February 1, 2009
No One Here But Me
[An academic exercise and part of a larger project on authenticity in writing, 12/08.]
[THIS PAPER MAY BE USED IN WHOLE OR IN PART FOR ILLUSTRATION OR INSTRUCTIONAL PURPOSES WITH OR WITHOUT PERMISSION.]
Abstract
A passage from Gabriel García Márquez's book, The General in His Labyrinth, gives rise to a short discussion on the locus of reality. The unconcluded contemplation is that all exists in mind, mine. There is no separate external reality.
No One Here But Me
At one point in Gabriel García Márquez's book, The General in His Labyrinth (2003), "José Palacios, [the General's] oldest servant, found him floating naked with his eyes open in the purifying waters of his bath and thought he had drowned. He knew this was one of the many ways the General meditated, but the ecstasy in which he lay drifting seemed that of a man no longer of this world."
Upon awakening from this apparent trance, the General said to his servant, "Let's go . . . as fast as we can. No one loves us here."
This passage has raised this possibility: The world is located in mind, in my interior, not outside of my body somewhere. The world is not separate with an independent existence. It is only by consensus with others that we suspect an objective and separate-from-me world.
Based on this understanding, I often "just feel like" taking some action or changing course, because nothing really matters except as I would have it inside me. So much is this true for me that sometimes I even choose based on what I think is true, whether or not I can otherwise prove it.
As the General is described above and for me, there appear to be multiple realities. There are those we can sense physically and there are those of the mind, or internal. Ecstasy is of the mind. The idea that no one loves us here is also an internal experience. That idea, fact or not, seems to give the impetus for action for the General. It is his call to action, which is leaving. We also act and change course based on the world we have, the mental experiences.
What is the relationship between these realities, the physical and the mental? The contention here is that the relationship is flawed oneness. What I experience inside me is my only reality, but what I experience is not always intentional. Some stuff happens that I (we?) just (have to?) attend to.
Before I am accused of not being of this world, I declare that I am not immune from stubbing my toe on a rock or enjoying pizza and Pepsi as I write these words. Toes are real, but mine the most, as is this pizza; and, just a moment, so is my (experience of my) Pepsi. However, these supposed physical things have reality because it is I who through my intentions, awarenesses, mental experiences, and mind-directed actions accept and make them so. My internal experiences are the only things that exist that I can be sure of. Things out there do not exist, for me.
Another way to say this is to answer this old quandary. Does a tree make a sound when it falls to the forest floor? Although I am not a philosopher and this meditation is a bit speculative, I answer no, the tree makes no sound if I am not there to hear it.
Even though the reality of what I believe to be true is what I think or somehow internally experience, and this is paramount and the definition of real, other stuff happens which calls for, sometimes demands, awareness, focus, and action. Because of the call or demand, I choose to attend, that is I intend to have it real. One objection is that we may not be aware of every "intention," but after the fact of having done something means that at some level of mind (perhaps it is consciousness), there was a choice.
So I can act and change course because nothing really matters except my experience of. If I choose a course based on what I think is true, whether or not I can otherwise prove it, this might be instinct or intuition. I do not know. But this suggests a lengthier consideration.
As with the General, there is no great, unconditional affection for me, or anyone. So run as fast as you can, or silently escape as I do into my own world of a computer, music downloads, and Internet games I can play with people whose physical existence I do not acknowledge. It is as if they do not exist, or if they do, they are just objects of mind that exist for a time and later do not. I never know them. I only make choices based on my intentional engagement with their actions and the tacit understanding that their actions are part of my experience, a part of my reality, until I let them go.
Some would say that you can gather evidence (impressions or opinions or convictions--again "immaterials") that there is affection. This would be to rely on memories (past mental experiences). At my age the idea of many loves and sensual adventures such as the General may have had, as recounted in The General in His Labyrinth, is very tempting. The better orientation is that that reality is in my head. Sex is not real or of this world without my mental-immaterial reception and recognition.
Enough for now. I appear to be drifting. Am I in a trance and no longer of this world? Am I either in meditative ecstasy or in someone's physical reality? These questions, let alone that reality only exists inside me, are way too difficult to conclude in a little over two pages. For now I say, "Let's go, as fast as I can, for there is no one here but me."
REFERENCE
Marquez, G., (2003). The General in His Labyrinth. London: Vintage.
[THIS PAPER MAY BE USED IN WHOLE OR IN PART FOR ILLUSTRATION OR INSTRUCTIONAL PURPOSES WITH OR WITHOUT PERMISSION.]
Abstract
A passage from Gabriel García Márquez's book, The General in His Labyrinth, gives rise to a short discussion on the locus of reality. The unconcluded contemplation is that all exists in mind, mine. There is no separate external reality.
No One Here But Me
At one point in Gabriel García Márquez's book, The General in His Labyrinth (2003), "José Palacios, [the General's] oldest servant, found him floating naked with his eyes open in the purifying waters of his bath and thought he had drowned. He knew this was one of the many ways the General meditated, but the ecstasy in which he lay drifting seemed that of a man no longer of this world."
Upon awakening from this apparent trance, the General said to his servant, "Let's go . . . as fast as we can. No one loves us here."
This passage has raised this possibility: The world is located in mind, in my interior, not outside of my body somewhere. The world is not separate with an independent existence. It is only by consensus with others that we suspect an objective and separate-from-me world.
Based on this understanding, I often "just feel like" taking some action or changing course, because nothing really matters except as I would have it inside me. So much is this true for me that sometimes I even choose based on what I think is true, whether or not I can otherwise prove it.
As the General is described above and for me, there appear to be multiple realities. There are those we can sense physically and there are those of the mind, or internal. Ecstasy is of the mind. The idea that no one loves us here is also an internal experience. That idea, fact or not, seems to give the impetus for action for the General. It is his call to action, which is leaving. We also act and change course based on the world we have, the mental experiences.
What is the relationship between these realities, the physical and the mental? The contention here is that the relationship is flawed oneness. What I experience inside me is my only reality, but what I experience is not always intentional. Some stuff happens that I (we?) just (have to?) attend to.
Before I am accused of not being of this world, I declare that I am not immune from stubbing my toe on a rock or enjoying pizza and Pepsi as I write these words. Toes are real, but mine the most, as is this pizza; and, just a moment, so is my (experience of my) Pepsi. However, these supposed physical things have reality because it is I who through my intentions, awarenesses, mental experiences, and mind-directed actions accept and make them so. My internal experiences are the only things that exist that I can be sure of. Things out there do not exist, for me.
Another way to say this is to answer this old quandary. Does a tree make a sound when it falls to the forest floor? Although I am not a philosopher and this meditation is a bit speculative, I answer no, the tree makes no sound if I am not there to hear it.
Even though the reality of what I believe to be true is what I think or somehow internally experience, and this is paramount and the definition of real, other stuff happens which calls for, sometimes demands, awareness, focus, and action. Because of the call or demand, I choose to attend, that is I intend to have it real. One objection is that we may not be aware of every "intention," but after the fact of having done something means that at some level of mind (perhaps it is consciousness), there was a choice.
So I can act and change course because nothing really matters except my experience of. If I choose a course based on what I think is true, whether or not I can otherwise prove it, this might be instinct or intuition. I do not know. But this suggests a lengthier consideration.
As with the General, there is no great, unconditional affection for me, or anyone. So run as fast as you can, or silently escape as I do into my own world of a computer, music downloads, and Internet games I can play with people whose physical existence I do not acknowledge. It is as if they do not exist, or if they do, they are just objects of mind that exist for a time and later do not. I never know them. I only make choices based on my intentional engagement with their actions and the tacit understanding that their actions are part of my experience, a part of my reality, until I let them go.
Some would say that you can gather evidence (impressions or opinions or convictions--again "immaterials") that there is affection. This would be to rely on memories (past mental experiences). At my age the idea of many loves and sensual adventures such as the General may have had, as recounted in The General in His Labyrinth, is very tempting. The better orientation is that that reality is in my head. Sex is not real or of this world without my mental-immaterial reception and recognition.
