Combining Data Sets and Methods to Explore Equity in Teacher Professional Development

• In Event: 68.049 - Data, Big and Small

Abstract

Digital methods leverage “online and digital technologies to collect and analyze research data” (Snee, Hine, Morey, Roberts, & Watson, 2016, p. 1) and create new approaches for educational research (Penuel & Frank, 2016). However, educational scholars using digital data in their research should consider the effect of the “digital divide,” a term referring to both inequitable access to technology and the impact of differing social contexts surrounding technology (Warschauer, Knobel, & Stone, 2004). Because of this divide, the data associated with different groups might differ in important ways.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how big and small data highlight issues of equity among users of #miched. #miched is a Michigan-based State Educational Twitter Hashtag (Rosenberg, Koehler, Akcaoglu, Greenhalgh, & Hamilton, 2016), one genre of professional development-focused Twitter hashtags. Twitter is held to have a transformative effect on professional development (Carpenter & Krutka, 2015), allowing teachers to personalize their learning and access a broader range of resources and support. However, inequitable participation or differing social contexts in the #miched community might affect just how transformative tools like Twitter are.

We explored one specific context—school spending—and its potential impact on equitable participation in the #miched conversation. We collected 37,623 tweets from early 2015 that used the #miched hashtag. Using a big data approach, we explored at the district level how measures of school spending were correlated with the numbers of educators participating in the #miched conversation, as well as their activity level within the #miched conversation. Our analyses suggest there is a relationship between district level spending and teachers participation in the #miched hashtag.

Because educational phenomena are often contextual, we further explored this relationship using small data to illuminate the depth and complexity of this relationship. We contrast two individual cases—one from an affluent, high-participation district and one from a less affluent, low-participation district. By analyzing the content, purpose, and activity levels of tweeting between these two cases, we shed light on the complexities of the relationship between spending and equitable participation in online professional networks like Twitter.

References
Carpenter, J. P., & Krutka, D. G. (2015) Engagement through microblogging: Educator professional development via Twitter. Professional Development in Education, 41, 707-728, doi:10.1080/19415257.2014.939294
Rosenberg, J. M., Koehler, M. J., Akcaoglu, M., Greenhalgh, S. P., & Hamilton, E. R. (2016, March). State Educational Twitter Hashtags: An introduction and research agenda. In G. Chamblee & L. Langlub, Proceedings of Society for Information Technology & Teacher Education International Conference 2016 (pp. 355-360). Waynesville, NC: Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE).
Snee, H., Hine, C., Morey, Y., Roberts, S., & Watson, H. (2016). Digital methods as mainstream methodology: An introduction. In H. Snee, C. Hine, Y. Morey, S. Roberts, & H. Watson (Eds.), Digital methods for social science: An interdisciplinary guide to research innovation (pp. 1-11). New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan.
Warschauer, M., Knobel, M., & Stone, L. (2004). Technology and equity in schooling: Deconstructing the digital divide. Educational Policy, 18, 562–588. doi:10.1177/0895904804266469

Authors

• Spencer Paul Greenhalgh, Michigan State University

• Matthew J. Koehler, Michigan State University

• Joshua Michael Rosenberg, The University of Tennessee - Knoxville