Philosophical Worldviews

“Multicultural Harmony” by Sara, 10; Zehra, 12; and Ayla, 11 – Funkor Child Art Center, Islamabad, Pakistan

In preparing for my final project, which is a research proposal, I really wanted to ascertain my philosophical worldview, according to Creswell’s text.  Additionally, Joanne suggested a discussion of our philosophical worldviews as a topic for our blog [“Creswell (2009) describes 4 philosophical worldviews that shape many researchers’ perspectives.  Read (or re-read) this section of the text (pp 6-11) and try to position yourself in one of these four worldviews.  Explain your choice.”].  So, even though this is from the very beginning of the Creswell book, I had a difficult time reading and understanding this section back at the beginning of the semester.  I wrote about it before, and I re-read it back when it was assigned, and now, I have read it yet again.  The current reading was much different than before because I know more about research, have more of a context in which to put Creswell’s four worldviews, and am able to identify the one that best fits with my personal belief system as well as my goals for my final project.  This time, the reading made sense and, in some ways, is a great way to frame my research proposal, as I embark on the journey of writing it.

So as I read through the four philosophical worldviews: postpositivist; social constructivist; advocacy and participatory; and pragmatic, I was able to mostly dismiss the postpositivist worldview.  This worldview is appropriate for quantitative, scientific research, and discussions of cultural competence and diversity awareness do not easily lend themselves to only quantitative research.  These are nuances topics with many levels of potential understanding.  I read the worldviews in the order Creswell presented them, which is the order I have listed them above, and when I got to the second one, social constructivist, there were elements that rang true, for example, addressing “the process of interaction among individuals,” (p. 8) and acknowledging that we all make sense of the world based on our “historical and social perspectives,” (p. 9).  So, I can take some from the social constructivists.  But, when I got to the advocacy and participatory worldview, I knew I had found THE ONE!  Here’s the description from Creswell:

An advocacy/participatory worldview holds that research inquiry needs to be intertwined with politics and a political agenda.  Thus, the research contains an action agenda for reform that may changes the lives of the participants, the institutions in which individuals work or live, and the researcher’s life.  Moreover, specific issues need to be addressed that speak to important social issues of the day, issues such as empowerment, inequality, oppression, domination, suppression, and alienation. (p. 9)

My goal with this research project, even though I am not certain exactly how it is going to play out, is to ultimately improve library services to all children, including those for whom the library may not be a culturally sensitive and comfortable place.  I want libraries to be welcoming spaces with culturally competent staff members serving the needs of all the members of our diverse communities.  One avenue toward achieving this goal is to look at what future children’s librarians are being taught in LIS programs and determine what is lacking and what should be added to ensure that all librarians leave library school prepared to serve all patrons with cultural competence and sensitivity.  I have other ideas about how libraries can become culturally competent places: staff cultural competency training, collection development, library policies, and more, but right now I am looking at LIS programs, as I see these as a great way to deal with this issue right up front in librarians’ training.

Moving on to the pragmatic worldview, I certainly see where pragmatism and, in particular, a mixed methods research approach is useful, and I do not see the pragmatic worldview as antithetical to the advocacy/participatory, but the worldview that resonated with me way above the others was the advocacy/participatory.  And I think that is significant for me to acknowledge and understand as I move forward on my research proposal.

Final Project Brainstorm

Brainstorming ideas for final project:

Review accreditation documentation from all accredited LIS programs to analyze their curricula for coverage of diversity awareness and cultural competency.

Would this be useful information?  Is it accessible?

Collect all syllabi from every accredited program for one calendar year to analyze what elements in the curriculum promote an increase in diversity awareness and cultural competency (HUGE undertaking)

OR collect all syllabi from a sample of programs

OR collect syllabi from all LIS programs (or a selected sample of programs) only for required classes to see what information students will for sure leave the program with

OR collect syllabi from children’s librarian “track” in all programs to see what knowledge children’s librarians will gain regarding diversity awareness and cultural competency.  This could include the required classes and then the recommended classes for the program.

OR do a broader version of previous study (citation?) that looked at curricula as well as how well prepared librarians feel to address these issues.

Analysis to include what exactly is on the syllabus – how is the information framed?

For example, is serving diverse communities lumped in with serving “special populations?” And, is that problematic? Or not?

Or, is there one day to cover “these issues?”

Or, is there a way in which diversity and cultural competence awareness can be integrated throughout courses on a variety of topics?  If so, which courses, and how?