Enough for now. I appear to be drifting. Am I in a trance and no longer of this world? Am I either in meditative ecstasy or in someone's physical reality? These questions, let alone that reality only exists inside me, are way too difficult to conclude in a little over two pages. For now I say, "Let's go, as fast as I can, for there is no one here but me."
REFERENCE
Marquez, G., (2003). The General in His Labyrinth. London: Vintage.
Health News Analysis, An Example
[An academic exercise and part of a larger project on authenticity in writing, 11/08.]
[THIS PAPER MAY BE USED IN WHOLE OR IN PART FOR ILLUSTRATION OR INSTRUCTIONAL PURPOSES WITH OR WITHOUT PERMISSION.]
Abstract
A recent Associated Press health news report discusses a new study of a vaccine that already prevents cervical cancer in women. It is called Gardasil, and it has now proven successful in preventing genital warts in men. Here the news report is summarized and is assessed as concluding appropriately. The research study itself is sketched sufficiently to conclude that it relies on standard research design and statistical methods, but there is not enough detail to identify these methods or assess the appropriateness of the study’s findings.
Health News Analysis, An Example
Mike Stobbe (2008), in an Associated Press news report printed in the online version of the Charlotte Observer, discusses a new study of a vaccine that already prevents cervical cancer in women. Gardasil has also proven successful in preventing genital warts in men. The vaccine "targets the two types of HPV, or human papillomavirus, believed to be responsible for about 70 percent of cervical cancer cases, and two other types that cause most genital warts."
Stobbe reports that the study involved "about 4,000 males ages 16 to 26 in nearly 20 countries. Results showed the vaccine was 90 percent effective in preventing genital warts."
Stobbe also notes that research on Gardasil is continuing, but that to date there is no evidence it prevents "penile cancer or other HPV-associated cancers in men. There also is no evidence it prevents men from spreading HPV to women." Right now, Gardasil as it may be used in the U.S. for males appears to prevent an unwanted but benign condition.
Stobbe's report is informative in the style of news reporting. The reader can get additional details once the main points have been covered at the beginning. Following the V structure for news writing allows for a "stay-tuned" kind of conclusion. Stobbe quotes an HPV expert at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as saying that policy makers, presumably the ones charged with passing judgment on Gardasil's availability to males in the United States, "will be looking at a variety of issues."
In spite of the limitations of news reporting and any subtexts one can glean from the article, Stobbe carefully sketches what has and has not happened yet in Gardasil's use and scrutiny for extended uses.
Among the research subjects for the study, a group was given a fake vaccine; and in ninety percent of the vaccinated subjects, Gardasil prevented genital warts. From this we can determine that the "new study" was of the experimental, empirical design type and blind, or double-blind, standard for drug companies doing clinical trials. In addition, quantitative analysis of factors such as three administrations of the drug to 4,000 participants over six months in twenty countries with examinations at various points to determine effectiveness, and so forth, clearly point to a clinical trial and the classic drug company research design.
Without having the specific procedures of the design, however, or the study itself, it is difficult to tell which statistical methods would have been applied other than standard ones for this kind of study. Randomization of the test population, careful data collection from experimental and control groups, pre- and post-assessment for evidence of the target disease would all need standardization over a specific time with subsequent proper analysis and summary.
The difficulty in identifying which statistical methods increases given the rigor needed to conduct a double-blind study the size of this one. The study's population and the different countries and therefore different languages involved seem daunting. It is likely that the study design and statistical procedures would have had to account for errors and inaccuracies.
However, an international drug company such as Merck might well have been able to carry out such a detailed and comprehensive study. It would seem so, for Stobbe reports that experts have found the reported results promising. Presumably they would be able to pass this preliminary judgment based on the study or Merck's reputation, or? (Well, we need not surmise further.)
The above is clearly about the study itself; however, the rest of Stobbe's news report suggests other data sources and statistical procedures. For example, several assertions in the news report suggest a simple-counts methodology was used to set the Gardasil study in context. Stobbe notes that "HPV causes at least 20,000 cases of cancer in the U.S. each year," and "about 40 other countries have approved the vaccine for males." How these numbers were derived cannot be determined by the information given, but how many countries have already approved the vaccine is a simple show of hands. Stobbe's statement of "at least 20,000 cases of cancer" is a conservative one based on other studies and data not specified, but not difficult at least to find. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would have or have access to these. Merck would also have considered these in their development of Gardasil or other drugs.
A noteworthy event that happened prior to this news article's appearance is that experts have weighed in on HPV's role in causing cervical cancer. It appears that women who have HPV is positively associated with the likelihood of their getting cervical cancer. Although again the precise measures that were used to weigh in on the side of "causes" of cervical cancer are not given, we can assume a role for inferential statistics, or perhaps meta-analyses of relevant cervical cancer studies.
Finally with regard to the Gardasil study, it relies upon other quantitative studies. For example, here is a likely research question the Merck study had to answer with statistical evidence: At what age should males be vaccinated with the drug? In answering this question, Merck and its research staff, or contractor?, had to address: Given the formula for Gardasil, at what age or above is it safe to administer?
The finding of the Gardasil study as reported by Stobbe is that "the vaccine was 90 percent effective in preventing genital warts, with only 15 cases of persistent infection in the vaccinated group, compared to 101 cases in a group that was given a fake vaccine."
It is not possible to assess whether the finding is appropriate. Not enough of the study is given to see how Merck and researchers got from A to B to C. As suggested above, the study was large and complex, and thus challenges to producing quality research would have been great, but not insurmountable. Lack of information or, better, access to the study itself would be most useful in determining whether the finding of the study is appropriate.
The conclusion of Stobbe's health news report is "we will see." This conclusion is appropriate. Stobbe has provided enough in the way of background information and questions yet to be answered to warrant this assessment. The take-up rate for girls and women in the U.S. for the vaccine (one in four) sounds a cautionary note for the commercial success of the product for males, especially if the warts are benign. In addition, "the vaccine's effect on precancerous lesions," when and if that is established as in the desired direction, might be sufficient reason not only for Merck to push forward its commercial interests in Gardasil, but also for experts and medical professionals to support approval of the drug for males--in the interest of public health.
Reference
Stobbe, M. (2008, November 13). Study: HPV vaccine prevents genital warts in males. Charlotte Observer. Retrieved November 22, 2008 from http://www.charlotteobserver.com/nation/story/337661.html
[THIS PAPER MAY BE USED IN WHOLE OR IN PART FOR ILLUSTRATION OR INSTRUCTIONAL PURPOSES WITH OR WITHOUT PERMISSION.]
Abstract
A recent Associated Press health news report discusses a new study of a vaccine that already prevents cervical cancer in women. It is called Gardasil, and it has now proven successful in preventing genital warts in men. Here the news report is summarized and is assessed as concluding appropriately. The research study itself is sketched sufficiently to conclude that it relies on standard research design and statistical methods, but there is not enough detail to identify these methods or assess the appropriateness of the study’s findings.
Health News Analysis, An Example
Mike Stobbe (2008), in an Associated Press news report printed in the online version of the Charlotte Observer, discusses a new study of a vaccine that already prevents cervical cancer in women. Gardasil has also proven successful in preventing genital warts in men. The vaccine "targets the two types of HPV, or human papillomavirus, believed to be responsible for about 70 percent of cervical cancer cases, and two other types that cause most genital warts."
Stobbe reports that the study involved "about 4,000 males ages 16 to 26 in nearly 20 countries. Results showed the vaccine was 90 percent effective in preventing genital warts."
Stobbe also notes that research on Gardasil is continuing, but that to date there is no evidence it prevents "penile cancer or other HPV-associated cancers in men. There also is no evidence it prevents men from spreading HPV to women." Right now, Gardasil as it may be used in the U.S. for males appears to prevent an unwanted but benign condition.
