Despite robust argument among scholars, quantitative and qualitative research are two sides of the same truth; each applying a different emphasis, or perspective onto data. The use of one or the other depends on what the researcher wants to discover (Cassell & Hiremath, 2013., Silverman, 2006). For example, a librarian who wants to evaluate patrons’ experience would combine quantitative information such as the number of reference questions answered per quarter with focus group discussions about the quality of their experience. Both methods can reveal similar needs, and likely, they will complement each other by providing different answers to the same questions about those needs. This inclusive research model provides a richer result than using quantitative or qualitative research in isolation.

As an information professional, I must embrace both research methods and enfold all the information; socio-cultural with numbers and statistics to arrive at well-supported conclusions because an underlying library-industry value is not judging information, but collecting, reflecting and disseminating it. While pure quantitative or qualitative research alone has a valuable role in inquiry, counter examples show that both qualitative and quantitative methods, when used in isolation, can be wholly inaccurate. For example, in 1992, British polling companies reported voter intentions (quantitative data) that did not predict actual votes (Silverman). The quantity of potential votes did not accurately translate to actual votes because the quantitative data was not combined with qualitative data that measured voter attitudes such as apathy, and situational factors like transportation and employment schedules. The numbers were missing context.

Most of the San Jose State University (SJSU) courses prepared me to use and discuss the inherent strengths and weaknesses of qualitative and quantitative methods. I performed research for most SJSU classes, but the strongest evidence for my understanding of research methods comes from LIBR 285; Research Methods. The purpose of the course was to develop the ability to critically consume and design research (Jackson, 2015). The purpose of the Action Research assignment was to learn about research design. The first step was to prepare an annotated bibliography of possible sources. Writing the bibliography provided an extra layer of critical analysis of potential materials’ suitability and rigor. Finding the appropriate scope of materials required advanced electronic article searching enriched by live library searches. I used the citations in relevant articles to find increasingly relevant materials. The citations helped me to develop an effective search vocabulary for this topic. The process of writing the final work-product began with the literature review. The review informed the research question, which led to writing belief-prompts and survey questions. Then the review shaped the summary and rationale.

Research proposal “Action Research Part 4” exhibits my understanding of competency L because it uses qualitative and quantitative research to ask a question and chart a path towards comprehensive, repeatable answers through the proposed research. It asks, “How much does belief, expressed by a teacher in an educational setting, affect the students' ability to learn from that teacher, if their beliefs contradict?”. The design uses two surveys and corresponding prompts to collect student reactions to emotionally charged stimuli intended to offend some students. To protect students’ identities, the demographic information is hidden from the researcher by linking the responses via number. The proposal ends with a summary and rationale that uses the quantitative and qualitative research cited in the literature review to hypothesize potential survey outcomes and predict the implications of affirming and/or non-affirming results. Affirming results would show that offended students did not retain subsequent neutral information as well as unaffected students: Non-affirming results would show no correlation between beliefs and retention. Either outcome would yield useful information for educators and information professionals who interact with patrons, students or workers.

The proposal uses measurements in coordination with cultural observations to collect information that may improve instructional methods. For example, the literature review notes that quantifiable biological markers can predict a subject's political affiliation with 100% accuracy in a sample set of eighty-four subjects. The numerical expression of physiological changes is quantitative data. The accompanying demographic and political affiliation survey measures qualitative data. The study combined the methods to explain the human experience. Additionally, the literature review notices that qualitative data on test anxiety establishes a causal relationship between emotions and beliefs. The research starts with quantitative data and then cross-references it with the context, or qualitative data; self-reported emotional responses of subjects. Similar research by Crum and Phillips (2015) that links thoughts to physically measurable changes provides further justification for drawing a link between beliefs and learning. The research shows that beliefs change physiology, and physiology can be quantifiably measured.

