written by Cody Sandifer and Andy Johnson

This session was designed to stimulate conversations about the use of qualitative methods in physics education research.  To start the session, we presented a general overview of qualitative research.  Then, to provide a context for discussion, we conducted a mini research activity; in this activity, we introduced data (interview, video transcripts, and student work) from a university physics course for preservice teachers.  Participants were given the task of examining the data and deciding whether a particular claim was sufficiently supported by the data.  A rich discussion ensued, in which many research-related issues were raised.  These issues, which we suggest might serve as topics of discussion for future sessions, are listed and briefly editorialized at the end of this paper.

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Published August 7, 2002
Last Modified April 11, 2009

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