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Higher Education and ‘market-logic’?

Research question:

Is the “higher education” increasingly approached with a ‘market logic’ over the last 20 years?

(Markets: competition between universities, selling a service; as opposed to public service and good.)

How to approach?

Experiment: not possible

Survey among experts:

- experts do not know either

- likely to give a biased opinion (world-view intervenes)

- people cannot objectively present the past and the future

(e.g. work load among Australian academics)

Solution: analyze the change in the language used in HE strategy documents. -> Use existing government documents!

Method: Content analysis!

Content analysis

What is a case study research?

1. Find the key HE strategy documents in the last 20 years

"The future of the Higher Education System" (2011) – Veerman committee report

"A strategy plan for the Higher Education: The new millennium" (1999)

2. Analyze the content of the documents: coding!

Coding = conceptualization and operationalisation tool

3. Conclusion:

Can you see more and more “market” language in more recent documents?

Content analysis

YIN (1993):

"-Investigates a contemporary phenomenon within its real-life context, especially when

- the boundaries between phenomenon and context are not clearly evident."

- Key words: complexity, in-depth

- Not good for descriptive studies that aim to generalize on population: how much, who, and when (survey or document analysis better)

- Good for why and how for theory development appropriate

What do we code?

Manifest content: (higher reliability)

concrete terms present in a communication:

‘Market’, ‘competition’, ‘private benefit’

Latent content: (usually higher validity)

underlying meaning of communications

[often concrete words are not sufficient to convey the true nature]. ‘Tuition fee’ as a market instrument vs social equality instrument. The phrase itself not sufficient.

Validity vs reliability trade-off

Use both if possible!

Example: theses in our department

Statistical analysis

of existing data

1. A single case study design: How to cope with conflicting values: The case of desegregation and freedom of choice in Dutch primary education policy

Theory: cycling, firewalling, casuistry

Data: Documents, institutional arrangements, interviews

2. A multiple case study design: How NGDOs reconcile market pressures with social commitment: The case of three NGDOs in the Netherlands (1% club, Terre des Hommes, Cordaid)

Theory: competing institutional logics

Data: mission statements, screening activites, interviews

Creation of code categories

- Deductive and inductive approach

- Most important: think! What makes an approach market-like or non-market-like

- Different levels: nominal or ordinal

very much market-based (competition)

moderately market-based (profiling)

Not market based (public value)

- What do you analyse:

Sentences

Paragraphs

Stated goals?

Also no apparent orientation important to include. Otherwise a longer document has necessarily a higher score.

Computer programs to help you with the manual work.

".. copes with the technically distinctive situation in which there will be many more variables of interest than data points, and as one result

- relies on multiple sources of evidence, with data needing to converge in a triangulation fashion, and as another result,

- benefits from the prior development of theoretical propositions to guide data collection and analysis." (Yin, pp.13-14)

Case study

research

Unobtrusive

research

Potential sources?

- Allows using several data sources

- Theory is crucial, unlike in some other qualitative designs

What is unobtrusive research?

Historical analysis

Collecting your own data:

- survey

- experiment

- qualitative field work

as opposed to

Using existing data:

- Using existing data bases (World Bank data, Eurobarometer, census data) - quantitative research

- Using texts and documents (e.g. legal documents, media texts) - qualitative/quantitative analysis

- Observing what people leave behind:

Ex. What exhibits are most popular at the museum: look where the floor is most worn off.

= you do not “obtrude”, no direct contact with the subjects

Sources:

- newspapers, TV and other media (particulalry good to study values, prejudices, etc.)

- legal documents, government reports

Eur-Lex for European law

http://wetten.overheid.nl Dutch laws

http://www.overheid.nl (Tweede Kamer debates)

- Sector strategy papers

speeches (e.g. prime minister, Queen speech),

- also web content, songs

Sample: cannot include everything

-Stratified sampling (pick the biggest newspapers)

-Quota sampling (pick certain proportion of articles from main national newspapers (Volkskrant), regional (Limburger), free yellow press (Spits)

Case selection

What is the case? = unit of analysis

a phenomenon: coping with a conflict, in the desegregation example OR organizations: 3 NGDOs as an example

= What is your research question about?

Coping with a value conflict

NGDO’s management issues

Single case studies:

Representative/typical case

Extreme/Unique/critical case

Revelatory case (e.g. excellent opportunity)

Danger: in the end turns out not that representative or unique.