My research proposal on the role of beliefs in education and information professions enthusiastically illustrates the professional value of non-judgmental inclusion of multiple perspectives and confirms my ability to design and perform research that uses quantitative and qualitative data. It combines quantitative research on the effects of beliefs in the classroom with socio-cultural factors that affect student perceptions. It synthesizes competing perspectives into a cohesive action plan for teachers, librarians and corporate trainers based on the literature review.

Further, the topic of the proposal highlights my passion for synthesized research that values both methods. It celebrates the value that quantitative and qualitative inquiry bring to research questions. The proposal provides an ideal opportunity to demonstrate my ability to synthesize varied research perspectives in the fields of psychology and biology. It acknowledges differences and observes similarities.

I learned that explicitly acknowledging the relationship between quantitative and qualitative methods by applying equal emphasis on each perspective is important to overall credibility. The audience, whether patrons, students or publishers, want to see a well-supported, balanced approach to research that rings true to their inner sense of justice. I conclude my graduate studies with the perspective that research methods must work in concert to have the most relevancy. Context complements numbers; it does not necessarily increase bias or soften the science, as some detractors claim (Silverman), but exposes the full spectrum of where the research stems so that the audience can apply their own sensibilities to the work. The same is true for reference interviews: patrons know that numbers without context can be misleading and context without data can be incomplete (Cassel & Hiremath). This research experience will help me to balance the sources and data I refer to patrons and embolden me to encourage them to look for complete answers.

References

Cassell, A., Hiremath, U. (2013). Reference and information services. p 384. American Library Association. Chicago, Illinois.

Jackson, R. (2015). Research methods in library and information science. Retrieved from http://ischoolapps.sjsu.edu/gss/ajax/showSheet.php?id=6722

Crum, A. J., et al. (2011). Mind over milkshakes: Mindsets, not just nutrients, determine ghrelin response. Health Psychology, 30(4), 424-429. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1037/a0023467.

Silverman. (2006). Theory and method in qualitative research. pp 35-38. Retrieved from https://uk.sagepub.com/sites/default/files/upm-binaries/11254_Silverman_02.pdf

Evidence

Action Research Part 4

Overview

If research subjects are presented with a statement that invokes belief based biases, will the exposure affect their ability to learn subsequent, evidence based facts? This study question stems from the observation that, in the information age, evidence based facts can be known, but belief based biases seem to block the adoption of facts. People seem more comforted by their beliefs, self-imposed limitations and prejudices than true information. This study seeks more information about whether people can learn facts when beliefs are decidedly in the way.

Belief based bias is a phrase designed to include many categories of beliefs: Religious, political, identity, and tangentially; beliefs about gender, weight, age and health. To qualify as a belief based bias, the belief must be unprovable and, for the purposes of this proposal; easily communicated in a single statement. The statement is necessary to reveal the bias. Conversely, evidence based fact is a phrase used to indicate an idea or object that is provable through science. Evidence can be measured with instruments and witnessed with one or more of the five senses: Sight, touch, hearing, smell, taste. The evidence can be observed or replicated by an objective party.

The context of this inquiry is training and education linguistics and psychology in a variety of settings. It addresses the role of beliefs in the teacher/ student learning relationship. Imagine a student holds Evangelical beliefs and his librarian inadvertently presents resources that challenges the beliefs e.g. she provides books about dinosaur fossils and carbon dating for the student. Evangelicals do not believe in the science behind carbon-dating. Both the teacher’s and student’s beliefs may have hindered effective learning in this example. Similarly, imagine a scenario wherein a female Caucasian social studies teacher talks about civil rights to Muslim African American male New York City high school students who experience “stop and frisk”: The teacher’s belief based bias, as revealed by a statement like, “If you are not doing anything wrong, you will not be stopped by police” might render the boys measurably less successful at processing the next and subsequent statements even if the teacher’s subsequent statements are neutral, evidence based facts e.g. “Election day is November 2^nd”. The exposure to a belief that is incongruent with experience might impair the students’ ability to process fact-based lessons delivered in the class for several minutes, or possibly, for the duration of their time with that teacher. Research that finds a clear inability to learn evidence-based facts after test subjects are exposed to a trainer’s belief based bias, could lead to better employee training, student education, diversity training and funding for multicultural educators and trainers. It could lead to linguistic restraints in teaching and limit value expressions that potentially offend and distract students. The hypothesis of this proposal is that belief based biases sabotage learning in measurable amounts.

