rebecca frels
Lamar University, Education, Department Member
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In the special issue of the International Journal of Multiple Research Approaches (ISSN 1834-0806) Teaching Mixed Methodologies, Jennifer Greene (2010) described 'beginning the conversation' (p. 2) for influencing the future of... more
In the special issue of the International Journal of Multiple Research Approaches (ISSN 1834-0806) Teaching Mixed Methodologies, Jennifer Greene (2010) described 'beginning the conversation' (p. 2) for influencing the future of mixed methods research (MMR). Considering the discourse surrounding the epistemology, ontology, and axiology of two seem- ingly different research traditions (i.e., quantitative and qualitative), I am reminded of the late roman- tic composer Gustav Mahler (1860-1911), who often received strong oppositions to his music due to his innovations in the use of unexpected weaving melodies, dissonant suspensions, and both joyful and tragic moods - often presented simultaneously. In his early career, his music was deemed complicated, tenuous, and quite lengthy for the common listener. Yet, he was a 'romantic with a difference' (Cooke, 1980, p. 5) and similar to mixed methods researchers in education, Mahler's vision was interpreted as one that was ...
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s. Research in the Schools, 16(2), xxxvii-xlv Harzing, A. W. K. (2009, January). Publish or perish. Retrieved November 21, 2009, from www.harzing.com/pop.htm Henson, K. T. (2005). Writing for publication. A controlled art. Phi Delta... more
s. Research in the Schools, 16(2), xxxvii-xlv Harzing, A. W. K. (2009, January). Publish or perish. Retrieved November 21, 2009, from www.harzing.com/pop.htm Henson, K. T. (2005). Writing for publication. A controlled art. Phi Delta Kappan, 86, 772776, 781. Hirsch, J. E. (2005). An index to quantify an individual’s scientific research output. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 102(46), 16569-16572. Johnson, R. B. (Ed.). (2006). New directions in mixed methods research [Special issue]. Research in the Schools, 13(1). Retrieved December 18, 2009, from http://www.msera.org/rits_131.htm Jones, C. H., Slate, J. R., & Marini, I. (1995). Locus of control, social interdependence, academic preparation, age, study time, and study skills of college students. Research in the Schools, 2(1), 55-62. Kieffer, K. M. (1999). An introductory primer on the appropriate use of exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis. Research in the Schools, 6(2), 75-92. Lammers, W. J., Onwuegbuzie, A....
In 1994, the Mid-South Educational Research Association (MSERA) had the vision to create a journal that would be methodologically, conceptually, and philosophically appealing for an audience interested in research pertaining to school... more
In 1994, the Mid-South Educational Research Association (MSERA) had the vision to create a journal that would be methodologically, conceptually, and philosophically appealing for an audience interested in research pertaining to school settings. As a result, Research in the Schools (RITS) was born! With an editorial board of national, international, and graduate student members (McLean & Kaufman, 2003), RITS has been a nationally and internationally refereed journal cosponsored by MSERA and three different universities: The University of Alabama, The University of South Florida, and its present day cosponsor, Sam Houston State University. As the assistant/production editor and editors of the journal, we build on Frels, Onwuegbuzie, and Slate’s (2009) analysis of articles submitted to RITS and document the authorships, genres, and demography of articles that have been published in RITS, from its inception through the 15th year of publication.
