Conducting research requires a researcher to question the purpose of the work, the intimacy of the relationship between the researcher and the “object” of study, and what situational constraints shape the inquiry. When studying the socially constructed nature of reality, qualitative research may be preferred, for it uses an inductive process to build theory from rich descriptions of contextual observations, experiences, and understandings (Denzin & Lincoln, 2011). This chapter discusses my purpose for conducting research using qualitative case study methodology. This methodology affords me the opportunity to research how individuals, their experiences, and their natural surroundings contribute to real-world phenomenon. To frame my work, I reference two methodologists who have laid, in part, the foundation for work in this field, Robert Stake and Robert Yin. I address my subjectivity and positionality as well as the principles, procedures, and assumptions found in qualitative case study inquiry. I close the chapter situating my research participants19 in their respective contexts and sharing my journey of data collection and analysis.
Purpose for Qualitative Case Study Methodology
Qualitative case study methodology is used in fields such as anthropology, psychology, education, sociology, nursing, law, policy, business, political science, and occupational science and therapy (Hammersly & Gomm, 2000; Platt, 1992; Smith, Stephenson, & Gibson-
Satterthwaite, 2013; Yin, 2014). Researchers who engage in this work conduct in-depth
19 I use “participants” and “informants” interchangeably to describe research subjects because they are the ones
explorations of a phenomenon using a variety of data sources (Orum, Feagin, & Sjoberg, 1991). These data sources, such as interviews, document analyses, and observations, contribute to the researchers’ understandings of the multiple facets of the phenomenon.
A qualitative case study is appropriate for my research given that I investigate
participants’ understandings of a contemporary phenomenon within its real-life situation where the boundaries between the phenomenon and the situation are not clear, which follows Yin’s (2014) definition of a case study. The holistic nature of a qualitative case study allows me to examine how people respond to social actions through teacher education reform initiatives. Gathering these accounts and explaining their complexities may not be accessible through experimental or survey research. Thus, qualitative case study methodology provides me with an opportunity to study human experiences and understandings within a context.
Before I can discuss any further about my selected choice of methodology, I must review how my theoretical perspective ties into qualitative case study methodology. As discussed in the previous chapter, my research emerges from a sociopolitical concern. Valero (2004) asserted that research conducted from this perspective considers the political, dialogical, and social nature of the phenomenon of study. Thus, engaging in qualitative case study research with a sociopolitical perspective affords me an opportunity to examine what secondary mathematics teacher educators communicate about the teaching and learning of mathematics. Reflection on my informants’ responses and experiences contributes to my understanding of how secondary mathematics teacher educators navigate the edTPA while simultaneously responding to professional mathematics education organizations’ reform efforts (e.g., AMTE, 2017; NCTM, 2000, 2014) that promote effective, inclusive, and socially just systems of education. Additionally, I am cognizant of how sociopolitical research cautions readers to be critical of “the research process,
the intentionality of the research, and the paths that the researcher decided to take when meeting the people with whom she engaged in the research” (Valero, 2004, p. 19), more of which I discuss throughout this chapter.
Reflecting on My Subjectivity and Positionality
Unveiling my subjectivity and positionality in conjunction with my rationale for choosing qualitative case study methodology unmasks, upfront, who I am as a researcher embarking on a research journey. Being transparent with my subjectivity means revealing my life experiences (i.e., the cultural, social, and political aspects) and how such experiences influence me as a researcher, including my researcher biases, assumptions, interactions, and analyses. Peshkin (1988) described subjectivity as inevitable, for it is “not a badge of honor…[but] a garment that cannot be removed” (p. 17). Thus, researchers are responsible for identifying their subjectivities and interweaving them throughout the research process from start to finish (Peshkin, 1982, 1988). By revealing my subjectivity, I unveil personal qualities that otherwise may have skewed the results of the investigation if not disclosed. In the following, I share my subjectivity,
including my positionality, and reflect on how both shape my inquiry as well as influence the findings of my investigation.
