#8: Tuck

 What does this TUCK article raise for you? How does it help you think about yourself and others?

Tuck's letter was powerful and opened my eyes to a lot. It made me think of a city like Providence, RI and the research and "facts" we have may have been acquired in ways which are more damaging rather than helpful. Tuck states that cities like this are already under a microscope with the presence of law enforcement, cameras within their neighborhoods. Damage-centered research is a way to continue to bring oppression into an already oppressed community. Approaching research in a strengths based way instead of deficit based could better our communities and dismantle labels that have historically been placed upon them. This article put in to perspective of how I see some of the students I work with. They already have labels placed upon them while entering college. For example, if I have a student coming from a "high crime community" they may have a label of "a troubled kid". That is not ok! There needs to be a shift in damage centered research.

#6: Qualitative Study

 Qualitative and Quantitative always confuse me so I pulled definitions as a reminder and a guide. 

Qualitative research involves collecting and analyzing non-numerical data (e.g., text, video, or audio) to understand concepts, opinions, or experiences. It can be used to gather in-depth insights into a problem or generate new ideas for research.

Quantitative research is the process of collecting and analyzing numerical data. It can be used to find patterns and averages, make predictions, test causal relationships, and generalize results to wider populations.

The first quote that stuck out to me is this one "Grady and Wallston (1988) argue that applied research in general requires a flexible, nonsequential approach and “an entirely different model of the research process than the traditional one offered in most text-books” (p. 10)." Up until taking this class I had always thought of research to be linear thing. You read through pages and pages of text and write a paper, that is what what idea of research was. I was so anxious to take this class and even participate in a masters program because I knew it relied heavily on research. I feel that research should be flexible like the quote said. It allows for growth and new opportunities. 

#5

Maxwell Reading:

• There are 5 components to this models research design
• Goals
• Conceptual Framework
• Research Questions
• Methods 
• Validity 
• In figure 7.1 the visual is very helpful wen thinking about the components of this research method. It helps to show the relationships and connections between all the components of qualitative research. 
• With figure 7.2 you can see another layer come to the surface as you dive deeper into your research. There are many more things to consider. 
• The rest of the reading further explains and goes into more detail about each of the 5 components. The component that I enjoyed reading most about was methods. There are some many ways in which you can collect data in qualitative research. There is no cookie cutter way and that is something the excites me. I do think the tricky thing for me is narrowing down the who, what, where and when to collect data. I have doubts in my head of whether or not i chose the right students to interview or whether or not i am truly capturing the entire student voice of RIC with only a handful of students.