Stobbe's report is informative in the style of news reporting. The reader can get additional details once the main points have been covered at the beginning. Following the V structure for news writing allows for a "stay-tuned" kind of conclusion. Stobbe quotes an HPV expert at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as saying that policy makers, presumably the ones charged with passing judgment on Gardasil's availability to males in the United States, "will be looking at a variety of issues."
In spite of the limitations of news reporting and any subtexts one can glean from the article, Stobbe carefully sketches what has and has not happened yet in Gardasil's use and scrutiny for extended uses.
Among the research subjects for the study, a group was given a fake vaccine; and in ninety percent of the vaccinated subjects, Gardasil prevented genital warts. From this we can determine that the "new study" was of the experimental, empirical design type and blind, or double-blind, standard for drug companies doing clinical trials. In addition, quantitative analysis of factors such as three administrations of the drug to 4,000 participants over six months in twenty countries with examinations at various points to determine effectiveness, and so forth, clearly point to a clinical trial and the classic drug company research design.
Without having the specific procedures of the design, however, or the study itself, it is difficult to tell which statistical methods would have been applied other than standard ones for this kind of study. Randomization of the test population, careful data collection from experimental and control groups, pre- and post-assessment for evidence of the target disease would all need standardization over a specific time with subsequent proper analysis and summary.
The difficulty in identifying which statistical methods increases given the rigor needed to conduct a double-blind study the size of this one. The study's population and the different countries and therefore different languages involved seem daunting. It is likely that the study design and statistical procedures would have had to account for errors and inaccuracies.
However, an international drug company such as Merck might well have been able to carry out such a detailed and comprehensive study. It would seem so, for Stobbe reports that experts have found the reported results promising. Presumably they would be able to pass this preliminary judgment based on the study or Merck's reputation, or? (Well, we need not surmise further.)
The above is clearly about the study itself; however, the rest of Stobbe's news report suggests other data sources and statistical procedures. For example, several assertions in the news report suggest a simple-counts methodology was used to set the Gardasil study in context. Stobbe notes that "HPV causes at least 20,000 cases of cancer in the U.S. each year," and "about 40 other countries have approved the vaccine for males." How these numbers were derived cannot be determined by the information given, but how many countries have already approved the vaccine is a simple show of hands. Stobbe's statement of "at least 20,000 cases of cancer" is a conservative one based on other studies and data not specified, but not difficult at least to find. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would have or have access to these. Merck would also have considered these in their development of Gardasil or other drugs.
A noteworthy event that happened prior to this news article's appearance is that experts have weighed in on HPV's role in causing cervical cancer. It appears that women who have HPV is positively associated with the likelihood of their getting cervical cancer. Although again the precise measures that were used to weigh in on the side of "causes" of cervical cancer are not given, we can assume a role for inferential statistics, or perhaps meta-analyses of relevant cervical cancer studies.
Finally with regard to the Gardasil study, it relies upon other quantitative studies. For example, here is a likely research question the Merck study had to answer with statistical evidence: At what age should males be vaccinated with the drug? In answering this question, Merck and its research staff, or contractor?, had to address: Given the formula for Gardasil, at what age or above is it safe to administer?
The finding of the Gardasil study as reported by Stobbe is that "the vaccine was 90 percent effective in preventing genital warts, with only 15 cases of persistent infection in the vaccinated group, compared to 101 cases in a group that was given a fake vaccine."
It is not possible to assess whether the finding is appropriate. Not enough of the study is given to see how Merck and researchers got from A to B to C. As suggested above, the study was large and complex, and thus challenges to producing quality research would have been great, but not insurmountable. Lack of information or, better, access to the study itself would be most useful in determining whether the finding of the study is appropriate.
The conclusion of Stobbe's health news report is "we will see." This conclusion is appropriate. Stobbe has provided enough in the way of background information and questions yet to be answered to warrant this assessment. The take-up rate for girls and women in the U.S. for the vaccine (one in four) sounds a cautionary note for the commercial success of the product for males, especially if the warts are benign. In addition, "the vaccine's effect on precancerous lesions," when and if that is established as in the desired direction, might be sufficient reason not only for Merck to push forward its commercial interests in Gardasil, but also for experts and medical professionals to support approval of the drug for males--in the interest of public health.
Reference
Stobbe, M. (2008, November 13). Study: HPV vaccine prevents genital warts in males. Charlotte Observer. Retrieved November 22, 2008 from http://www.charlotteobserver.com/nation/story/337661.html
Tailoring Learning for International Students
[An academic exercise and part of a larger project on authenticity in writing, 11/08.]
[THIS PAPER MAY BE USED IN WHOLE OR IN PART FOR ILLUSTRATION OR INSTRUCTIONAL PURPOSES WITH OR WITHOUT PERMISSION.]
Abstract
A unit of instruction that uses the Internet in a variety of ways needs a context. The context in this discussion is a traditional college course and how it is designed for students coming from different countries. What follows is a sketch of the course and its units of instruction. These center around classroom and computer laboratory meetings. The meetings have a structure, or process, and the instructor has a limited number of roles to play. Student learning is based on choices in objectives and computer learning activities. The sketch concludes with an example learning objective and some different types of Internet activities to help meet that objective.
Tailoring Learning for International Students
Introduction to Computers is a beginning college course for intermediate level English students (at the Anglo-American College, Prague.) The course takes place in the classroom and the computer laboratory with the instructor acting as a meeting facilitator, content presenter, and tutor. Although the course is documented online and uses the Internet, it is traditional face-to-face pedagogy (Wuensch, Aziz, Ozan, Kishore, & Tabrizi, 2008).
Because students come from different national educational systems and they have different computer skills already, the course has to make room for these differences. Giving choices of which learning objectives to work on helps students develop their computer literacy as well as demonstrate practical skills.
The course has ten three-and-a-half hour classroom-lab meetings. Each meeting is a three-step process. The process gives the instructor the roles above and looks like this.
1. What have you discovered? This is a review of required readings and what students have been working on so far.
2. What do you need to know? This step introduces new material and gives time for discussions and student presentations.
3. What do you need to be able to do? This step is about discovering and demonstrating skills in the computer laboratory.
The topics for the class meetings show the general scope of the course. The student chooses one or more of the objectives for each meeting. If the objectives and their learning activities for a meeting do not give the student something new to learn, he or she can work with the instructor and decide what is best.
Here are example objectives students can choose for the first five class meetings.
1. Course Overview, Computers and the Internet: The learner should be able to design a directory structure for a student taking three courses, or for an office worker involved in three projects. The design should include folder and file naming, the types of files included, and sample content for each.
2. Hardware and Software: The learner should be able to analyze a recent version of MS Windows and report on what it should have to be an operating system.
3. Word Processing: The learner should be able to create and print or upload a one-page, double-spaced text document showing as many features of the program as possible--fonts, point size, tables, columns, pagination, and so forth.
4. Presentations with Media: The learner should be able to produce a simple outline of a presentation for school or work with at least five PowerPoint slides.
5. Spreadsheets: The learner should be able to create two original spreadsheets, one showing a personal or project budget with monthly and annual sample numbers and one showing the formulae for the calculations.
These are the rest of the topics for the meetings: Mid-Course Exam; Databases; Sharing Information on the Web; Current Issues and Review; Final Presentations and Exam.
To show how this course uses the Internet to meet learning goals or aims for different students, the first thing to remember is that the course’s approach already tells the teacher what to do. When a student selects an objective for a topic, choices of what the student does in order to learn opens up. Here is an example from meeting three. The learning objective is that the student should be able to list five Internet applications for school or work. The list should include why each application is helpful.
Computer lab activities to help learn or demonstrate meeting this objective include the following types and examples. A student would work on one or more of these.
Search: Search for "computer operating system" using Google and define what it is.
Quest: Go to the Web sites for two different operating systems and find what applications come with them and what each does. Afterwards, open the programs menu on your computer and find out if you have these applications.
Message Board: Go to the university learning server and leave a message on the Newbie forum about programs students find most useful for their school work. How many different programs do students list? Are any from the Internet?
