Serge F. Hein

The New Materialism in Qualitative Inquiry How Compatible Are the Philosophies of Barad and Deleuze

The “new materialism” and “new empiricism” have recently emerged as an important movement in qualitative inquiry. In discussions of the new materialism and new empiricism in the qualitative literature, Deleuze’s work is regularly presented alongside that of theorists who are directly associated with the movement. I focus on the work of Barad, who is arguably the most prominent figure in the new materialism, and examine the extent to which her philosophy is compatible with that of Deleuze. I show that their ontologies differ fundamentally and are therefore incommensurable: Deleuze’s is a philosophy of immanence and difference, whereas Barad’s is a philosophy of transcendence and identity. Both theorists also use some of the same terms, but the meaning that they assign to each of these terms differs fundamentally. Deleuze’s immanence-based conception of matter is incommensurable with Barad’s transcendence-based conception of matter. Their ontologies/philosophies also have distinctly different implications for qualitative inquiry.

Thinking and Writing With Ontological Time in Qualitative Inquiry

A chronological conception of time appears to implicitly guide most, if not all, of qualitative research. Chronological time is so pervasive and powerful that it operates essentially unnoticed, functioning as a kind of grand narrative in qualitative inquiry. Ontological time is introduced as a counterpart to chronological time and is shown to function as the “outside” of chronological time. Ontological time, however, cannot be experienced or thought: It consists of a past that never took place and a future that can never arrive. Deleuze’s formulation of ontological time as Aion is discussed, and Joyce’s final novel, Finnegans Wake, is examined as an example of writing that strives to incorporate ontological time. Portmanteau words and writing that takes into account the role and movement of Aion are then examined as two specific ways in which qualitative writing can be informed by an ontological conception of time.

Reducing the Cognitive Complexity Associated With Standard Setting: A Comparison of the Single-Passage Bookmark and Yes/No Methods

Judgmental standard setting methods have been criticized for the cognitive complexity of the judgment task that panelists are asked to complete. This study compared two methods designed to reduce this complexity: the yes/no method and the single-passage bookmark method. Two mock standard setting panel meetings were convened, one for each method, using experienced third-grade teachers as panelists. The methods produced very similar cut scores and they seemed to succeed in reducing the cognitive complexity of the judgment task. There was also evidence, however, that the participants in both groups experienced a great deal of difficulty in estimating item performance for borderline students and that they may have used contextual information associated with the judgmental task to estimate their cut scores.

1, 2, 3, 4, 5 . . . 43: Justice! Ay! Ay! Ayotzinapa: A Challenge for New Critical Qualitative Inquiry

Dedicated to Bernardo Flores Alcaráz Felipe Arnulfo Rosa Benjamín Ascencio Bautista Israel Caballero Sánchez José Ángel “Pepe” Navarrete, Marcial Pablo Baranda Jorge Antonio Tizapa Legideño Miguel Ángel Mendoza Zacarías Marco Antonio Gómez Molina Cesar Manuel González Hernández Julio César López Patolzin Abel García Hernández Emiliano Allen Gaspar De la Cruz Dorian González Parral José Luis Gonzalez Parral Alexander Mora Venancio Saúl Bruno García Luis Ángel Abarca Carrillo Jorge Álvarez Nava Christian Tomas Colon Garnica Luis Ángel Francisco Arzola Carlos Iván Ramírez Villarreal Magdaleno Rubén Lauro Villegas José Luis Luna Torres Jesús Jovany Rodríguez Tlatempa Mauricio Ortega Valerio José Ángel Campos Cantor Jorge Aníbal Cruz Mendoza Giovanni Galindes Guerrero Jhosivani Guerrero De la Cruz Leonel Castro Abarca Miguel Ángel Mendoza Zacarías Antonio Santana Maestro Carlos Lorenzo Hernández Muñoz Israel Jacinto Lugardo Adán Abrajan De la Cruz Abelardo Vázquez Peniten Christian Alfonso Rodríguez Martin Getsemany Sánchez García Cutberto Ortiz Ramos Everado Rodríguez Bello Jonás Trujillo González José Eduardo Bartolo Tlatempa And their loved ones . . .

