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GCOE Prof. Martha Montero-Sieburth believes some of the best research is the kind that can change researchers' thinking about how they themselves view the world. This year she returned to her native Mexico as part of a team training educators and administrators in qualitative research techniques. In November, she will pay the last of three one-week visits to complete the Mexican government-supported program. The effort was initiated by investigators noticing discrepancies in national test scores among urban, rural, and indigenous (indian) children. They established a program to examine administrative policies and procedures, classrooms, and communities, in many districts. Qualitative research, Professor Montero-Sieburth believes, brings scientific method back to its roots in observing, recording, analyzing, and drawing conclusions. Her students, all college graduates, understand quantitative research, but to conduct qualitative research they must, in her words, "detach themselves from ... bureaucratic roles to understand...there's a different way of conceptualizing the world." Thus, a teacher may say, "There is no point in teaching math to these indian children; they're not capable of learning it." While quantitative research might focus on the children's exam scores, qualitative research wants to know what effect that teacher's attitude has on their learning. Most exciting for Montero-Sieburth was to find among her workshop participants a dedication to national improvement, a feeling of "mystica," which she characterizes as that "soulful commitment to making things happen because you believe in them." &emdash;Dick Lourie |
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