Some Questions In My Mind Today

I have some things going through my mind today.

• Why is information presented in a graph more convincing to some people than information that is presented in deep and rich language?
• If someone knows what the answer to a survey question is supposed to be, does that mean that they really have learned the answer?
• Why do we justify practices that we don't necessarily believe in because people with money believe in them and to get the money we have to provide what they ask for?
• Why do I hate bubble-in surveys so much?
• Why do people use bubble-in surveys to try and convey the truth about individual experiences?
• Why did I just answer my own question?

Those are all 'why' questions. Last year someone I respect told me that we should never ask "Why?" as a reflective or critical question because if the students could answer it they wouldn't need the reflection. Instead I should have asked "how" or "what" questions.

• What do we try and communicate through program assessment?
• What makes us think that we can communicate it through statistics?
• How does thinking of children as numbers make funders/governmental officials feel successful?

And yet there is always one extra "why" question.

• Why am I so prickly about research and assessment?