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Abby Rolly '23

Schooling, Justice, and the Future: Arts-Based Research for Educational Change

Major and Minor: English major (Secondary Education certification)
Hometown: Bronx, NY
Project Advisor(s): Dr. Tristan Gleason
General field of study for the project: Education qualitative research

Briefly describe your project.

We compiled qualitative data through narrative-inquiry by interviewing 28 educators from different educational, professional, personal, and geographic backgrounds. Through analyzing these narratives, we hope to identify how similarities and differences among personal experiences can help us deconstruct and reconstruct new, alternate visions of how the educational profession can better address the needs of our students in the future.

Describe the origin of your project. (E.g., did you pitch the idea and choose a faculty member, or did they come to you with an idea?)

After spending some time in a real classroom through a field experience course, I identified a disconnection between the pedagogical theories we were exploring in class and the methods being used in live instruction. I voiced my concerns and comments to my Education department advisor, Dr. Gleason, and we began exploring potential ways to address these issues. Inspired by those conversations, we eventually decided to draft a proposal for this SOAR project.

What’s the best part about working with your faculty mentor? What valuable insights have they brought to your project?

I hold Dr. Gleason in high esteem. My favorite thing about him is that he is the teacher he is teaching us to be. He allows me to generate my own questions and interests and guides me along the way, providing his own expertise and experiences as helpful scaffolding pieces. Through working with him this summer I’ve been able to redefine what research is and the ways in which it can be applied. I enjoyed working in academic research so much, I have decided to continue my educational journey and work towards a graduate degree.

What has been your biggest obstacle so far?

One of the big obstacles I faced during this project was being able to adapt to our originally outlined timeline. In the beginning, we planned to spend half of our 10 weeks interviewing subjects. The other half of our allotted time was going to be dedicated to generating alternative visions of the education system, inspired by the speculative fiction genre. Due to the willingness of our research subjects and word-of-mouth promotion, I had to acknowledge that five weeks was not enough time to adequately conduct interviews. So many people were willing to contribute their own personal experiences to our research. I decided I was not willing to deny them the opportunity to share their narratives.

What has been your biggest takeaway from this experience?

My biggest takeaway from participating in the summer SOAR cohort is that academic research is much more than what we traditionally have seen it to be. I now have a better understanding of how my investigative nature can be applied to contribute to my academic fields of English and educational studies.

What was the result of your project?

As a result of our project, we have 28 transcribed interviews that we can use to continue our research. We now have a better (although still limited) view into the challenges that students in public education face today. We are beginning to identify significant similarities and differences among the narratives.

In your own words, how do you feel about being awarded this opportunity? Why should other students take advantage of the SOAR program at Moravian College?

I am grateful to have been awarded the opportunity to participate in a funded research program. I encourage other students, particularly those who focus their studies on branches of the humanities, to take advantage of the SOAR program. By increasing our participation, we can begin to rethink how academic research can positively contribute to our fields of study.

Now that SOAR is over, do you plan to expand upon your research? If so, how?

Going forward, we will continue to analyze the interview transcripts. Using the transcribed narratives, we will begin to generate arts-based projects of the speculative fiction genre. I would also like to conduct a second round of interviews with a more diverse population of subjects to add more insight into the data we’ve already collected.

Have you, or do you plan to present this research outside the SOAR presentations? If so, where? Be specific, if possible.

We plan to present our research at the American Educational Studies Association (AESA) annual conference in Pittsburgh, PA. Our presentation is scheduled for Sunday, November 6, 2022.