Research Methods Expertise.

I am primarily a qualitative researcher and critical scholar. I employ a metatheodel (multiple theories and models) as a primer for my critical scholarship to interrogate systems of racism, oppression, and power. I am also competent in quantitative between-groups survey design using stratified and chain-referral sampling methods. My approach to critical scholarship interrogates issues of higher education grounded the critical perspectives (Apple, 1998; DeVitis & Yu, 2011; Leonardo, 2009; Sullivan,2006). If we are unable to facilitate critical perspectives in our masters and doctoral graduates as outcomes for our educational systems, we will continue to facilitate social reproduction of inequities. However, I perceive higher education as an opportunity for social mobility. Higher education may also be viewed, at times, as a more ideal laboratory for society’s higher hopes and aspirations, for example, impactful research, a more informed and critical citizenry, and moral development. Shapiro (2005) furthers this notion by stating, “[Colleges and universities] serve society as both a responsive servant and a thoughtful critic. … [They] must also raise questions that society does not want to ask and generate new ideas that help invent the future.” (p. 4).

Descriptive Phenomenology

[Insert qualitative paragraph here]

I employ culturally sensitive sampling procedures using maximum variation grounded by the methods outlined by Jones, Torres, and Arminio (2014) for historically marginalized and underrepresented populations for the recruitment of participants. I also use chain-referral (snowball) sampling as defined by Patton (2012). I generate themes through three levels of coding. Initial coding begins with open coding with a reading of all transcripts and coding on a line-by- line basis staying rooted in the data.  My second coding process is grounded in either axial coding in which open codes are grouped into more abstract and complex categories. I also use selective coding to collapse themes (Strauss & Corbin, 1990) in which bracketing is utilized as a heuristic to structure coding (Patton, 2012). My use of trustworthiness strategies is guided by Cresswell and Miller (2000) to inform validity, analysis, and interpretations of transcript data.