I describe myself as a young, White (one-fourth Japanese), middle-class, female educator and doctoral student. With a Bachelor of Science in Education (Mathematics Education), four years of teaching experience, and a Masters of Education (Mathematics Education), I decided to pursue a Doctor of Philosophy in Teaching and Learning in Mathematics Education at Georgia State University. I attribute my academic success to my upbringing in a household that valued education. Even though I was the first to receive an undergraduate degree on my father’s side and a graduate degree on my mother’s side, education represented the path to follow my
occupational goals and become an educated citizen. Thus, I have always been interested in studying the field of education, more specifically mathematics education.
As a mathematics teacher at a Title I STEM-accredited magnet school just outside of Atlanta, Georgia, I developed curriculum, activities, and assessments for Coordinate Algebra, Analytic Geometry, and Advanced Algebra and Trigonometry. While planning with the
Common Core State Standards, I referenced NCTM’s (2000) Principles and Standards and other documents. My membership in NCTM and my experience working with their standards
throughout my undergraduate and graduate degrees as well as my teaching position provided me with a context to know about NCTM’s contributions to the field of mathematics education.
In the summer of 2015, as a doctoral student at Georgia State University, I was introduced to the edTPA while collaborating with a secondary mathematics teacher educator, who also served as the program coordinator for the Master of Arts in Teaching Secondary Mathematics. We co-taught two introductory methods courses to prospective secondary mathematics teachers enrolled in the initial teacher preparation program. Given that the
prospective teachers joined the program at the start of edTPA’s initiative in Georgia, they were required to submit the edTPA for program completion. They also had to pass the assessment to receive their teaching license for the state. Thus, my co-instructor and I made sure to acquaint ourselves with SCALE’s (2016a) edTPA Secondary Mathematics Assessment Handbook and other supplemental materials, such as Making Good Choices: A Support Guide for edTPA
Candidates (SCALE, 2016b), Understanding Academic Language in edTPA: Supporting
Learning and Language Development (SCALE, 2016c), and Understanding Rubric Level
Progressions: Secondary Mathematics edTPA (SCALE, 2016d). We also strategically integrated
experience working alongside my co-instructor raised my awareness of teacher educators’ efforts preparing prospective teachers for success in both teacher education and the edTPA.
My additional experiences working as a university supervisor and a graduate research assistant for the Dean’s Office enabled me to closely work with prospective teachers as they prepared for the edTPA during their clinical field experiences. As I provided aid with the technical and logistical aspects of the edTPA, I witnessed various ways prospective teachers, teacher educators, university supervisors, and mentor teachers responded and interacted with the edTPA. Although I heard stories depicting both disdain and gratitude toward the edTPA, I viewed the edTPA as one additional requirement set forth by reform initiatives to
reconceptualize and standardize teacher preparation.
I continue to view the edTPA as one of the many hurdles to obtaining a teaching license. I agree that prospective teachers must be equipped with the knowledge and skills to engage in effective teaching practices. Methods courses and clinical field experiences must be demanding and challenging to ensure prospective teachers are ready for the classroom. However, I am not confident in the validity of a high-stakes performance assessment being a measure of one’s readiness to teach, especially when the structure of the assessment may be more achievable to some than others (e.g., English-language learners, marginalized students). Thus, I acknowledge my open-minded yet cautious perspective of the edTPA as I engage with my participants. Additionally, I recognize that while I have limited experiences teaching prospective secondary mathematics teachers within the confines of one university, I am mindful that the experiences I do have with the edTPA still contribute to my subjectivity.
As a researcher, I must also consider how my positionality affects my interactions and relationships with my participants, including how they view me as a researcher. To view myself
as objective and detached from my participants would be next to impossible. A researcher conducts research because of a certain level of interest and curiosity that generates the need for the researcher to pursue the inquiry (Jones, 2001). To establish a relationship with my
participants, I must recognize how others will view my role as a researcher entering their world of teaching practices and experiences. This insider and/or outsider perspective, with respect to the context and culture being studied, is crucial to align with my identity.