OCLC: Go to the university library catalog online and find this article: Pierre Dillenbourg (2008). Integrating technologies into educational ecosystems. Distance Education, 29(2), 127-140.
E-mail: Copy and paste the abstract of this article into an e-mail and send your instructor a copy.
Reading: Read the article. Does it say anything about Internet application programs?
Self-archiving: Put a short bibliography for a paper on one of the free bibliography Web sites. Then retrieve it in print or document form.
Document Storage: If you have a Gmail or Yahoo account, go to the document storage area and upload a document, maybe a draft of one of your papers.
Reference: Look up APA style guide online. Can you use any of the information presented to complete assignments for this course?
If one sees these activities as part of the design of teaching a lesson, the above fall into place in the process. First is in the classroom. The teacher talks about two or three things you can use computers and the Internet for. The teacher leads a discussion. Step two is also a classroom activity. It might be to hear and watch a PowerPoint presentation on how to access some online resources like the ones in the lab learning activities. The instructor would make the presentation. Finally, the students work out their own list of applications to help them in work or school. The instructor circulates in the lab helping and tutoring to make sure students are learning and completing the work each chose.
Reference
Wuensch, K. L., Aziz, S., Ozan, E., Kishore, M., & Tabrizi, M. H. N. (2008). Pedagogical Characteristics of Online and Face-to-Face Classes. International Journal on ELearning, 7(3), 523-532.
[THIS PAPER MAY BE USED IN WHOLE OR IN PART FOR ILLUSTRATION OR INSTRUCTIONAL PURPOSES WITH OR WITHOUT PERMISSION.]
Abstract
A unit of instruction that uses the Internet in a variety of ways needs a context. The context in this discussion is a traditional college course and how it is designed for students coming from different countries. What follows is a sketch of the course and its units of instruction. These center around classroom and computer laboratory meetings. The meetings have a structure, or process, and the instructor has a limited number of roles to play. Student learning is based on choices in objectives and computer learning activities. The sketch concludes with an example learning objective and some different types of Internet activities to help meet that objective.
Tailoring Learning for International Students
Introduction to Computers is a beginning college course for intermediate level English students (at the Anglo-American College, Prague.) The course takes place in the classroom and the computer laboratory with the instructor acting as a meeting facilitator, content presenter, and tutor. Although the course is documented online and uses the Internet, it is traditional face-to-face pedagogy (Wuensch, Aziz, Ozan, Kishore, & Tabrizi, 2008).
Because students come from different national educational systems and they have different computer skills already, the course has to make room for these differences. Giving choices of which learning objectives to work on helps students develop their computer literacy as well as demonstrate practical skills.
The course has ten three-and-a-half hour classroom-lab meetings. Each meeting is a three-step process. The process gives the instructor the roles above and looks like this.
1. What have you discovered? This is a review of required readings and what students have been working on so far.
2. What do you need to know? This step introduces new material and gives time for discussions and student presentations.
3. What do you need to be able to do? This step is about discovering and demonstrating skills in the computer laboratory.
The topics for the class meetings show the general scope of the course. The student chooses one or more of the objectives for each meeting. If the objectives and their learning activities for a meeting do not give the student something new to learn, he or she can work with the instructor and decide what is best.
Here are example objectives students can choose for the first five class meetings.
1. Course Overview, Computers and the Internet: The learner should be able to design a directory structure for a student taking three courses, or for an office worker involved in three projects. The design should include folder and file naming, the types of files included, and sample content for each.
2. Hardware and Software: The learner should be able to analyze a recent version of MS Windows and report on what it should have to be an operating system.
3. Word Processing: The learner should be able to create and print or upload a one-page, double-spaced text document showing as many features of the program as possible--fonts, point size, tables, columns, pagination, and so forth.
4. Presentations with Media: The learner should be able to produce a simple outline of a presentation for school or work with at least five PowerPoint slides.
5. Spreadsheets: The learner should be able to create two original spreadsheets, one showing a personal or project budget with monthly and annual sample numbers and one showing the formulae for the calculations.
These are the rest of the topics for the meetings: Mid-Course Exam; Databases; Sharing Information on the Web; Current Issues and Review; Final Presentations and Exam.
To show how this course uses the Internet to meet learning goals or aims for different students, the first thing to remember is that the course’s approach already tells the teacher what to do. When a student selects an objective for a topic, choices of what the student does in order to learn opens up. Here is an example from meeting three. The learning objective is that the student should be able to list five Internet applications for school or work. The list should include why each application is helpful.
Computer lab activities to help learn or demonstrate meeting this objective include the following types and examples. A student would work on one or more of these.
Search: Search for "computer operating system" using Google and define what it is.
Quest: Go to the Web sites for two different operating systems and find what applications come with them and what each does. Afterwards, open the programs menu on your computer and find out if you have these applications.
Message Board: Go to the university learning server and leave a message on the Newbie forum about programs students find most useful for their school work. How many different programs do students list? Are any from the Internet?
OCLC: Go to the university library catalog online and find this article: Pierre Dillenbourg (2008). Integrating technologies into educational ecosystems. Distance Education, 29(2), 127-140.
E-mail: Copy and paste the abstract of this article into an e-mail and send your instructor a copy.
Reading: Read the article. Does it say anything about Internet application programs?
Self-archiving: Put a short bibliography for a paper on one of the free bibliography Web sites. Then retrieve it in print or document form.
Document Storage: If you have a Gmail or Yahoo account, go to the document storage area and upload a document, maybe a draft of one of your papers.
Reference: Look up APA style guide online. Can you use any of the information presented to complete assignments for this course?
If one sees these activities as part of the design of teaching a lesson, the above fall into place in the process. First is in the classroom. The teacher talks about two or three things you can use computers and the Internet for. The teacher leads a discussion. Step two is also a classroom activity. It might be to hear and watch a PowerPoint presentation on how to access some online resources like the ones in the lab learning activities. The instructor would make the presentation. Finally, the students work out their own list of applications to help them in work or school. The instructor circulates in the lab helping and tutoring to make sure students are learning and completing the work each chose.
Reference
Wuensch, K. L., Aziz, S., Ozan, E., Kishore, M., & Tabrizi, M. H. N. (2008). Pedagogical Characteristics of Online and Face-to-Face Classes. International Journal on ELearning, 7(3), 523-532.
Abbreviated Thematic Analysis of an Interview: Mrs. Joan Lash
[An academic exercise and part of a larger project on authenticity in writing, 12/08.]
[THIS PAPER MAY BE USED IN WHOLE OR IN PART FOR ILLUSTRATION OR INSTRUCTIONAL PURPOSES WITH OR WITHOUT PERMISSION.]
Abstract
The author asks a text to reveal what life was like. The text is a short oral history interview, and it reveals several major themes as a result of textual analysis. These are then reported and discussed in terms of an alternative to a hypothetical standard history text. A partial yet richer understanding of a person and a period appears as a result.
Abbreviated Thematic Analysis of an Interview: Mrs. Joan Lash
An oral interview can write history (Geraci 2005), but in some important respects, it tells a different story than that in a learned, bound volume. It is a story for richer understanding of what life was like. This then is the central question for storytellers and -gatherers. A close examination of one example can uncover this richer, personal texture of a time in history we might otherwise gloss over.
The act of commemorating by asking someone to recount may also be about forgetting (Hamilakis and Labanyi 2008), and an oral history may reveal as much about that as what is remembered in the moment. In addition, the act of telling one's history can reveal tensions that a carefully crafted text might overlook, or ignore all together (Saikia 2000).
What of all of this--in a concrete example? "Mrs Joan Lash, wife of an ADC [aide-de-camp] to the Governor of Madras," talked in 1985 about everyday life in India to Mary Thatcher. The text of the interview, made available by the Centre for South Asian Studies, Cambridge, has been included here. An abbreviated thematic analysis of what was said is this paper and a suggestive object lesson in what history does not always tell us.