Spatiotemporality, Anthonomasia, and Post-Qualitative Inquiry:

Although many qualitative researchers have rejected modernism as a guiding theoretical framework, they continue to work within a space/time binary. Space and time represent two of our most fundamental concepts, and the associated binary operates essentially unquestioned. The concepts of spacing, temporalizing, and spatiotemporality are introduced to show how time is irremediably contaminated by space and vice versa. A strange space is opened up by the deconstruction of space and time, one in which every “now” is also a “point” and every “point” is also a “now.” This properly differential and original space constitutes one important aspect of a post-qualitative inquiry. Derrida’s work, Glas, is then introduced as an example of a text in which a spatiotemporal reinscription is attempted. Anthonomasia as a writing strategy is then discussed as a way in which a spatiotemporal reinscription can occur more deliberately. Examples are also presented to illustrate this writing strategy.

Deleuze’s New Image of Thought: Challenging the Dogmatic Image of Thought in Qualitative Inquiry

For Deleuze, modern philosophy presupposes a dogmatic image of thought, one that precedes thinking itself. Deleuze engages in a radical critique of this dogmatic image and rejects both common sense and the form of representation. Changes occurred over time in Deleuze’s thinking about thought and images, but ultimately, he advocated a new image of genuine, nonrepresentational thought. In his final philosophical work, this new image of thought is equated with the plane of immanence. Thus, the new image of thought provides the basis for the development and use of all other concepts in research. Mainstream qualitative research shares in the same dogmatic image of thought that philosophy presupposes. Two qualitative works that challenge aspects of the dogmatic image of thought in mainstream qualitative inquiry are examined. My use of Deleuze’s new image of thought as a method of inquiry in my own qualitative research is also discussed.

Grain Size and Parameter Recovery with TIMSS and the General Diagnostic Model

The purpose of this study was to explore the degree of grain size of the attributes and the sample sizes that can support accurate parameter recovery with the General Diagnostic Model (GDM) for a large-scale international assessment. In this resampling study, bootstrap samples were obtained from the 2003 Grade 8 TIMSS in Mathematics at varying sample sizes from 500 to 4000 and grain sizes of the attributes from a unidimensional model to one with ten attributes. The results showed that the eight-attribute model was the one most consistently identified as best fitting. Parameter estimation for more than ten attributes and samples less than 500 failed. Furthermore, the precision of item parameter recovery decreased as the number of attributes measured by an item increased and sample size decreased. On the other hand, the distributions of latent classes were relatively stable across all models and sample sizes.

Deleuze, Immanence, and Immanent Writing in Qualitative Inquiry: Nonlinear Texts and Being a Traitor to Writing

Modernist writing relies on writing elements such as linearity, meaning, plot, internal coherence, subject–predicate relations, structure in general, and identity or fixity. For Deleuze, writing is nonreductive, destabilizes meaning, and undermines a thematic reading. More specifically, it rejects a sense of beginning, middle, and end; subject–object distinctions; subjects who are developed according to a structure; and a sense of identity. Deleuze’s concepts of immanence and the virtual are discussed, and two major forms of Deleuzian writing are then examined. Nonlinear texts are organized in a way that fails to meet the modernist demand for a linear, internally coherent, and unified narrative. Being a traitor to one’s own writing involves writing against any stabilizing sense of identity and against other modernist categories and boundaries. Portions of Blanchot’s story, The Madness of the Day, are used to illustrate each writing strategy, and an illustrative example from my own experience is then presented.

Estimating an Observed Score Distribution From a Cognitive Diagnostic Model

Cognitive diagnostic models (CDMs) have been a focus of research in recent years as a way to provide diagnostic information instead of a single test score on educational and psychological tests. CDM-based tests are designed to provide attribute profiles, or classifications of examinees that usually involve mastery or nonmastery, on each of the attributes measured by the test (Rupp, Templin, & Henson, 2010). As our knowledge of CDMs expands, there is likely to be a need for a way to link attribute profiles and observed test scores. The purpose of this brief report is to introduce and demonstrate a method for estimating an observed score distribution from an attribute profile. Although any CDM can be used with the proposed method, the authors chose the Log-Linear Cognitive Diagnostic Model (LCDM; Henson, Templin, & Willse, 2009) because many popular CDMs can be derived as special cases. The probability of a correct response to item i for an individual with an attribute profile ac is specified as