Social Construction of Reality - Bad Request

CHAPTER THREE
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Introduction
The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) of 2001 requires K-12 organizations to
perform numerous program evaluations, despite the fact few of these organizations have
the professional capacity to support program evaluations beyond the minimum level
required to achieve federal compliance (Rossi, Lipsey, & Freeman, 2004; Scriven, 1996).
Because the K-12 arena is not populated with professional program evaluators,
evaluations typically emphasize outcomes at the expense of process assessment while
also prioritizing compliance needs ahead of other stakeholder interests (Eddy & Berry,
2007). As early as 2002, the Department of Education expressed concerns that
“evaluation studies are not as helpful as they could be to practitioners at the local level,
nor can they answer questions of causation” (New Directions, 2004). The selected
Missouri school district, hereafter referred to as The School District, has not yet
determined how to implement program evaluations that are routinely capable of
maximizing the use of stakeholder time, overcoming geographic constraints, and
providing anonymity where necessary while still promoting organizational knowledge
creation.
Research Paradigm and Philosophy
To best understand how processes and meanings evolve from any research, the
reader is well-served to understand the cognitive logic of the researcher. Coghlan and
Brannick (2005) emphasize “researchers’ epistemological and ontological perspectives
legitimate their own distinctive way of doing research and determine what they consider
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