One goal: come up with a handbook of best practices and concrete examples, so find the similarities in syllabi between programs and create a sample syllabus with some of the basics and then show how those items can be enhanced to include diversity awareness and cultural competency information.  Also, provide suggestions for personalizing to the student body, for example at a school in Alaska, emphasis for certain courses could be on the Native American population and in Texas on Mexican immigrants and Mexican Americans.  OR, how can an online school serve its diverse population with information that is relevant to each person?

Final Project Thoughts

From John W. Creswell’s Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed Methods Approaches

CATE Outcome Based Planning and Evaluation Model, from Dynamic Youth Services through Outcome-Based Planning and Evaluation by Eliza Dresang, Melissa Gross, and Leslie Edmonds Holt

Now that the program observation is complete, I’m thinking about the final project.  In considering the two choices for projects, I’m a little torn.  They both sound interesting and slightly daunting as well.  I like the idea of creating a programming plan using the CATE OBPE model, but I don’t have a library with which I am familiar enough to actually create a program for it.  Also, I’m not sure that I have a high enough level of understanding of the model to actually put it into use, but it sounds like a good challenge, maybe for my library job of the future.  I also like the idea of designing a research plan, though I find this intimidating.  There are so many possibilities for angles to research and investigate.  Next I’m going to brainstorm my final project research ideas.  I think my view of myself as a researcher has matured a bit. Before this class I did not feel like I could do anything but secondary research or very un-academic research, but if I can put together a real research proposal – which I’m hoping I can – then I will at least be partway to being able to do what feels to me like “real” primary research.  Pretty neat!

Week 13 – More on the observation assignment

Check out this historic image of the Mission Branch library, a Carnegie library, opened in December 1915.

I am quite comfortable and content to work in my office, doing extensive research using the amazing resources available to me via the King Library, and, to a lesser extent, the internet itself.  I can, and do, spend hours reading and searching and collecting documents and taking notes, all on my computer.

When I have to actually leave the house for an assignment a little part of me gets nervous.  I have a lot of confidence with my computer skills, but I always feel a little lost outside of that realm.  Additionally, I had a bit of a hard time planning for my observation because I was not sure exactly what my research question was.  It did help that the assignment description outlined some questions to ask and instructions about doing the observation and then Creswell also included information about being an observer, but I just felt a little unclear about what was going to happen, or even if I could take notes fast enough (I’m a faster typist than hand writer).  Once I had planned which story time I was going to visit and why I wanted that particular one, I felt a little more steady as I walked in and sat myself down at a table in the children’s room about 15 minutes before the story time was scheduled to begin.

I love kids – this is one of the reasons I want to be a children’s librarian – so it was just plan enjoyable to watch the kids and their loving caregivers gathering in preparation for the story time.  They were quite adorable, and I’m pretty sure I smiled the whole time I was there.  I was happy to have the opportunity to learn from a professional, as I present a weekly story time at a CDC and can always use new ideas.

I was sitting at a table, with some books to look at, my cover ;-), and my notebook open and ready.  And then, the story time started, and I started taking notes, and when there was an activity going on that I had already logged, I used that extra time to count children or adults or carefully observe how the children were responding to the story time.  And, before I knew it, I had filled a few pages with notes and the story time was over.  As usual, the thought of doing the observation was intimidating, but the actual doing of it, was not only no big deal, but also, fun!  And the librarians I spoke with were super friendly and encouraging, so all-in-all, a great experience.  And an inspiration, the kids at my story time join in and are engaged, but not to the level of the kids at this story time, so I have a new level of excitement to try to achieve.

Oh, and the kids and adults clapped at the end of each book – it was so cute!

Thanks, Mission Branch Library!

Pigs and Legos and Pizza, Oh My!

I just had to report the conversation I had with my kids today on the way to school.  This gives a glimpse into what they think about my coursework.

Elijah (11 years): Mama, what do you do all day?

(You see, I work from home and go to school from home, and he knows that, but I think he has some sense that sitting at the computer all day is fun, so he wonders when I actually work…)

Me: Well, I do homework and work work and stuff around the house.  Like today I’m going to finish a paper I have due tomorrow.

Ari (6 years): What is your paper about?

Me: Well, you know how there are all different kinds of people?  Some people are black, some people are white, some people are Mexican, people speak different languages, people are all different, and my paper is about how libraries can make sure to serve all the people who come to them.

(I was all proud of myself for summing up cultural competency in libraries so a 6 year old could understand, until…)

Ari: That’s boring.

Me: What would be interesting?

Ari: How do pigs snort?

Me: What other things would you like to learn about?

Ari: Write about Legos.

Me: Well it has to be a question or something to write about, like what should we write about Legos?

Ari: Why Legos are so awesome!

