Qualitative research in adult education: a colloquium on theory, practice, supervision and assessment

This book provides a collection of papers concerned with qualitative research into facilitated adult learning in educational, counselling and therapeutic settings. This colloquium brought together a small group of education and social science researchers from several universities in Australia. Its first aim was to reflect on the emerging nature and dimensions of qualitative research in this area. Twenty participants discussed their draft papers during two days of intense and amicable exchanges. The papers in this volume represent the finalised works of eighteen of these participants. This volume contains the following papers: Notes on the basic characteristics of postpositivist interpretive inquiry / Darrel Caulley; Preparation for research by adult educators: where should I start? / Leslie Claydon; 'Discovery' and the qualitative researcher: an act of faith or personal endurance? / Marlene Edwards; Action research still has to buy the groceries: some dilemmas in doing action research in an academic setting / Lesley-Kuhn White; Researcher understandings and qualitative methodology / John McIntyre; Post modern researching and thesis supervision / Peter Melser; Researching good practice / Bernie Neville; Becoming a researcher: reflections of a student-teacher-writer-researcher / Peter Waterhouse; Researching practice in adult education for human development: questions of method / Peter Willis; Qualitative research in physiotherapy student learning in the clinical environment / Dawn Best; Dynamics and dilemmas of politically committed adult education research / Griff Foley; Do registered psychiatric nurses utilise recommended approaches with delusional clients? / Di Hawthorne and Andrew McKenzie; The first year experience: group work with university accounting students / Lynn Leveson and Christine McGrath; A naturalistic enquiry into the 'parental alienation syndrome' - a proposal to explore the experience of 'parental alienation' from the perspective of the participants in the dispute / Lawrie Moloney; Reflections on research on adults of non-English speaking background (NESB) / Marta Rado and Lois Foster; Some dilemmas in participatory research: the Yukon native teacher education project / Ian Robertson; and Shifting methodologies: the experience of workplace action research / Hank Schaafsma. Show less