University of New Mexico UNM Digital Repository Teacher Education, Educational Leadership & Education ETDs Policy ETDs Spring 4-14-2017 So Do Values: A Critical Discourse Analysis of Quality Matters Paul G. Nagy III Educational Leadership Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/educ_teelp_etds Part of the Educational Administration and Supervision Commons, Educational Leadership Commons, and the Teacher Education and Professional Development Commons Recommended Citation Nagy, Paul G. III. "So Do Values: A Critical Discourse Analysis of Quality Matters." (2017). https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/ educ_teelp_etds/164 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Education ETDs at UNM Digital Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Teacher Education, Educational Leadership & Policy ETDs by an authorized administrator of UNM Digital Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Running head: DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF QUALITY MATTERS Paul Nagy Candidate Teacher Education, Educational Leadership & Policy Department This dissertation is approved, and it is acceptable in quality and form for publication: Approved by the Dissertation Committee: Sherri Williams, Chairperson Ricky Allen Tyson Marsh Ignacio Hernandez DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF QUALITY MATTERS SO DO VALUES: A CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF QUALITY MATTERS By Paul Nagy B.A., cum laude, Psychology, University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, 1987 M.A., English, Iowa State University, 1989 M.P.A., Drake University, 1992 DISSERTATION Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Education Educational Leadership The University of New Mexico Albuquerque, New Mexico May, 2017 DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF QUALITY MATTERS iii ©2017, Paul Nagy DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF QUALITY MATTERS iv Dedication To my mother, Cathy Nagy, whose work—along with that of my late father— paved the economic path for me to attend university: Thank you. To my wife, Leslie Nagy, whose unwavering support has made this effort possible: All my love. DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF QUALITY MATTERS v Acknowledgements I wish to acknowledge the support of my dissertation chair, Tyson Marsh, whose mentorship supplied much guidance and humanity, which were essential elements in keeping me sane during this process. I also wish to extend many thanks to my committee—Ricky Allen, Ignacio Hernandez, and Sherri Williams-- whose collegial advice and help has sailed this ship into port with only a few days in the horse latitudes. Finally, I would like to thank Allison Borden, for her thoughtful wisdom, inspiring leadership, and assistance to me in this program. DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF QUALITY MATTERS vi SO DO VALUES: A CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF QUALITY MATTERS By PAUL NAGY B.A., cum laude, Psychology, University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, 1987 M.A., English, Iowa State University, 1989 M.P.A., Drake University, 1992 Ed.D., Educational Leadership, University of New Mexico, 2017 ABSTRACT In the first part of the 21st century, community colleges in the U.S. have embraced exclusively online coursework as a major part of their curriculum. Yet students at community colleges face a variety of impediments--including socioeconomic and cultural barriers--to their success in online coursework, and research at community colleges has revealed that success in those online courses has varied widely for the diverse student populations of those colleges. Such selective success of students lends itself to inquiry regarding why online learning has become such a prominent educational arrangement at community colleges. A review of the history and policy context of community colleges suggests an incongruous nature to the adoption of online education at those colleges, with ideological discourses newly influencing these institutions and their classrooms. Online “quality” assurance programs like Quality Matters (QM) have emerged to try to resolve issues attached to online courses by locating the problems of online learning within the design of courses, with no acknowledgement of the political and ideological context for the arrangement. Given the contradictions of the online learning arrangement at community colleges, this study subjects the QM rubric to a critical discourse analysis (CDA) in order to DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF QUALITY MATTERS vii analyze its language practices and their discursive functions. Through that CDA, this study demonstrates that the Rubric serves as a naturalizer and ideological imprimatur for the online learning arrangement. Furthermore, this study’s CDA identifies multiple dimensions of ideological discourse within the QM Rubric, revealing various instrumental and econometric frames for its evaluation of online courses and a set of discursive practices that bolster specific pedagogical orientations, neoliberal political substrates and administrative trends, like managerialism, within community colleges. The study then considers the broader impacts of ideological discourse on the classrooms, faculty and students at community colleges, including inhibitory impacts on critical pedagogy and other oppositional educational practices at those institutions, and offers a model for those processes. Finally, the study examines if change in the QM approach to “quality” in online learning is possible, and how it might be achieved within community colleges by the actions of faculty and other democratic means. DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF QUALITY MATTERS viii Table of Contents List of Figures .......................................................................................................................... x Chapter 1 Introduction ......................................................................................................... 1 Examining Online Education at Community Colleges ................................................. 6 Chapter 2 A Brief History of Community Colleges and Their Ideology ........................ 13 Institutional Maturation and New Challenges for Community Colleges.................... 21 Online Learning and the Community College Mission .............................................. 23 Community College Online Learning and the Underserved....................................... 26 Key criterion #1: Access. ................................................................................ 27 Key criterion #2: Educational outcomes. ........................................................ 29 Key criterion #3: Completion. ........................................................................ 30 Chapter 3 Theoretical Frame and CDA Methods ............................................................ 34 The Interests of Others: The Economic Context of Online Learning at Community Colleges........................................................................................................... 34 Theoretical Framework ............................................................................................... 42 Critical Discourse Analysis, Community Colleges, and Online Learning ................. 53 Chapter 4 Critical Discourse Analysis of the QM Rubric................................................ 59 Community Colleges and Their Ideological Context ................................................. 64 Five Dimensions of Ideological Discourse as Exhibited by the QM Rubric .............. 66 Disembodied instructional processes. ............................................................. 68 Corporatized definition of professionalism, through legitimation and instrumentalization. ............................................................................. 78 DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF QUALITY MATTERS ix Disproportionate emphasis on measurable outcomes and assessment, imposing instrumental rationalism...................................................................... 85 Use of master signifiers of quality and alignment. ......................................... 92 Requirement for “up-to-date and current materials.” ..................................... 99 Chapter Summary ..................................................................................................... 105 Chapter 5 Results, Model of Symbolic Violence in the Classroom, and Recommendations ................................................................................................... 108 Neoliberal Discourses and Community Colleges ..................................................... 110 Neoliberal Discourse and Faculty Position ............................................................... 113 Agency and Faculty in the Neoliberal Age ............................................................... 114 Changes for Students and the Classroom: The Knowledge Market ......................... 120 A Model for the Influence of Neoliberal Discourse upon Community Colleges ..... 131 Implications for Teaching Practices at Community Colleges................................... 140 Structure, Agency and Critical Pedagogy ................................................................. 143 Community College Faculty, Agency, and Symbolic Violence ............................... 145 Concerns for Social Justice and Participatory Democracy ....................................... 146 Alternative Paradigms for Community College Classrooms .................................... 148 Appendix A Quality Matters Rubric 5th Edition ............................................................. 152 Appendix B Features of Critical Discourse Analysis ......................................................