To let the text speak, the transcribed version of the Lash interview, including Thatcher's questions, was first formatted in a table with 108 rows, one for each sentence, and three columns for numbering and notes. Repeated readings generated questions and comments--the notes--for many sentences. From these notes, larger categories, tentative themes in the third column, were isolated. A careful reading of the text, including the words of both interviewer and interviewee, showed it had many more candidate themes than those highlighted and can be reported here.
Textual analysis focused on Mrs. Lash and at the sentence rather than word or phrase level. However, the importance of the themes selected come from the words and phrases, or their equivalents, that Mrs. Lash provided. Thus, adherence to the text and what it says gave rise to the themes. Independent of the text, as may be seen below, the themes stand on their own as important in the texture of a life.
The themes selected for further study and analysis after the sifting out was a result of a back and forth reading/re-reading process, a kind of hermeneutic spiral both up and down until the briefest, cursory analysis could be summarized (Gadamer 1988).
Mrs. Joan Lash, at the time of the interview and in the eighth decade of her life, showed "placid acceptance" of "the pattern of life" as she knew and experienced it. She also showed she had "different mothers" and different ideas about what and where "home" was. Forgetting about or not remembering figure into the themes of home and different mothers. Tensions around "Being abandoned everywhere" (Line 107) relate to home and mother as well as seem to have contributed to placid acceptance of the pattern of life.
The pattern of life is Mrs. Lash's phrase, and she uses it three times (Lines 2, 31, and 80). In lines 28 and 79, she also uses phrases which can readily be understood as the pattern of life. Five references to the way it was for her, combined with being placid and accepting (Line 45) and just taking it (Line 46), strongly suggest a way of being.
Telltale in this pattern of the way of Mrs. Lash is how she refers to what happened. She is often acted upon rather than acting. Consider what she says after "just taking it": "And then when you became eighteen my father and mother were both out in India then and I then went out to India." It is as if there was a protocol for people of her background or station, that that next step was natural, a part of a known process. When she reflects that she may not have been proper when in Madras enjoying herself (Line 77), as if that were terrible, there is this preoccupation(?) with some determined-by-other way.
Mrs. Lash has one mother, the one she cherishes with a particularly vivid memory from childhood (Line 2 and following). This is the same person she can describe as her mother in the third person, without much detail or emotion. "She was a very beautiful person, very lovely, rather helpless I suppose" (Line 12). This is perhaps the same mother she yearned for (Line 44).
One wonders what the specifics were that Mrs. Lash could describe her one mother in such general terms: The cherished mother is forgotten in the interview as commemoration.
Mrs. Lash appears to have spent her early years away from her mother, perhaps both of them coming or going between England and India. She also has mother figures in nannies, unnamed aunts, and an unnamed nun.
As has been stated, Mrs. Lash was abandoned everywhere, even in early childhood (Line 9). Everywhere raises the matter of different houses. Home seems to have been England and India. The tensions Mrs. Lash felt in her houses-not-homes of boarding school and various aunts are less clear but strongly expressed (Lines 40 and 30 respectively).
In the end, although this theme would seem to figure large in the texture of a life, we have few details except the presumed number of houses in different places of residence. Perhaps Mrs. Lash did not place much importance on them.
This oral history is rich as the above analysis, transcript, and comments suggest. However, it is partial. We have a sense of Mrs. Lash, but her life is sketched only. We do not have the luxury of follow-up questions, and the analysis can help us get just so far in understanding.
Some themes are quite clear and suggest further inquiry. How did the life of a young man or young woman turn upon parents in service of the empire? What is done to the notion of home when two or more places could be called so? Women and mothers adapted in earlier times, yes, but in the main how did they? And how was life for these patriots abroad, a prescribed pattern to be followed and placidly accepted, or was there zest and excitement enough as with Mrs. Lash (Line 108)?
Mrs. Lash gives us an insight in this interview that we cannot gloss over, but lest that be all there is, history, the history of people, would be and is much more--a story for richer understanding.
References
Gadamer, H-G. (1988). ‘On the circle of understanding’ in J. M. Connolly & T. Keutner (Eds.), Hermeneutics versus science? Three German views (pp. 68-78), Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press.
Geraci, Victor W. 2005, ‘Letting Sources Become the Narrative: Using Oral Interviews to Write History’, The Public Historian 27, no. 1 (January 1): 61-66.
Hamilakis, Y., Jo Labanyi 2008, ‘Introduction: Time, Materiality, and the Work of Memory’, History and Memory 20, no. 2 (October 1): 5-17.
'Interview: Mrs. J. Lash by Mary Thatcher' (1985), Centre of South Asian Studies 004, viewed 5 December 2008.
Saikia, Yasmin 2000, ‘Creating Histories: Oral Narrative and the Politics of History-Making’, The Journal of Asian Studies 59, no. 4 (November 1): 1084-1085.
[Appendixes omitted.]
[THIS PAPER MAY BE USED IN WHOLE OR IN PART FOR ILLUSTRATION OR INSTRUCTIONAL PURPOSES WITH OR WITHOUT PERMISSION.]
Abstract
The author asks a text to reveal what life was like. The text is a short oral history interview, and it reveals several major themes as a result of textual analysis. These are then reported and discussed in terms of an alternative to a hypothetical standard history text. A partial yet richer understanding of a person and a period appears as a result.
Abbreviated Thematic Analysis of an Interview: Mrs. Joan Lash
An oral interview can write history (Geraci 2005), but in some important respects, it tells a different story than that in a learned, bound volume. It is a story for richer understanding of what life was like. This then is the central question for storytellers and -gatherers. A close examination of one example can uncover this richer, personal texture of a time in history we might otherwise gloss over.
The act of commemorating by asking someone to recount may also be about forgetting (Hamilakis and Labanyi 2008), and an oral history may reveal as much about that as what is remembered in the moment. In addition, the act of telling one's history can reveal tensions that a carefully crafted text might overlook, or ignore all together (Saikia 2000).
What of all of this--in a concrete example? "Mrs Joan Lash, wife of an ADC [aide-de-camp] to the Governor of Madras," talked in 1985 about everyday life in India to Mary Thatcher. The text of the interview, made available by the Centre for South Asian Studies, Cambridge, has been included here. An abbreviated thematic analysis of what was said is this paper and a suggestive object lesson in what history does not always tell us.
To let the text speak, the transcribed version of the Lash interview, including Thatcher's questions, was first formatted in a table with 108 rows, one for each sentence, and three columns for numbering and notes. Repeated readings generated questions and comments--the notes--for many sentences. From these notes, larger categories, tentative themes in the third column, were isolated. A careful reading of the text, including the words of both interviewer and interviewee, showed it had many more candidate themes than those highlighted and can be reported here.
Textual analysis focused on Mrs. Lash and at the sentence rather than word or phrase level. However, the importance of the themes selected come from the words and phrases, or their equivalents, that Mrs. Lash provided. Thus, adherence to the text and what it says gave rise to the themes. Independent of the text, as may be seen below, the themes stand on their own as important in the texture of a life.
The themes selected for further study and analysis after the sifting out was a result of a back and forth reading/re-reading process, a kind of hermeneutic spiral both up and down until the briefest, cursory analysis could be summarized (Gadamer 1988).
Mrs. Joan Lash, at the time of the interview and in the eighth decade of her life, showed "placid acceptance" of "the pattern of life" as she knew and experienced it. She also showed she had "different mothers" and different ideas about what and where "home" was. Forgetting about or not remembering figure into the themes of home and different mothers. Tensions around "Being abandoned everywhere" (Line 107) relate to home and mother as well as seem to have contributed to placid acceptance of the pattern of life.
The pattern of life is Mrs. Lash's phrase, and she uses it three times (Lines 2, 31, and 80). In lines 28 and 79, she also uses phrases which can readily be understood as the pattern of life. Five references to the way it was for her, combined with being placid and accepting (Line 45) and just taking it (Line 46), strongly suggest a way of being.
