ReformED: Integrating Qualitative and Quantitative Research Methods in Research-Based Theatre

Abstract

This article reports on a research-based theatre piece about teachers leaving education. The data and scene shared in this article examine race and racism (both interpersonal and institutional) and demonstrate how quantitative data illuminated buried and unclear qualitative data. In social science research, surveys have the potential to contextualize interview data and enable researchers to interrogate information such as demographics or percentages of agreement or disagreement. When such quantitative data are compared to qualitative analysis, gaps and silences can be identified—which was the case in this study, where issues of race and racism emerged. This essay shares how quantitative data illuminated silenced issues around race and influenced the writing of a research-based theatre piece. The analysis (both quantitative and qualitative) reveals the tensions of white teachers feeling individually like they are addressing the needs of students of color, while it also shows that white teachers, overall, are not adequately serving the needs of students of color. This complete analysis is shared, and the article demonstrates how it was translated as a piece of research-based theatre.