Research Methods in Context − EDUCATION

RESEARCH CHARACTERISTICS

There are five main groups and settings in education whose distinctive characteristics may make
them easy or difficult to study.

 Teachers;
 Pupils;
 Parents;
 Classrooms;
 Schools.

Each of these present particular problems and opportunities for the sociologist in choosing a suitable
method to use.

1: RESEARCHING PUPILS

Hill (2005) suggests there are 3 major differences between studying young people and studying
adults:

 Power and status;

 Ability and understanding;
 Vulnerability.

POWER AND STATUS

Young people (YP) generally have less power and status than adults. This makes it more difficult for
them to state their attitudes and views openly, especially if they challenge those of adults.

In schools, they are hierarchical institutions that give teachers higher status and power over pupils.
Teachers may sometimes even be able to use this power to influence which pupils are selected for
research, e.g. in order to promote a good image of themselves or the school.

Formal RMs e.g. structured interviews, tend to reinforce power differences. This is because it is the
researcher and not the young person who determines what questions are asked.

Sociologists therefore need to consider ways in which they can overcome this difference. E.g. group
interviews rather than formal ones.

However, it is likely that whatever RM is used, power and status will always remain.

Pupils’ attitudes towards the power and status differences between themselves and their teacher
are also likely to affect how they relate to the researcher. E.g. pupils who resent the power of
teachers over them may be less likely to cooperate with research.

ABILITY AND UNDERSTANDING

Pupils’ vocab, powers of self-expression, thinking skills and confidence are likely to be more limited
than those of adults − particularly when trying to express abstract ideas.
E.g. the sociologist will need to take particular care in how they word their questions so as to make
sure they are understood clearly by their young respondents.

Limitations in pupils’ understanding also make it more difficult to gain their informed consent
because the socio may not be able to explain the nature of the research clearly to pupils so that they
understand.

YP use language in different ways from adults, which makes the construction of appropriately
worded questions particularly demanding. Children in particular are likely to require more time than
adults to understand questions.

BUT, pupils are not a homogeneous group − they are not all the same. The CAGE creates differences
between pupils that a researcher will have to take into account. E.g. class, age and ethnic variations
in speech codes.

VULNERABILITY AND ETHICAL ISSUES

As a result of more limited power and ability, YP are often more vulnerable to physical and
psychological harm than adults.

The socio should therefore consider whether the participation of YP in the research is actually
necessary and whether they stand to benefit from it.

Most research guidelines emphasise that the young person too should be aware of what the
research entails.

Given the vulnerability of school−age pupils, child protection issues are very important. E.g. personal
data should not be kept unless it is vital to the research.

The greater the vulnerability of YP means that there are more ‘gatekeepers’ controlling access to
pupils than there are for most other social groups. E.g. parents, heads, teachers, local authorities
and schools’ boards of governors.

2: RESEARCHING TEACHERS

Teachers often feel over-worked and may be less than fully cooperative. This may mean that
interviews and questionnaires need to be kept short, and this will restrict the amount of data the
socio can receive. But, teachers are likely to be sympathetic to educational research.

POWER AND STATUS

Power relationships in school are not equal. Teachers have more power due to their age, experience
and responsibility in the school.

The nature of the classroom reinforces the power of the teacher. Teachers often see it as ‘my
classroom’ in which the researcher may be viewed as a trespasser.

Researchers will need to develop a ‘cover’ if they intend to carry out covert investigations and this
may mean representing themselves as a supply teacher, for example. Although this gives researchers
access, these groups have a lower status within school and other teachers may not treat them as
equals.

IMPRESSION MANAGEMENT

Teachers are used to being observed, e.g. in Ofsted inspections. As a result, they may well be more
willing to be observed by a researcher since it is something they are accustomed to experiencing.

But, a major part of the teacher’s role is to ‘put on an act’ for pupils and others, teachers are often
highly skilled at what Goffman calls ‘impression management’ in which they can manipulate the
impression that others have on them.

Some researchers study teachers in their backstage setting, usually the staffroom. But, this poses
particular problems e.g. the staffroom is quite small and because teaching staff are generally known
to each other, a newcomer will stand out and may be treated with some suspicion.

Teachers will be aware that any critical comments about their school could affect their career so
they may be reluctant to answer certain questions honestly. But, this can be overcome by using
observational methods rather than methods that involve direct questions.

