Hidden Gems: Meet Kara Vander Linden of Institute for Research and Theory Methodologies

Today we’d like to introduce you to Kara Vander Linden.

My name is Kara Vander Linden and I have been an educator for almost 25 years. When I was in high school, I knew I wanted to go into education. I had two areas of education that interested me, math and learning disabilities. I have a learning disability, and school was not easy for me. Math came easier than other subjects, but I still struggled with it. I also saw that other students struggled with math. However, it seemed like teachers were good at math and did not understand how hard it is if you do not understand it. I thought I might be a good math teacher because I understood the struggle. I went on to earn my bachelor’s degree in math. I then earned a master’s degree in special education with the idea that maybe I could teach remedial math at the community college level. It had always been a dream of mine to teach in higher education. After teaching math at the high school level, I got the opportunity to teach college algebra at the college level, but I was told that I really needed to get my doctorate if I wanted to continue to teach in higher education. I wasn’t sure I could do it with my learning disability, but I was determined to try. I wanted to show everyone, but more importantly, show myself that I was not stupid just because I have a learning disability. In my doctoral program, I was introduced to research and discovered that I really enjoy research. I have special training in a form of research called grounded theory which most people have never heard of, but I fell in love with it. Since then, I have used the special education training I received to try to take complex research topics and break them down into simple, understandable concepts that I teach to others. I have now spent almost 20 years teaching and overseeing research by graduate students in education, psychology, leadership and management, clinical psychology, integrative medicine, nutrition, transformative social change, and health sciences. I also was the director of research at a university. However, recently I made a shift when I started a non-profit, Institute for Research and Theory Methodologies to mentor researchers worldwide.

After spending almost 20 years teaching and overseeing doctoral-level research in high education, I decided that I wanted to use my knowledge and skills on a broader level to help support students, faculty, and researchers worldwide who are engaged in research that addresses complex issues facing society, organizations, and individuals today. Most research training happens in universities, but not everyone has the opportunity to access advanced degrees where this training occurs. Even those who do are often only trained in one approach to research. I wanted to develop a way to offer training in research methods to help support people in gaining more research skills. This led me to start the Institute for Research and Theory Methodologies (RTM). RTM is a volunteer-run, non-profit organization (501c3) composed of an interdisciplinary team of researchers, scholars, educators, and mentors who are passionate about research and helping others become skillful researchers.

Our mission is to train, mentor, support, and connect students, faculty, and researchers worldwide in qualitative, multi-method, mixed-method, and grounded theory research across disciplines in order to develop methodological expertise. We do this by providing accessible, high-quality training and mentoring to students, faculty, and researchers worldwide and across disciplines. We do this through mentoring, courses, and webinars. We have hosted three international virtual conferences where students, faculty, and researchers present their research or session on how to conduct research. The most recent one occurred during the last weekend in April and included sessions on topics such as ChatGPT and research and how the COVID pandemic impacted research.

RTM is less than two years old, and we have already helped train, mentor, support, and connect nearly 500 students, faculty, and researchers from 45 countries worldwide. Some examples of the research conducted by these students, faculty, and researchers include research on the lives of rural women in Tanzania, how people try to leverage opportunities to overcome structural inequality, medication compliance of persons with AIDS in Peru, how people experience the losses, challenges, and feelings related to chronic, and sometimes invisible, illness and how people and organizations navigate change. This is only a small sample of the research being conducted.

Conducting research, especially in academia and in corporations, can be highly competitive but also isolating. At RTM, we are creating a culture of collaboration across academic disciplines and with researchers worldwide. We support and build communities of researchers who engage in rigorous research that impacts the world around them.

As you can already tell there have been obstacles along the way. The biggest struggle we currently face is being a new, volunteer-run non-profit operating on a very small budget. We have volunteers who help, but everyone is busy and has limited time to contribute. As the founder, I run the non-profit’s day-to-day operations as a volunteer. I do everything from providing training and mentoring on research to building our website to answering emails to putting together our annual conference. To expand and grow, we are always looking for more volunteers and new funding sources. We are looking for organizations to partner with us who are also interested in impacting the world around them.

These days I read blogs and other resources about running a non-profit. While I have taught research for 20 years, I am learning many new things about running a non-profit and everything associated with it. I follow BlueAvocado.org, TechSoup.org, and NonprofitReady.org. I also appreciate the advice I got from Score.org about starting a new business and how to become a nonprofit.