Dissertation Reviews Summary

This phenomenological study by Emmart (2015) examined the how teachers deal with working with traumatized students. Six female elementary school teachers were interviewed in a small urban school district. The teachers recalled experiences working with several students who had suffered from some trauma, whether it was sexual abuse of being abandoned by a parent. The interviews were transcribed and then analyzed using the Moustakas model, which is helpful for obtaining a sense of the “wholeness of experience,” according to Simon (2011). Emmart’s (2015) qualitative study applied this model by using the interview method to see through the eyes of the participants what it is like to teach a traumatized student. By placing himself in the participants’ shoes, Emmart (2015) was able to better and more deeply understand the experience and interpret the data through a close analysis of the transcribed interviews. The most striking feature of the research was that Emmart (2015) uncovered the startling account from the teachers themselves that none of them had received any formal training in how to deal with a student suffering from trauma. The traumatized student would routinely lash out in class and the teacher would have to use trial and error to try to find some way to deal with the situation effectively. This was the case for all six participants, who had an average age of 18 years between them. The main concern with this study was that the teachers never really reached a solution and over the course of the school year the situation only got worse for both students and teachers, as the aggression of the former intensified.

The study included a sufficient explanation of the background of the subject, an explanation of the problem that needed to be studied—“little is known about how children struggling with trauma impact teacher efforts to reach established curricular goals” (Emmart, 2015, p. 13)—and how it personally applied to the researcher. The purpose statement and necessary definitions of terms were provided. The literature review provided information on the theoretical framework utilized—the theory of planned behavior (Ajzen, 2002), which helped to supply focus for the study. The methodology was clearly described and the findings were enunciated clearly and discussed with respect to the research questions, the research problem, the theoretical approach used, and the research purpose.

Implications for practice were described: “There must be an increased effort on the part of school administrators and researchers to work collaboratively in order to come alongside the efforts of teachers throughout the U.S.” (Emmert, 2015, p. 94). And findings were discussed in terms of how teachers could be better developed to face the problem of traumatized students: “The preparation of teachers needs to be much more responsive to the significant changes evidenced in American culture related to the aftermath of trauma within the learning environment” (Emmert, 2015, p. 95). Likewise, the researcher noted that more support for students is needed and should be developed through policy at the district level, including the use of “safety plans,” which the researcher stated could provide “an opportunity for the grounding and self-soothing necessary to regulate one’s own emotional state”—which is helpful in classrooms for both teachers and students (Emmert, 2015, p. 99). The study also acknowledged its limitations and provided recommendations for future research, including for quantitative research on the subject.

Analysis of the Quality of Research Conducted

Strengths

The strength of the study was that it obtained the personal experiences of six young teachers in an urban area and provided analysis of their experiences in dealing with students who appeared to have suffered from some trauma. This was a strength because it revealed a deeper problem in the schools that went beyond the experiences of the students and the teachers: it revealed the fact that teachers—at least the ones in this study—simply were not prepared in their education programs for dealing with traumatized students. This finding is significant because it suggests that the education system that is supposed to be preparing teachers for the real world is not adequately doing the job.

Another strength of the study was its design. The phenomenological design does not always receive a great deal of praise, but I find it to be one of the most compelling research designs as it really provides a great deal of insight into an issue that a quantitative...

There is something about seeing the issue through the eyes of those who have experienced it and arriving at a deeper sense of what is going on that makes this type of research worth it in my book.
Limitations

The limitations of the study included the lack of validity and reliability afforded by the research design. Qualitative studies typically do not offer much in terms of either validity or reliability, because they focus on subjective experiences and so the control of variables is much more difficult to discern, though some researchers acknowledge that it is possible (Golafshani, 2003). The study also suffered from lacking a clear definition of trauma—so teachers were discussing students from a variety of different perspectives and there was no way to tell if they were actually discussing a traumatized student or just a student who perhaps suffered from a learning disorder. This further reduced the study’s credibility in terms of having any validity or trustworthiness.

I also felt that the study did a poor job of addressing the research problem—but this might have been because the research problem itself was not articulated clearly: it contained multiple variables and was not easily understood. Therefore, I think it was probably not really understood well from the researcher’s perspective either. If the researcher was interested in the problems students were having and how this in turn impacted teachers data sources should have been triangulated, with the students’ perspective included.

On a technical note, the first chapter did not conclude with a summary or with a brief description of what the rest of the dissertation would look like. It simply stopped as though the researcher did not think it important to summarize some of the main points of the first chapter or to give the reader a preview of how the rest of the study was organized.

How the Research Could Have Been Done Differently

I feel that the research could have been done differently in a lot of ways. A mixed methods approach could have been used to better provide some concrete data to help answer the research questions and address the research problem. I would have triangulated the data sources by including interviews with the students and a third source of information to help corroborate the information that was coming from both students and teachers—such as test grades or other students in the class who observed the scene.

Personal Analysis and Practical Application

Personal Lessons Learned

One lesson that I learned from this dissertation was that a researcher really has to apply the theory to the findings and not just discuss it in one chapter and then forget about it. Theory is important to the study because it is what allows the researcher to interpret the findings. The theory should be both discussed and used by the researcher when it comes time to discuss the findings. Without a suitable or appropriate theoretical framework or model, the study will lack cohesiveness and a firm foundation.

Another lesson I learned was that it is very useful to provide the reader with a sense of what is to be expected in the study. The abstract gives only a brief overview—and so there should be a section at the end of the first chapter that tells the reader how the rest of the study is organized. This gives the reader a sense of what to look forward to instead of sitting there wondering if the researcher is going to address this or that point and then being pleasantly (or unpleasantly) surprised.

Finally, I learned that for my own experience, teachers need support—just as students do, and this study shoes it well. Teachers have to feel like they have somewhere they can turn when they have a challenge like a traumatized student that they have to deal with on a daily basis. If teachers do not have this support, they can quickly burn out in their field, and this is a tragic thing because there are already too few teachers. I would personally recommend this study to others for it certainly opened my eyes about the struggles that teachers can go through when they have no training in coming to the aid of a traumatized student.

Relevance of the Work within the Field of Education

In terms of this dissertation’s relevance in the field of education, it should help to open eyes about the extent to which teachers need more formal training in dealing with students who have suffered from trauma. Teachers are going to struggle with developing or implementing a curriculum if they have to deal with constant disruptions in the classroom. This will not…