Heads may try to influence which staff are selected and this may not be fully representative of all
teachers. E.g. a head may hand pick teachers who will convey a favourable image of the school −
another example of impression management.

3: RESEARCHING CLASSROOMS

The classroom is a closed social setting with clear physical and social boundaries, e.g. it is less open
than many other setting such as leisure centres.

It is a highly controlled setting, e.g. the teacher and the school control classroom layout and access,
as well as pupils’ time, activities, dress and language while they are in the classroom.

YP rarely experience this level of surveillance and control in other areas of their lives.

As a result, the classroom behaviour that the research observes may not accurately reflect what
those involved really think and feel.

The classroom is a fairly small, confined social space with room for perhaps 30 people. Classrooms
are comparatively simple social settings: there are just 2 social roles in the classroom − teacher and
pupil. All this makes classroom interaction relatively straightforward to observe and analyse.

GATEKEEPERS

Access to classrooms is controlled by a wide range of gatekeepers. E.g. heads, teachers and child
protection laws.

The more gatekeepers there are to a particular research setting, the more difficult it is for researcher
to obtain and maintain access.
4: RESEARCHING SCHOOLS

If the sociologist uses observational methods, they are unlikely to have the time to investigate more
than a very few and their research risks being unrepresentative.

Using large-scale surveys or OS instead may overcome this problem − though here they may lose the
insight that can be gained from the detailed observation of a single school.

SCHOOLS’ OWN DATA

There is a great deal of secondary data publicly available about schools. This includes exam results
and league tables; figures on truancy, Ofsted reports, personal documents etc.

Schools are therefore ‘data-rich’ places and sociologists may be able to make use of some of these
secondary sources in their research.

BUT, school records are confidential and so access will be difficult.

Other school data may pose particular difficulties. E.g. schools with a truancy problem may falsify
their attendance figures in order to present a good image and not deter applications.

OS on examination performance should be treated with care. Schools may make changes in the
curriculum in order to improve their results and create the image that the school is improving when
in reality there may have been little or no change.

GATEKEEPERS

Heads and governors are gatekeepers who have the power to refuse the researcher access to the
school.

Heads sometimes view research negatively, e.g. their reactions to a research project that Roland
Meighan (2007) wanted to carry out on consulting pupils about teaching but heads thought it is
dangerous to involve pupils and it would be bad for classroom relationships.

5: RESEARCHING PARENTS

Parents can influence what goes on in education e.g. by how they bring up their children and
marketisation policies encourage parents to see themselves as consumers, e.g. in choice of school.

However, parents are not an easy group to study, their class, gender and ethnicity may all affect how
willing or able they are to participate in research.

E.g. M/C parents may be more likely than W/C parents to return questionnaires about their
children’s education and this will make research findings unrepresentative.

Parents may engage in impression management, presenting themselves to researchers in a positive

light by exaggerating their involvement in their children’s education. E.g. they may lie about
attending parents evening. If so, this will result in invalid data being gathered.
ACCESS TO PARENTS

Most parent-child interaction occurs at home, as a private setting often closed to researchers, this
presents difficulties. E.g. there are few opps to observe whether parents help children with their
homework.

Parents are unusual in that they are for the most part physically located outside the school. This may
make them more difficult to contact and research.

List of parents’ names and addresses exist in school records, but a school would not normally release
such information to researchers. But the school may be happy to contact parents but this would not
necessarily guarantee that parents received them or that pupils always returned the questionnaires
that their parents had completed.

THE RESEARCHER’S OWN EXPERIENCE OF EDUCATION

Researchers can draw on their own experience of education, e.g. when formulating their
hypotheses.

But their personal experience with classrooms and schools can dull their awareness of just how
different educational environments are from other social settings. Because they have spent years in
school, these places may seem ‘natural’ to them. Thus, when carrying out research, sociologists need
to be aware of their taken-for-granted assumptions about schools and classrooms, teachers and
pupils.

The researcher has probably been quite successful in education and this may make it difficult for
them to empathise with students in an underachieving, anti-school subculture.

The class, gender or ethnic differences between the pupil and researcher may hinder the research.

