By Alan Bullimore, Eve Rapley, Gill Clifton and Elizabeth Chapman Hoult

Research Methods in Information (2^nd edition)

Alison Jane Pickard

Facet (2013)

Review by Alan Bullimore

This recently republished volume is a valuable and timely addition to what the author refers to as the research methods journey. Information professionals like the writer are of course experts in this field. However, this may be a Greek gift for them. Habits learnt a while ago require constant updating as technology advances. This is unlikely to be the final edition. The research journey is one undertaken without the aid of a SatNav to predict future developments in research strategy, or an estimated time of arrival.

The author's use of the first person throughout the text helps to give a friendly feel whilst introducing some complicated concepts. The nine page glossary helped to clarify some of the terms used, although inevitably some of the definitions only caused me further confusion. Although I now know that hermeneutics concerns dualistic cognitive theory I am not confident that I understand the concept any better.

The practical exercises included in the book at the end of each chapter (and the associated pencil icon) are a useful tool to help the reader think about the concepts introduced in previous pages. I found myself re-reading some of the book as if revising for an exam. In terms of digesting material this proved to be helpful, particularly when instructed, as in one case, that this overview should take up no more than two sides of A4.

Twenty four chapters on a variety of subjects means that each chapter is of a digestible length, providing an overview of the topic without going into the level of detail which would bamboozle the lay reader. This is particularly the case with the chapter on quantitative analysis. I could not claim to understand frequency polygons after reading these pages, but might at least recognise one in a student dissertation. I would also have a much better idea about when it would be appropriate to use one, and be aware of sources of further information.

The book includes over 50 references from 2007 onwards (the date of the original edition). I wrongly imagined that these would be largely about advances in information technology. Although this was sometimes the case there are also citations to several new overview texts about research methods being published, and a pleasing number of articles about research ethics, which appears to be a hot topic in academia currently. The reference list also reinforces the range of academic disciplines covered in the book, from nursing to computer sciences, Latino Street gangs and all points in-between.

Threshold Concepts: From Personal Practice to Communities of Practice

Catherine OMahony, Avril Buchanan, Mary O'Rourke & Bettie Higgs (eds.)

The Irish National Academy for Integration of Research, Teaching and Learning (2014)

Review by Eve Rapley

The January 2014 NAIRTL (National Academy for Integration of Research, Teaching and Learning) Threshold Concepts conference papers provide both breadth and depth, capturing and articulating both the essence and substance of Threshold Concepts. The span of papers ensures that both the largely uninitiated, and those with more knowledge and interest in this area of higher education pedagogy, are equally catered for. With a range of academic disciplines from geology, history, art, mathematics and engineering in which to contextualise underlying concepts, the papers and vignettes successfully tread the path between inaccessible and esoteric theory, and a theoretical 'dummies guide' approach.

In addition to the breadth of disciplines featured, papers focus on undergraduate, postgraduate and international students and cases, as well as those from our own shores and those further afield. With a spectrum of methodological diversity from the 'tried and tested', to those championing the evolutionary nature of Threshold Concepts, the proceedings present a veritable smorgasbord of approaches and angles. Sensibly put together into five clearly orientated sections, the proceedings are logically ordered, with each paper being short, yet, on the whole, packing a punch. It is perhaps this snappy writing approach which makes the collection so entirely readable and worth any HE teacher taking a look at.

As an HE teacher, I am well acquainted with the difficulties oft cited and experienced by students as they grapple, often with difficulty, with the notion of moving towards and through liminal spaces; spaces where students encounter 'troublesome knowledge' and find themselves unable to move beyond it; a 'stuck place'. I have seen firsthand, genuine discomfort and confusion from students as they begin to face the prospect of their hitherto acquired knowledge and certainties being challenged and, at times, turned inside out and given a metaphorical shake. Everything previously and unquestioningly held as being the truth can begin to morph and change, creating a state of confusion and a raft of questions and nascent hypotheses. Referred to in the literature as ontological shift, it is this notion of philosophical positioning that is so conceptually difficult to contend with, yet is presented so neatly and accessibly within this collection.

