Methodological Approaches: Studying Graduate Outcome Metrics and Educational Governance

Abstract

AbstractDespite its infancy as a research field, a number of different approaches to the study of governing by numbers have begun to emerge. This chapter discusses the methodological approaches used in this book. One important methodological perspective adopted throughout the book is the understanding of numbers as performative agencies, rather than as representations of reality. This framing of numbers enables analyses of how numbers govern. Meanwhile, it also matters whether the research object is framed as numbers, statistics, data, indicators, or metrics. The book argues for a combination of different framings and methodological approaches, ranging from studies of metrics and their abilities to quantify, categorize, conceptualize, commensurate, compare, and differentiate phenomena, to studies of how numbers in governance processes are framed as indicators, evidence, or information, and to studies of how data are received by actors and form the basis for personal, institutional, and political decisions. With this combination, the more common approach of studying data as a generalized object is complemented by studies of the specificities of particular numbers. Together, these approaches produce analyses that enable a more detailed mapping of how governing by numbers and ideas from human capital theory become entangled, respectively, with neoliberal thinking, understood as a philosophical preference for markets, and social democratic governance ideals.KeywordsMethodological approachesAgential realismEducational dataMetricsGoverning by numbersEducation policyNeoliberalism