Telltale in this pattern of the way of Mrs. Lash is how she refers to what happened. She is often acted upon rather than acting. Consider what she says after "just taking it": "And then when you became eighteen my father and mother were both out in India then and I then went out to India." It is as if there was a protocol for people of her background or station, that that next step was natural, a part of a known process. When she reflects that she may not have been proper when in Madras enjoying herself (Line 77), as if that were terrible, there is this preoccupation(?) with some determined-by-other way.
Mrs. Lash has one mother, the one she cherishes with a particularly vivid memory from childhood (Line 2 and following). This is the same person she can describe as her mother in the third person, without much detail or emotion. "She was a very beautiful person, very lovely, rather helpless I suppose" (Line 12). This is perhaps the same mother she yearned for (Line 44).
One wonders what the specifics were that Mrs. Lash could describe her one mother in such general terms: The cherished mother is forgotten in the interview as commemoration.
Mrs. Lash appears to have spent her early years away from her mother, perhaps both of them coming or going between England and India. She also has mother figures in nannies, unnamed aunts, and an unnamed nun.
As has been stated, Mrs. Lash was abandoned everywhere, even in early childhood (Line 9). Everywhere raises the matter of different houses. Home seems to have been England and India. The tensions Mrs. Lash felt in her houses-not-homes of boarding school and various aunts are less clear but strongly expressed (Lines 40 and 30 respectively).
In the end, although this theme would seem to figure large in the texture of a life, we have few details except the presumed number of houses in different places of residence. Perhaps Mrs. Lash did not place much importance on them.
This oral history is rich as the above analysis, transcript, and comments suggest. However, it is partial. We have a sense of Mrs. Lash, but her life is sketched only. We do not have the luxury of follow-up questions, and the analysis can help us get just so far in understanding.
Some themes are quite clear and suggest further inquiry. How did the life of a young man or young woman turn upon parents in service of the empire? What is done to the notion of home when two or more places could be called so? Women and mothers adapted in earlier times, yes, but in the main how did they? And how was life for these patriots abroad, a prescribed pattern to be followed and placidly accepted, or was there zest and excitement enough as with Mrs. Lash (Line 108)?
Mrs. Lash gives us an insight in this interview that we cannot gloss over, but lest that be all there is, history, the history of people, would be and is much more--a story for richer understanding.
References
Gadamer, H-G. (1988). ‘On the circle of understanding’ in J. M. Connolly & T. Keutner (Eds.), Hermeneutics versus science? Three German views (pp. 68-78), Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press.
Geraci, Victor W. 2005, ‘Letting Sources Become the Narrative: Using Oral Interviews to Write History’, The Public Historian 27, no. 1 (January 1): 61-66.
Hamilakis, Y., Jo Labanyi 2008, ‘Introduction: Time, Materiality, and the Work of Memory’, History and Memory 20, no. 2 (October 1): 5-17.
'Interview: Mrs. J. Lash by Mary Thatcher' (1985), Centre of South Asian Studies 004, viewed 5 December 2008
Saikia, Yasmin 2000, ‘Creating Histories: Oral Narrative and the Politics of History-Making’, The Journal of Asian Studies 59, no. 4 (November 1): 1084-1085.
[Appendixes omitted.]
Options Versus Goals
[An academic exercise and part of a larger project on authenticity in writing, 11/08.]
[THIS PAPER MAY BE USED IN WHOLE OR IN PART FOR ILLUSTRATION OR INSTRUCTIONAL PURPOSES WITH OR WITHOUT PERMISSION.]
Deborah Davis (2006) identifies one way of developing critical thinking. That is, we can develop our skills by looking at options and their advantages and disadvantages (p. 83). This leads to selecting the best option under the circumstances to solve a problem.
What Davis does not develop is what an option is. It seems to be a course of immediate, practical action. I would propose that problem solving is not as simple as that. At least among options you have an embedded problem. Given two or more options for problem one, then the next problem is to select which one? How do you do that without carrying out this problem-options process again and again?
I would like to suggest a way to stop this regress by turning an option into a step towards a goal or objective that needs to come about because of some action. What am I trying to accomplish by doing this versus that? Once I have that, all the rest falls into place.
For example, in this exercise, how can I answer the question of which critical thinking skill can I or should I develop more? I can say one option for this problem is to stay up all night to get this paper turned in on time. Another answer is a goal, a condition or state of what it would be like that I want to have.
That desired state might be something like this: I will always be prepared for the requirements of school. From this ideal, action steps (options) come, and may include for me to prioritize everyday challenges at school such that I can turn my work in on time and perhaps get better grades. The option of staying up all night for a one-page paper then is not optimal. It does not help me get to my goal or objective very well. Think of what it would mean for me. I have. Staying up late or working all night will deprive me of my beauty rest, another important goal of mine.
Reference
Davis, D., (2006). Adult Learner' S Companion. City: Houghton Mifflin Company.
[THIS PAPER MAY BE USED IN WHOLE OR IN PART FOR ILLUSTRATION OR INSTRUCTIONAL PURPOSES WITH OR WITHOUT PERMISSION.]
Deborah Davis (2006) identifies one way of developing critical thinking. That is, we can develop our skills by looking at options and their advantages and disadvantages (p. 83). This leads to selecting the best option under the circumstances to solve a problem.
What Davis does not develop is what an option is. It seems to be a course of immediate, practical action. I would propose that problem solving is not as simple as that. At least among options you have an embedded problem. Given two or more options for problem one, then the next problem is to select which one? How do you do that without carrying out this problem-options process again and again?
I would like to suggest a way to stop this regress by turning an option into a step towards a goal or objective that needs to come about because of some action. What am I trying to accomplish by doing this versus that? Once I have that, all the rest falls into place.
For example, in this exercise, how can I answer the question of which critical thinking skill can I or should I develop more? I can say one option for this problem is to stay up all night to get this paper turned in on time. Another answer is a goal, a condition or state of what it would be like that I want to have.
That desired state might be something like this: I will always be prepared for the requirements of school. From this ideal, action steps (options) come, and may include for me to prioritize everyday challenges at school such that I can turn my work in on time and perhaps get better grades. The option of staying up all night for a one-page paper then is not optimal. It does not help me get to my goal or objective very well. Think of what it would mean for me. I have. Staying up late or working all night will deprive me of my beauty rest, another important goal of mine.
Reference
Davis, D., (2006). Adult Learner' S Companion. City: Houghton Mifflin Company.
Social Research Ethics, Preliminary Thoughts
[An academic exercise and part of a larger project on authenticity in writing, 11/08.]
[THIS PAPER MAY BE USED IN WHOLE OR IN PART FOR ILLUSTRATION OR INSTRUCTIONAL PURPOSES WITH OR WITHOUT PERMISSION.]
The title alone of McIntyre’s article (2002) about doing the right thing in conducting social research suggests another, first-order matter not to be dismissed easily. Is it ever possible to know if a researcher has done, or is doing, the right thing? In considering this matter, I found I could work with the following questions to come up with some preliminary if tentative thoughts. Here are these presented with the idea that they might lead to a greater insight into social research ethics and the ultimate concern McIntyre’s article rests upon.
One: "Is it possible for anyone to genuinely consent to being objectified through the research process?" (Davidson).
Two: Do voluntary participation, informed consent, risk of harm, confidentiality, and anonymity (Trochim) pretty much cover the bases for ethical research on human subjects?
Whether quantitative or qualitative research approaches are employed to study human phenomena, the knowledge quest rests on the thing--the object of study. Whether researchers, ethics committees, the public, or others like it or not, human subjects become objects in the service of an other's discovering, confirming, or advancing knowledge.
Objectification comes with all that is the research enterprise. If, however, in a clinical or confidential study, a subject, or we can now say object, is not treated per proper procedure and respect, there may be cause for complaint. Any ethics violation may then have to be determined by those closest to what was actually proposed and done.
Davidson's question seems more philosophical than practical. It may not be nice or politically correct to objectify people in some ideal world or in some contexts, but in the interests of research we do it, just as we do it elsewhere in our lives (e.g., picture the finals in a body building competition).
