1. Writing up different types of data
Dealing in/with validity...

2. What am I trying to do?
• write a paper about developing an online
module
• Does this idea have any worth?
• Has it all been written up before?

3. Where is the data for this paper?
1. development of SEF position on online learning
2. underpinning online philosophy for the module
– pedagogies of learning online?
3. notes from development meetings recording
important decisions taken
4. the process of development of the WOLF topic
5. engagement of students with activities – records
of learning discussions
6. Student evaluations

4. ‘Professional development’ or
‘research’?
• often regarded as separate and hierarchical
e.g. ‘professional’ journals and ‘research’
journals
• works well for governments/policy
makers/managers not looking for the
‘interference’ of ‘theory’ – removes the
‘critical’ dimension
• ‘Knowledge isn’t free from ideology’ but it is
convenient to pretend it is...

5. Criticality and scepticism
‘Knowledge sanctioned by
institutions can produce such an
authoritative consensus about how
to ‘be’ that it is difficult to imagine
how to think, act or feel in any other
way’ McNaughton, G. Doing Foucault in Early Childhood Studies (p.32)

6. Justification (validity) for using the data I have
1. Clandinin and Connelly (2000) Narrative
Inquiry/methodology Top level methodological
approach – best way to use the data I have access
to
2. Alvesson and Skoldberg (2009) Reflexive
methodology. My position/belief in the circular
nature of relationships
3. Smith et al (2009) Interpretative
phenomenological analysis. Linked to 1. above.
Personal lived experiences – mine; the students, via
online discussions

7. Writing up...
• the positions justify/validate the
data
• Keep your positions in sight while
analysing the data

8. Weaving...
‘During the first development meetings a
key decision had to be taken about which
learning platform to use. Colleagues
brought with them passionate narratives
revealing their pedagogic commitment to
platforms. Their lived working
experiences were clearly in reflexivity
with their professional and personal
identities. It was clear that the technical
platform for online learning had become
involved in an emotional attachment to
pedagogic values’

9. Narrative methodology
• According to Mischler (1995) the ‘narrativisation of
experience’ allows the researcher to begin to identify
the dynamic and constantly changing identities and
positions that characterises any individual’s ‘being in
the world’.
• ‘Narratives serve to create a sense of one’s self and
reflect social processes or institutions or
representations of cultures’.
Mishler, E.G. (1995) “Models of narrative analysis: A
typology”, Journal of Narrative and Life History, 5(2): 87-123.

10. Reflexivity
• Reflexivity refers to circular relationships
between cause and effect. A reflexive relationship
is bidirectional with both the cause and the effect
affecting one another. Reflexivity therefore comes
to mean an act of self-reference where
examination or action "bends back on", refers to,
and affects the entity instigating the action or
examination. (Wikipedia!)
• Christina Hughes at Warwick University

11. IPA
• Phenomenology: the approach to experience
– what is it like being a human in terms of
what matters to us?
• Interpretive process based on every day
experience
• Husserl; Heidegger; Merleau-Ponty; Sartre