Complex Research A Fourth-grade Investigator

by Lawrence R. Carter “Dad, I want to

do a demography project with you.”

T

aking a course in statistics is the bane of a great many college students who must satisfy this subject as a degree requirement. For most of such students, the major dif-

ficulty is in relating abstract mathematical concept and calculation to the everyday experi- ence that is being observed. These skills are more successfully developed in students who have had the rudiments taught at a rather early age and had them reinforced throughout their primary and secondary schooling. Even so, at the elementary level, the techniques can be daunting. Imagine my surprise years ago when my daughter, Elizabeth, then a fourth grader,

came home one evening and said, “Dad, I want to do a demography project with you.” My immediate apprehension was that I couldn’t teach this stuff to elementary school

students; it seemed too complicated. With encouragement from my wife, Maile, a second- grade teacher, I relented, and later became really enthused. You see, I am a sociologist at the University of Oregon, specializing in demography.

I teach a number of courses in quantitative methods and population to both undergradu- ate and graduate students. I never imagined that I would be challenged to “drop down” to teaching this material at the elementary school level.

Setting Goals

So began my journey into the unknown, entering the domain of teachers at a level where they are frighteningly knowledgeable about the practice of teaching. We began by sorting out our different expectations. My daughter, who I am sure wanted a rigorous project to turn in to her class, must also have been identifying with what I do in my profession. I, on the other hand, immediately became the “academic,” thinking about goals and such. She wanted to study her class; I wanted to demonstrate how to use population as a

substantive area of study to also teach a research method, some elementary mathematics, some geography, and some analytical discipline. But most of all, I wanted us both to have some fun. Demography is the scientific study of human populations. It concentrates on the size,

composition, and distribution of populations and the causes and consequences of changes in these factors. The primary processes that are the focus of demography are mortality (the study of

death processes), fertility (the study of birth processes), and migration (the study of geo- graphic mobility processes). For this project, we decided to study factors relating primar- ily to only fertility and migration.

Research Questions

We decided to sample two populations: students in her class and teachers in her school. With Maile’s support, we developed a number of researchable questions that are listed in Table 1. Some of the questions are substantive, some statistical. The samples were good choices since the setting was familiar, the research samples known, and the respondents likely to be very cooperative. Each question was developed with some discussion of its relevance to the project and the kind of information its answer would impart. A teacher

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