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2 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIPLE RESEARCH APPROACHES Volume 7, Issue 1, April 2013 Teddlie and Tashakkori (2010) identified the following nine important issues or controversies in contemporary mixed research: (a) conceptual stances;... more
2 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIPLE RESEARCH APPROACHES Volume 7, Issue 1, April 2013 Teddlie and Tashakkori (2010) identified the following nine important issues or controversies in contemporary mixed research: (a) conceptual stances; (b) the conceptual/methodological/methods interface; (c) research question or research problem; (d) language; (e) design issues; (f ) analysis issues; (g) drawing inferences; (h) practical applications (e.g., pedagogy, collaboration, and other models, funding); and (i) cross-disciplinary and cross-cultural applications. According to Teddlie and Tashakkori, ‘there are obvious overlaps across some of these areas’ (p. 12). Indeed, we believe that these nine issues/controversies can be simplified by characterizing them as representing one or more of the following three elements: Philosophy (e.g., conceptual stances in mixed research; the conceptual/ methodological/methods interface in mixed research), policy (e.g., the language of mixed research), and practice (e.g., research question or problem; design issues in mixed research; analysis issues in mixed research; practical issues in the application of mixed research). By philosophy, we are referring to what Greene (2006, 2008) refer to as philosophical assumptions and stances, which are the core epistemological assumptions of the methodology, or what Greene (2008) refers to as mental models, which represent:
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In this editorial, we outline a model for teaching a doctoral-level mixed research course either face-to-face or on-line. This model is designed to provide doctoral students with varied opportunities to acquire the knowledge and skills to... more
In this editorial, we outline a model for teaching a doctoral-level mixed research course either face-to-face or on-line. This model is designed to provide doctoral students with varied opportunities to acquire the knowledge and skills to formulate, to plan, and to implement rigorous and successful mixed research studies and programs of research. We discuss the four overlapping phases of the model: conceptual/theoretical, technical, applied, and emergent scholar phases. Finally, we provide the challenges for instructors using this model via a qualitative inquiry, and challenges and learning benefits of students via a mixed research analysis of reflections of the course. In conclusion, we present a rationale for integrating our model, or components of the model, into doctoral-level research courses.
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Across the United States, many faculty members are developing new mixed research courses. However, before embarking on teaching these courses, it would be helpful for instructors to be aware of the challenges faced by instructors and... more
Across the United States, many faculty members are developing new mixed research courses. However, before embarking on teaching these courses, it would be helpful for instructors to be aware of the challenges faced by instructors and students in mixed research courses. Thus, the purpose of this qualitative-dominant mixed research study was to document these challenges. Participants were 11 instructors of mixed research courses from institutions around the United States who were selected purposively via critical case sampling such that they represented a diverse set of instructors. The following four themes emerged that represented dimensions of challenges: Time, Diversity, Format/Life Situations, and Preconceived Bias. Three of these themes yielded 10 subthemes. Moreover, a correspondence analysis of the four themes revealed that they each fell somewhere on a continuum that lay from internal influences that characterized an interaction between instructors and students (i.e., Diversi...
From the perspective of doctoral students and instructors, we explain a developmental, interactive process based upon the Checklist for Qualitative Data Collection, Data Analysis, and Data Interpretation (Onwuegbuzie, 2010) for students’... more
From the perspective of doctoral students and instructors, we explain a developmental, interactive process based upon the Checklist for Qualitative Data Collection, Data Analysis, and Data Interpretation (Onwuegbuzie, 2010) for students’ writing assignments regarding: (a) the application of conceptual knowledge for collecting, analyzing, and interpreting qualitative data; (b) utilizing detailed instructor feedback of content and writing style as a positive catalyst for growth; and (c) integrating feedback in future assignments and reflecting on the process. We advocate the cyclical use of this framework for teaching and learning rigorous qualitative research.
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In this article, we outline a course wherein the instructors teach students how to conduct rigorous qualitative research. We discuss the four major distinct, but overlapping, phases of the course: conceptual/theoretical, technical,... more
In this article, we outline a course wherein the instructors teach students how to conduct rigorous qualitative research. We discuss the four major distinct, but overlapping, phases of the course: conceptual/theoretical, technical, applied, and emergent scholar. Students write several qualitative reports, called qualitative notebooks, which involve data that they collect (via three different types of interviews), analyze (using nine qualitative analysis techniques via qualitative software), and interpret. Each notebook is edited by the instructors to help them improve the quality of subsequent notebook reports. Finally, we advocate asking students who have previously taken this course to team-teach future courses. We hope that our exemplar for teaching and learning qualitative research will be useful for teachers and students alike.
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... 1-41). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Teddlie, C., & Yu, F. (2007). Mixed methods sampling: Atypology with examples. Journal of Mixed Methods Research, 1, 77-100. doi:10.1177/ 2345678906292430. The Carnegie Foundation for the... more
... 1-41). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Teddlie, C., & Yu, F. (2007). Mixed methods sampling: Atypology with examples. Journal of Mixed Methods Research, 1, 77-100. doi:10.1177/ 2345678906292430. The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. (nd). ...