Me: What else?

Ari: Why pizza is so awesome!

Me: Well, it has to be about libraries.

Elijah: Write about why libraries should have Lego books in them.

(Elijah’s class has been writing “persuasive” writing assignments)

Elijah: Is this like a persuasive writing assignment?

(we’re just pulling up to school)

Me: No, it’s something different, I’ll explain it to you…

(As he steps out of the car and closes the door)

Elijah: Please don’t.

(I laughed all the way home!)

Week 11.5 – Google Scholar really helps

So, I already wrote about watching the King Library tutorials, but now I want to report on one of the things that was the most helpful from those tutorials that is having a direct impact on my literature review assignment: Google Scholar.  I had several articles from my abstract assignment to sort through to find the 15 (or more) articles for my lit review.  I had the 5 articles I abstracted, and I needed, at least, 10 more.  Since I had several articles already, I started with those, but I realized eventually that since I had narrowed my topic to cultural competence and diversity education in LIS programs some of the many articles weren’t on point.  No problem, a few were, so I started with those.  I was really trying to keep things current, because these issues have been changing so much over the past several years, so that was one thing I was specfically looking for in my search.  So, I looked at the citations of the most relevant articles and then, I used Google scholar, as recommended on one of the tutorials.  I cut and pasted in the name of an article that was on point and Google Scholar found not only related articles, which was extremely helpful, but also places where the article I had was cited.  So great!  So, I was basically able to go backwards and forwards through articles that were on my topic.  Google Scholar (GS) made it so easy.  And, since I connected GS the the King Library (as recommended and demonstrated in the tutorial) I could actually access some of the articles directly from GS.  For some reason, for some of the articles I had to go back to the library database, but when you know a citation it is quite easy to find an article, so that was no problem.  I did encounter many articles that weren’t as current as I wanted, and I am using a couple for my lit review, because their lack of currency does not take away from the information they present, but I did find the richest and more enlightening articles came mostly from the last 5 years and at the most the last 10 years.  I’m glad that there is a lot of movement in this area.  If I wanted to be an academic, instead of work in a library, I would be excited to join the learning community and contribute to the great work that is being done.  Well, at least I’ll get to design a dream study for this class…

Week 11 – I *HEART* Mind Maps!

So, after viewing all of the supporting materials, lectures, etc. for writing the literature review (thank you, Joanne!), I decided to try mind mapping.  I am a very visual person and I love the idea of getting everything in one place, so I can look at it.  And, because it is digital, it is infinitely changeable and flexible.  Yay!  And, when you highlight a word, its border is a nice, bright orange — my favorite color.  So, I used mindmeister.com, and found it fairly intuitive and user-friendly, so I was off and running.  Here’s a screen shot of my mind map, as it stands now – remember it’s easy to change AND, a really cool part, you can go back in time and look at the history, so if you change something and want to remember what you did before, or just want to see a progression of your thoughts and ideas, you can use the history view – so cool!

If you click on the mind map image, it will open larger, if you want to read any details. I want to make a mind map to organize other ideas too…

Week 10.5 – Literature Review

So, that thing that I’ve been talking about over and over (at least, it seems to me), about being interested in my topic.  Well, that’s one really cool thing about this research class.  To some extent, the sky’s the limit.  And, I am always looking for new angles on cultural competence in LIS.  So…since I had to write abstracts of 5 research articles, articles specifically written by researchers about their research, I just sort of came upon — via the articles I found — the topic of cultural competence and diversity awareness education in LIS programs.  I have explored several angles on this topic with regard to library service, but I have not, until now, gone to the source, the training fields of future librarians.  I think this is both an interesting and important topic, so I am reading the articles (I need a minimum of 15, most of which I already have), without falling asleep – yay!

Here is my start of an outline for my lit review, we’ll see what it actually turns into when I finish it:

What is happening now in terms of diversity in LIS education and how can LIS education be changed to ultimately increase cultural competence in the library field?

Curriculum

Right now, not a lot of programs do much (evidence)

Create courses about diversity, serving diverse populations

Also, importantly, integrate diversity and cultural competence education throughout the curriculum

Curricular coverage of diversity issues must include students’ self reflection (white privilege for white students)

Recruitment

Diversity in faculty will encourage and support diverse students, thus field becomes more diverse AND all students benefit from faculty with a variety of perspectives and experiences.

