While I think a survey might be something that I would be more comfortable with, I don’t know how useful it would be. It would tell me in general how primary sources are used but it wouldn’t tell me much about how effective those various ways of using them are and how students respond. I think the best way to do a project, assuming the time frame allows and I will talk to Dr. Friedman about that, would be to combine both types of research. The reason for this is that I think the survey component of the project would do a good job of telling me what methods teachers choose to use and the interview/observation component of the project would be useful in determining how students respond to various methods.
That last part might be tough to do though in a limited number of interviews. How students respond isn’t solely controlled by what types of sources are used and what the basic strategy behind the lesson is. I don’t think the interview method would control well for the quality of teachers for instance. A better teacher might have more success with a less effective method than a poorer teacher would with a better method. For that reason i’m not sure if i’d be able to offer a very prescriptive and conclusive answer as to what approaches might be the most effective. I think though that observing the strategies of various teachers when it comes to using primary sources could prove very useful for my own teaching. It will have a lot of bearing because I plan on using primary documents extensively because I think it is important for students to learn not only from textbooks but from the actual words of those they study. Given how easy it is to get access to documents with today’s technology I think it a vital teaching tool and want to incorporate it in my classes.
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Alex, it is clear that you have been thinking about this. Good! What you will need to do is to focus your research question and then decide which data would best answer that question. You may decide to focus on teacher perceptions or on student perceptions. Narrowing it down to a manageable size is the key.
Alex...Great topic/focus. I think that there is a lot of value in the primary source method as well. i wonder if given the constraints of time and access you might find value in in depth interviews of teachers. it certainly would make the research more qualitative but might help you down the road to develop curriculum/approaches that will be effective in your classroom. You might be able to support some of those more qualitative measures with surveys formated like a Lykert (Agree/Disagree/neutral) to reflect students attitudes towards texts. Maybe even give them a sample to compare to the text book reading they do as a part of their "traditionally assigned" work.
Alex,
I totally agree with you on the idea of using both a survey and interview/observation. A survey would efficiently allow you to collect the method information without having to speak to each teacher individually about the topic. A time saver for sure. Further, some data is hard to quantify and interviewing students would allow you to gain good insight into a more open-ended question.
Primary sources are great. One thing that you might consider in yoru study is how textbooks address primary sources. Most textbooks (and NC just readopted texts for social studies) address primary sources—which means students should have access to them. How they are used will of course vary. Teacher goals will determine a lot of this. In terms of US History, students need to understand how to understand political cartoons, graphs, quotes, etc. for certain questions on the EOC. However if you survey an AP class, understanding primary sources is key to writing the all important document based question. So make sure that your sample data would reflect your research question. Unfortunately, I would have to say that primary sources are not utilized in most classrooms...
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