Evidence hierarchy
Interviews and other open-ended evidence form the qualitative core. Closed-ended survey responses and national datasets provide supporting quantitative and structural context.
Proposal Defense Studio · July 24 Chapters 1-3 Working Copy
Research Alignment Matrix
Pedagogical Friction in the Age of Generative AI and Tertiary Algorithmicity: A Qualitative-Dominant Convergent Mixed Methods Study
Research status: Proposal defense passed August 13, 2026. Interview-question revision and committee review are in progress; a three-educator flow rehearsal and IRB-materials update are planned. IRB approval, formal recruitment, main-study data collection, coding, analysis, and findings remain pending.
| Research question | Participants and sources | Instruments and materials | Analysis | Integration | Warranted claim boundary |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| RQ1. How do classroom-facing educators, building-level administrators, district or system-level leaders, and adult university students make sense of the ways generative AI changes the effort, dialogue, authorship, judgment, and participation involved in teaching and learning? | Approximately 6-8 classroom-facing educators; 3-4 building-level administrators; 3-4 district or system-level leaders; approximately 4 adult university students. Survey and national evidence provide supporting context. | Interviews across all four groups. Ten-card scenario sort for classroom-facing educators and adult university students only. Open- and closed-ended educator survey items, institutional documents, and selected NCES/RAND evidence. | Interpretive codebook thematic analysis; participant-near first-cycle coding; inductive and revisable sensitizing codes; second-cycle themes; temporal coding of adult-student accounts; descriptive card placements and survey evidence; discrepant accounts. | RQ1 joint displays and narrative weaving identify convergence, divergence, expansion, or silence across situated accounts, card-sort reasoning, survey patterns, and structural context. | Situated interpretations of how participants understand changes in effort, dialogue, authorship, judgment, and participation. No direct measurement of student learning outcomes. |
| RQ2. How do educators and school-system leaders make sense of and respond to the policy, professional-learning, assessment, access, and governance conditions surrounding generative AI? | Classroom-facing educators, building-level administrators, and district or system-level leaders. Institutional documents, educator survey responses, and selected national sources extend or contextualize participant accounts. | Educator and leader interviews; classroom-facing educator card-sort explanations where relevant; document-analysis protocol; educator survey; selected NCES and RAND evidence. | Interpretive codebook thematic analysis; cross-role comparison; document analysis; descriptive and conditional survey comparisons; national structural context; active negative-case analysis. | RQ2 joint displays preserve distinctions among policy, perception, practice, access, and national context. No source validates or overrides another. | Situated interpretations of institutional conditions that enable or constrain friction-preserving pedagogy—not causal effects or representative national estimates. |
| RQ3. What language, assessment expectations, instructional practices, professional supports, and leadership approaches do educators and school-system leaders identify as important for preserving forms of friction that support learning while reducing unnecessary barriers? | Educator and school-system leader evidence already developed under RQ1 and RQ2, with supporting survey and structural context. No additional participant group. | Integrated RQ1 and RQ2 evidence; no additional instrument. The current participant protocols and survey appear in Appendices E-G. | Cross-role synthesis, joint-display comparison, narrative weaving, meta-inference development, and attention to evidence that complicates or contradicts the framework. | Meta-inferences translate experience and institutional conditions into situated implications while preserving convergence, divergence, expansion, and silence. | Participant-identified language and approaches that may inform practice and governance. No universal prescription, framework validation, or completed-study recommendation is claimed. |
Survey decision rule
The survey seeks approximately 200 K-12 respondents. If the achieved shared-core sample is below 80, analysis remains descriptive.
Framework discipline
Noetic, rhetorical, and existential friction are learner-facing. Infrastructural friction conditions them. All concepts are sensitizing and revisable, not mandatory codes or expected findings.
Ethics and AI boundary
CITI certification is current; proposal approval, IRB approval, and applicable permissions precede participant activity. No participant data enter AI systems. Agentic artifacts remain separate nonparticipant records.