This proposal discusses research on beliefs and argues that further study is warranted. It asserts that beliefs are the root of some learning deficiencies and sometimes limit learning potential. The proposal suggests original research to explore test subjects’ ability to learn evidence based facts that immediately follow statements that convey contradictory belief based bias.

Literature Review

Introduction

Research on the role of beliefs in education expresses several recurring themes. Beliefs are predictable, measurable, inaccurate and persistent. Brain scans, implicit association tests, linguistically coded videos of teaching, attitude studies and other instruments report that beliefs undermine cognitive functioning; revealing that thoughts are largely emotion based, biased and unreliable. Critics of the research are vocal. Some respondents are highly resistant to the assertion that people are emotional thinkers who physiologically react to stimuli in predictable and consistent patterns. A growing body of research on the placebo effect and the physiological connection between thoughts and the endocrine system, however, support the link.

Literature Review

Beliefs are hidden. According to Chen and Pajares (2010) student beliefs are as predictive of success as objective measures such as standardized test results and previous academic performance: Beliefs about learning ability affect motivation, strategy and achievement. Their research, described in “Implicit Theories of Ability of Grade 6 Science Students: Relation to Epistemological Beliefs and Academic Motivation and Achievement in Science”, observed the effect of epistemological beliefs of 508 middle school students. Students either believed that learning ability was a fixed, bestowed characteristic or a cultivated, adaptive skill. The students who believed that the nature of knowledge was a process of cultivating skill showed superior motivation, flexibility, optimism, and science ability than students identified as fixed entity, or bestowed ability students, who displayed maladaptive learning behaviors (Chen & Pejaras). Crum and College (2016) linked irrational beliefs to state anxiety levels with their experiment; “Effects of Priming Dialectic Rational Beliefs on Irrational Beliefs”. They hypothesized that priming subjects with rational dialectic prior to providing a stressor, would lower the post event anxiety levels of subjects. They first established a baseline anxiety state with 47 undergraduate student participants. Their results confirmed that discussing the rationality of beliefs by presenting them in argument form prior to the activation event reduced anxiety (Crum & College). Beliefs undergird cognitive function such that with careful attention, they can be primed for mental health and educational attainment. Both studies discuss how underlying beliefs strongly affect outcomes and propose increasing belief awareness through rational dialectic training. These studies provide insight into the educational, cognitive, and sometimes hidden significance of underlying beliefs.

Other research places emphasis squarely on revealing hidden beliefs. Anthony Greenwald’s Implicit Associations Test (IAT), itself a measure of unconscious associations, was the instrument for Berry and Carroll’s study of experimenter characteristic bias (2015). The study finds that undergraduate test takers unconsciously conceal their beliefs about sexual orientation when the IAT experimenter appears to be gay. Conversely, test takers exhibited more prejudiced associations for the sexual orientation association test when an apparently heterosexual experimenter conducted the test. This result increased when the experimenter was the opposite sex of the test taker. The nature of the associations tests and the number of participants (71) who performed as predicted, give some weight to the idea that beliefs are unintended. Berry and Carroll assert that beliefs fluctuate to accommodate social influences. Geneva Gay, (2010) advocates open discussion about such beliefs in teacher education programs in her article, “Acting on Beliefs in Teacher Education for Cultural Diversity”. The report finds racism hidden in supposedly colorblind classrooms by teachers in denial. Teachers use distancing strategies to deny racism (Gay). Gay advocates for direct discussion about diversity in classrooms (2010). Berry, Carroll and Gay’s discussions about hidden beliefs is directly relatable to this proposal as its focus is on beliefs that inhibit learning by interjecting assumptions between the students and the facts. Both works focus on the participants’ unconscious denial of socially discouraged attitudes which is so important because convincing a denier that diversity training needs to be improved or that their biases are damaging student learning outcomes must start with exhuming buried beliefs.

