Appendix:
Researching the Online Classroom
Warschauer describes his methodology as "critical ethnography" and candidly
shares how he came to employ it for this study. Citing one of his own prior
research projects, he explains: "Although I felt the study had value, I
also felt that the experimental method of the study served to exclude the
very contextual factors that were most important. I began to seek other
approaches that were based on understanding learning in context rather
than attempting to shut out context, and I eventually found a home in ethnography"
(189). Citing various researchers, he notes that "ethnography and other
interpretive qualitative approaches are based on the theory that human
experience is holistic, complex, and perspectival...there is no single
neutral vantage point for understanding human experience, but rather its
interpretation depends on the perspectives of particular sociocultural
groups that are shaped by social, political, cultural, economic, ethnic,
and gender values" (189). Further, "the point is not to carry out a value-neutral
study--all research is based on values--but rather to be cognizant of and
to reflect on the values that one brings to research" (190).
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