QuantCrit as a Methodological Framework for Equity-Centered Discipline-Based Education Research
If our intention as researchers in Discipline-Based Education Research (DBER) is to address educational inequity, the philosophy of our research requires paradigms aligned with subverting harmful narratives in favor of narratives aligned with emphasizing patterns of marginalization and minoritization and building an educational system capable of broadening participation and success for all students. The field of DBER must work to transition from a majority post-positivist paradigm to paradigms that are designed to specifically reveal and dismantle oppressive barriers if we truly want to provide justice to marginalized students. The main objective of this talk is to provide a methodological framework for the use of quantitative methods through a critical lens for Discipline Based Education Researchers. Research is a non-linear process that requires constant engagement in reflexivity, improvement, and adaptation. QuantCrit as a Methodological Framework acts both as a blueprint to guide DBER researchers to apply critical quantitative principles and as a meta-analytic process for evaluating our decisions as we engage in the research process. We will illustrate the utility of QuantCrit in three sections. First, by providing the historical context surrounding the development of the statistical methods we use today and how they are at odds with equity and justice goals. Second, we will discuss QuantCrit as a methodological framework and its theoretical tenets. Finally, we will illustrate how to apply QuantCrit tenets from establishing a research question and choosing a theoretical framework, to experimental design and supporting analytical decisions.
