Learn Through Research - Reflections on How Adults Use This EFF Skill

"Our research tackled new and complex issues, and we were committed to a methodology embracing both observations in the field and observations made in interview and quasi-experimental situations. Few studies make the attempt to combine naturalistic and controlled observations, much less undertake to compare and contrast the generalizations each class of observations yields. Moreover, because our questions were novel and our theoretical framework outside the mainstream of cognitive psychology and anthropology, tasks of data analysis were far from routine. We had to invent all of our analytic schemes-just as we had to invent many of our cognitive tasks-and we had to refine and test these schemes recursively against the data."¹⁷
-Sylvia Scribner and Patricia Sachs

Insights From Field Research:
Using the Standard to Guide Teaching and Learning

Glenda Shumate
Wilkes Community College, Wilkesboro, NC
ABE Adult High School curriculum; Individual activity, independent study.
Teacher data from the second round of field review, conducted 1998-1999.
(Adapted from Equipped for the Future Content Standards, p. 52.)

Describe what you know about the level of performance of your students.

• Pose a question: One has already completed a research paper and has an idea of how to begin but three students have little experience identifying the question or assumption in a research situation where they are seeking their own answers. Their past experiences have been directed toward identifying the specific answer to a specific question as identified by a lecturer or an assigned text. Hypothesis is a new word for the three of them.
• Use multiple lines of inquiry: All four have used a research strategy before but not to the extent they will to complete their projects in the U.S. History course. In the past, they were able to skim their textbook to find a pat answer. In their projects they may have to research several materials to arrive at an opinion and facts to support their opinions. This will be new to three of the four.
• Organize, elaborate, analyze, and interpret findings: All have good critical reading/viewing skills. One has excellent skills but lacks the self-confidence to employ them to the fullest. Two are more confident that they understand what's being asked of them but their skills are at a beginning level. The fourth is not as confident but has above beginning skills since she has completed a short research paper before coming to this course.One is much more aware of the big picture and is able to integrate info more easily than the three who are younger, less mature, and less experienced with research projects.

What are the steps you will look for in order to know if your students are making progress toward meeting the standard?

• Questions about the process and what I'm looking for in the answers should become fewer as the students progress. Students questions should become more specific to the area they are researching.
• Students will be better able to discover where to search for resources and be increasingly able to find them without my help. Based on their experiences, the students will develop an internal list of sources and ratings for those sources as to which is most likely or least likely to be of help in locating specific facts needed.
• Students will develop a knowledge base of non-book sources (librarians, historians, witnesses, PBS, Internet, etc.) who might be of help and develop an awareness of how to best use each.
• Students' answers or presentations should grow increasingly topic specific and contain less superfluous info as they progress.
• Students' answers/presentations on opinion topics should include supporting statements that are specific and that demonstrate the depth of their research as well as depth of thought. Students' answers/presentations should be organized to demonstrate a logical progression of thought from the questions needing to be answered through the research that was done to the conclusion reached.

How was learner performance different or similar to what you anticipated in planning for the activity?
So far, learner experience has been what I hoped for but did not expect. One found that the Research standard really applied to her life because she had problems making decisions and sticking with them. She said that the components of performance and types of evidence "help me work through things in an order, to decide and to have reasons to stick to the decision." Another said that she'd "found out interesting things that would've never been in a regular textbook.