Chapter 1: Voices from the Field, Phase 3: Design and Method

Acker-Hocevar and Ivory began Voices: Phase 3 with careful consideration of a review by Salsberry (1999) of the Phase 1 (Thousand Voices) project. They hoped Voices 3 could build on and go beyond A Thousand Voices by drawing on its strengths and minimizing the weaknesses noted by Salsberry. Then, through 2001 and 2002, they led conversations with colleagues at national conferences to consider how to design Phase 3 (Ivory & Acker-Hocevar, 2003). They decided to target focusgroup interviews on superintendents’ and principals’ perspectives on school improvement, social justice, and democratic community (Murphy, 2002). Ivory and Acker-Hocevar 2003; (see also Acker-Hocevar & Ivory, 2004, 2006) selected the Murphy framework for Voices 3 because it provided a broad framework in three areas of interest to UCEA researchers. In addition, the framework was expansive enough that they felt that it allowed for researchers to use their own preferred frameworks in their analysis of findings from the data. They drafted focus group questions, one set for each of Murphy’s (2002) anchors (school improvement, social justice, and democratic community), and colleagues piloted them with principals and superintendents. Interested scholars discussed outcomes and implications of the pilot study at the 2003 UCEA Convention in Portland, Oregon (Ivory et al., 2003). Acker-Hocevar and Ivory (2006) wrote of this discussion: