CASN Conference 2009Interrelationships between Theory, Research and Practice: A systemic Approach in NursingContesting our taken-for-granted understanding

of student evaluationPaper currently under review

Co-authored by Janet Rankin, Lynn Malinsky, Betty Tate and Linda Elena

Presented by Lynn Malinsky and Diane Jacquest

“Somehow grading and evaluating is distracting from my teaching...I can’t be in the moment, be present with the student while making judgments about her practice at the same time. I don’t always remember to take notes and then at the end of our session I have an overall feeling of ‘things will be ok’ or ‘I hope things will be ok’ or ‘this could be trouble’ but can’t always retrieve specific examples. I can’t think about teaching at the same time as I am gathering evidence. It’s frustrating...”

Four Areas for Discussion

Institutional Ethnography: A Method of Inquiry

The Research Team Work

Our Preliminary Findings

Rethinking our work with students

Institutional Ethnography: A Method of Inquiry

Social organization of knowledge

The social world is constituted in the activities of people

IE takes the stance of those who are experiencing the trouble to learn how it is being organized

“To explore how knowing relates to power, institutional ethnographers study how one’s knowing is organized—by whom and by what.” (Campbell & Gregor, 2002, p. 15)

Institutional Ethnography: A Method of Inquiry

IE pays attention to texts that when activated in people’s work organize things to happen in certain ways

When we investigate how texts operate to socially organize us we begin to discover how they rule our work

To accomplish the explication of people’s lives, IE research relies on the formulation of a problematic to guide and ground the research

The guiding questions are : how does this happen as it does? How are these relations organized?

The Research Question

“How does it happen that within a curriculum that is designed to be emancipatory, transformative and embedded within caring relationships, teachers describe serious tensions and contradictions arising in their evaluation experiences?”

Research Team Work

gathered detailed descriptive data about day-to-day activities that teachers engage in with students, professional colleagues and administrators

took field notes, conducted interviews, wrote personal reflections

collected forms and documents (texts) identified from the field notes, interviews and reflections

worked systematically through each piece of data in person, by teleconference and WebX

Research Team Work

Used Maxqda to organize data segments into clusters of similar work activities

used data and our knowledge to show the connections between everyday experience and organizational processes (hallmark of IE)–analytic process shows how practice is ideologically organized (around particular ideas and knowledge)

purpose is to see how practice is invisibly and anonymously coordinated with other work

The Regulation of our Work

created pictorial representations of the context that is shaping our everyday practice

identified institutional and regulatory groups and processes that had some connection to our routine evaluative practice

produced schematics of two regulatory regimes intersecting our work with students :

1. Regulatory Nursing Regime

2. Regulatory Education Regime

Regulatory Nursing Regime

Regulatory Education Regime

Ontological Shift

The ontological shift happened when we unravelled our ordinary everyday activities to see how they are linked into institutional practices.

We began to understand on the surface, the regulatory regimes (ruling relations) within our institutions that were shaping our work.

At the same time, we had the “insider” knowledge of nurse educators committed to a relational pedagogy that builds supportive relationships and facilitates student learning.

Ontological Shift

The social organization of our evaluation work places us on a line-of-fault between the regulatory demands of the institutions and our teaching intentions.

...to illustrate we use a data excerpt that brings to our attention the due process of student evaluation

Data

Practice teacher: The student was not prepared. . . I don’t want it to be about me working harder than student.

Teaching colleague: Could she tell you verbally what should be in the care plan?

Practice teacher: No.

Teaching colleague: Is she overwhelmed?

Data

Teaching Colleague: In the care plan, what are her foci statements?

Teaching Colleague: Do you need another set of eyes to see what is passed (met the requirements)?

Teaching Colleague: We have this bar and we don’t let them in [to practice] until they make the bar.

Practice Teacher: How can we maximize the student’s potential?

The data excerpt reflects the teachers’ intentions, but our analysis reveals the infiltration of regulatory requirements.

THERE IS A DUEL WORK PROCESS HAPPENING HERE

Teachers are committed to supporting student success, AND when the data is scrutinized to explicate the taken-for-granted enactment of competent teaching, the disjuncture emerges.

We identified a point of contention in

teachers’ work when guiding a student’s learning is overtaken by activities directed towards gathering evidence to fail.

We uncovered the built-in contradiction that is supported by the nurse educator’s comments in the introductory comment:

“Somehow grading and evaluating is distracting from my teaching...I can’t be in the moment, be present with the student while making judgments about her practice at the same time…. I can’t think about teaching at the same time as I am gathering evidence. It’s frustrating...”

Formulating the Research Problematic

We formulated a research problematic at the juncture

The problematic provided the focus for our second stage interviews

Rethinking our work with students

We have come to realize that we are involved in a consciousness-raising project that requires us to rethink our work with students.

Rethinking our work with students

How does due process work in student evaluation?

Is it actually a fair and transparent set of activities that are organized in the interests of students?

Or is it a relation of ruling that protects universities and colleges?

What do you think?

AcknowledgementsResearch Partners: Marilyn Chapman, Vancouver Island University Laurie Crawford, Aurora CollegeRuth Dubois, Selkirk College Diane Jacquest, North Island College Mary Lougheed, University of Victoria Lynn Malinsky, UBC Okanagan Donna Malyon-Ginther, Kwantlen Polytechnical University Mary Anne Moloney, Vancouver Island University Janet Rankin, University of Calgary Linda Shorting, University of Calgary Betty Tate, North Island College Coby Tschanz, University of Victoria Funders: 2006 Malaspina University College Research Award2007 WRCASN Research Award2007 North Island College Common Professional Development Fund2008 UBCO Department of Health and Social Development Internal Grant