorous research employs qualitative designs. Therefore, we focus on how to intersect mixed methods research with several major qualitative designs—ethnography, grounded theory, phenomenology, case study, narrative research, and action research. The workshop will begin with a concise overview of qualitative and mixed methods research. We then review options for intersecting a qualitative design, including unique advantages, challenges, and limitations for each design. An interactive online exercise will ask participants to think about their own research and briefly outline: 1) an appropriate research problem for intersecting, 2) qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods research questions, 3) data sources, and 4) a design diagram. Attendees will leave with the foundation of a workable design that intersects qualitative and mixed methods research.

Presenters:

Timothy C. Guetterman, Ph.D.

Timothy C. Guetterman, PhD, is a methodologist focused on research design and mixed methods research. His methodological interest is to advance rigorous methods of quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods research, particularly strategies for intersecting and integrating qualitative and quantitative research designs. He is the PI of National Institutes of Health (NIH) funded research that uses quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods research to investigate the use of virtual human technology to improve health communication. He also conducts research on developing research methods capacity through the NIH Mixed Methods Research Training Program for the Health Sciences. He is an Associate Editor for the Journal of Mixed Methods Research and the Journal of Ethnographic and Qualitative Research.

Michelle Howell Smith, Ph.D.

Michelle Howell Smith is an Assistant Professor at the University of Nebraska Medical Center where she serves as an Educational Researcher for the Interprofessional Academy of Educators and teaches research methodology courses in the College of Public Health. Trained by John Creswell and mentored by Vicki Plano Clark, Howell Smith has developed expertise in mixed methods research designs, with particular focus on instrument development procedures such as grounded theory analysis, cognitive interviews, and factor analysis. Howell Smith has served as an evaluator on numerous mixed methods projects funded by NIH, NSF, and IES, as well as private contracts.

Wayne A. Babchuk, Ph.D.

Wayne Babchuk, is an Associate Professor of Practice in the Quantitative, Qualitative, and Psychometric Methods (QQPM) program in the Department of Educational Psychology at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL). He is an applied research methodologist focusing on grounded theory, ethnography, mixed methods grounded theory, and research ethics. He serves as a member of the Board of Directors of the Kalahari Peoples Fund (KPF), an Executive Board Member of the Central States Anthropological Society (CSAS), Managing Editor for the Journal of Ethnographic and Qualitative Research (JEQR), and as an instructor for the African Doctoral Academy at Stellenbosch University, South Africa. He is currently co-authoring three texts on qualitative and mixed methods research and one on ecotourism among indigenous groups.

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Ethics and Practice of Fieldwork with Indigenous People

1 hour

Monday, June 14, 2021 ~ 9:00-10:30 am (Pacific time)

Description:

There has been a substantial debate among social and evolutionary scientists and indigenous people about the ethics and practice of fieldwork. Part of this debate revolves around the desire of indigenous people to see the direct benefits of research. There has been a move toward restricting research among indigenous people, and to impose limits on the kinds of research that is done. One example is genetics research which in the past has sometimes carried out without the express permission of the indigenous communities from whom genetic samples were taken. This has resulted in codes of ethics being developed, one example being the San Code of Research Ethics, which requires researchers to submit proposals to indigenous organizations and to explain the potential costs and benefits of their work. Researchers have argued that this has led to a restriction on research. This presentation addresses the issues involved in research ethics, research permit processes, and the thorny questions of compensation to indigenous organizations prior to research permits being granted and specifications of how research is to be conducted.

Robert K. Hitchcock, Ph.D.

Robert Hitchcock is a professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of New Mexico. He is also an adjunct professor of Geography and Geospatial Sciences at Michigan State University. His anthropological and development-related work is on the human rights and well-being of indigenous people, small-scale farmers, rural women, and refugees, particularly those in eastern and southern Africa, the Middle East, and North America. He serves as a member of the Board of Directors of the Kalahari Peoples Fund (KPF), a non-profit 501©3 organization that assists disadvantaged people in southern Africa. Much of his ethnographic and legal assistance work is with the San (Bushmen) of Botswana, Namibia, South Africa, and Zimbabwe. Hitchcock’s most recent book is People, Parks, and Power: The Ethics of Conservation-related Resettlement (with Maria Sapignoli, Springer, 2020).

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Writing and Publishing Qualitative Doctoral Dissertations

1 hour

Monday, June 14, 2021 ~ 12:00 - 1:00 pm (Pacific time)

Description:

This session is facilitated by Journal of Ethnographic and Qualitative Research (JEQR) Managing and Associate editors two of whom are recent Ph.D. graduates (2019) and the third a former member of their doctoral supervisory committees. We focus on several related topics of potential interest to doctoral students conducting qualitative research for their dissertation research. These topics include selecting a qualitative dissertation committee, establishing deadlines for large projects, forming and participating in writing groups, negotiating the politics of qualitative research in the academy, the ethics of qualitative research, breaking down the dissertation into journal length articles, how to navigate authorship and roles, potential publication outlets, formatting manuscripts for submission, and positioning oneself for an academic position at a higher education institution. The session will draw heavily on two case studies of the co-presenters’ own doctoral dissertation experiences and we welcome interactive audience participation and feedback at all stages of the discussion.

