Article Title & Authors: Native Perspectives from a Focus Group Study. Smythe et al.

  1. What is the purpose/goal of this study? (at least 2 sentences)
    The purpose of this study is to get the perspectives of Native Americans on mixing Western science and traditional knowledge. The focus groups featured in this study consist of teachers and students from a STEM conference.
  2. Why is this issue significant/why do we care? (at least 2 sentences)
    This issue is significant because Western science mainly prioritizes facts and evidence, while Traditional Knowledge focuses on connecting with nature. Combining these two methods could further a lot of efforts around climate change and sustainability.
  3. What words/vocab do you need to know to make this make sense? Define them here. (at least 3 terms).
    Traditional Knowledge comes from Indigenous cultures and centers around a connection with the land and nature itself. Western science is a system of knowledge that focuses on experimentation and observations. Epistemology is the study of knowledge and how we know what we know.
  4. What approach are they taking in this study? (Describe the specific qualitative or quantitative methods used, at least 3 sentences). The authors used a qualitative approach in this study. Two focus groups were conducted with participants from STEM conferences. These focus group sessions were then transcribed and analyzed.
  5. What are the results of the study? Explain what they found when they compared or measured different variables. If there are figures – write a sentence summarizing each figure/table. (at least 3 sentences).
    The focus groups explained how they saw both Western science and Traditional Knowledge as community-oriented tools for reform. They also believed that the implementation of these two complementary methods could be good for cultural identity and even classroom engagement. Unfortunately, there is the issue of Traditional Knowledge being misappropriated during this process.
  6. Does the data make sense based on your experiences? Explain why or why not. (at least 2 sentences)
    I have done research on the implementation of hybrid teaching methods, and the results do seem to line up with what I have found. Many people advocating for active learning strategies suggests creating a hybrid of passive and active strategies, which matches the results of this article.
  7. How is this pushing the field forward and helping society? (at least 2 sentences)
    With the integration of these two methods, the process of conducting research could be reformed as a whole, changing the way many people look at science. On top of that, this pushes a strong community-centric ideology, allowing for more equality in issues such as climate change.