As described by Holmes (2014), an insider perspective, also known as an emic account, situates the researcher within the culture of the participants. This description means that one’s context of behavior, action, and construction of meaning is relative to whom they are interacting with and observing. On the contrary, an outsider perspective, also known as an etic account, places the researcher’s culture on the outskirts of the participants’ culture. Thus, I must identify my perspective in relation to my participants to establish the limitations of my research. If I embrace my position as an insider, I have a chance to obtain access to my participants’ experiences and responses and better understand their unique world (Jones, 2001). Therefore, how I appear to interact with the participants determines the quality and quantity of the data I collect.
My experience working with the edTPA and reviewing AMTE and NCTM’s standards helped me to relate to the secondary mathematics teacher educators that I interviewed. This insider perspective provided me with an emic account that allowed for opportunities with teacher educators to construct conversations that revealed their responses toward teacher performance assessments and ideas of access and equity. Additionally, I sympathized with teacher educators’ concerns. By being able to relate to teacher educators’ experiences, I also understood how such experiences influenced the construction of one’s meaning. Although my insider perspective
provided me with an opportunity to be a sounding board for teacher educators sharing their experiences and responses, I also recognized that such research may be perceived as biased and narrowly defined.
Thus, I made plans to manage my subjectivity and positionality by engaging in continual reflection throughout my research process. I documented my researcher reflexivity in audio and written diaries. The diaries enabled me to reflect on my thoughts, biases, and experiences
collecting and analyzing data. Through reflection, I could “tame [my] subjectivity” as not to have “untamed subjectivity [mute] the emic voice” (Peshkin, 1988, pp. 20–21). Additionally, the diaries aided in leaving a subjectivity audit trail and assisting with my transparency as a researcher, more of which I comment on in the qualitative “reliability” section.
Philosophical Underpinnings of Stake and Yin
A researcher’s philosophical underpinnings can describe how one views reality, acquires knowledge, deals with values, and engages in inquiry. Stake (1994, 1995, 2005) and Yin (2014) were forthcoming, for the most part, with how their philosophical stances impacted their
assumptions in viewing case study research. In the following section, I identify the ontological, the epistemological, and the methodological assumptions of Stake and Yin.
A look at the ontological assumptions of Stake and Yin can provide insight into how each viewed the nature of reality, or “the study of being” (Crotty, 1998, p. 10). Stake (1994, 1995, 2005) situated his work from a constructivist paradigm. As described by Guba and Lincoln (1994), a constructivist paradigm views reality as relativist, which is comprised of multiple realities that are socially constructed and holistic in nature. These realities are continuously changing and, as a result, cannot be predicted or controlled, which makes studying causal linkages—cause-and-effect relationships—impossible. In fact, Stake (1995) described how “the
real business of case study is particularization, not generalization” (p. 8). This particularization also means that for one to understand a phenomenon, one must consider the context in which it occurs.
On the other hand, Yin (2014) oriented most of his work “toward a realist perspective, which assumes the existence of a single reality that is independent of any observer” (p. 17). This realist perspective aligns with a positivist (or post-positivist) paradigm that views reality as truth while also being objective, predictable, and controllable in nature. Thus, “time- and context-free generalizations” can take the form of causal explanations, which can be used to direct research and explain findings (Guba & Lincoln, 1994, p. 109).
Although Yin (2014) situated case study methodology from a realist perspective, he also recognized that a relativist perspective could be taken. Yin cautioned that a relativist perspective will impact the way researchers capture participants’ different perspectives and present their findings. Thus, Yin acknowledged the “applicability of different epistemological orientations” (p. 17) but mainly positioned himself within a realist perspective.
The epistemological assumptions of Stake and Yin revealed insight in how knowledge was acquired. From Stake’s constructivist paradigm, knowledge was created in the interaction between the researchers and the informants (Guba & Lincoln, 1994). As described by Stake (1994, 1995, 2005), researchers were encouraged to interact with their informants in day-to-day activities, oftentimes over an extended period of time. Thus, knowledge required a transactional and subjectivist approach that was constructed through interactive experiences (Guba & Lincoln, 1994). Findings gathered were specific to the time and context of the participating informants and could not be generalized beyond the scope of the study. Therefore, the knowledge gained acted as “working hypotheses” and reflected the subjectivity of the researcher.