Multiple cases:

Predicts similar results

Predicts different results but for predictable reasons

Master thesis: Public criticism of policies by top civil servants

Meta-analysis

Validity and reliability

Logistics

Construct validity (operationalisation)

Use multiple sources of evidence

Establish key chain of evidence

Have key informants review draft report

Internal validity (causality)

Pattern matching (pattern matches theoretical expectations, or match between multiple cases)

Address rival explanations ( also a form of pattern matching)

External validity (generalizable beyond a specific case)

Use theory in a single-case studies

Use replication logic in multiple case studies

Reliability (minimize noise, error)

Use case study protocol

Develop case study database (computer programs)

Exam registration: open until

10 days prior the exam date

Paper draft: due next week Friday

Remember: search methods on Toolbox

www. scholar.google.com

University library: catalogue

Database: EBSCO, JSTOR

Patience!

Content analysis

Strength:

- Possible with not many resources: if you have a source to use, you can complete an interesting high quality study as a student

- Possible to correct errors later in the process. Recoding! (Cannot correct with experiments and surveys)

- Good way to study the past, and processes over long time

- No effect on subjects, unobtrusive

Weaknesses:

- Limited to recorded communications

- Highly valid, if you study communication, but otherwise may be limited validity (biased, part of the data)

E.g. studying prejudices based on media coverage, which is already somewhat self-censured

Statistical analyses of existing data

- Using official or quasi-official data-sets

- We almost always use existing data for background and introduction:

Unemployment and economic growth

Higher education drop-out and completion rate

Regulation intensity

- BUT it can also be main data source for your original analysis

Study a relationship between the feelings of “national pride” and support to the European Union?

A selection of widely used data sources

International comparative data

OECD Education at a Glance dataset

OECD Economic Outlook

Eurobarometer (Public opinion analysis)

Eurostat

World Bank Health Nutrition and Population data

World Bank Data Catalogue (includes different topics!)

Transparancy International (Corruption and governance)

National data

Centraal Bureau voor Statistiek

Ministries (Education, Economics, Transportation, etc)

...

How do we analyse statistical data?

- Descriptive data presentation

- Statistical techniques (correlation techniques, regression) (M&T2)

- Other (new and cool) techniques

Strengths and weaknesses

Strength:

- Easily available

- Relatively good quality and trusted (professional and checked)

Validity issues:

- Limited to what we have. Often a measure is not precisely what we want. [“National pride”?]

- How to increase validity:

Logical reasoning (also theory)

Replication: use multiple indicators (angles). If everything refers to the same, then something going on.

Reliability issues:

different definitions over years and countries

e.g. Who is an international student:

Students with a foreign passport (includes immigrants)

Students who received a high-school diploma elsewhere

Comparative and historical analysis

- Examination of societies (or other social units) over time and in comparison with one another.

- To seek historically grounded answers to large-scale and substantive outcomes

- Searching for patterns (not only presenting one-time historical effect)

PA theses: not encouraged; Commercialisation in public TV

Max Weber: protestant ethics

After reformation, economic center moved away from Catholic Eur.

Business leaders tended to be protestants (Calvinist)

Theory: the notion of “calling” in Calvinist religion: everyone must take action to be saved, Church membership is not sufficient

Protestant ethics -> motivated people to work hard, be successful in business and reinvest their money instead of spending it.

Meta-analysis

= a synthesis of earlier research

Goal: develop new conclusions

- more observations mean more validity and reliability,

- Helps to specify conditions when something may or may not be the case

Not the same as literature review!

LR presents an overview of the existing evidence, without a goal to suggest a new conclusion

Approach: quantitative (use advanced statistical methods), or

qualitative (synthesize existing case studies)

Meta-analysis: example in our field

Public-private cooperation for large infrastructure projects not always a success. Why? When is it and when not?

Koppenjan (2005): studies 9 existing case-studies, some positive and some negative (qualitative)

Looks carefully on the process of the cooperation.

Draws conclusions that certain type of management is essential for success:

- early interaction between partners

- trust between partners

- ...

Koppenjan, J. (2005). The formation of public–private partnerships: Lessons from nine transport infrastructure projects in the Netherlands. Public Administration, 83, 135-157.

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