Over arching themes:

• Diversity Education in LIS programs
• What professors think about teaching diversity
• What professors DO or don’t do to teach LIS students about diversity
• Service learning (Overall)
• Integrating diversity issues into the whole curriculum
• What students learn about diversity
• What students need to learn about diversity in order to serve a diversity of patrons – are they getting what they need or not?  What do they need in order to become culturally competent librarians?
• What is diversity?  Multiculturalism?  Cultural Competence?
• Lifelong process of learning, refining, relearning, growing evolving

Diversity of students in LIS programs

• Contributes to overall increased diversity in the field
• Likely better serves diverse populations
• Ultimately makes libraries more multicultural places
• What support do these students need?  Is is different than what support all students need – look at case study, Latino and Native American student received support that they got through this program.
  • Cohorts
  • Work experience
  • mentoring

Diversity of faculty in LIS programs

Week 10 – Thank you King Library

I must admit that, while I have viewed some, I had always meant to look at more of the tutorials from the King Library.  Well, this week, I looked a bunch of them and found them very useful.  I have mentioned several times that I am a very visual person, so having something to look at and listen to was a great way to learn and a nice break from the monotony of reading mostly from my computer screen and some from books.  These are the tutorials I viewed in the order I viewed them:

• The Art of Topic Development
• Writing a Literature Review Paper
• Finding Scholarly, Peer-Reviewed Articles
• Finding Articles in Academic Search Premier

I highly recommend these tutorials.  I especially liked the first two for help on the upcoming literature review assignment.  Those tutorials just helped me solidify the concept of a lit review and what I need to do to pull it together.  I get overwhelmed easily and bogged down in the details sometimes, so these helped me get a fresh perspective.  I have also read all the information provided by Joanne, including her sample and the assignment description, so I am slowing working on this paper and I hope to make a bunch of progress this week.  We’ll see…

Week 9 – Statistics – oy!

So this week was a lot of statistics and data analysis information.  I remember in college being proud of myself for graduating with a double major and avoiding taking statistics.  It had a reputation of being very difficult.  And, for me, I get why.  Now, I like numbers, and I can appreciate study results that include percentages or even ratios, but only to a certain point.  If the numbers go on and on, they start to lose their meaning and my eyes start to glaze over.  So, our lecture this week was just enough information, written in a format that worked for me to understand.  I’m going to share some of the new or newly understood terms that I have learned this week from the lecture and other materials from our week 9 readings/viewings.

From the lecture and Creswell, what we do to analyze quantitative data:

• Scoring the data – assigning it a value
• Creating a Codebook – indicating how values will be assigned
• Determine the Types of Scores to Analyze – there are different ways to score data, so you have to pick which one is going to work best for your study
• Select a Statistical Program – there are lots of varied and helpful computer program options out there
• Input Data
• Clean and Account for Missing Data – look at anomalies and missing data and fix or fill in if needed

For qualitative data, first you have to organize it and then try to make sense of it and gain insight from it.  Part of organizing is transcribing.  As I mentioned, I have some experience with this, and, as painful, and time-consuming as it is, particularly for me – a terrible typist, it is so useful as a way to start the analyzing process.  I remember the article we read about the woman who did research with little kids in the library where they wore the special sweaters with the microphone and recorder on them said that she did her own transcribing and it really helped with her analysis process.  OK, so to analyze qualitative data, after it is all nice and organized:

• Explore the general sense of the data – taking an overview of what you have, what else you might need, what the data is saying
• Code the data – getting the data into comparable, thematic format
• Describing and developing themes from the data – here you answer the central research questions and look deeply into the data for what it can teach you

Other data analysis concepts:

• Data reduction – distilling data to its most important and significant points
• Data display – a visual representation of what the data is showing you – I believe this would be a particularly useful exercise for me, since I am such a visual person
• Conclusion drawing
• Verification

We also had a statistics slide show by Dr. Kevin Morrell, which had a number of new terms for me: Ratio, Interval, Ordinal, Nominal Scales.  Ratio and Interval are Metric.  Ordinal and Nominal are Non-Metric.  Here’s a good word: Dichotomous scale – meaning a yes/no answer.

Types of random sampling: simple random, stratified random, cluster, multistage

Types of non-random sampling: purposive, quota, snowball, convenience

All of the above I understand, some items more than others, but below I’m going to share the new statistics terms I learned from the slide show and much of this I can’t quite wrap my head around, though I’m reading it now for the second time.

• Chi-Square Test
• Bivariate Correlation
• Discriminant Analysis
• Linear Regression
• Logistic Regression
• Cluster Analysis

I understood some of this as I read it on the slide, but can’t really explain it yet, but the terms are fun, they sound sort-of made up to me, like if someone were trying to sound very intellectual they might rattle off some of these words.  Anyway, now I have been introduced to statistics, and it didn’t kill me 🙂 !