Qualitative methods
Qualitative methods are used in educational studies whose purpose is to describe events, processes and situations of theoretical significance. The qualitative methods used in educational psychology often derive from anthropology, sociology or sociolinguistics. For example, the anthropological method of ethnography has been used to describe teaching and learning in classrooms. In studies of this type, the researcher may gather detailed field notes as a participant observer or passive observer. Later, the notes and other data may be categorized and interpreted by methods such as grounded theory. Triangulation, the practice of cross-checking findings with multiple data sources, is highly valued in qualitative research. Case studies are forms of qualitative research focusing on a single person, organization, event, or other entity. In one case study, researchers conducted a 150-minute, semi-structured interview with a 20-year old woman who had a history of suicidal thinking between the ages of 14 to 18. They analyzed an audio-recording of the interview to understand the roles of cognitive development, identity formation and social attachment in ending her suicidal thinking. Qualitative analysis is most often applied to verbal data from sources such as conversations, interviews, focus groups, and personal journals. Qualitative methods are thus, typically, approaches to gathering, processing and reporting verbal data. One of the most commonly used methods for qualitative research in educational psychology is protocol analysis.[45] In this method the research participant is asked to think aloud while performing a task, such as solving a math problem. In protocol analysis the verbal data is thought to indicate which information the subject is attending to, but is explicitly not interpreted as an explanation or justification for behavior. In contrast, the method of verbal analysis does admit learners' explanations as a way to reveal their mental model or misconceptions (e.g., of the laws of motion). The most fundamental operations in both protocol and verbal analysis are segmenting (isolating) and categorizing sections of verbal data. Conversation analysis and discourse analysis, sociolinguistic methods that focus more specifically on the structure of conversational interchange (e.g., between a teacher and student), have been used to assess the process of conceptual change in science learning. Qualitative methods are also used to analyse information in a variety of media, such as students' drawings and concept maps, video-recorded interactions, and computer log records. The analysis of possibility of reaching the first educational aim – all-around development of child’s personality expects consideration of one of the main conceptions of pedagogical psychology. According to this conception education is considered not only as condition, but also as base, facility of child’s psychological and personal development. This concept was accepted not only by Soviet scientists but also by cognitive psychologist J. Bruner. L.S. Vygotsky wrote “.. education and development are always in close relationship. Herewith education overtakes development, stimulates it and at the same time leans on actual development. Consequently education must be oriented not for past, but for future child’s development.’ L.S. Vygotsky basing on the close relationship between education and development and formulated important for pedagogy and psychology concept about two levels of child’s mental development: level of actual development and level (zone) of nearest development. According to L.S. Vigotskij, child reaches this level of psychological development in cooperation with adults not only by direct imitation his activities, but also by solving problems which are in child’s zone of intellectual possibilities. On this basis in pedagogical psychology the principle of ‘overtaking education’ was formulated. This principle defines effective organization of education which is aimed at strengthening, developing intellectual activities of children, formation their abilities in self-development and abilities independently to produce knowledge in collaboration with other children. Characteristics of child’s mental development necessarily includes an analysis of the driving forces of this process. These are all sorts of contradictions: - between child’s need’s and circumstances; - between increasing opportunities and old forms of activities; - between requirements generated by the new activity and opportunities of their satisfaction; -between new performance requirements and unformed skills. In other words, driving forces of child’s mental development are contradictions between achieved level of knowledge, skills and abilities development and types of person’s relationships with environment. According to L.S. Vygotsky mental development – is a quality of personality changes during which in different dynamics age new entities (новообразования) are formed. Development can proceed slowly and gradually or violently and rapidly. L.S. Vygotsky also introduced the concept ‘social situation of development’, which defines content, direction of this process and formation of the central line of development associated with new entities. ‘Social situation of development’ – is a system of relationship between child and environment. Changes in the following system are defined by main law of age dynamics. According to this law ‘force which move child’s development at the defined age leads to the denial and destruction of age’s developmental basis….’ L.S. Vygotsky always noted that mental development is a holistic personal development. But in our analysis we will proceed from the understanding that development may be considered as structural notion. So in personal development we can point out following lines of development: - cognitive sphere (mental development, development of consciousness mechanisms); - psychological activity structure(formation of goals and motives and development of their relationships); - personality (directivity of value orientations, self-consciousness, self-appraisal). L.I. Aidarova classes with following lines of personal development such lines as mental, personal and, what is really important for us, linguistic development. Next we are going to consider in detail mentioned lines of child’s personal development (mental, activity, personality). Development of child’s mentality, cognitive sphere and consciousness may be treated in the context of L.S. Vygotsky’s developmental theory of higher mental functions. In this theory personality’s social essence and mediated character of his activity are noted. Mental development is carried out on three planes: - from direct to mediated; - from concrete, unit to a whole; - from involuntary to an arbitrary. In the process of child’s mental development qualitative changes in mental cognitive process occur. They change in quantity, e.g. from involuntary memorization to an arbitrary memorization, from visual-active form of thinking to abstract-logical form of thinking. Development of child’s according to his formation as personality, first of all, relates with origin, emergency and complexity of child’s motivational sphere and formation of “I” – image. This development side is characterized as contradictory and heterogeneous. In child’s personality development as well as in mental development the process is carried out from involuntary, impulsivity of behavioral reactions and behavior to its arbitrariness and adjustability. This tendency is shown in child’s ability to manage his behavior, to consciously set goals, to overcome difficulties and obstacles. In research works of L.S. Vygotsky, A.N. Leontiev, D.B. Elkonin, L.I. Bojovich child’s personality development is defined by consistent formation of personal entities. L.I. Bojovich analysis mentioned entities through five periods of child’s personality development.(Illustration – 1.1)
Illustration 1.1 - Child’s personality development by L.I. Bojovich
The age periods considered by L.I. Bojovich match personal life crisis of 1st, 3rd and 7th year and two phases of teenage. General and the most important for pedagogical psychology deduction is that during educational process teacher must take into consideration particularities of personal development. It will help to overcome age crisis of pupil and prevent frustration and nervous breakdowns. For better understanding of child’s personal development in special interest are the early periods under 7 years. It is called personal genesis, i.e. formation and development of personality. One of the leading researchers of this matter V.S. Muhina considers this process as consistent, level, step-by-step formation of child’s consciousness’ structure. Evolving as a person child forms as a subject of activity process. It is the 3rd line of child’s mental development. During activity development, first of all, child learns how to arbitrarily set the link between motive and purpose, aim. Child learns to plan, organize his activity. On the basis of reflection self-verification and self-regulation skills are worked out. The analysis of child’s mental development shows that all tree mentioned lines are closely interconnected. Only in their correlated realization such complicated progressive process called personal, mental development is possible. At the same time all pointed concepts of pedagogical psychology pays attention on such important thing as developing education with the help of all teaching subjects and also of foreign language. All of the above shows that PTFL as the branch of pedagogical psychology has its own research subject which bases on common to all pedagogical psychology’s methodological and theoretical principles. At the same time, specifics of the foreign language as an educational discipline assumes determination of psychological principles, such as: - communicability of education, i.e. inclusion communication as a form of relationship in educational process; - personal significance of communicational subject, i.e. significance of communicational problem and subject for the student; - satisfaction of a student with communicational situation; - student’s reflexivity; - positive experience of the student’s success of communication; One more moment which we have to mention when talking about language learning is such comparatively young branch and connecting link between person (psychology) and speech (linguistics) is Psycholinguistics. Psycholinguistics (PL) - the science that studies the psychological and linguistic aspects of people’s speech activities, social and psychological aspects of language use in the processes of verbal communication and personal speech-thinking activities. The subject of the study of PL is primarily a verbal activity as a specifically human activity, its psychological content, structure, types (methods), in which it occurs, the forms in which it is implemented, performed, its functions. As noted by the founder of the national school of psycholinguistics A.A. Leontiev, "the subject of psycholinguistics is the speech activity as a whole and the laws of its integrated simulation". Another major subject of psycholinguistics study serves language as the primary means of speech and individual speech-thinking activities, functions of the main characters of languages in speech communication. "In psycholinguistics the relationship between content, motive and form of speech and between the structure and elements of the language used in the speech utterance are always in focus". Finally, another major subject of research is human speech, considered as a way to implement speech activities (speech as a psycho-physiological process of generation and perception of speech utterances, various types and forms of verbal communication). The presence of not one but several subjects of PL research due to the specifics of this area of scientific knowledge, that psycholinguistics is "synthetic", a complex science that has arisen on the basis of a peculiar and unique association, the partial merger of two ancient sciences of human civilization - Psychology and the science of language (Linguistics). Allocation as a major and independent subject of PS’s - psychophysiological process of generation and perception of speech occurs in the works of a number of domestic and foreign researchers, and the most complete scientific justification for such approach is presented in works of I.A. Zimnija. In one of his works of the last period, A.A. Leontiev points out that the goal of psycholinguistics is "considering the features of the mechanisms of generation and perception of speech in connection with the functions of speech activity in