Methods in the context of education
Parents
Teachers
Pupils
Practicalities
Ethicalities
Theoretically
Schools
Classroom
Challenges:
- access & gatekeepers, hard to access school groups, schools hard to enter
- sampling and sample frame access, normally confidential
- captive population, some info such as FSM may not be given over
- operationalisation, can be a challenge to do simply by guessing info e.g. class
- rooms in which to conduct interviews, getting questionnaires back in etc
Positives:
- captive population, easy to find lots of the same people in one area, organised into year groups / sets if you manage access, schools do have info on things
- operationalisation, some accessible lists / samples
Challenges:
- informed consent & parental consent, need but could damage experiment, deceive
- confidentiality & anonymity, may be legally obligated to break this
- sensitivity, harm & trauma, children as a protected group
- protection of children & vulnerable adults
- post-research consequences, dont want to damage relations inside the school
- honesty
- if researcher achieved in education, may be hard to sympathise with children that didnt
- validity
- objectivity
- reliability
- representativeness
Challenges:
- right-answerism, teachers, pupils and parents, pupils also feel authority as important so want to appeal to
- literacy & language, English as a second language, words people may not know, pupils with learning difficulties
- social desirability, wanting approval from authority
- front stage behaviour, all an act in classroom
- detachment / Rapport / going native, need to avoid for objectivity
- the Hawthorne effect
- ventsehen, can you truly understand life of a pupil
- operationalisation, hard to decide certain things e.g. class as parents income
- objectivity lost due to senstive to pupils
- representativeness for generalisability difficult, large population
- researchers need to be aware of taken-for-granted assumptions they make about education
- need to make sure to avoid political issues / contributing to this debate
Practical:
- Advantages:
- takes very little time to identity & sample / captive population
- schools very data-rich due to legal framework e.g. must collect attendance
- lots of secondary data e.g. ofsted
- law requires young pupils to attend
- Challenges:
- gatekeepers may block access to pupil lists, school stats (legal duty of care)
- Roland Mieghan and Clive Harber, heads sometimes view research negatively
- school timetable impact when carried out
- size and complexity, have to work out everything
Ethical:
- Advantages:
- Challenges:
- researchers are part of the hierarchy, power imbalance
- single sex schools if interviewer the other sex
Theoretical:
- Advantages:
- large scale surveys / official stats are more representative
- Challenges:
- you may lose insight and depth with large scale
- stats can be falsified by schools e.g. attendance in school with truancy problem, or may downplay events to maintain public image
- offical statistics on examination performance may portray the school as improving but really there has been curriculum changes e.g. entering pupils into easier qualifications
Practical:
- Advantages:
- captive population, easy to identity abilities and ages etc
- easy to observe, small social setting, simple interactions
- Challenges:
- gatekeepers of teachers (lack of access, teachers protective over)
- different peers in different lessons, cannot observe all so cannot compare behaviour
Ethical:
- Advantages:
- teachers can look out for pupil sensitivity & make sure they're okay
- observing means no direct interactions, less pressure on pupils
- Challenges:
- protection of children
- post-research consequences
- covert vs overt observation, deceive pupils / teachers
Theoretical:
- Advantages:
- easy to observe, straight forward (only 2 roles of pupil and teacher)
- increasing validity, everything firsthand
- lack of Hawthorne effect as teachers used to being observed
- Challenges:
- controlled environment, different behaviour in different rooms
- Hawthorne effect
- artificiality (pupils not say truth infront of teachers & teachers guide away/to from certain classrooms)
- peer groups impact behaviour, individual pupils behaviour impacted by this
Practical:
- Advantages:
- can wait outside schools / supermarkets, opportunity sampling
- school may have list of contact info
- Challenges:
- difficult to find a sample / schools won't give out info, not a captive population
- may not complete if doesnt benefit them / their children
- midde class parents more likely to return questionnaires than working class
Ethical:
- Advantages:
- parents are unlikely to be as vulnerable as pupils
- Challenges:
- might feel like parenting / child is being judged, protective over children
- issue of guilty knowledge & confidentiality
- need parental consent
Theoretical:
- Advantages:
- Challenges:
- cannot pick & choose parents to get a representative sample (lack of variety)
- relying on transparency of parents as cannot observe
- social desirability & pressure management (front-stage behaviour)
- second hand info, only know what teacher / child tell then
Practical:
- Advantages:
- dont need to clarify terminology (as often)
- captive population, sample easily
- used to people coming in and out of their school (e.g. Ofsted), may allow
- Challenges:
- teachers busy, interviews are time consuming, may be willing to do questionnaires
- may block access to classrooms, see researches as judgemental, teachers as gatekeepers
Ethical:
- Advantages:
- teachers (when studying them) not a vulnerable group
- teachers are more confident & have been trained on data protection, safeguarding etc
- Challenges:
- dilemma between deceiving teachers & doing research, telling true aim & being declined or behaviour change (covert vs overt)
- confidentiality, teachers may tell guilty knowledge or not be able to
Theoretical:
- Advantages:
- teachers are articulated, can understand question, less likely to give confused answers
- can study staffroom, backstage
- observational methods may prevent lack of honesty over questions
- Challenges:
- may not gain access to staffroom, and newcomer may raise suspicion
- front-stage behaviour & Hawthorne effect if observing, less valid
- using statistics doesnt show the full picture
- head teachers may influence teachers behaviour
- teaches used to being observed / watched by visitors so can practice front-stage behaviour
- may not be honest, fear of loosing job
Practical:
- Advantages:
- research such as face-to-face interviews researcher can clarify Q's
- Challenges:
- need a DBS check due to Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006
- vocal & self-expression can be limited, abstract ideas such as symbolic capital many pupils may not understand (long time to tailor research properly)
- pulls may need more time to answer & use their own language
- more gatekeepers (safeguarding)
- may need researcher to match gender, ethnicity etc of pupil
- only in school in term time & school days
Ethical:
- Advantages:
- easy to go into schools after DBS check
- Challenges:
- pupils may only agree as an adult is asking; pressure
- research is authority figure (shifted power dynamic)
- guilty knowledge, anonymity & confidentiality
- children are vulnerable, sensitivity, secondary victimisation
- try minimise stress or psychological harm
- hard to get fully informed consent, lack of understanding
- due to ethnical concerns companies like UNIFEC have special codes of practice for researching young people
Theoretical:
- Advantages:
- researcher can gain trust of pupils, especially face-to-face, increases validity
- looking at a cross-section of pupils allows representativeness
- Challenges:
- info less reliable, pupils memories less developed, less detail
- right-answerism, people think it is disciplinary or HW
- teachers can control pupils (hierarchy)
- teachers may select only best pupils to be interviewed, validity
Positives:
- reliability possible as can replicate at other schools
tend to be experiments or observations
opposite to pupils
observational methods, uniquely to investigate more than a few, unrepresentative
large-scale surveys or official stats, help representative but lose detail
Malcom and Hill, young people are different to adults because of
1) power and status
2) ability and understanding
3) vulneravility