research process

Wow, What a Ride: An Overall Reflection of the Research Process

Thomas Barry / Globally Elite / Chile, curriculum, Elite, elite schools, eliteness, homogeneity, homogenous, privilege, research, research process, social class, values /

December 4, 2016

While I have completed a number of research projects during my time at Colby, my research partners for this project have arguably been the best ones ever. Each of us has our individual strengths, and I am very grateful to be a part of a balanced group. Collectively, we have rejoiced in moments when the research process has clicked…

… And persevered together when it hasn’t.

Early on in the research process, our group struggled to narrow our focus. In our initial research proposal, our group decided to focus on studying the impact of parental figures on the lives of Croft School students. When we realized there was not enough data on the Internet to analyze the Croft School through this lens, we decided to shift our focus to extracurricular activities. With this focus in mind, one of my group members effectively conducted three interviews with our assigned Croft School student. Shortly after finishing these interviews, my other group partner chugged along and transcribed all three interviews. Interviewing and transcribing are two of the most time consuming parts of this research project, and my partners did an amazing job.

While getting these interviews done was awesome, I was slightly disappointed to learn our student interviewee was not heavily involved in extracurricular activities. Doing a lot of research on two research topics and not having either pan out was definitely discouraging.

However, not being paired with a student who was deeply invested in extracurricular activities was actually a blessing in disguise. It forced my group to learn one of the most important rules of research– letting the data tell you what is important and what to focus on. We soon realized that one of the strongest connections between our class readings, Internet research on elite schools, and our interviews was the theme of homogeneity. Thus, we made homogeneity our research focus, and ran with it.

The Croft School is homogenous in a number of ways. First, the school provides a standardized, homogenous education to all its students; the curriculum is rigid and does not give students very many opportunities to take electives. Second, the social class standing of students at the Croft School is homogenous since most come from upper class backgrounds. Third, the Croft School fosters a particular environment, and upholds specific values, in order to develop a certain type of student — one that is well-rounded, responsible, prepared to attend university anywhere in the world, and equipped to become a trustworthy leader in the future.

mfl0305l — Definition of Homogenous – of the same kind or nature; essentially alike.

After completing our paper outline, my group felt confident in its thought progression. However, when Adam took a look at it, he saw a gap between our literature review discussion about the growth of inequalities around the world, and our claims regarding the impact of homogeneity at elite schools such as the Croft School. While making this connection was difficult, required a lot of brainpower, and required us to use a theory we had not been directly exposed to in class, my partners and I now feel confident that we can finish our paper with this new thought progression.

To be honest, I had not considered what it has meant to be part of a larger research project until Adam asked us to reflect on this question. However, after giving this question some thought, I now have some answers. Since each group in our class is analyzing the Croft School, albeit through a different lens, it has been very helpful to learn about where my classmates have gathered information on the school. Being part of this larger research project has also given me the opportunity to learn more about the elite schools Adam, his previous students, and his research team have explored and analyzed. It has been interesting not only to learn about these schools, but also to look at the similarities and differences between the Croft School and other elite institutions around the world. It feels awesome to be part of a larger research project, and I cannot wait to read more about the Croft School when Adam and his research team publishes research on it sometime in the future.

Besides learning to let the data tell me what to focus on, I have learned a number of valuable lessons during this project. The most important lessons I learned, however, were about my own Eliteness and privilege. I am now more aware of my privilege; how my social class background led me to Colby; as well as the ways I have perpetuated social inequalities — in terms of how I used to see the world, and where I go to school. This awareness has encouraged me to think more deeply about the ways I can impede the perpetuation of inequalities. While I do not have all of the answers to this question yet, I look forward to generating, learning about, and acting on some of them in the future.

An Important Rule of Research: Let the data tell you what to focus on!

Thomas Barry / Globally Elite / Chile, Chilean Education System, co-curricular activities, co-curricular activities in Latin American schools, elite schools, extracurricular activities, Inequality, research, research process /

October 20, 2016

Research is very tricky.

Initially, my research group thought we would focus our study of the Croft School on the role parents play in shaping the academic lives of their elite children.

My partners and I are aware that parents profoundly influence the academic aspirations, self-perception, and academic achievement of their children. Elite school students attend institutions that teach them the importance of academic achievement, and their parents usually reinforce this value. Since parents play such a influential role in the academic lives of their children, and thinking we would get a ton of information on how our interviewee’s performance in school is influenced by their parents, my group thought we had chosen the perfect topic. “Wow, coming up with that proposal wasn’t so bad!” I thought to myself. I high-fived my partners, and began scouring the Internet for sources addressing the relationship between parental involvement and academic achievement.

“We just crushed that research proposal!”

“Wow!” I thought to myself, “I’m finding so much information, and it all supports what we were thinking!” Indeed, studies show a positive relationship between parental involvement, school engagement and academic performance.

I also found that the social class position of parents influences the academic opportunities, and thus the academic achievement, of their children. For example, elite schools tend to admit most of their students from the upper class, since parents of these students can afford to pay expensive tuition fees. Elite private school students regularly score above public school and subsidized (voucher) school students on the Chilean national test, SIMCE. This data shows that the social class position of parents, determined by their socioeconomic status, can significantly impact the academic performance of their children.

“I’m on a roll!” I thought to myself. However, I could not seem to find any information on the Internet or the school’s website about parents. But I didn’t let that bother me too much. I had conducted a lot of quality research, and that was what mattered.

“Your group’s case study on the Croft School and case study on the student you interview need to have a connecting theme,” Professor Howard told our class. When it dawned on me that us not finding anything about the school and its relationship to parents was actually an issue, I looked at my partners, and no words needed to be exchanged. “Dang, we have to change our topic!” our eyes said to each other.

We decided to reconvene a few nights after that class to talk about a new topic, and I was pretty stressed about it. About an hour before our group met to talk, I took Adam’s advice about how to go about coming up with a theme for the school: gather as much data on the school as you can, then find a common theme in that data. So rather than researching what I thought we should write about, I began letting the research guide me.

A few minutes into my research, I discovered that the Croft School is part of an organization of independent schools that provides strong academic programs alongside unparalleled co-curricular opportunities. These activities are intended to provide students with a holistic education that develops a wide range of talents, skills, and abilities. Indeed, according to their website, the Croft School is strongly committed to providing an integrated, holistic education, where sports, arts, and service are at its core.

When I met with my partners that night, I was excited to show them what I had found. Both of them thought studying co-curricular activities at the Croft School would be very interesting. The idea of studying just sports came up, but our group agreed it would be too narrow of a focus. So, we decided to focus on co-curricular activities in general.

Co-curricular activities!

Going forward, our group will focus on researching how co-curricular activities impact academics at, and the social structure within, the Croft School, as well as in other Latin American schools.

There are two things, however, that will determine how successful our research is. One, will our interviewee be interested in any co-curricular activities? If the answer is no, we may have to call another audible and change our topic. But we have decided we will cross that bridge when we come to it. Also, I have recently been experiencing difficulty finding information and articles on how co-curricular activities actually impact academic performance and social structure within the Croft School, as well as other schools in Latin America. While there is ample research on the positive impact that co-curricular activities have on the academic achievement and identity development of students, we may need to make inferences using this research and what we find about the Croft School online in order to develop our analysis on the school. We are still in the thick of the research project, but co-curricular activities are certainly a topic we are all very interested in and excited to (hopefully) study more deeply as the semester progresses.