Beliefs are measurable. The literature includes many studies that quantify belief based bias. “Party Over Policy: The Dominating Impact of Group Influence on Political Beliefs” (Cohen, 2003) measures how widely party affiliation influences participants view of faux newspaper articles about hypothetical welfare plans. Participants self-reported their reactions to proposed changes to policy. Cohen changed the wording to accommodate the values of the participant’s party. For example, he influenced liberals to choose agree or strongly agree with job training assistance policies when they were termed, “education”. Conservatives did not agree or strongly agree with “education”, but did agree and strongly agree with “job training classes” (Cohen). The study’s success at measuring how much influence social coding and political affiliation can exert over participants suggests deeper origins. Indeed, beliefs are not fickle things but rooted in biology. Nonpolitical Images Evoke Neural Predictors of Political Ideology (Ahn, Kishida, Gu, Lohrenz, Harvey, et al. 2014) reports the MRI results of 84 participants as they viewed 80 images from 4 categories for 4 seconds. They observed that participant political ideology could be predicted with 100% accuracy by capturing a brain image when they looked at a single image. That image was of animal mutilation and was one designed to evoke disgust. It predicted the political ideologies of all 84 participants better than the participants. Participants self-reported having similar reactions to the image, but the MRIs showed clear and consistent differences between liberal and conservative participants. Conservative participants showed faster and more extreme brain activity in more voxels. Liberal brains reacted slower and peaked at much lower interest arousal levels. This experiment is outstanding because it so clearly documents the physiological differences between people who hold different beliefs.

Carney, Hall and Smith-LeBeau (2005) measured beliefs about nonverbal social expression by presenting one-hundred-twenty-four participants with vignettes that describe people in powerful or non-powerful situations. Participants rated their expectation of the vignette’s main character’s propensity for seventy non-verbal cues. They concluded that beliefs change psychology and behavior, and hypothesize that physiology is also affected by belief (2005). Carney’s follow-up work, Power Posing: Brief Nonverbal Displays Affect Neuroendocrine Levels and Risk Tolerance (2010), measured changes in testosterone and cortisol levels after performing non-verbal power and non-power poses. The Carney research, taken together, shows a link between belief, body language and physiology. This association is important because the research suggests that beliefs cause hormone changes. The causal nature of beliefs was true for both power poses and non-power poses meaning that postures caused predictable, repeatable variations in testosterone and cortisol. The connection between beliefs and physiology is less clear, however. The 2010 study shows posture affecting physiology. Does posture affect belief or is belief a result of physiology?

To test the link between belief and physiology by measuring endocrine changes, Alia Crum, William Corbin, Kelly Brownell and Peter Salovey (2011) performed an experiment. They invited test subjects to their laboratory to enjoy a milkshake on two separate occasions. On each occasion subjects provided blood samples before and after the experiment. Both milkshakes were 380 calories, but the first one was called indulgent and subjects were told that it was 620 calories. The second shake, consumed a week later, was identical to the first, but it was named sensible and subjects were told that it was 140 calories. The results of the blood tests showed that subjects produced more of the metabolic hormone ghrelin to metabolize the indulgent milkshake than the sensible milkshake even though they were nutritionally identical. Because the nutrients were identical, the team concludes that telling subjects the milkshakes were indulgent or sensible provided the social signal that changed the amount of ghrelin their endocrine systems released. Their research provides support for the idea that thoughts affect physiology.

