{"id":5503,"date":"2018-11-19T01:23:13","date_gmt":"2018-11-19T06:23:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/global-elites\/?p=5503"},"modified":"2018-11-19T01:23:13","modified_gmt":"2018-11-19T06:23:13","slug":"parts-of-a-path-a-different-approach-to-the-empirical-method-in-the-research-of-elite-schooling-in-jordan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/global-elites\/2018\/11\/19\/parts-of-a-path-a-different-approach-to-the-empirical-method-in-the-research-of-elite-schooling-in-jordan\/","title":{"rendered":"Parts of a Path: A Different Approach to the Empirical Method in the Research of Elite Schooling in Jordan"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m a creature of habit. \u00a0We all are. Routines, routines, routines. \u00a0Every morning I wake up, shower, brush my teeth, comb my hair, and set out for breakfast. \u00a0Every week I go to my classes at the same time, work my jobs at the same time, and relax at the same time. We live in a world of routines, of patterns. \u00a0\u00a0And more than just governing our time in life, they govern our thoughts as well. The thought pattern.<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019m writing this blog to explore what happens when one of these thought patterns is disrupted. \u00a0I was in elementary school when I first learned about the \u201cscientific method.\u201d Observe, form a question, form a hypothesis, collect data, analyze the data, draw conclusions. \u00a0In that order. Later in my educational career, I\u2019d learn that this thought pattern was a constituent member of a larger thought pattern, Empiricism, which wasn\u2019t limited solely to the natural sciences. \u00a0Observe, induct to form a hypothesis, deduct through data collection, analyze, and draw conclusions, in that order, was a method of thought that could be applied to the study of human behavior and interaction as well. \u00a0This variety of Empiricism is what sociological research relies on. As a researcher of an elite school in Jordan then, I am engaging in the thought pattern of Empiricism. <\/span><\/p>\n

But something wasn\u2019t right when I started this research. \u00a0The pattern was off. I had the data already in front of me. \u00a0I\u2019d skipped the observation and formulation of a hypothesis, and been asked to backtrack in the pattern of the empirical method in order to compensate. The instructions were to look at the data, then come up with a question for research, then go back to the data. This is where we are in the project now, going back to the qualitative data. We are doing this to identify how the Westernized curriculum at Olive Grove Academy in Jordan shapes student outcomes. In the process, I\u2019ve had to reflect on the way in which our method has informed our view of the data. The big question is simply, are we making the data fit to what we thought we saw in it initially? Am I begging the question? <\/span><\/p>\n

This anxiety is a product of not having been the researchers gathering the data. \u00a0As a consequence of the path we\u2019ve taken in our research, I\u2019ve been unable to directly pose the research question we formulated to our research subjects. \u00a0The closest I can come is relying on cues in the data. For instance, the question \u201cWhat are your plans for after senior year, after graduating?\u201d asked of a student bears a direct relationship to that students imagined future. \u00a0The problem of fitting data to a narrative is not an issue in cases like this, where the question asked and the response generated is almost synonymous with our research question. For example, I can code the response of the interviewee in this case, \u201cmostly leaning toward liberal art schools,\u201d as \u201cType of higher education.\u201d \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Where the problem of retrofitting data comes into play is in analyzing the wide range of data that doesn\u2019t have an easily identifiable correlation to our research question, but may hold important sociological themes. \u00a0I\u2019ll take the Bourdieusian concept of capital as an example. In that it helps to identify what social groups and institutions a person are accepted into, it bears an outweighed relation to our research on where students end up going after their time at an elite preparatory school. \u00a0However, where student relationships to their cultural, economic, and social capital are apparent in the data on Olive Grove is oftentimes isolated from the data directly dealing with our research question. For example, in a response from an interviewee such as \u201cYeah I mean we can afford like two cars, but they can\u2019t be two supercars or like we don\u2019t have you know\u2026 yeah,\u201d the amount of economic capital a student has is evident, but it bears no surface-level relationship with their imagined future. \u00a0Capital theory suggests, however, that the economic capital a student possesses has everything with where a student imagines their future, and so when I code I feel the need to try and make this perceived connection clear. Because of this bias, my code for this response inevitably works towards justifying my own analysis. I must be dynamic in my analysis, in order to determine where actual sociological phenomena is an explanation of what is illustrated in the data, and where I am attempting to explain unrelated data by borrowing sweeping concepts like Bourdieu\u2019s capital.<\/span><\/p>\n

I think the resolution for this issue is found in the disruption of the thought pattern that caused it. \u00a0Because we have not taken the traditional route through the empirical method, our approach must be a dynamic path. \u00a0Instead of collecting data based on a question in order to analyze it, I must use a preliminary analysis to gauge the usefulness of the data that we have been given based on its relevance to our hypothesis. \u00a0For this research project, I\u2019m placing faith in the strength of the parts of the empirical method, not the path that those parts are ascribed to take. Still a thought pattern, still a routine, but in a different order. \u00a0For this project, I\u2019m combing my hair before I brush my teeth, but the routine still will end with a finished product that, hopefully, is ready to take on the world (or at least breakfast in the dining hall).<\/span><\/p>\n

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\n <\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m a creature of habit. \u00a0We all are. Routines, routines, routines. \u00a0Every morning I wake up, shower, brush my teeth, comb my hair, and set out for breakfast. \u00a0Every week I go to my classes at the same time, work my jobs at the same time, and relax at the same time. We live in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7713,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/global-elites\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5503"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/global-elites\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/global-elites\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/global-elites\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7713"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/global-elites\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5503"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/global-elites\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5503\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5505,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/global-elites\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5503\/revisions\/5505"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/global-elites\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5503"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/global-elites\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5503"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/global-elites\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5503"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}