Sharon F. Rallis

Everyday ethics: reflections on practice

This introductory article frames the contributions for this issue on everyday ethics – moments that demand moral considerations and ethical choices that researchers encounter. We discuss concerns raised within the research community about the tendency to observe merely obligatory ethical procedures as outlined in Human Subjects Review regulations. We argue that these procedural rituals are manifestly insufficient for the moral challenges of ongoing and evolving research with people; we call for deeper engagement with the ethical dilemmas and defining moments that arise in the everyday conduct of research. We argue that considerations of ethics should be central to establishing the rigor or trustworthiness of research projects. Drawing on principles of systematic inquiry as transparent and grounded in conceptual reasoning, we describe research as praxis and the researcher as practitioner.

One Hundred Percent Proficiency: A Mission Impossible

Applying microeconomic theory to No Child Left Behind predicts that its use of significant consequences for schools that do not reach 100% proficiency on rigorous standardized tests by 2014 will likely prevent most, if not all schools, from providing a high-quality education for their students. The central problem is cost. Quality assurance models predict that costs associated with achieving the required 100% pass rate will rise well above typical school budgets. Thus, No Child Left Behind, or any reform that combines a rigid demarcation between passing and failing with a 100% proficiency requirement, will fail as prohibitively expensive.

Ethics and Trustworthiness

1. Imagine that you are reading a qualitative research study. Given that the natural — and appropriate — attitude to take is to be skeptical of any research study: a) How could the researcher convince you that she has fairly and honestly represented the research context, participants, and events? b) How could she persuade you to accept her research findings? c) How could the researcher show you that this research is useful and meaningful for you in your own research or professional context? 2. Next, imagine that a teacher working at the same school as you is doing a qualitative research study. He has asked you if he could observe you teaching, and then interview some of your students. Consider the following questions. a) What kind of assurances would you like him to make to you so that you would feel comfortable participating in his study? b) What assurances do you think that your students would want?

District Responses to NCLB: Where is the Justice?

The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) has provoked more controversy than any previous education legislation in recent decades. Our conceptual analysis was guided by three questions: What do we see happening in the schools? What does the law seem to mean in terms of accountability to different people in the schools? Where is the justice in these actions and meanings? Drawing on the accountability literature, we develop a two-dimensional framework for comparing models of accountability that we use to understand the range of responses to NCLB. Based on our secondary analysis of data we have collected in schools, we propose five metaphors that represent district response-types, illustrate the metaphors with vignettes created from conversations we have heard in districts that represent each response-type, and analyze what we perceive is happening in district schools as a result of NCLB. Next we explicate what the law and its implementation appears to mean to the players in the schools. Finally, we consider the justice, that is, the moral rightness or fairness and equity, of these actions and meanings.

Validity:Mapping Diverse Perspectives

While judging the trustworthiness and quality of qualitative inquiry is central to scholarship, policy development, and program design, the process is neither simple nor formulaic. Standards are emergent and often contested, as advocates for a particular genre argue that theirs are the proper or correct ones. The trustworthiness of qualitative inquiry depends on the credibility and rigor of the study design, the data collection and analyses, and finally on the arguments put forward and the evidence on which they rest. This article maps, placing particular emphasis on argumentation, evidence, and ethics, the contested terrain of canons for trustworthiness – from early postpositivist perspectives to those defined by probity and relationships.

Developmental evaluation: Bridging the gaps between proposal, program, and practice

Developmental evaluation supports grant-funded initiatives seeking innovation and change. Programs born from aspirational grant language and plans often need guidance as they work toward creating workable models for social innovation. This article describes the challenge of designing and implementing complex programs and presents a case that illustrates how a program moves from proposal to practice. The Massachusetts Charter Public School Association Capacity Building Network is a complex intervention, funded by the US federal government, aimed at raising school capacity to serve students with disabilities and English language learners. Developmental evaluation served to bridge the gaps between an aspirational proposal, an ambitious and ambiguous program plan, and emerging practices to serve this population of students. Jointly reviewing our experience in this developmental evaluation, the evaluation team and a program director share important thematic lessons learned about the developmental evaluation approach.

Introduction to Policy Research in School-Based Counseling

This chapter provides a foundation for conceptualizing the relationships between policy, practice, and research in the international context. It also provides a framework for identifying the different stakeholder groups that use policy research related to school-based counseling and for understanding how each group uses policy research. Finally, an overview of the major sections of the handbook is presented that illustrates how each section contributes to advances in educational research that will contribute to the improvements in school-based counseling policy and practice.

Remembering Carol Weiss: My Advisor; My Teacher

Carol Weiss was my doctoral dissertation advisor, and if I have ever produced useful evaluations, I have Carol to thank. She turned a naive teacher who distrusted evaluators and evaluations into what I hope is an ethical evaluator. She revealed a new side of evaluation for me: that evaluation is meant to provide useful information to improve programs. From Carol, I learned that theory and practice work together; that context and criteria count; and that knowledge comes in many forms and can be used in varying ways. A veritable annotated bibliography herself, she directed me to read and read more and thus opened my eyes to multiple perspectives. Carol was far more than a mere doctoral advisor—she enlightened my world. I began my doctoral program with both feet planted firmly in practice. I was frustrated with the great disembodied researcher defining what best practices I should be using. Research studies hardly seemed relevant for my classroom, my programs, my school, and my community; their findings did not address our problems or issues, and their solutions were not likely to work for students in my classes or youth in my programs. Researchers’ pronouncements seemed based on perceived realities from mere moments of observation or gross generalizations. Research knowledge was simply not useful. So why did I seek a research degree? Because I hoped to legitimize my voice as a practitioner. And because I wanted to discover useful knowledge. Near the end of my first year, a professor suggested I explore an applied research such as program evaluation. Studying applied research sounded promising; would this more practical form of research offer insight into production of useful knowledge? Still, I was skeptical about evaluation since those conducted on programs I had worked in seldom produced any findings we could directly use. In fact, I considered evaluators to be evil executioners who decided the fate of programs, usually with little input from those of us doing the work. Could any evaluation generate useful knowledge? Then I met Carol Weiss. She had arrived at the Harvard Graduate School of Education that year (1978) as a senior researcher, coming from the Bureau of Applied Social Research at Columbia University. There, with colleagues and students, she had promoted research utilization as a field of study. Other Harvard faculty who had heard me rant about knowledge use sent me her way, and our first conversation confirmed that she was a perfect match for me. Because she was not yet a faculty member, I sought special permission to add her as advisor, and over the next years, she showed me that knowledge and use are one, that evaluations could produce evidence with power to influence change and make a difference in people’s lives. Evaluation could be useful. Carol suggested that my questions were limiting my thinking; she said, ask not what is useful knowledge? Can research produce useful knowledge? Instead, she tweaked my questions to consider What is knowledge? How is it produced? Who uses it—and how? Carol believed that knowledge is the use of information or evidence; to know is to use. Thus, what people do with the information