From Yin’s perspective that aligned with the “positivist tradition” (Yazan, 2015, p. 137), the researcher and the investigated “object” were independent entities (Guba & Lincoln, 1994). In a positivist paradigm, knowledge was acquired through a one-way interaction. To reduce the threat to validity, the researcher refrained from influencing or being influenced by the
informants. To aid in this endeavor, researchers would follow prescribed procedures. As suggested by Yin (2014), researchers were encouraged to involve multiple observers when conducting an observation to increase the reliability of observational evidence. Also, researchers were urged to treat interviews as “verbal reports only” (p. 113) to reduce biases and collect data from multiple sources as a means of corroborating the findings.
How Stake and Yin approached their methodological assumptions were quite different as well. A look at how each defined case study provided insight into such assumptions. Stake (1995) described a case study as “a study of the particularity and complexity of a single case, coming to understand its activity within important circumstances” (p. xi). Thus, case studies drew from “naturalistic, holistic, ethnographic, phenomenological, and biographic research methods” (p. xi). A further look at the research methods revealed their flexible and inductive nature. A flexible conceptual framework could be used, but it was not required. Throughout the research project, modifications could be made, including changes to the research questions. The resulting interpretations gathered from the research would guide the understanding of a
phenomenon that occurred in a particular context.
On the contrary, Yin (2014) defined case study with two considerations in mind, its scope and features. In the first part, case study was compared to an “empirical inquiry” that
“investigate[d] a contemporary phenomenon in depth and within its real-life context” where “the boundaries between phenomenon and context [were] not clearly evident” (p. 16). In the latter, he
described what he termed “methodological characteristics” of case study inquiry, such as coping with “more variables of interest than data points;” retrieving data from “multiple sources of evidence, with data needing to converge in a triangulating fashion;” and using the “prior development of theoretical propositions to guide collection and analysis” (p. 17). Thus, Yin’s definition of a case study addressed the design, data collection techniques, and the data analysis methods.
Yin (2014) used structured research methods to legitimize the process of inquiry. He used theories to generate propositions, which identify the relationships among the constructs and direct the data collection and the analysis. Here, the researcher relies on the propositions to control for confounding conditions that might derail the study from its intended purpose (Guba & Lincoln, 1994). If propositions are not used (i.e., the case of an exploration case study), a stated purpose with established criteria—to judge whether the study is successful—should be
addressed. Thus, Yin (2014) suggested that the research design consist of structures aimed at “defining the logic linking the data to the propositions and the criteria for interpreting the findings” (p. 36).
When I reflect on Stake and Yin’s philosophical assumptions, I align more with Stake’s perspective. Although I understand the value of structure and using previous literature to guide my work, research on my informants, in the particular context of study, opens the door for
exploration and new understandings. Having a rigid conceptual framework that focuses my study into proving or disproving propositions not only limits the richness of the collected data but also stifles the possibility of uncovering unknown elements of the phenomenon. Thus, my research is not constrained by propositions but is instead open to flexibility. Additionally, I interact with secondary mathematics teacher educators as they share their experiences working to prepare
prospective secondary mathematics teachers for the Secondary Mathematics edTPA while also navigating professional mathematics education organizations’ reform initiatives. Each secondary mathematics teacher educator has a unique experience of which I come to (attempt to)
understand through our interactions. Next, I present Stake and Yin’s approach to defining and selecting a case as well as how I do the same with my research.
Defining and Selecting a Case
Stake (1995) defined a case as “a specific, a complex, functioning thing” like “an integrated system…[that]…has a boundary and working parts” (p. 2). A case may focus on a particular person, group, organization, program, community, or multiple groups who share common experiences. Although events and processes can be included, Stake indicated that case study research does not benefit from these, which is contrary to Yin’s (2014) belief that cases can be used for evaluation purposes. Yin asserted that researchers “define a specific, real-life ‘case’ to be a concrete manifestation of the abstraction” (p. 34). He also referred to a case as a unit of analysis, which plays a role in determining the research questions and the propositions. When selecting a case, a researcher should consider the nature of the case, such as the physical setting, the historical background, the informants represented in the case, and other