1. Glen Gatin Final Oral Review
Keeping Your Distance: A basic
social process
2. Agenda for this FOR
• The project that I undertook for this
dissertation
• What I have learned
• Contribution to knowledge
3. My Background and perspective
• Canadian educator
• Scholar/practitioner
• New media evangelist
4. My Areas of Interest
• Technology-mediated education
• Manitoba, Canada
• Other jurisdictions
5. New Paradigms
• Rapid advancement of technology
• Resulting social change
• Changing locus of control for education
6. Current Research in Distance
Education
• Existing theoretical frameworks based on
old understandings of industrial education
• Field is evolving rapidly
• Need new theories
7. Grounded Theory
• What is grounded theory?
• Why did I decide to use it?
• How does it work?
• How did I apply the method?
8. Grounded theory
• A way to look at areas from a participant’s
perspective
• A way to minimize preconceptions
• Answers the question, “What are people
really working on?
• For new or rapidly emerging fields
9. Grounded theory is
• Explanatory theory
• An integrated set of concepts organized
around a core variable
• Not concerned with validity or verification
10. Why I decided to use grounded
theory
• Dissatisfaction with other research methods
• Opportunity to discover theory
• Promise of meaningful contribution to knowledge
11. Criteria for a grounded theory
• Fit
• Grab
• Generalizability
• Modifiability
12.
13. All is Data
“Mention a hospital and everyone has an experience to tell and often cannot be
stopped until they do”
• Formal interviews
• Observation
• Collegial comments
• Literature from the substantive area
• Slices of data
14. Keeping Your Distance
• People regulate distance, physical and
representative, in their everyday lives.
• People use strategies to control physical,
emotional, and psychological distance and
to conserve personal energy.
• People use a personalized algorithm of
engagement.
15. Distancing for Physical Safety
• Most basic form of this response
• Related to survival
• People use physical distance as a proxy
for emotional and psychological distance
16. Emotional Distancing
• Protect your heart
• Defense mechanisms
• Not an aberration but a normal response
• Default to distance
17. Distancing for autonomy
• Self-determination
• Response to chaos
• Also applies on a collective level
18. Distancing for energy conservation
• Social engagement costs and benefits
• ROI of lost causes
• Internet distance has a new quality
23. Applications of this Theory
• Technology-mediated education
• No Creepy Tree-house
• KYD in other settings
24. Implications of this Theory
• Respect for people’s desire to maintain
distance
• Pull, don’t push
• Notions of distance are changing.
25. Invitation to the wiki
• A grounded theory is modifiable
• http://ggatindissertation.wikispaces.com/
• Interested in the potential that others see
• Under-represented populations
• Critical pedagogy
Welcome Committee members and quests. Very pleased to have you participate in this FOR
From the Felix page referencing the FOR protocols. My project was an investigation of issues related to Distance education and more specifically technology-mediated education. I also was able to apply, to the best of my present ability, the grounded theory method. The theory presented here provides a new way of looking at technology mediated education and changing social behavior patterns generally. A theoretical foot hold.
A bit about myself for background but also because with the method I applied the analyst is the research instrument, I try to avoid saying tool. While the method provides a way to avoid preconceptions when investigating new subject areas, one of the realities of any type of research is investigator bias. With grounded theory, analyst’s bias is built into the investigation. The analyst’s POV is treated like any other data. But it is important to know the starting perspective. Canadian, which has some implications when studying with a US institution. Vocational and technical, community colleges, adult education Social activist, involved in progressive politics, Critical pedagogy is a logical extension. Scholar/practitioner. Contributing to knowledge but then not stopping there. Trying to put understanding acquired through disciplined inquiry into practical application. Unabashed supporter of the free and open use of technology. Early adopter. Saw the potential. Consistent with critical pedagogy.
AKA distance education although education has always been technology mediated. More correctly internet based ICT technology Canada has system of public education but fragmented by legislative and constitutional restrictions. Education is a provincial jurisdiction, whereas training is a federal responsibility. Vestiges of old forms of education, reaching back to agrarian society and even colonialist influences My experience with Voc tech, Higher Ed in Canada and US plus experience working with Romanian government. Provided some perspective and clues as to data sources.
Blogs, wikis, Twitter, Virtual worlds second life Profound impacts on patterns of social behavior Industrial broadcast model of education is evolving
Good summary website. http://gtm.vlsm.org/gnm-gtm.en.html General method of comparative analysis. A method for discovering theories in the patterns of observed behavior,