Q Pedagogy: Bringing Students’ Subjectivity into the Design of Instruction

Q pedagogy is a teaching approach that values the subjective viewpoints of students and incorporates them into the design of instruction. Q pedagogy is an instructional adaption of Q methodology, a research methodology first developed in the 1930s by Dr. William Stephenson to study people’s subjectivity. Q methodology uses a special data collection technique called a Q sort to capture a snapshot of a person’s subjectivity toward a given topic. The Q sort data of class participants are then factor analyzed to reveal groupings or clusters (i.e., factors) of students who share similar viewpoints. Next, the instructor designs a follow-up classroom activity, such as small- and large-group discussions, to help students understand and appreciate the different points of view held by their classmates and to support the goals of the lesson. A fictional design story is presented in this article to introduce Q pedagogy and explain how to implement it.