society and the development of personality". According to this the subject of PL "is the structure of the speech production processes and speech perception as they relate to the structure of language". In turn, psycholinguistic research focuses on the analysis of human language ability in relation to the verbal activity, on the one hand, and the system of language - on the other. There is still no single, universally accepted definition of the research subject of psycholinguistics in domestic and foreign science, in different directions and schools of psycholinguistics, it is determined differently. However, some domestic researchers and many teachers of high schools use a generalized definition of the subject of psycholinguistics, as proposed by Leontiev A.A: " The subject of psycholinguistics is the relationship between personality structure and functions of verbal activity, on the one hand, and language as the main "image" the image of the world's people - with another ";. The object of psycholinguistics study – a person as a subject of speech and language supporter, the process of dialogue and communication in human society (the principal means of which speech activity serves), as well as the formation of speech and language acquisition in ontogenesis (in the course of person’s individual development). As pointed out by A.A. Leontiev, the object of psycholinguistics is always a set of speech events and speech situations. In this case, the most important object of PL research is the subject of verbal activity - people using these activities to master the surrounding reality (ideal and material). Methods for studying psycholinguistics, as well as other methods of linguistic sciences, can be divided into three broad groups: general methodology, a special (i.e., concrete-scientific) methodology, specific (concrete-scientific) research methods. Communication of psycholinguistics (as the theory of speech activity) with the other sciences are diverse, as the speech activity is directly connected with all kinds of nonverbal activity, and a man, like his diverse and multifaceted activity, - the object of so many sciences. Let’s note the most important and frequently performed in practice communications. Psycholinguistics "organically" and inextricably linked with: - philosophy which promotes the general direction of research; - psychology (general, age, social, special psychology and many other areas of it). Without data of practical psychology psycholinguistics, as some researchers point (A. A. Leontiev, L. Sugar, P. M. Frumkin, etc.) can not be sufficiently independent science; - linguistics (general linguistics, philosophy of language, a language grammar, sociolinguistics, etc.); - semiotics - the science of language signs and their meaning; - logics (the problems of psycholinguistic research is most often elect to host a logic of scientific inquiry); - sociology. Here we should mention, in particular, a studies in psycholinguistics of a very important for the identity relations: speech activity - different levels of socialization (personal, group, global, etc.); - medicine, mainly from neurology, which helped a lot in studies and rules of speech pathology, and psychiatry, otolaryngology, and several other medical sciences, with logopathology, speech therapy and other sciences supplying a lot of valuable data for understanding the processes of generation and perception of speech; - some technical sciences (in particular, those that allow hardware and computer software research of speech and language signs) with the acoustics and psychoacoustics, etc. Visualized Illustration of these links is presented in Illustration – 1.2
Illustration 1.2 - Links of psycholinguistics with other science
One of the founders of the Soviet psycholinguistics, A. A. Leontiev believes that psycholinguistics at the present stage of its development is an organic part of the system of psychological sciences. The very notion of speech activity dates back to the general psychological interpretation of the structure and features of all - speaking activity regarded as a special case of, as one of its species (along with employment, educational, gaming, etc.), with its own specific quality, but subject to the general laws of formation, structure and functioning of any business. One or another interpretation of the individual and is directly reflected in psycholinguistics. But mostly significant, that through one of its basic concepts - the concept of value - Psycholinguistics is directly related to the problems of mental reflection of the world by person. In this case, psycholinguistics, on the one hand, uses the fundamental concepts and research results provided by different areas of psychological science on the other hand, PL enriches the subject areas of psychology as a theoretical level (by introducing new concepts and approaches in a different, more deeply treating the common notion etc.) and in the applied direction, allowing you to solve practical problems inaccessible to others, traditionally psychological disciplines. The most closely related to the overall psycholinguistics psychology, particularly the psychology of personality and cognitive psychology. Because it is directly relevant to the study of communication, one more, very close to PS psychological discipline is social psychology and communication psychology (including the theory of mass communication). Since the formation and development of language ability and speech activity is also included in the object of study of psycholinguistics, the PL is closely linked to developmental psychology (child and developmental psychology). Finally, it is closely linked with ethnic psychology. In its practical aspect of psycholinguistics is associated with various applications of psychology: from educational psychology, special psychology (in particular, pathopsychology, medical psychology, neuropsychology), the psychology of work, including engineering, space and military psychology, the judicial and legal psychology, and finally with political psychology, psychology of mass culture, the psychology of advertising and propaganda. These applied problems that social development has set to the psychology, are served as the trigger for the emergence of psycholinguistics as an independent scientific field".
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