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Scant information exists regarding informal assessment tools in the supervision of counselor trainees. In this article, we combine the approach of sandtray and the integrated developmental model (IDM) of supervision (Stoltenberg &... more
Scant information exists regarding informal assessment tools in the supervision of counselor trainees. In this article, we combine the approach of sandtray and the integrated developmental model (IDM) of supervision (Stoltenberg & McNeill, 2009) to assess 3 structures of supervisee development. Based on tenets of artistic inquiry, the use of sandtray promotes reflexivity for increased understanding of a supervisee’s approach in counseling and allows for an artifact in documenting particular learning outcomes. Through a heuristic example of sandtray supervision, we illustrate how 1 supervisor collaboratively assessed the awareness, motivation, and autonomy of her supervisee and facilitated development in the learning objective of cultural competence. Ethical considerations are also discussed.
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... In fact, the use of reporting business intelligence, also known as BI (ie, emerging transforming raw data from business operational data into a common data warehouse) has increased utilized graphics as a result of the emerging use of... more
... In fact, the use of reporting business intelligence, also known as BI (ie, emerging transforming raw data from business operational data into a common data warehouse) has increased utilized graphics as a result of the emerging use of technology in enterprise (ESRI, 2006). ...
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The purpose of this study was to investigate differences in high school completion rates among White, African American, and Hispanic students enrolled in different school sizes—small, medium, and large. For this causal-comjjuruiive... more
The purpose of this study was to investigate differences in high school completion rates among White, African American, and Hispanic students enrolled in different school sizes—small, medium, and large. For this causal-comjjuruiive research design, this study utilized archival data from the Texas Educa-tion Association's Academic Excellence Accountability System. The researchers utilized a convenience sample of the state's public high school students for the 2008-2009 (n = 527 schools), 2009-2010 (n = 606 schools), and 2010-2011 (n = 549 schools) school years. Tivo Friedman's nonparametric repeated measures analysis of variance revealed no statistically significant differences among the three groups for small and medium schools for the 2008-2009 and 2009-2010 school years. However, for large schools, statistically significant differences emerged in favor of White students for both the 2008-2009 and 2009-2010 school years, representing large and moderate effect sizes, res...
A significant proportion of published articles contain one or more tables. For example, of the 264 articles that have been published in Research in the Schools since its inception in 1994 (Volume 1, Issue 1) through the previous issue in... more
A significant proportion of published articles contain one or more tables. For example, of the 264 articles that have been published in Research in the Schools since its inception in 1994 (Volume 1, Issue 1) through the previous issue in 2010 (Volume 17, Issue 1)—spanning 33 issues—200 (75.8%) articles have contained one or more tables. These 200 articles contained an average of 3.76 tables. As can be seen from Figure 1, with the exception of four issues (i.e., 5[2], 6[1], 9[2], and 13[1]), at least two thirds of the articles in each issue (n = 29) contained one or more tables. Even in the field of qualitative research, where tables often are underutilized (Onwuegbuzie & Dickinson, 2008), tables can still play an important role. For example, Onwuegbuzie (2011) documented that, of the 570 articles published in the excellent journal, The Qualitative Report, between its inception in 1990 (Volume 1, Issue 1) through its most current issue in 2011 at the time of writing (Volume 16, Issue...
From the perspective of doctoral students and instructors, we explain a developmental, interactive process based upon the Checklist for Qualitative Data Collection, Data Analy-sis, and Data Interpretation (Onwuegbuzie, 2010) for... more
From the perspective of doctoral students and instructors, we explain a developmental, interactive process based upon the Checklist for Qualitative Data Collection, Data Analy-sis, and Data Interpretation (Onwuegbuzie, 2010) for students' writing assignments re-garding: (a) the application of conceptual knowledge for collecting, analyzing, and inter-preting qualitative data; (b) utilizing detailed instructor feedback of content and writing style as a positive catalyst for growth; and (c) integrating feedback in future assignments and reflecting on the process. We advocate the cyclical use of this framework for teach-ing and learning rigorous qualitative research.