USING EXPERIMENTS TO INVESTIGATE EDUCATION

Sociologists sometimes use experiments to study issues such as:

 Teacher expectations;
 Classroom interaction;
 Labelling;
 Pupils’ self concepts;
 Self-fulfilling prophecy.

LABORATORY EXPERIMENTS AND TEACHER EXPECTATIONS

Harvey and Slatin (1976) examined whether teachers had preconceived ideas about pupils of
different social classes.

H&S used a sample of 96 teachers who were shown 18 photographs of children from different social
class backgrounds.
To control other variables, the photos were equally divided in terms of gender and ethnicity. The
teachers were asked to rate the children on their performance, parental attitudes to education,
aspirations and so on.

H&S found that lower-class children were rated less favourably. Teachers based their ratings on the
similarities they perceived between the children in the photographs and the ones they taught.

This study indicates that teachers label pupils from different social classes and use these labels to
pre-judge pupils’ potential.

ETHICAL PROBLEMS

Lab experiments that do not involve real pupils have fewer ethical problems than those that do. H&S
did not use real pupils, so no child suffered any negative effects.

YPs vulnerability and their more limited ability to understand what is happening mean that there are
greater problems of deception, lack of informed consent and psychological damage.

PRACTICAL PROBLEMS

Schools are large, complex institutions in which many variables may affect teacher expectations. E.g.
their expectations may be influenced by a wide range of variables such as class size, type of school
etc.

Sociologists are often interested in the role of large-scale social factors and processes such as the
impact of government policies on educational achievement, which cannot be studied in small-scale
lab settings.

FIELD EXPERIMENTS AND TEACHER EXPECTATIONS

Rosenthal and Jacobson carried out their research in a California primary school in which pupils were
given an IQ test and teachers were told that this had enabled the researchers to identify the 20% of
pupils who were likely to ‘spurt’ in the next year.

In reality, the test did no such thing and the pupils were, in fact, selected at random.

Teachers’ expectations were identified as the independent variable in their experiment.

All the pupils were re-tested 8 months later and then again after a further year. Over the first 8
months, pupils gained on average 8 IQ points, but the ‘spurters’ gained 12 points.

The greatest improvements in performance were found in the youngest children, those aged 6-8.

ETHICAL PROBLEMS

Field exp work best when those involved are unaware that they are in an experiment. Yet this
requires deception, R&J had to deceive the teachers. Had they known the true nature of the test and
the purpose of the research, it would have been impossible to plant expectations in their minds.
RELIABILITY

R&Js research design was relatively simple and therefore easy to repeat. Within 5 years of the
original study, it had been repeated no less than 242 times. But, given all the differences between
school classes, e.g. in terms of the pupils’ ages, it is unlikely that the original could be replicated
exactly.

USING QUESTIONNAIRES TO INVESTIGATE EDUCATION

Sociologists sometimes use questionnaires to study issues such as:

 Subject and university choice;

 Bullying and the experience of schooling;
 Achievement and school factors;
 Parental attitudes to education.

OPERATIONALISATION OF CONCEPTS

This involves turning abstract ideas into a measurable form. This can be particularly difficult when
creating a questionnaire for pupils. Because their grasp of abstract concepts is generally less than
that of adults, it may be more difficult to turn sociological ideas such as ‘cultural capital’ into
language that pupils will understand.

This may produce answers that are based on respondents’ misunderstanding of what the questions
mean.

SAMPLES AND SAMPLING FRAMES

Schools routinely keep lists of pupils, staff and parents. These can provide accurate sampling frames
from which the sociologists can draw a representative sample.

But, schools may not keep lists that reflect the researcher’s interests. E.g. the sociologists may wish
to take a representative sample of pupils of a particular ethnic group, but the school may not keep
lists of pupils sorted by ethnic origin, so there is no sampling frame available from which to draw the
sample.

Distributing questionnaires in schools is a fairly easy way to access a large number of potential
respondents. But, the researcher will first need the schools’ permission to give them out.

Young children are more open to peer group pressure and it is difficult to prevent pupils who are
completing questionnaires that have been distributed in class from discussing responses.

ACCESS AND RESPONSE RATE

Response rates are often low and schools may be reluctant to allow sociologists to distribute
questionnaires because of the disruption to lessons that it may cause.

