researching education Flashcards
How does Power and status affect researching into pupils
Children have less power and status than adults – this makes it difficult for them to state their views openly.
Similarly, if structured interviews are used, the children may find the situation intimidating and not open up or say much. For
example, Labov found that when black children were interviewed by a white researcher using formal, structured interviews, the
children spoke using the restricted code, but when they were interviewed by a black researcher using informal interviews they
felt more comfortable and spoke using a more elaborated code and were much more articulate.
If a researcher requested to interview students, the school may try to select the students for the interview – this may make the
findings unrepresentative as the school is likely to select the ‘good’ students who will present the school in a positive light
How does Ability and understanding affect researching into pupils
Pupils’ vocabulary and ability to express their ideas will depend on their age, class, ethnicity and cognitive ability. This can lead to them not understanding the questions in questionnaires or structured interviews.(invalid) data? The researchers will have to operationalise the concepts very carefully to ensure children can understand and answer the questions.
Their youth and lack of understanding may make it difficult for the researcher to gain informed consent.
Children’s memory is less well developed so they may be unable to recall information in detail when asked to do so by the researcher.
How does Vulnerability and ethical issues affect researching into pupils
children are considered a vulnerable group as they can easily
be psychologically harmed by the research. Causing psychological harm to participants is considered unethical.
When children take part in research, the consent is given by the school and parents, but the researcher should also try to explain to the child they are taking part in research, however children may not be mature enough to understand. Thus, researching children means never having the full informed consent of the participants.
How does Laws and guidelines affect researching into pupils
Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006 states that anyone who spends time with children must have a Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check which shows they are not a threat to
children’s safety. To carry out interviews with children, the researcher would need a DBS check and, as they take time to get,
this may delay or prevent the research from going ahead.
How does Power and status affect researching into teachers
Schools are hierarchical organisations and some teachers have more power and status than others. They also tend to be possessive over their classrooms and may see a researcher as a trespasser so not allow them to carry out observations in their lessons.
If a researcher is carrying out covert research, e.g. disguised as a supply teacher, they may be excluded from other teachers’ conversations and so miss out information that may be vital to
their research.
The fear of speaking out in a research interview may prevent some teachers from speaking openly or even agreeing to be interviewed, e.g. they may fear it will have a negative effect on their career if they say something negative about the school to the researcher and the Head Teacher finds out.
How does Impression management affect researching into teachers
teachers are used to playing the part of a ‘teacher’. Goffman calls this impression management – controlling the way others think of you by playing the role you want them to think you are like. This means that teachers will put on an act for the researcher rather than being their true selves. Thus invalid data
Teachers also know they are expected to be professional and treat all students the same so they would never disclose their real attitudes about students to the researcher. One way to overcome
this issue is to carry out covert research, but that is unethical.
other issues which affect researching into teachers
Teachers are over-worked and may not agree to take part in research as they simply do not have the time. This means that, even though schools can have 100 teachers working there = a large sample, the response rate may be low if only a few teachers agree to take part in the research. Unrepresentative as sample small so not generalisable
How does Gate keepers affect research into classrooms
Before a researcher can carry out research in a school, they first need access to the school – a permission to carry out
their research at that school. The access is granted by the Head Teacher and parents of kids. This makes gaining access, time consuming and complicated and if just one of those groups of people refuses, the research can’t go ahead.
Increasingly, schools are worried about their reputation and the damage any research findings may do to the school’s reputation.so it is likely any request for access will not be granted to the researcher by the school.
Researchers try to overcome this problem by promising to maintain the school’s anonymity and confidentiality, e.g. by
giving the school a fake name in the published research, e.g. Ball renamed the school he researched teacher labelling in
Beachside Comprehensive. However, Head Teachers are still worried people will work out it’s their school so deny access.
How do peer groups affect research into classroom
Students tend to want to fit in with their peers which may affect the way they behave while being researched. For example, Willis found the lads often exaggerated their misbehaviour when he interviewed them together so he also carried out follow up 1-2-1 interviews to find out the truth.
Similarly, if students are asked to complete questionnaires, e.g. in Registration, they may talk to each other about the answers and thus affect each other’s answers. Data invalid as true aims not discovered
How does the school’s own data affect research into schools
Schools create and publish a lot of data about themselves - league table results, stats on truancy/attendance. Schools also produce a lot of information that is not made available to the public. This would include incident reports. This means there is a wealth of secondary data (both quantitative and qualitative) relating to schools the researchers could use for their research. However, some of it may be confidential and the school may not allow the researcher access to it.
Some of the data may be public so the researcher has the right to see it, however the data may be falsified by the school.
How does the law affect research into schools
By law, schools have to gather data on attendance, progress, achievement, behaviour, etc. and this data is public
– anyone can request to see it which means there is plenty of secondary data on schools researchers can use.
However, schools may not keep the exact data a researcher needs, e.g. a school may have data on
attendance/truancy, but not classified by gender so if a researcher is specifically researching gender and
truancy the school will not have the specific data the researcher needs.
A lot of the data schools gather is confidential so they may not be allowed by law to share it with the researcher,
e.g. if the researcher wanted to get parents to complete a questionnaire, the school will have the parents’
contact details, but is not allowed by law to pass that info to the researcher.
Schools are also legally required to educate students and may deny access to the researcher as they may fear
the research will distract students from their studies and interrupt lessons.
How do Gate keepers affect research into schools
Head Teachers are the gate keepers who will ultimately decide if the
researcher is allowed to carry out their research in the school. If the topic of the research is considered controversial by the Head Teacher, they will refuse the request.
Head Teachers can also select which students, lessons and teachers are involved in the research so the school comes across in a positive light, but this makes the data invalid
How does School organisation affect research into schools
Schools are hierarchical organisations and both teachers and students may see the researcher as part of that hierarchy and so refuse to take part in research.
Schools are also complex organisations with timetables, management structures, meetings and many staff - it could take the researcher months to work out who does what and who is worth including in their research. This add to the cost of research.
How does access affect research on parents
Schools keep records of parents’ contact details, but aren’t allowed to pass them to anyone else which means that its difficult for the researcher to get access to parents.
The school may allow the researcher to send a questionnaire home to parents by giving it to children to take home, but not all children will pass it to their parents
other issues which may affect research on parents
Parents’ class, ethnicity and gender may affect their ability and willingness to take part in research. For example, m/c parents may be more able and willing to take part in research, but that will make the data unrepresentative as the views of w/c parents would not be included.
If children are being researched, parental consent is needed, and the sensitivity of the research topic will affect whether parents give their consent or not.
If parents are the participants, they can engage in impression management to come across as ‘good parents’ , e.g. they may lie about how often they help their child with HL or read to their
children as they know these are the socially accepted markers of what a good parent does. This would make the data invalid as the parents have lied.