Voluntary participation, informed consent, risk of harm, confidentiality, and anonymity are not the only matters for care in planning and conducting research involving human subjects. No doubt any ethics committee or listing of standards, rules, or procedures would specify these and others, and in some detail. However, there is at least one additional base to cover regardless of the group to be satisfied or the expectations to be met.
The expectation or standard should be articulated that ethics should be addressed whenever researching human subjects. This may seem self-evident, but if not stated in whatever fashion the governing or advisory body wishes to, not having some self-referential language about the advisability or requirement of the process itself has a possible negative consequence. For example, if there is no process, the possible claim above of violation could not be addressed except out of the good citizenship or manners involving those closest to the action. Another possibility is that if researchers as a group do not "require" the process of reviewing the ethics of what is proposed, a researcher need not review. If review is required, then the substance and process of research, its approval, and--it is hoped--research implementation will help ensure the proper treatment and care of those studied.
By and large, research today is not carried out by independent researchers. It is sanctioned by higher education by having research and publication as a part of the academic’s job description. Grants and contracts routinely require as much quality and transparency as is humanly possible, or affordable. The public can scrutinize pharmaceutical companies and governments when their work involves health and the common good. The researcher or sponsor that does not adhere to ethical precepts risks being ignored by an academy that embraces the almost universal norm of doing so.
There are some research studies that need to be covert, that is the object of study need not or should not be disclosed beforehand. Disclosing might in these cases bias results. This seems to contradict the principle of informed consent, but this depends. An ethnographic study might be an example exception. If a cultural informant knows he or she is being viewed as such, results might be other than what would be without this knowledge. Margaret Mead reportedly got into this difficulty with the subjects of her classic study (2001). Degree of disclosure as an ethical expectation needs to be carefully worked out for each social research study, for the integrity of the study as well as the protection of the subjects.
Now, given all of the above, is it ever possible to know if a researcher has done the right thing? It appears that as much as we prescribe and proscribe trying to ensure that we do right in social research, it appears as if the answer is akin to the imperfection we de facto accept in our lives. However, there is a difference. In social (and other) research, we would try to be extra deliberate and careful about achieving incontrovertible explanations and understandings, reducing the chances of making errors and doing wrong. Otherwise, what are we trying to accomplish?
Works Cited
McIntyre, Lisa J. “Doing the Right Thing: Ethics in Social Research.” The Practical Skeptic. Mcintyre, Lisa (Ed.). Boston: McGraw Hill, 2002.
Mead, Margaret. Coming of Age in Samoa. New York: Perennial Classics, 2001.
Trochim, William M. K. “Ethics in Research.” Research Methods Knowledge Base. 2006 25. Nov. 2008
[THIS PAPER MAY BE USED IN WHOLE OR IN PART FOR ILLUSTRATION OR INSTRUCTIONAL PURPOSES WITH OR WITHOUT PERMISSION.]
The title alone of McIntyre’s article (2002) about doing the right thing in conducting social research suggests another, first-order matter not to be dismissed easily. Is it ever possible to know if a researcher has done, or is doing, the right thing? In considering this matter, I found I could work with the following questions to come up with some preliminary if tentative thoughts. Here are these presented with the idea that they might lead to a greater insight into social research ethics and the ultimate concern McIntyre’s article rests upon.
One: "Is it possible for anyone to genuinely consent to being objectified through the research process?" (Davidson).
Two: Do voluntary participation, informed consent, risk of harm, confidentiality, and anonymity (Trochim) pretty much cover the bases for ethical research on human subjects?
Whether quantitative or qualitative research approaches are employed to study human phenomena, the knowledge quest rests on the thing--the object of study. Whether researchers, ethics committees, the public, or others like it or not, human subjects become objects in the service of an other's discovering, confirming, or advancing knowledge.
Objectification comes with all that is the research enterprise. If, however, in a clinical or confidential study, a subject, or we can now say object, is not treated per proper procedure and respect, there may be cause for complaint. Any ethics violation may then have to be determined by those closest to what was actually proposed and done.
Davidson's question seems more philosophical than practical. It may not be nice or politically correct to objectify people in some ideal world or in some contexts, but in the interests of research we do it, just as we do it elsewhere in our lives (e.g., picture the finals in a body building competition).
Voluntary participation, informed consent, risk of harm, confidentiality, and anonymity are not the only matters for care in planning and conducting research involving human subjects. No doubt any ethics committee or listing of standards, rules, or procedures would specify these and others, and in some detail. However, there is at least one additional base to cover regardless of the group to be satisfied or the expectations to be met.
The expectation or standard should be articulated that ethics should be addressed whenever researching human subjects. This may seem self-evident, but if not stated in whatever fashion the governing or advisory body wishes to, not having some self-referential language about the advisability or requirement of the process itself has a possible negative consequence. For example, if there is no process, the possible claim above of violation could not be addressed except out of the good citizenship or manners involving those closest to the action. Another possibility is that if researchers as a group do not "require" the process of reviewing the ethics of what is proposed, a researcher need not review. If review is required, then the substance and process of research, its approval, and--it is hoped--research implementation will help ensure the proper treatment and care of those studied.
By and large, research today is not carried out by independent researchers. It is sanctioned by higher education by having research and publication as a part of the academic’s job description. Grants and contracts routinely require as much quality and transparency as is humanly possible, or affordable. The public can scrutinize pharmaceutical companies and governments when their work involves health and the common good. The researcher or sponsor that does not adhere to ethical precepts risks being ignored by an academy that embraces the almost universal norm of doing so.
There are some research studies that need to be covert, that is the object of study need not or should not be disclosed beforehand. Disclosing might in these cases bias results. This seems to contradict the principle of informed consent, but this depends. An ethnographic study might be an example exception. If a cultural informant knows he or she is being viewed as such, results might be other than what would be without this knowledge. Margaret Mead reportedly got into this difficulty with the subjects of her classic study (2001). Degree of disclosure as an ethical expectation needs to be carefully worked out for each social research study, for the integrity of the study as well as the protection of the subjects.
Now, given all of the above, is it ever possible to know if a researcher has done the right thing? It appears that as much as we prescribe and proscribe trying to ensure that we do right in social research, it appears as if the answer is akin to the imperfection we de facto accept in our lives. However, there is a difference. In social (and other) research, we would try to be extra deliberate and careful about achieving incontrovertible explanations and understandings, reducing the chances of making errors and doing wrong. Otherwise, what are we trying to accomplish?
Works Cited
McIntyre, Lisa J. “Doing the Right Thing: Ethics in Social Research.” The Practical Skeptic. Mcintyre, Lisa (Ed.). Boston: McGraw Hill, 2002.
Mead, Margaret. Coming of Age in Samoa. New York: Perennial Classics, 2001.
Trochim, William M. K. “Ethics in Research.” Research Methods Knowledge Base. 2006 25. Nov. 2008
Beacon for Human Dignity
[An academic exercise and part of a larger project on authenticity in writing, 11/08.]
[THIS PAPER MAY BE USED IN WHOLE OR IN PART FOR ILLUSTRATION OR INSTRUCTIONAL PURPOSES WITH OR WITHOUT PERMISSION.]
Abstract
Aung San Suu Kyi, the 1991 Peace Prize Laureate, remains under house arrest in Myanmar (Burma), her silence and absence from public life calling for moral action and democratic contribution where once only her writing, speeches, and demonstrations did so. Her life and work stem from and illustrate the leadership quality of charisma. She is a transformational leader in word, deed, and silence with human rights and human dignity her campaign..
Beacon for Human Dignity
"The great work we are acknowledging has yet to be concluded. She is still fighting the good fight. Her courage and commitment find her a prisoner of conscience in her own country, Burma" (Sejersted, 1999).
So the Chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee introduced Aung San Suu Kyi, the 1991 Peace Prize Laureate. She remains today under house arrest in Myanmar (Burma), her silence and absence from public life calling for moral action and democratic contribution where once only her writing, speeches, and demonstrations did so.
