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| Graduate students, in their haste to complete the thesis or dissertation, often overlook an important source of information--their own experiences. One reason for this is that students have been conditioned in many of the courses they take to locate authority outside of themselves. Textbooks, the professors' lectures, and assigned readings serve as the fount of knowledge. In effect, the student is treated as an empty vessel to be filled with information from external authorities. Essentialists--those who believe that there is a body of knowledge that contains traditional concepts, skills and information--argue that there is a canon or body of literature that must be learned by students in a particular discipline. In recent years, constructivists--those who believe that each person creates his or her own body of knowledge--have criticized essentialists for being Eurocentric and male-centered. Consequently, constructivists often encourage graduate students to write down, perhaps in outline form, everything they know and feel about a thesis or dissertation topic before engaging in more systematic scholarship. Another way of saying this is that the outer curriculum--the course of study as represented by the text, assigned readings, and lectures--is always a springboard to the inner curriculum--what each person experiences as learning settings as cooperatively created ( Brubaker, 1994). The tone of constructivism is captured in the title of Gloria Steinem book, Revolution from Within ( 1992).Constructivists would, for example, encourage the graduate student to ponder the question, "What within my experience has led me to the selection of this research topic, and how has my research methodology been influenced by such experiences?" For instance, if a researcher is studying at-risk children, she or he might point out in the introduction or in a methodology chapter that the topic was selected because of the writer's personal experiences in trying to reach at-risk children. Or, the researcher might write that she or he was an at-risk student as a child, then add that a case-study methodology was chosen as it seems to be the next best thing to personally "being there." The constructivist as advisor might also encourage the student to personalize the latter part of the final chapter of the thesis or dissertation. As one professor said, "The implications of your findings are where you must spread your wings, for this is the major place in your writing where the committee must know the personal meaning you assign to what you have discovered."Two warnings to be sounded with regard to constructivism are (1) Be careful that your attitude toward your own experiences doesn't lead to narcissism, a preoccupation with self that simply compounds your ignorance and (2) use your experiences as a starting place that leads to a more comprehensive and precise critique of matters you are researching. |
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