Student Technology Teachers\' Values and Assumptions: How

¶ … Student Technology Teachers' Values and Assumptions: How They Impact on Teaching Practice" by Wendy J. Dow. The study that Dow conducted involved a phenomenological evaluation of student teachers' experiences of learning which led to her conclusions about the fixed nature and structure of knowledge. Even though the study methodology was unorthodox and limiting in some respects, the study findings appear to support Dow's conclusions regarding teacher education courses.

The study methodology departed from the norms that typically use in-depth semi-structured interviews or pencil and paper measures to explore epistemological beliefs. Instead, the study used in-depth analysis of third-year students' reflective journals over the course of a university term. While this departure from the accepted methodology had the benefit of accessing a record of the students' independent and voluntary reflections on their progress or lack thereof, it raises questions about the study findings. The article does not present enough information on the similarities and/or differences between the two methodologies to enable drawing any conclusions about their importance.

The remainder of the study design was well-constructed, in particular the mechanism to elicit student reactions in exploration of epistemological beliefs. By introducing a time constraint and not allowing enough time for successful completion of their assigned tasks, Dow increased the value of student collaboration to complete the assigned task. This manipulation of task requirements increased the likelihood that students would be motivated to provide the needed study data, thereby advancing the study agenda.

Similarly, assigning the reflective journal as a tool to help with the assessed element, the reflective analysis, also worked to advance the study goals as well. Because the journal was to be used to "inform the assessed essay" (Dow, p. 56), the likelihood that students would provide accurate and useful data was increased.

One criticism of the study methodology that may not be well-founded, but which needs to be made, is the analysis of the journals using Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). Interpreting the journals within the wider context of the students' experience on the degree course sounds somewhat subjective; one wonders if a different researcher would have arrived at the same conclusion, given the same data to analyze and interpret. Dow was, of course, aware of this potential criticism as well. She commented that "Care was taken at each stage to ensure that the final analysis was still firmly grounded within the actual data" (p. 56).

On the other hand, breaking down the student perceptions into manageable components did contribute to the study's effectiveness. This breakdown served to capture various nuances of the students' perceptions and helped to isolate differences among them. Schommer's multi-dimensional model was also more appropriate for analysis in this study, because it added two additional dimensions related to speed and control of knowledge acquisition. Given that the study was designed to analyze students' response to time pressures and the loss of control associated with working on a group project, Schommer's model more accurately matched study conditions than might have been the case with uni-dimensional models.

The fact that the original study sample consisted of 28 students, but the paper analyzes the experience of only four raises some concerns. Dow explains that these four students were selected "because they reveal evidence of different levels of epistemological development during the course of the activity" (p. 57). Anyone reading the paper is left to question whether the selection of the four students introduced possible bias in interpreting study results, or whether important data was missing.