Today, leaders and others from around the world acknowledge Aung San Suu Kyi as a beacon for human dignity, and they persistently urge the Myanmar military leaders to release her and her country so that both may enjoy the freedom and independence her father, Aung San, died for.
Aung San Suu Kyi was born in Rangoon in 1945, and she received her education in Burma, India, and the U. K., earning her doctorate from the University of London. In 1988, she returned to Burma and helped found the National League for Democracy. She ran for the office of Prime Minister, but the military junta nullified the election she had won. For most of the period 1988 to the present, Aung San Suu Kyi has been under house arrest. Reporters and dignitaries have been barred from visiting her, but the world is conscious of her struggle and keeps vigil.
According to the Nobel Presentation Speech, Aung San Suu Kyi has acknowledged that the major influences in her life were her father and Mahatma Gandhi. Her father was a military general and helped negotiate Burma's independence from Great Britain in 1947. Aung San Suu Kyi embraced Gandhi's philosophy of nonviolence. Her development as a thinker, activist, and leader thus embraced deep respect for people and therefore human rights.
In her "Freedom from Fear" speech, she says, "It is not power that corrupts but fear. Fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it and fear of the scourge of power corrupts those who are subject to it" (San, 1995).
These words echo down the years for Burma and the world, and ensure Aung San Suu Kyi's stature as a leader. Here she asks all of us, including those in power, to act in the interest of human rights and dignity, and she invites contribution through political reform which cherishes and protects people. Fear as felt or fostered by any of us prevents realizing the dignity of each and everyone. Social and political systems can support or suppress fear. Aung San Suu Kyi's claim is that democracy, founded on respect for human rights, is the antidote to fear.
To the cheers of her countrymen and -women and the recognition and acclimation of those around the world, Aung San Suu Kyi continues to be seen as a moral and democratic beacon. She has been honored with more than fifteen awards and distinctions (United States Campaign for Burma).
Charisma is a universally recognized leadership trait. And through Aung San Suu Kyi's words and long suffering, she continues to hold the civilized world accountable for the injustices she and others endure. That charisma stems from enlightened simplicity, as is manifest in the Bhuddist way and nonviolent action. That she stands tall and confronts oppression honors Aung San Suu Kyi's father's fight for independence.
Aung San Suu Kyi may also be described as a transformational leader. According to the leadership behaviors identified by Kuhnert and Lewis (1987), she has articulated goals, built an image, demonstrated confidence, and aroused motivation. And decidedly, she has followers (p. 650).
Call her leadership charismatic or transformational, Aung San Suu Kyi speaks to our sense of right and good. The world acknowledges her and has not forgotten the struggle to realize a better life for each and all. Many have resonated with her call and followed: Though a silent beacon at present, her leadership inspires and moves us.
References
Kuhnert, W., Lewis, P. (1987). “Transactional and Transformational Leadership: A Constructive/Developmental Analysis.” Academy of Management. The Academy of Management Review, 12(4), 648.
San, A., Michael, A., Havel, V., & Tutu, D. (1995). Freedom from Fear. New York: Penguin Books.
Sejersted, F. (1999). “The Nobel Peace Prize 1991: Presentation Speech.” In Abrams, I. (Ed.). Nobel Lectures, Peace 1991-1995. Singapore: World Scientific Publishing. Retrieved on 25 November 2008, from http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1991/presentation-speech.html
United States Campaign for Burma. “Semi-Complete List of Awards Won by Aung San Suu Kyi.” Retrieved on November 25, 2008, from http://uscampaignforburma.org/assk/awards.html
[THIS PAPER MAY BE USED IN WHOLE OR IN PART FOR ILLUSTRATION OR INSTRUCTIONAL PURPOSES WITH OR WITHOUT PERMISSION.]
Abstract
Aung San Suu Kyi, the 1991 Peace Prize Laureate, remains under house arrest in Myanmar (Burma), her silence and absence from public life calling for moral action and democratic contribution where once only her writing, speeches, and demonstrations did so. Her life and work stem from and illustrate the leadership quality of charisma. She is a transformational leader in word, deed, and silence with human rights and human dignity her campaign..
Beacon for Human Dignity
"The great work we are acknowledging has yet to be concluded. She is still fighting the good fight. Her courage and commitment find her a prisoner of conscience in her own country, Burma" (Sejersted, 1999).
So the Chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee introduced Aung San Suu Kyi, the 1991 Peace Prize Laureate. She remains today under house arrest in Myanmar (Burma), her silence and absence from public life calling for moral action and democratic contribution where once only her writing, speeches, and demonstrations did so.
Today, leaders and others from around the world acknowledge Aung San Suu Kyi as a beacon for human dignity, and they persistently urge the Myanmar military leaders to release her and her country so that both may enjoy the freedom and independence her father, Aung San, died for.
Aung San Suu Kyi was born in Rangoon in 1945, and she received her education in Burma, India, and the U. K., earning her doctorate from the University of London. In 1988, she returned to Burma and helped found the National League for Democracy. She ran for the office of Prime Minister, but the military junta nullified the election she had won. For most of the period 1988 to the present, Aung San Suu Kyi has been under house arrest. Reporters and dignitaries have been barred from visiting her, but the world is conscious of her struggle and keeps vigil.
According to the Nobel Presentation Speech, Aung San Suu Kyi has acknowledged that the major influences in her life were her father and Mahatma Gandhi. Her father was a military general and helped negotiate Burma's independence from Great Britain in 1947. Aung San Suu Kyi embraced Gandhi's philosophy of nonviolence. Her development as a thinker, activist, and leader thus embraced deep respect for people and therefore human rights.
In her "Freedom from Fear" speech, she says, "It is not power that corrupts but fear. Fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it and fear of the scourge of power corrupts those who are subject to it" (San, 1995).
These words echo down the years for Burma and the world, and ensure Aung San Suu Kyi's stature as a leader. Here she asks all of us, including those in power, to act in the interest of human rights and dignity, and she invites contribution through political reform which cherishes and protects people. Fear as felt or fostered by any of us prevents realizing the dignity of each and everyone. Social and political systems can support or suppress fear. Aung San Suu Kyi's claim is that democracy, founded on respect for human rights, is the antidote to fear.
To the cheers of her countrymen and -women and the recognition and acclimation of those around the world, Aung San Suu Kyi continues to be seen as a moral and democratic beacon. She has been honored with more than fifteen awards and distinctions (United States Campaign for Burma).
Charisma is a universally recognized leadership trait. And through Aung San Suu Kyi's words and long suffering, she continues to hold the civilized world accountable for the injustices she and others endure. That charisma stems from enlightened simplicity, as is manifest in the Bhuddist way and nonviolent action. That she stands tall and confronts oppression honors Aung San Suu Kyi's father's fight for independence.
Aung San Suu Kyi may also be described as a transformational leader. According to the leadership behaviors identified by Kuhnert and Lewis (1987), she has articulated goals, built an image, demonstrated confidence, and aroused motivation. And decidedly, she has followers (p. 650).
Call her leadership charismatic or transformational, Aung San Suu Kyi speaks to our sense of right and good. The world acknowledges her and has not forgotten the struggle to realize a better life for each and all. Many have resonated with her call and followed: Though a silent beacon at present, her leadership inspires and moves us.
References
Kuhnert, W., Lewis, P. (1987). “Transactional and Transformational Leadership: A Constructive/Developmental Analysis.” Academy of Management. The Academy of Management Review, 12(4), 648.
San, A., Michael, A., Havel, V., & Tutu, D. (1995). Freedom from Fear. New York: Penguin Books.
Sejersted, F. (1999). “The Nobel Peace Prize 1991: Presentation Speech.” In Abrams, I. (Ed.). Nobel Lectures, Peace 1991-1995. Singapore: World Scientific Publishing. Retrieved on 25 November 2008, from http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1991/presentation-speech.html
United States Campaign for Burma. “Semi-Complete List of Awards Won by Aung San Suu Kyi.” Retrieved on November 25, 2008, from http://uscampaignforburma.org/assk/awards.html
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)