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Emily Meadows

Research Shows an Empty Backpack Is as Good as a Parachute

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Parachute pictured not from the study.

A study published in BMJ last year showed that parachutes are no more protective against death and injury than a standard, empty backpack[1]. BJM (previously the British Medical Journal) is a peer-reviewed publication, the study design was a randomized controlled trial, and the researchers were professors affiliated with Harvard Medical School and the UCLA School of Medicine. Results demonstrated that participants who jumped out of an airplane or helicopter wearing an empty backpack were no more likely to suffer trauma or death upon impact than those jumping with a functional parachute.

How’s that? 

Looking past the astonishing abstract, we learn that participants jumped from a parked airplane or helicopter, ‘falling’ no more than 60 cm to the ground. None of the participants – whether equipped with a backpack or a parachute – were harmed. The study’s outcomes were statistically valid, but extremely situation-dependent. Context matters.

Many of my readers carry passports from, were trained in, or work in schools where English is the dominant language. We tend to source our research from English language publications, which over-represent studies from Anglophone countries. Does work done in the U.S. or the U.K. have applications in Chile/Kenya/Germany/Qatar?

My doctoral research requires translating data across cultural lines, rather than linguistic ones. I have an interest in the Middle East, but find minimal journal articles reflecting my subject area there (LGBTQ+ inclusive school policy and practice). Therefore, I require a thorough understanding of the methodology and the theoretical underpinnings of any study I transport internationally, and a solid explanation for how – or whether –  the work can be appropriately applied outside of the original context.

International educators are familiar with adapting curriculum, policy, and school norms to include internationally diverse stakeholders. We’ve all got anecdotal stories of the challenges with administering American standardized tests, for example, outside of the U.S. (third graders in Kuwait asking what a bale of hay or a chapel is). My concern is when a grabby study headline (empty backpacks work as well as parachutes!) gets more attention than the details behind it. Next time you hear “research shows”, first examine the publication and consider if and how the findings could be effectually adapted to your context.

Which methods or criteria do you use to translate educational research to your international context?

[1] Yeh, R. W., Valsdotttir, L. R., Yeh, M. W., Shen, C., Kramer, D. B., Strom, J.B., Secemsky, E. A… Nallamathu, B. K. (2018). Parachute use to prevent death and major trauma when jumping from aircraft: Randomized controlled trial. BMJ. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.k5094

Emily Meadows

Science as a Political Statement

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I had the honour of meeting with a group of scientists from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) this summer, and I can tell you that it’s no secret within the organization that using the term ‘transgender’ in your budget proposal this year doesn’t fare well for funding prospects. This isn’t necessarily a brand new barrier; deciding what gets studied (and published) has always been a matter of politics, often favouring the dominant narrative and priorities of those in power (not typically transgender people).

Harvard palaeontologist, Stephen J. Gould, writes in his thought-provoking book, The Mismeasure of Man[1], about a history of “scientists” using the platform of their profession to further political agendas. For example, 19th century Europeans conducted “studies” attempting to prove the fallacy that certain races are genetically superiour. Gould explains the ways that bias and falsification can turn “biological evidence” into dangerously misleading “facts”, and how readily these distortions may become justification for discrimination. While we like to think of science as apolitical, it isn’t. What we decide to study/fund/publish is driven by the values of those in charge of bringing research to light[2]. Gould makes a case that power maintains itself through science.

The Washington Post this week reported that the Trump administration is prohibiting CDC officials from including some specific words on budget proposals: vulnerable, entitlement, diversity, transgender, fetus, evidence-based, and science-based. There was no explanation accompanying the announcement, so the CDC and the rest of us are left guessing why. The mission of the CDC is to, “Protect America from health, safety and security threats, both foreign and in the U.S.” The organization covers all things health-related from general well-being to very specific, urgent zika virus research, and pretty much everything in between. (They also host an extensive resource on traveler’s health.)

According to the Washington Post article, in lieu of the terms ‘evidence-based’ or ‘science-based’, CDC analysts have been told to use the phrase: “CDC bases its recommendations on science in consideration with community standards and wishes”. Which community does this refer to, I wonder? Probably not the transgender community – just a guess. While I understand that a political administration has some leverage within U.S. public organizations, I would also hope that the professionals in charge of carrying out their mission to protect the health and safety of a nation are encouraged to do so in a way that is both evidence-based and science-based, not discriminatory or politically-motivated.

May educators everywhere continue to teach their students about the scientific method, about the pitfalls of biases, about the critical importance of reliable and valid results, and about the inclusion of underrepresented populations. Perhaps the CDC of today is being dissuaded from working on such projects, but I hope that our current students, when they are professionals in their fields around the world, will gain attention and funding for their studies about populations that are vulnerable, issues of diversity, transgender people, and other under-researched topics, and that they may do so openly using evidence-based and science-based methods.

[1] Gould, S. J. (1981). The Mismeasure of man. New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Company.

[2] Suhay, E. & Druckman, J. N. (2015). The Politics of science. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 658(1), 6-15.

Emily Meadows

Alternative Facts: Is Your Practice Really Data-Based?

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So, I’ll start this piece with ‘so’, in a light-hearted tribute to Daniel Kerr’s signature blog-commencing line, and in honour of his 200th post for The International Educator.

 Student Preparedness

It is expected that educators train students to use data or research to inform their decisions and viewpoints. Many international schools’ mission statements pronounce that their students will think critically, marking this as a key skill that we value in our community. From literature to science classrooms, teachers are showing students how to identify credible sources and analyse large volumes of information to make sense of what is applicable in their work. But are we doing this in our own work?

Educator Training

You’d be hard-pressed to find an international school that overtly eschews research to inform policy and practice. “Data-based” and “research shows” are buzz phrases, guiding us through the tangle of options to best serve our students. However, many educator training programs do not prepare us to conduct – much less responsibly consume – academic research. It is not enough to assume that, because the study was conducted by an established institution, it will be applicable to your classroom. 

I earned my undergraduate degree at the University of Colorado at Boulder. CU’s college of education, at the time, required a statistics course as part of the teaching certificate program, but virtually nothing else in terms of research methods or design. Many graduate education programs also emphasize professional skills, offering practical rather than research-oriented coursework. I argue that understanding academic research is practical, and a critical skill for all professional educators.

Context Counts

When we cite a study as justification for a policy or practice we’re following, how often do we actually read the study? It may be that the project we’re referring to had significant findings, but they were never reproduced outside of one limited setting. A research team that measured positive results with a particular reading intervention in a small school in the Middle East, for example, may not yield the same findings at a large school in Asia. Much of the educational research published for international audiences is based in the United States or the U.K., limiting the relevance to international schools elsewhere.

The celebrated example of Finland leading the world in education has sparked global conversations about how to recreate these results elsewhere. It is unlikely, however, that anybody will be successful in this endeavour, given the numerous unique contextual elements that influence any educational system. That is not to say that we cannot learn from Finland, nor that we must look only for academic research strictly bound to our context. However, as we instruct our students to think critically about the data before drawing conclusions, so must we as educators carefully consider a study before deciding whether it is relevant to the policies and practices we employ for our students.

How do you know when a piece of research is appropriate to guide your school?