Summary

The literature supports the hypothesis that beliefs change human physiology. The cognitive processing required for learning relies on such neuroendocrine processes. Research that shows connections between beliefs and physiology mean that it is possible to measure the affect beliefs wield over endocrine, nervous and social systems. This proposal seeks to apply mind-body research to education to discover barriers to learning that might be overlooked today.

The literature also makes clear that people are uncomfortable with the findings as expressed by denial, fear and accusations of research fraud and immorality. Some academics rejected the findings due, ironically to their own belief based bias. Common experience shows that sports psychology, politics and advertising seem to be accepted applications for belief research, but it could be used to increase the success of learners in employment training and education settings.

Purpose and Rationale of the Study

The purpose of the study is to explore the way beliefs affect ability to learn evidence based facts when facts are presented immediately after belief based bias statements. This research seeks to isolate the effect of bias on subsequent evidence based statements so that it can ask the right questions about information overload and learning potential. The study is important to information science because it explores, and seeks to measure the hidden effects of belief based bias on learning. Whether training staff or teaching freshman literacy skills, librarians and educators benefit from maximizing their students’ learning outcomes. Participants will benefit from improved civic engagement and possibly better training environments in their academic and employment communities. They will learn to identify their own and others’ biases and learn to evaluate them consciously instead of being subconsciously distracted. The library system and broader academic community can use the research to update their staff and student training programs. Additionally, the study has a tertiary aim; to contribute to the literature about students’ information overload. If students are distracted by teachers’ belief based bias, and they are already experiencing information overload, they may not retain as much information overall, and their capacity to retain information may be diminished by predictable measures. Follow-up studies could use the bias research to design better controls for overload studies.

Similar research has been conducted. The mind-body link is well-established in exercise science, and in many studies on the placebo effect, for example. The originality of this proposal resides in the attention to the if-then sequence: Offend the participant with a bias statement; present a fact; measure the participants’ ability to recall the fact. If the trainer offends the student, how well can the student learn subsequent neutral facts? This study would quantify distraction under very specific conditions and cross reference the findings with demographic data. It would report useful, generalizable correlations between expressions of belief based biases and ability to learn subsequent neutral information.

References

Ahn, W., Kishida, K. T., Gu, X., Lohrenz, T., Harvey, A., Alford, J. R., & ... Montague, P. R. (2014). Nonpolitical images evoke neural predictors of political ideology. Current Biology, 24(22), 2693-2699. doi:10.1016/j.cub.2014.09.050

Berry, B. A. (2015). Experimenter characteristics, social desirability, and the implicit association test. Psi Chi Journal of Psychological Research, 20(4), 247-257.

Carney, D., Cuddy, A., & Yap, A. (2010). Power Posing: Brief Nonverbal Displays Affect Neuroendocrine Levels and Risk Tolerance. Psychological Science, 21(10), 1363-1368. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org.libaccess.sjlibrary.org/stable/41062490

Carney, D., Hall, J.A. & LeBeau, L.S. J (2005). Nonverbal behavior. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior. 29(2), 105-123. https://doi-org.libaccess.sjlibrary.org/10.1007/s10919-005-2743-z

Chen, J. A., & Pajares, F. (2010). Implicit theories of ability of grade 6 science students: Relation to epistemological beliefs and academic motivation and achievement in science. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 35(1), 75-87. doi:10.1016/j.cedpsych.2009.10.003

Cohen, G. L. (2003). Party over policy: The dominating impact of group influence on political beliefs. Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, 85(5), 808-822. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.85.5.808

Crum II, J. E. (2016). Effects of priming dialectic rational beliefs on irrational beliefs. Psi Chi Journal of Psychological Research, 21(1), 46-53.

Crum, A. J., et al. (2011). Mind over milkshakes: Mindsets, not just nutrients, determine ghrelin response. Health Psychology, 30(4), 424-429. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1037/a0023467.

Gay, G. (2010). Acting on beliefs in teacher education for cultural diversity. Journal of Teacher Education, 61(1/2), 143-152. doi:10.1177/0022487109347320