2004 - Volume 26, Number 2
Editor, David L. Hough, Missouri State University

Preface

This issue of Research in Middle Level Education Online is a special edition featuring studies that were presented at the National Middle School Association’s second research poster session held during the annual conference in Portland, Oregon, October 30 to November 3, 2002. NMSA’s Research Committee sponsors these yearly poster sessions in an effort to encourage beginning researchers to try their hand at conducting and presenting studies. Similar to the first poster session in Washington, D.C., in 2001, a special emphasis and invitation was extended to first-time researchers to present their work in a less threatening environment than is often encountered in more sophisticated, formal presentations. The presenters were asked to identify the relationship of their work to NMSA's 21st Century Research Agenda, and they were invited to revise their poster papers in a fashion suitable for publication.

Most manuscripts submitted for presentation were prepared by graduate students at the masters, specialist, and doctoral levels, most often middle school teachers or principals working on those degrees, along with recent post-doctoral faculty at the assistant professor rank. Eight presentations were chosen from 11 submissions. Five of these were selected for publication in volume 26(2) of RMLE Online; however, only four were able to revise their manuscripts and meet the dead lines for publication.

The NMSA Research Committee's attention to beginning researchers provided an important learning experience to those who submitted, presented, and ultimately published. You may want to review the "call" for submissions of proposals to present posters at NMSA’s 30th Annual Conference in Atlanta, Georgia, November 6-8, 2003, on the NMSA web and in the March issue of Middle School Journal .

In "Meeting Standards without Sacrificing Quality Curriculum in the Middle School," author Lynne M. Bailey, University of Central Florida, was a participant by virtue of being a member of a four-person team of teachers at a suburban middle school in Central Florida that were part of the study. This "core" team, along with four additional teachers comprising the "exploratory" teachers, implemented a multidisciplinary unit to "examine how effective learning could be curriculum-driven while still addressing mandated content standards." Any time the researcher is also a participant in the study; the potential for bias is present and must be addressed. The study can still be valid, certainly, and the findings can be quite appropriate, but the researcher(s) must take extra care not to influence the results or analyze / report findings with a preconceived notion of what the data indicate.

The sample in this particular study consisted of 170 eighth grade students and 130 sixth graders from a wide range of ability levels, including students who had been "mainstreamed" into classrooms. The teaching team taught this group of students an interdisciplinary curriculum over a four-month period during the 2000 – 2001 academic school year. Parent volunteers were used, as were community resource volunteers, geology students from a local state university, and docents from a museum in St. Augustine, Florida. Student writings about the unit of study were used as the primary data source, along with teacher observations. While interesting insights can be gleaned from this type of methodology, those interpretations cannot be generalized. In fact, one is left to wonder if the student perceptions were a function of an interdisciplinary approach or an evaluation of the materials, resources, and activities used to deliver the curriculum. Still, teachers courageous enough to tackle a study of this nature should be complemented, and others should be compelled to replicate this process.

"Teacher Leaders: Middle School Mathematics Classrooms," by David Cruz, Snoqualmie Middle School, Snoqualmie, Washington, is a study conducted by another middle school practitioner. Mr. Cruz collected original data — both qualitative and quantitative and did not participate in the study. As the reader will note very early on in the article, the style of reporting is first person, which lends itself to a rather informal presentation.

Interviews, observations, and survey questionnaires (three common social science methodologies) were used to examine the characteristics and behaviors of teacher leaders in middle school mathematics classrooms. Using teachers identified by their peers as being middle school mathematics teacher leaders were initially used to determine a sample. The major finding(s) is/are that the most highly regarded middle school mathematics teacher leaders are those who "are articulate in their craft of teaching mathematics. . . . approachable and personable people who are always willing to help. . . . creative and innovative individuals who follow through with what they say they will do. . . . clear and confident communicators. . . . flexible . . . fair-minded . . . open to different ways of teaching and learning. . . . involved with the decision-making of their school and district curriculum matters. . . . willing to share ideas, materials, classroom techniques . . . to help the student be successful. . . . educators who have the student as the primary focus in his or her instruction."

