Scrutinizing Trustworthiness in our Practice as Self Study of Teacher Education Practices Researchers

• In Event: When Knowing Is Not Enough: Critical Examination of Self-Study of Practice Methodology

Abstract

Purpose: This paper analyzes our practice as S-STEP researchers by using criteria specified by Pinnegar and Hamilton (2009) to scrutinize the trustworthiness of our research practice.

Theoretical framework: We stand at a time in the history of S-STEP research when self-study has gained status as a genre of educational research (Borko, Liston & Whitcomb, 2007) and yet is simultaneously being challenged as less than rigorous as scholarship (Zeichner, 2007; Pinnegar & Hamilton, 2009, 2010). This tension of being and not being viable research brought us to take up the issue of how does S-STEP research demonstrate trustworthiness and rigor. In order to take up this challenge, we determined that rather than scrutinizing the work of others we would examine a study of our own.

Methods: To examine issues of trustworthiness and rigor, we will analyze a published research study authored by us. Framed in terms of criteria articulated by Pinnegar and Hamilton (2009), the analysis will occur in two parts. First we will identify evidence from the study that it meets criteria for quality. We will then study our analysis to uncover what it reveals about issues of trustworthiness and rigor.

Data-source: We selected a 1996 study for analysis. Since we are founding S-STEP researchers, we selected a published study from our early work that contained textual experimentation, which has been a distinctive feature of our research, and which explicitly attended to credibility.

Findings: We found evidence that we attended to some but not all of the criteria. In revisiting our application of the analytic framework we uncovered four understandings about trustworthiness. First, S-STEP research establishes itself as trustworthy when it attends to Pinnegar and Hamilton (2009) criteria. In attending to the criteria, evidence of dialogue as a process of coming to know appears in the text and establishes the authority of experience present in the study. Second, through carefully connecting the study to the larger research conversation that informs it and the practice that contextualizes it, the authors demonstrate their rigor. This framing provides clear evidence of the researchers’ understanding of research and practice contexts. Third, the authors attend to answering the “so what?” question by being clear about their purpose, how they met it, and how that contributes to the larger research conversation. Finally, quality S-STEP research “turns back on itself” by developing understanding of practice that then demonstrates its usefulness to the self, engaged in the practice, as well as to scholars of teacher education.

Scholarly significance: Attention to the ways in which S-STEP research demonstrates trustworthiness has the potential to make clearer standards of quality for those who practice this research genre. In doing so, it can guide the work of such scholars.

Authors

• Mary Lynn Hamilton, The University of Kansas

• Stefinee E. Pinnegar, Brigham Young University