The keynote by Professor Ray Land, a renowned founding father of Threshold Concepts, adds some serious intellectual weight to the proceedings, giving the reader both something of a crash course in underlying principles, as well as a particularly potent re-visiting and re-imagining of the oft-cited definitions and constructs. Whereas much that is written about Threshold Concepts tends to dwell upon the negative and the aspects of difficulty and confusion, Land opts for an altogether more positive tack. Whilst he acknowledges the disorientating and unsettling nature of being on the wrong side of a Threshold Concept, and of the journey through to the other side, he invites readers to see a 'stuck place' as a place for student re-awakenings and a place to be embraced as one as a space for transformation, not merely as somewhere for students to struggle and to merely 'get through'. He talks of liminal spaces as being difficult, but also in terms of being 'emergent…where emergent identities arise'. He also talks of them being a place where previously held truths and ways of viewing the world have to be jettisoned, to be 'let go' in order that the new ways of thinking can come into existence. He portrays this letting go as both necessary and emancipatory. His vigorous assertion that Threshold Concepts and liminal spaces are there to be seized and acknowledged as being places both for pleasure and pain, are cogently presented.

Belinda Allen's paper continues this theme of adopting an optimistic embrace, rather than a fearful cower. Her talk of students moving towards and through Threshold Concepts and liminal spaces in terms of 'liberation', 'receptiveness' and 'growth' all chime with Land (and many of the other authors from the collection), again offering up an altogether more positive and alternative reading of what has sometimes been considered a concept firmly rooted in the realms of theory, and not the applied.

The quietly impressive range of papers within the collection abundantly illustrates the multidimensional nature of Threshold Concepts. They take the reader beyond the standard reading of Glynis Cousin's notions of Threshold Concepts being 'betwixt and between conceptual mastery'. They paint an altogether more rich and practical portrait that HE teachers might meaningfully take to re-shape their own practice. The emphasis on teachers needing to be mindful of Threshold Concepts, to assist students in negotiating their way through, and to tolerate confusion, is eloquently yet purposefully stated. A number of papers talk in detail about the need for HE teachers to identify their own disciplinary Threshold Concepts, to acknowledge their existence and to develop a pedagogy both to promote learning, and to decrease teacher frustration.

At a time when much is written in both the popular press and academic literature about the very nature and purpose of higher education (often in response to concerns about deficits in criticality and higher thinking from undergraduates), this publication could not be more appositely timed. As university teachers, it also highlights the question that we've been asking ourselves since time immemorial: 'Why don't they get it?' Perhaps reading this will put us all in a better place to address the question, and to come at this age old problem from a different, and more enlightened space.

Materialities, Textures and Pedagogies

Tara Fenwick and Paolo Landri (Eds.)

Routledge (2014)

Review by Gill Clifton

Materialities, Textures and Pedagogies is an edited collection of seven articles originally published in Pedagogy, Culture & Society (vol 20 issue 1, Mar 2012). Contributors are drawn from a range of International and European institutions that span a variety of faculties including Education, Sociology, Education Sciences and Technology Enhanced Knowledge Research. This broad base means the authors cover a range of contexts which include curriculum and practice in relation to schools and post-compulsory education, as well as learning in the context of the workplace and the community. However, the dynamic of the perspectives is brought together by the authors' central aim, which is to challenge perceptions of education that only take account of the human subject. Promoted as joining 'a developing tradition of "practice based" conceptions of learning but with a special interest in foregrounding the materiality of educational processes', the authors argue that materials (described as texts and technologies, tools and natural forces and the concept of embodiment) are in fact central to understanding how learning and knowing can be seen as a collective activity. Such a sociomaterial analysis, it is argued, proposes a reconceptualisation of what is understood to be pedagogy and of where and how pedagogical processes occur, including the effects they can have on culture and society.

In this sense, the authors position pedagogy within the context of Action Network Theory (ANT) and the broader concept of Science and Technology Studies (STS).  Briefly, ANT sees understanding (and thus methods of analysis) as a web of interconnected relationships located within material and semiotic (signs and symbols) domains. In foregrounding ANT, the authors set out to 'expand and push forward ANT or STS conceptions of pedagogical enactments' and they do this through both theoretical and empirically-evidenced studies.

As the name implies, ANT, albeit a theory, is actually concerned with exploring the relational ties that link a network together, rather than seeking to discover 'how' or 'why' the network exists. In this sense, this collection assembles examples of what could be perceived to be different 'networks', for example: the notion of a standardisation network in relation to professional standards in education, a science classroom, a professional work environment, work-related online communities, and women in voluntary community organisations. The authors interrogate the materials and semiotic connections within the different settings in the context of various case studies. The final chapter is a theoretical discussion that argues for the materiality of the concept of critique. It is suggested that 'critique' is not simply 'a form of theorising' but is 'something present within practices' and specifically has transformative potential.