The third installment in this issue is titled "Middle School Teachers’ Reassessment Practices and Curricular / Instructional Modifications," by Wendy S. Miner and Amanda Finn, Truman State University, Kirksville, Missouri. These researchers worked together to the mutual benefit of both. Under a grant provided by the Javits Act Program as administered by the Office of Educational Research and Improvement, United States Department of Education, a seasoned higher education professor and her graduate student assistant "examined middle school teachers’ preassessment strategies, as well as the types of curricular / instructional modifications teachers make in response to preassessment strategies."

Participants included 202 middle school teachers from six school districts in Maryland, Virginia, and Texas. Using a survey instrument originally piloted in 1994, the research team analyzed subsets of items on the questionnaire to address their research questions. While a variety of questions were addressed, mostly associated with subject specific content, the overall aggregated finding was that teachers reported infrequent use of preassessment strategies even though they believed accurately determining students’ prior knowledge was important. One possible explanation offered by the researchers was that perhaps some teachers either did not know or were not comfortable enough with their content to feel qualified to determine distinctions relative to levels of learning prior to offering some instruction. I’d like to see classroom teachers modify the methods used in this study and conduct some action research that would capture similar information in their classrooms. I view this as a fine, sophisticated study that deserves attention.

The fourth article demonstrates that research doesn’t have to be sophisticated; it can be a systematic collection and analysis of information at hand that captures processes and products. In "A Case of Authentic Redesign," authors Barbara Blackburn, Mark W. Dewalt, and Jonatha W. Vare, Richard W. Riley College of Education, Winthrop University, Rock Hill, South Carolina conducted four focus group interviews with Nationally Board Certified teachers to obtain information that led to the redesign of their University's master's degree program in middle level education. Analyses of the focus group data helped the college of education faculty align their program to the National Middle School Association / National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NMSA/NCATE) Standards as well as their own conceptual framework and the National Board Standards for teachers. If nothing else, this article serves as one example of how higher education faculties do sometimes try to obtain feedback to improve programs, a criticism all too often levied in the opposite direction.

Focus group protocols were developed by marketing researchers a number of years ago and have grown more common as a method of data collection in educational research over the past two decades. The trick is to choose intentionally participants who represent appropriate constituent groups and whose opinions will reflect those of the majority within each group. All higher education units choosing to participate in NCATE should acquire input from the P-12 community and use this information to align their programs to a conceptual framework; however, aligning to NMSA/NCATE and National Boards is desirable, as well. Please read this article before criticizing higher education for not listening or responding. This group did listen and respond, systematically documenting their progress along the way.

The NMSA Research Committee thanks all those who submitted their work for consideration of presentation at the poster session in Portland and especially thanks those who went the extra mile to develop their papers into the articles that appear, here. Supporting beginning researchers is necessary if sustained efforts to collect information to guide policy development are to be continued. Middle level education is fortunate to have an organization such as the National Middle School Association and a group of concerned individuals who comprise the Research Committee who continually explore ways to make this research worthwhile and to provide vehicles through which this information can be shared. Please refer to the "call for submissions" for the Atlanta Poster Session in this issue of Middle School Journal. I invite and encourage interested beginning researchers to submit a proposal. You will learn many lessons, grow professionally, and make a contribution to middle level education.

Post Script

You might want to look for an upcoming book to be released by NMSA at its 30th annual conferment in Atlanta: "Research, Rhetoric, and Reality: A Study of Studies Addressing the NMSA 21st Century Research Agenda and This We Believe." One of the finest teams of research associates and assistants I have ever had the privilege of working with at Southwest Missouri State University have recently completed a two-year data collection effort in which they have identified, classified, and analyzed over 3,000 studies conducted over the last twelve years between 1991 and 2002. Preliminary findings were presented to the National Forum in New Orleans in January 2003 and will be presented to the American Educational Research Association in Chicago, April 2003. The complete work will be unveiled at NMSA’s 30th Annual Conference in Atlanta, Georgia, in November 2003. The book will be made available for purchase at that time and will answer questions about the number, types, and quality of research that has been conducted by whom and where that addresses issues, topics, questions, and goals as detailed in the Research Agenda and This We Believe .

David Hough, Editor

ISSN 1084-8959