What Underachieving Middle School Students Believe Motivates them to Learn

Chapter 1: The Challenge to Educate Everyone Chapter 2: A Review of Literature Chapter 3: Methods      Overview      Participant Selection      Data Collection        Student Interviews        Observations        Teacher Interviews        Maine Aspirations      Data Analysis  Chapter 4: The Results Chapter 5: Discussion References Appendixes Biography

Data Collection This study is a "theory building" study designed to explore what students think. Erikson (1986) noted that interpretive designs are used when research takes place in natural settings and researchers want to know more about meaning-making and the points of view of particular people in particular settings. Therefore, it makes sense to work from the perspective of grounded theory and other inductive approaches (Spradley, 1980). [Grounded theory is] inductively derived from the study of the phenomenon it represents.... [I]t is discovered, developed, and provisionally verified through systematic data collection and analysis... Therefore, data collection, analysis, and theory stand in reciprocal relationship with each other. One does not begin with a theory, then prove it. Rather, one begins with an area of study and what is relevant to that study is allowed to emerge. (Strauss and Corbin, 1990, p. 23) This kind of research, specifically grounded theory (Glaser & Strauss, 1967; Strauss & Corbin, 1990), requires qualitative methods of data gathering and analysis. The core data for this study comes from student interviews. Confidence in that data comes from careful attention to the accuracy of the data collected and from triangulating data to other methods, sources, and investigators (Stake, 1994; Janesick, 1994; Lincoln & Guba, 1986; Glesne & Peshkin, 1992; and Bogdan & Biklen, 1998). "Without subjects’ quotes to enrich and confirm researchers’ analyses, or interobserver cross-checking to lend greater credence to their representations, some observers have had difficulty legitimating their work to a scholarly audience" (Adler & Adler, 1994, p. 381). The credibility of the participants’ expressed views will be validated by triangulating interview data with classroom observations, teacher interviews, and quantitative data from the Maine Aspirations Benchmarking Initiative.

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Mike Muir Assistant Professor of Education University of Maine at Farmington 104 Main Street Farmington, ME 04938 207.778.7179 wilder@somtel.com http://violet.umf.maine.edu/~mmuir