AMANDA R.

ARMSTRONG
Statement of Research Interests

“Anything is possible, when we don’t know what’s possible”

(Devyn, student participant)

Research can take many forms, and it is just one type of practice that I find important as a
faculty member. I share the above quote by a student who participated in one of my first
doctoral-level research projects, because it reflects aspects of why I value research: it is
subjective, personal, continuous, adaptable, and limitless. In this statement, I share my research
interests, methodological approaches, and future research agenda.

Research Interests
My research interests can be summarized into two broad areas: college student development and
teaching and learning. My interest in teaching and learning evolved from an accumulation of my
experiences as a first-generation college student as well as my progression through William &
Mary’s College Teaching Certificate (CTC) program. In completing this coursework and co-
teaching several graduate-level courses, I developed specific interests in how instructors
approach their pedagogy and assessment. As a result, I seek opportunities to learn about and
implement innovative assessment strategies and inclusive designs such as specifications grading
(Nilson, 2014) and peer review (Landry, Jacobs, & Newton, 2014), which foreground learners’
knowledge, desires, needs, abilities, and self-regulation.

In addition, I am interested in and pursue research on college student development. My research

initiatives have centered around the experiences of undergraduate students who identify as
nonreligious and/or nontheistic. In one of my first publications (Armstrong, 2017), I spoke with
students across the U.S. about their agnostic and other secular identities and the role of those
identities on their college experiences. During that research, I found the socially constructed,
context-driven, and fluid nature of secular identities apparent, leading me to another project
(manuscript under review) in which I examined students’ identity formation via identity labels
from both a constructivist and queer perspective. More recently, I expanded the focus of my
research to include students from various worldview identifications (religious, nonreligious,
spiritual, and more.). Recognizing and exploring diverse perspectives on social issues related to
individuals’ worldview identifications, and acting upon social contradictions and inequities
between and among people of different worldview identities is necessary in a society where the
national portrait of individuals’ identifications is becoming increasingly diverse and complex.
Notably, between 2007 and 2014, the percentage of the U.S. population who identified with a
Christian faith fell 7.8%, to 70.6%, while the religiously unaffiliated rose 6.7%, to 22.8% (Pew
Research Center, 2015).

Dissertation Topic
Through my dissertation, I am examining the complexities involved when undergraduate
students of various worldviews are exposed to, recognize, reflect upon, and address social
inequities between people of different worldview identities and beliefs. For some scholars, such
skills have been conceptualized as critical consciousness (Freire, 1973; Landreman, King, &
Rasmussen, & Jiang, 2007; Taylor, 2017). In using a post-intentional phenomenological
methodology (Vagle, 2014) and theoretical borderlands approach (Abes, 2009), my dissertation
findings will further inform how critical consciousness takes shape for undergraduate students
encountering social inequities along worldview lines, while considering the interdependent roles
of students’ developmental domains and their social identities as intersectional (Collins, 2015;
Crenshaw, 1989; McCall, 2005), systemically contextualized constructions (Jones & Abes, 2013).

In moving forward, I plan to continue my line of inquiry on how critical consciousness

functions for students, as well as practitioners. As ASHE President, Lori Patton Davis,
suggested in her January 2018 message to the community, research on critical consciousness is
becoming increasingly popular in the field of higher education and student affairs (HESA), and
is influential in contributing to this year’s theme, Envisioning the ‘Woke’ Academy. In contributing
to this body of scholarship, I am interested in extending the focus of my work toward
understanding how HESA graduate students—many of whom will be the future mentors of
undergraduate students—understand and signify critical consciousness. Such inquiry is pertinent
for informing curricula that supports future HESA practitioners’ capacities for fostering college
students’ proclivities for and development toward critically-conscious praxes. Regarding my
interests in teaching and learning, I believe faculty’s use of assessment and evaluation in HESA
programs are under-recorded and under-published; therefore, I would enjoy collaborating on
projects with graduate students and other faculty, particularly on grading criteria, assessment
rubrics, and learning contracts.

Methodologies, Methods, and Perspectives

My research projects have lent themselves to qualitative methodologies, with a more recent
project following a pragmatic mixed-methods design. Because of the research questions I ask
and the theoretical assumptions I hold, I have moved from taking a solely interpretivist
perspective to my research, to combining interpretivist, poststructural, and critical
epistemologies. Over the last year, I have begun adopting Abes’s (2009) theoretical borderlands
approach, including within my dissertation and an article under review. In addition to navigating
theory within qualitative inquiry, I have also been drawn to conversations regarding post-
qualitative approaches. As an active member for the Qualitative Research Special Interest Group
in AERA and a 2-year member for the SIG’s Mentoring Committee, I have had the opportunity
to engage with junior and senior scholars who employ innovative methods that advance the field
of qualitative inquiry. I intend to continue my involvement with this community of scholars and
stretch my own use of perspectives and methods when designing and conducting research.

HIGHER EDUCATION PROGRAM  HIGHERED.WM.EDU

 References

Abes, E. S. (2009). Theoretical borderlands: Using multiple theoretical perspectives to challenge

inequitable power structures in student development theory. Journal of College Student
Development, 50(2), 141–156. https://doi.org/10.1353/csd.0.0059

Armstrong, A. (2017). A post-intentional exploration of agnostic college students’ experiences.

Journal of College Student Development, 58(5), 719–732.
https://doi.org/10.1353/csd.2017.0056

Collins, P. H. (2015). Intersectionality’s definitional dilemmas. Annual Review of Sociology, 41, 1–

20. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-soc-073014-112142

Crenshaw, K. (1989). Demarginalizing the intersection of race and sex: A Black feminist critique
of antidiscrimination doctrine, feminist theory, and antiracist politics. University of Chicago
Legal Forum, 139–167.

Freire, P. (1973). Education for critical consciousness. New York, NY: Continuum.

Jones, S., & Abes, E. S. (2013). Intersectionality. In S. Jones, & E. S. Abes (Eds.), Identity
development of college students (pp. 135–165). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Landreman, L. M., King, P. M., Rasmussen, C. J., & Jiang, C. X. (2007). A phenomenological
study of the development of university educators’ critical consciousness. Journal of College
Student Development, 43(3), 275–296. https://doi.org/10.1353/csd.2007.0027

Landry, A., Jacobs, S., & Newton, G. (2014). Effective use of peer assessment in a graduate level
writing assignment: A case study. International Journal of Higher Education, 4(1), 38–51.
https://doi.org/10.5430/ijhe.v4n1p38

McCall, L. (2005). The complexity of intersectionality. Journal of Women in Culture and Society,
30(3), 1771–1800.

Nilson, L. (2014). Specifications grading. Sterling, VA: Stylus.

Pew Research Center. (2015, May 12). America’s changing religious landscape. Washington, DC:
Author. Retrieved from www.pewforum.org/2015/05/12/americas-changing-religious-
landscape/

Taylor, K. (2017). Contextualizing how undergraduate students develop toward critical consciousness
(Unpublished doctoral dissertation). The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH.

Vagle, M. D. (2014). Crafting phenomenological research. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press.

HIGHER EDUCATION PROGRAM  HIGHERED.WM.EDU