EdPsych 551: The QE Podcast

Week 1: Behind the Scenes of QE with Clare Porter

Clare Porter is a recent graduate from University of Wisconsin – Madison where she was a senior research intern at the Epistemic Analytics lab and president of the Women in Economics student organization. She begins a position at the Rand Corporation in summer of 2022. In this conversation, Clare and Dr. David Williamson Shaffer discuss a behind-the-scenes look at the imperfect and iterative processes of QE research, as well as provide an introduction to how imperfect models are still a useful - and often essential - part of meaningful analytics. Paper referenced: Hansen, Zaki, Benna, Porter (2020). Epistemic Network Analysis of Reddit Comments Relating to COVID-19 Vaccine News on the r/Coronavirus Subreddit. In Wasson, B. & Zörgő, S. (eds.), Third International Conference on Quantitative Ethnography: Conference Proceedings Supplement.

Week 2: Keeping the ‘E’ in QE with Adam Lefstein

Adam Leftstein [http://www.dialogicpedagogy.com/] is the Shane Family Professor of Education at the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev [https://in.bgu.ac.il/humsos/edu/rppedagogy/Pages/default.aspx] in Israel, and will be moving to Hebrew University in fall 2022 as Chair of the School of Education. He primarily uses linguistic ethnographic concepts and methods to study pedagogy, classroom interaction, teacher learning, change, and the movement of ideas between research and professional practice. In this episode, Adam and David discuss how to keep ethnography at the forefront when engaging in QE methods. Talk referenced: ICQE ‘21 Keynote: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PD2G_2iNs7s [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PD2G_2iNs7s]

Week 3: A Deep Dive into Segmentation with Szilvia Zörgő

Szilvia Zörgő is a cultural anthropologist by trade and has a PhD in mental health sciences. She is interested in qualitative, mixed, and unified research methods related to healthcare and information consumption, and is currently a Marie-Curie Fellow [//www.smart-searching.eu]. In this episode, David and Szilvi talk about the nuances in how they segment their data and the effects segmentation decisions can have on the analysis.

Week 4: Valid and Reliable with Danielle Espino & Seung Lee

Dr. Danielle Espino is a co-principal investigator and project manager at Pepperdine University for NSF-funded research examining cross-boundary collaboration in informal STEM learning (NSF Awards #1612824, #1824924), utilizing quantitative ethnography (QE) as a primary methodological approach on studies involving cross-cultural community building, global competences, connections between affect and discourse, group dynamics and advancing conversations on justice, equity, diversity and inclusion (JEDI). Dr. Seung B. Lee is an Assistant Professor of Education at Pepperdine University in the Graduate School of Education and Psychology. His research focuses on collaborative learning, online interactions, socio-cognitive processes and creativity among K-12 students, particularly in the context of STEM education. He served as the Program Committee Co-chair for the 2020 International Conference on Quantitative Ethnography (ICQE). In this joint conversation, Danielle and Seung talk about how they function as a team and discuss their collaborative efforts when working with QE.

Week 5: Closing the Loop with Golnaz Arastoopour Irgens

Dr. Golnaz Arastoopour Irgens is an Assistant Professor of Learning Sciences [https://www.clemson.edu/education/about/directory/profile.html?userid=GARASTO] and the Director of the Inclusive Digital Education and Analytics (IDEA) Lab [//idealabclemson.org] at Clemson University. In her learning analytics work, she uses quantitative ethnography, computational linguistics, and discourse networks to make sense of how learners engage with digital technologies. In this episode, David and Gol discuss the iterative process of QE and why ‘closing the interpretive loop’ is a challenging but pivotal step in conducting a sound analysis. Paper referenced: Arastoopour Irgens, G. (2019). Facilitating a sense of belonging for women of color in engineering. In R. D. Roscoe, E. K. Chiou, & A. R. Wooldridge (Eds.), Advancing diversity, inclusion, and social justice through human systems engineering (pp. 221–239). CRC Press.