Methods in context

Power and status (researching pupils)

Children have less power and status than adults —> it makes it hard for them to openly share their opinions

Method of overcoming power inequalities when researching pupils

Group interviews

Ability and understanding (researching pupils)

Pupils’ vocabulary, self-expression and confidence are limited

Limited understanding = possible consent issues

Ethical issues when researching pupils

Pupils are more likely to experience physical/psychological harm than adults

Consent needs to be given by the school, parents and the child

More gatekeepers controlling access to the pupil 

Laws and guidelines for researching pupils

DBS and safeguarding checks on the researcher

Unifcef and Barnados have developed ethical research guidelines

Impression management

Goffman - teachers manipulate the impression of themselves to the researcher

Teachers are used to being observed

They are social actors who are aware of the potential harm they could cause to their careers if they criticise the school

Examples of the classroom being a highly controlled setting

Layout

What is taught

Dress code/uniform

Noise levels

More gatekeepers = ?

Harder to access

Peer pressure

Pupils may feel the need to conform —> when answering questionnaires pupils may be influenced by others

Researching schools

Large amounts of secondary data e.g. league tables and Ofsted

School reports are confidential (hard to gain access)

Headteachers can refuse access to researchers

Why aren’t parents easy to study?

They are not a single homogeneous group —> class, ethnicity and gender may affect their understanding of the research

It is hard to gain access to the parents and their homes

Researcher’s own experience

A sociologist’s own experience of education may interfere with their research (taking things for granted)

Example of a laboratory experiment

Charkin et al used 48 university students to teach a 10 year old boy

1/3 were told he was highly motivated

1/3 were told he was poorly motivated

1/3 were told nothing

Those in the high expectation group made more eye contact and encouraging body language than the low expectancy group

Problems with Charkin et al’s study

• Used real pupils (ethical)

• Only looked at teacher expectations not the effect (narrow focus)

• Used university students instead of real teachers

Example of a field experiment

Rosenthal and Jacobson’s “Pygmalion in the classroom”

Pupils were randomly selected as “spurters” teachers were told they had high IQ

They were re-tested in 8 months and their IQ had improved

The experiment was repeated 242 times in 5 years

Problems with Rosenthal and Jacobson’s study

• The 80% of non-spurter children may of been held back educationally

• Experiments like this would rarely occur today

• Deception of the teachers

Example of a questionnaire

Rutter used questionnaires to collect large quantities of data from 12 London secondary schools

He correlated achievement, attendance and behaviour with school size, class size and number of staff

Di Bentley

Began each interview by showing them a jokey picture of her daughter, maintained a relaxed atmosphere by nodding and smiling

Very personal interviewing style that cant be standardised easily —> reduces reliability

“Teacher in disguise”

Bell - pupils may feel the interviewer is a teacher in disguise and may seek to win the approval of the teacher by lying

FIAC

Flanders interaction analysis categories - investigated teacher talk vs pupil talk in a class room

Observations could be easily turned into quantitative data

Reliable

Give examples of observation in education

• Willis - learning to labour

• Lacey - differentiation and polarisation

• Rist - Clowns and tigers