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Formulating
Claims
It is important to write claims about Quality Principle I
at an appropriate level of generality. To simply claim that All
of our graduates are good teachers is worthy, but the claim
may be too broad for the evidence behind it to be convincing. On
the other hand, the particular evidence for the claim that All
of our graduates know how to employ “wait time” in their
lessons may itself be convincing, but trivial and therefore
unconvincing with regard to the larger goals of the program.
It is best to pitch claims at the level the faculty
believes is true of its program and its graduates, and at a level
that is faithful to the manner in which the faculty represents the
program and its graduates to the public and prospective students.
Formatting Claims
Claims can be advanced as assertions (e.g., All of our graduates
know their teaching subject matter. Our graduates have successfully
completed an academic major in the subject and have passed the state
licensing examination in the same subject). Claims can also
be advanced as questions in the same way that researchers advance
their expectations and hunches as research questions. A program’s
claim could read: Is it the case that the pupils of our graduates
succeed on the state’s curriculum standards tests?
The Inquiry Brief is a research report
answers the faculty’s questions about the quality and effectiveness
of its program. The question format, rather than the assertion format,
gives em-phasis to the inquiry process that is at the heart of the
TEAC philosophy and embodied in Quality
Principle III. However, both formats for claims are suitable,
and within the same Inquiry Brief some claims about the
program’s outcomes may be presented as assertions and others
as questions.
Return to Claims and Rationale
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