Presenters:

Tiffany T. Young, Ph.D.

Tiffany Young, is an Assistant Professor in the College of Education at Doane University where she serves as the Director of Elementary Education. Her research interests include early literacy development and equitable instructional practices. She recently completed her dissertation utilizing a design-based research approach, which focused on co-constructing an instructional design for increasing text complexity with early literacy learners. She currently teaches a course on qualitative research design and serves as a qualitative research methodologist on doctoral committees. She is also a conference co-chair for the Nebraska State Literacy Association and a Managing Editor for the Journal of Ethnographic and Qualitative Research (JEQR).

Tiffani N. Luethke, Ph.D.

Tiffani Luethke, is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Nebraska at Kearney (UNK). Her research of leadership focuses on coping with trauma, overcoming adversity, and developing resiliency. Her recently completed dissertation research, focusing on Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) refugee and immigrant women, involved three years of immersive ethnographic research among MENA women to explore leadership perceptions and practices after forced displacement and resettlement in the United States. She currently teaches a graduate level qualitative research methods course, advises students in the Undergraduate Research Fellows program at UNK, and is an Associate Editor for the Journal of Ethnographic and Qualitative Research.

Wayne A. Babchuk, Ph.D.

Wayne Babchuk is an Associate Professor of Practice in the Quantitative, Qualitative, and Psychometric Methods (QQPM) program in the Department of Educational Psychology at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL). He is an applied research methodologist focusing on grounded theory, ethnography, mixed methods grounded theory, and research ethics. He serves as a member of the Board of Directors of the Kalahari Peoples Fund (KPF), an Executive Board Member of the Central States Anthropological Society (CSAS), Managing Editor for the Journal of Ethnographic and Qualitative Research (JEQR), and as an instructor for the African Doctoral Academy at Stellenbosch University, South Africa. He is currently co-authoring three texts on qualitative and mixed methods research and one on ecotourism among indigenous groups.

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Ethnographic Based Action Research (EBAR)

1.5 hours

Monday, June 14, 2021 ~ 1:00-2:00 pm (Pacific time)

Description:

This workshop is designed to assist teachers and school-based personnel (e.g., administrators and support staff) in conducting action research from an ethnographic perspective. Action research is a process of conducting research on site that generates questions related to improving practice, followed by an action plan to collect and analyze data related to the questions. This involves self-reflection and may generate more questions along the way that require additional data collection and analysis. The ethnographic base presumes that we view participants acting as local cultures. This perspective makes visible how participants construct norms, beliefs, and language in common as they interact in their educational spaces.

Presenters will guide participants through ethnographic processes and analytic techniques. We illustrate data collection methods that are primarily qualitative. We illustrate a variety of data collection tools and then demonstrate analytic techniques that provide ways of interpreting various types of data. Participants will be engaged in formulating an action research project with their own ethnographic action research questions. For those in the session who have conducted action research projects prior to this workshop, we will discuss possible advanced analytics as well as illustrating how they can assist as action research mentors, working with novice action researchers.

Presenters:

LeAnn G. Putney, Ph.D.

LeAnn Putney is Professor in Educational Psychology, at UNLV. She earned her Ph.D. in Educational Psychology from the University of California, Santa Barbara. LeAnn teaches various courses in qualitative research. Her ethnographic research focuses on collective classroom efficacy from a Vygotskian perspective to illustrate how efficacy can be developed and enhanced by teachers and students. LeAnn has developed an ethnographic based action research protocol and qualitative program evaluation tool for classroom teachers. She has presented regularly at AERA, ATE, TESOL, and EQRC/CARE conferences. She recently served as Senior Co-Editor for ACTION in Teacher Education Journal.

Suzanne H. Jones, Ph.D.

Suzanne Jones, an Associate Professor of Literacy with the School of Teacher Education and Leadership at Utah State University, received her Ph.D. in Educational Psychology from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Her research interests include hope as a motivational factor of learning, collective classroom efficacy, teacher efficacy, conceptual change, and emotions in learning. She has received several awards to include the McGraw-Hill Distinguished Scholar Award, 2020 (CARE). She has presented at numerous conferences and has published her research in tier one journals including Contemporary Educational Psychology, Journal of Teacher Education, and Reading Research Quarterly.

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(Critical) Mixed Methods Research

1.5 hours

Tuesday, June 15, 2021 ~ 1:00-2:30 pm (Pacific time)

Description:

The focus of this workshop is on mixed methods research (MMR) and analyses. In MMR, the researcher: 1) collects and analyzes both qualitative and quantitative data, 2) integrates the two forms of data and their results, 3) organizes these procedures into specific research designs, and 4) frames these procedures within theory and philosophy (Creswell & Plano Clark, 2018). In addition, we will be using a “critical” MMR lens that requires educational researchers to examine each element of the process: their identity, their intentions, and - most importantly - the effect of such research on marginalized communities.