It could be argued that edited collections give the reader more for their money in that the often found diversity of the articles brings together broader, wider insights into a specific topic or theme. Conversely it could be said that if seeking a specific context then actually it would be better to go straight to the relevant article. However, given the topic and central aim of this collection, I would suggest that anyone interested in exploring knowledge and learning beyond the traditional models and discourses that underpin educational research and, similarly, anyone new as I am to ANT, would find this an interesting read. There is, on occasions, an assumption that meaning and context of some of the language and terms used is implicit, and I did find myself at times challenged in recontextualising my understanding in order to grapple with the authors' intended meaning. Nevertheless, it has spurred an interest in wanting to discover more, given that these articles were published in 2012 and such theorising has no doubt moved on still further. It does not answer the question of the reconceptualisation of pedagogy but it does position sociomaterialisation in a range of different cultural and societal contexts, which has significance when reflecting on educational enquiry.

Chasing Literacy: Reading and Writing in an Age of Acceleration

Daniel Keller

University Press of Colorado (2014)

Review by Elizabeth Chapman Hoult

The process of reading Chasing Literacy: Reading and Writing in an Age of Acceleration was much like most of my other reading experiences these days. I read it over a week or so, sometimes on trains, sometimes at home, once in my office at work and sometimes in cafes. What linked all of these locations together was the fact that at no point did I ever just read the book. On nearly every occasion I had my iPhone switched on, my work emails close to hand, and my personal emails readily accessible. Reading for many of us now is a fragmented experience. A few moments of deep thought about what Daniel Keller means by his insight that participation in social media for many people is an attention-seeking practice –  'a rhetoric aimed at fading' (p. 91) – is broken by a text message flashing on my iPhone reminding me to pack a hat in my daughter's school bag because it's going to be a hot day. A few more moments thinking about his convincing argument that 'speed has become a defining feature of contemporary literacy' (p.69) are terminated by my memory that I must check, and then respond to, an email from an ethics board by the end of the day.  Accompanying this scattered experience of taking in words from different sources at the same time is an underlying feeling of underperformance. A guilty sense that in some other place there are other people who still do 'proper' reading – of meditating on real books in quiet concentration for long periods of time and that what I'm doing, surrounded by my laptop, my iPhone and my tablet, is a shabby version of that. At some point, I tell myself, I'll return to that other form of reading that I must have done before Web 2.0 became a defining feature of our daily lives.

Keller's argument, central to this useful book about contemporary literacy, is that my reading experience is now the dominant one and that scholarship on reading pedagogy has been slow to recognise this shift. Drawing on case-study research of young people's reading practices, he argues that we have adapted our reading and writing habits to a social and cultural environment that emphasises speed above any other quality. The experience of endless chasing – the latest message, the latest update, and the latest post – defines the way we engage in everyday reading these days. But his is not a plaintive, nostalgic call for a return to the sort of relationships that we used to have with books – the literary equivalent of committed serial monogamy. For sure, Keller values deep concentration on texts and what he calls the 'slow curriculum that makes room for repeated, reinforced experiences that support connection, practice and metacognition' (p.159). But his argument is that this is just one form of reading practice that we need in our contemporary repertoires. He argues that we are much more sophisticated readers than we were previously in the context of so much digital information; we 'shuttle' (p.154) both between print and digital texts and between our roles as readers and writers.

Far from being an empty performance of miniscule attention spans, these processes are actually highly sophisticated and involve making conscious decisions about what we are doing. We have not abandoned our ability to read slowly and deeply but rather we combine it with faster reading techniques, one of which he calls 'foraging'  which he nicely describes as a 'purposeful wandering across texts that involves gathering materials and ideas' (p. 14). This book is primarily a call for literacy scholars to take fuller cognisance of the impact of what reading has become and to develop a clearer pedagogy for teaching reading in the light of it. The main contribution it makes, though, is to make us think explicitly about our own experiences of reading and writing; to be attentive to our current practices and to acknowledge, if not resolve, our love-hate relationship with information and communication technologies. Readers of this book who are not immersed in writing and reading pedagogy research might find the first sections a little dry, but it is worth persevering with because the accounts of the case studies are finely drawn with some exquisite details about the literacy-rich life of the average American teenager. Indeed I did wonder if Daniel Keller might adapt these ideas for a much wider audience: the problems he delineates go far further than the teaching of literacy in high schools – they affect all of us.