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The purpose of this study was to explore and to understand the daily life experiences of 8 women doctoral students who were in pursuit of their doctorates. A partially mixed concurrent dominant status design was utilized in this study... more
The purpose of this study was to explore and to understand the daily life experiences of 8 women doctoral students who were in pursuit of their doctorates. A partially mixed concurrent dominant status design was utilized in this study embedded within a mixed methods phenomenological research lens and driven by a critical dialectical pluralistic philosophical stance. Specifically, these 8 students were interviewed individually to examine their lived experiences as doctoral students. The interview responses then were subjected to a sequential mixed analysis that was characterized by 2 qualitative analyses (i.e., constant comparison analysis, classical content analysis) and 1 quantitative analysis (i.e., correspondence analysis). The 2 qualitative analyses revealed the following 3 metathemes: adjustment (how these doctoral students made necessary accommodations with regard to all aspects of their lives), which comprised the themes of time management, interaction, belief, and lifestyle;...
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... 1-41). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Teddlie, C., & Yu, F. (2007). Mixed methods sampling: Atypology with examples. Journal of Mixed Methods Research, 1, 77-100. doi:10.1177/ 2345678906292430. The Carnegie Foundation for the... more
... 1-41). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Teddlie, C., & Yu, F. (2007). Mixed methods sampling: Atypology with examples. Journal of Mixed Methods Research, 1, 77-100. doi:10.1177/ 2345678906292430. The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. (nd). ...
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... In fact, the use of reporting business intelligence, also known as BI (ie, emerging transforming raw data from business operational data into a common data warehouse) has increased utilized graphics as a result of the emerging use of... more
... In fact, the use of reporting business intelligence, also known as BI (ie, emerging transforming raw data from business operational data into a common data warehouse) has increased utilized graphics as a result of the emerging use of technology in enterprise (ESRI, 2006). ...
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Research methodology courses can be the most difficult courses in master’s-level programs representing the social, behavioral, and health sciences because, in these courses, students typically are expected to learn to think critically and... more
Research methodology courses can be the most difficult courses in master’s-level programs representing the social, behavioral, and health sciences because, in these courses, students typically are expected to learn to think critically and contextually about social and/or academic problems in addition to learning new terminology and methodological concepts not previously part of each specific discipline. Further, the challenges of online learning might increase due to the nature of research methodology courses and the new concepts taught. Thus, as students and instructors of an online research methodology course, we describe the use of a scoring rubric as a performance assessment and provide our student research proposal project as an exemplar of effectively developing research knowledge, skills, and dispositions for use in future online learning of research methodologies.
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ABSTRACT Over the last decade, community leaders have connected with students through school-based mentoring (SBM) programs (e.g., adults who mentor at-risk students). However, research in the area of SBM is only on the cusp of... more
ABSTRACT Over the last decade, community leaders have connected with students through school-based mentoring (SBM) programs (e.g., adults who mentor at-risk students). However, research in the area of SBM is only on the cusp of understanding relationship elements for impacting youth. In this collective case study, we examined the perceptions and experiences of 11 selected mentors in dyadic relationships (i.e., mentee and mentor) to understand better ways to retain and to engage mentors for longer-lasting mentoring relationships, providing a sense of connectedness for students. Specifically, we investigated purposes and approaches of mentoring through the voices and experiences of mentors working with elementary-aged students in SBM. Results revealed self-sustaining synergy within the dyads (with little or no program support) and themes of consistency, commitment, spirituality, playfulness, the use of self-disclosure, creativity, and emphasis on the present. In addition, implications for cross-cultural and, in particular, cross-age mentoring are discussed. One exemplar case illustrates specific profile characteristics used to bridge age, gender, and cultural differences.
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... DOI: 10.1080/13611267.2012.679122 Rebecca K. Frels a * & Anthony J. Onwuegbuzie b Available online: 16 May 2012. ... Portland, OR: Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory. View all references; Keller & Pryce, 200722. Keller,... more
... DOI: 10.1080/13611267.2012.679122 Rebecca K. Frels a * & Anthony J. Onwuegbuzie b Available online: 16 May 2012. ... Portland, OR: Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory. View all references; Keller & Pryce, 200722. Keller, TE, & Pryce, JM (2007, February). ...