The intended workshop participant would be graduate students, academic faculty, classroom teachers, and/or school-based personnel who have working knowledge of both quantitative and qualitative research. During this interactive workshop, we will cover the basics of critical MMR including design options, analysis challenges/solutions, and suggestions for writing up results. We will look at, and discuss, exemplar mixed methods studies especially as they pertain to integrating qualitative and quantitative results. There will also be a demonstration of MAXQDA – a data analysis software for qualitative and mixed methods research.

Presenters:

Lisa D. Bendixen, Ph.D.

Lisa Bendixen is an Associate Professor in the Department of Educational Psychology & Higher Education at UNLV. She received her Ph.D. in Educational Psychology from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 1998. Her research interests involve the epistemic cognition of students and teachers and how this type of thinking influences learning, teaching, and teacher education. Dr. Bendixen has authored an edited book: Personal Epistemology in the Classroom and has chapters in the Handbook of Educational Psychology and the Handbook of Epistemic Cognition. She is an active member of AERA, EARLI and the Southwest Consortium for Innovative Psychology in Education (SCIPIE). She teaches courses in Cognitive Development, Classroom Assessment, and Mixed Methods Research.

Mónica J Hernández-Johnson

Mónica Hernández-Johnson is a Central-American doctoral student in the Department of Educational Psychology & Higher Education at UNLV. Her research interests involve advancing research methodologies and analytical approaches to better assess educational outcomes for diverse students in the field of educational psychology. Ms. Hernández-Johnson has published works highlighting the experiences of women scholars of color and social justice parental partnerships. She is an active member of AERA and the Southwest Consortium for Innovative Psychology in Education (SCIPIE).

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Evaluation Techniques in Education and Social Sciences

1 hour

Tuesday, June 15, 2021 ~ 11:00 am-12:00 noon (Pacific time)

Description:

This workshop is designed to provide an overview of program evaluation techniques that are commonly applied in education and social science settings. Education and social programs are typically developed based on assumptions about human learning and behavior.

Best practices in evaluation engage stakeholders in explicating these assumptions in the form of models related to theory of change and program activities that lead to intended outcomes. Evaluation study designs are then built around these models to investigate aspects of the program. Research-based evaluations are designed to provide formative information about programmatic improvement and changes, whereas summative evaluations are focused on identifying the extent to which programs have met intended outcomes.

Presenters will guide participants through key elements of a basic program evaluation. These elements include key stakeholder interviewing, developing theories of change models, outlining a logic model, formulating evaluation questions, and methods used to answer evaluation questions. The presenters will also discuss how these evaluation practices might look different depending on the perspective that is grounding the evaluation, such as a participatory perspective compared to a utilization-focused perspective. Participants will be encouraged to ground their activities in their own work and practice.

Presenters:

Gwen Marchand, Ph.D.

Gwen Marchand is the Associate Dean for Research and Sponsored Projects in the College of Education and an Associate Professor in the Department of Educational Psychology and Higher Education at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas (UNLV). As the former Director of the UNLV Center for Research, Evaluation, and Assessment, she and her team conducted evaluations of interdisciplinary research centers and institutes using innovative methods. She has research expertise in academic motivation and engagement classroom systems, student mobility, collaborative team processes, and research and evaluation methods. Dr. Marchand is currently the principal investigator on a collaborative National Science Foundation project.

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An Introduction to Using the Statistical Language R

1 hour

Prerecorded (link will be sent)

Description:

This workshop provides an introductory demonstration of the graphic and analytic functions that R can offer. It starts by comparing SPSS and R during which many advantages of R will be highlighted. I then demonstrate how to create and customize graphs in R through both the base functions in R and a package called ggplot2. An example will be given using a real dataset to explain the structure of the ggplot2 syntax so that the audience will be able to apply the technique to their own research data. The presentation is then followed by a walkthrough of some basic data analyses in R. In this part, I will outline the steps of importing data into R, summarizing the data, calculating and visualizing correlations between two or multiple pairwise variables, and conducting a regression analysis. Upon completion of this workshop, the audience will be acquainted with the fundamental compositions of R commands needed for graphic display and statistical analysis. It is the goal of this workshop that the skills and techniques presented will directly benefit every participant’s own research.

Presenter:

Chao Liu, Ph.D.

Chao Liu earned his Ph.D. from Oklahoma State University, his M.A. from the University of Maine, and his B.A. from Beijing Normal University. He serves as Assistant Professor of Psychology at Cedarville University in Cedarville, Ohio. Dr. Liu teaches Statistics in both on-campus and online formats. He has published in peer-reviewed journals, maintains an active research agenda, and provides statistical consultation to multiple research projects.

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