However response rates can often be higher than in other areas, e.g. the head may authorise time to
be taken out of lessons so that the questionnaires can be completed. The higher response rate may
produce more representative data from which generalisations can be drawn.
PRACTICAL ISSUES

They are very useful for gathering large quantities of basic factual educational information quickly
and cheaply.

However, the data generated by questionnaires is often limited and superficial. Written
questionnaires involve participants being able to read and understand the questions. Thus they are
unsuitable for those who cannot read reasonably well, such as young children or those with learning
difficulties.

Children generally have a shorter attention span than adults and so questionnaires need to be
relatively brief if they are to stand a chance of being completed. This limits the amount of
information that can be gathered.

Teachers are very busy professionals and may not cooperate fully if the questionnaire is a lengthy
document that will take a long time to complete.

ANONYMITY AND DETACHMENT

Questionnaires can be particularly useful when researching sensitive educational issues such as
bullying, where their anonymity may overcome pupils’ embarrassment or fear of retribution from
bullies.

As a result, response rates may be higher and pupils may be more likely to reveal details of their
experience of being bullied. This may produce more valid data than would a face-to-face structured
interview, for example.

However much depends on whether pupils are reassured that their anonymity will be safeguarded.
Yet this reassurance may be difficult to achieve with such a detached method as a questionnaire,
where there is little or no personal contact with the researcher.

Compared with interviews, it is easier to make questionnaires anonymous. As a result, teachers may
feel able to set aside concerns about their careers and so give more honest answers to sensitive
questions about issues such as their attitudes to pupils.

USING INTERVIEWS TO INVESTIGATE EDUCATION

Sociologists may use interviews to study issues such as:

 Pupil subcultures;
 Pupils’ experience of health and sex education;
 Class, ethnicity and language;
 Gender identity and the male gaze;
 Class and parental choice of schools.

PRACTICAL ISSUES

YPs linguistic and intellectual skills are less developed than those of adults and this may pose
practical problems for interviewers.
Young interviewees may:

 Be less articulate or more reluctant to talk;

 Not understand long, complex questions;
 Have a more limited vocab and use words incorrectly or differently from adults e.g. slang;
 Have a shorter attention span and poorer memory retrieval than adults;
 Read body language differently from adults.

These factors may lead to misunderstandings and incorrect answers and thus undermine the validity
of the data obtained. Such communication difficulties may mean that unstructured interviews may
be more suitable than structured ones, since they allow the interviewer more scope to clear up
misunderstandings by re-wording questions.

But, children may also have more difficulty in keeping to the point, e.g. they tend to pay attention to
unexpected details in questions. Training therefore needs to be more thorough for someone
interviewing children, which adds to the costs of the research.

However, given that young people tend to have better verbal than literary skills, interviews may be
more successful than written questionnaires as a method of obtaining valid answers.

Unstructured interviews can often take an hour or more to conduct. Given the time constraints that
most teachers work under, interviews with them would probably have to take place outside school
hours.

For young children, there is also the ethical issue that they may be unsettled by strange situations
such as an interview, so researchers need to take particular care that the interview does not distress
them.

RELIABILITY AND VALIDITY

Structured interviews produce reliable data because they are standardised. But, they may not
produce valid data, since YP are unlikely to respond favourably to such a formal style − perhaps
because it makes the interviewer appear too much like a teacher.

ACCESS AND RESPONSE RATE

Schools are hierarchical institutions and this can cause problems when seeking to interview teachers
or pupils. To interview a teacher, a researcher might first have to obtain the permission of the head,
whereas to interview pupils may require parental consent as well.

Schools may also be reluctant to allow sociologists to conduct interviews during lesson time because
of the disruption it causes, or because they object to the researcher’s chosen topic. E.g. some
schools might object to interviews about drug use.

If the researcher can obtain official support for the study, then the hierarchical nature of school may
work in their favour. E.g. heads can instruct teachers to release pupils from class for interviews ans
this may increase the response rate.
THE INTERVIEWER AS ‘TEACHER IN DISGUISE’

Power and status inequalities can affect the outcome of interviews. If interviewees have less power
than the interviewer, they may see it as being in their own interests to lie, exaggerate, conceal
information or seek to please when answering questions. They may also be less self-confident and
their responses less articulate. All this will reduce the validity of the data.

Pupils are accustomed to adults ‘knowing better’ and so may defer to them in interviews. E.g.
children are more likely than adults to change their original answer when the question is repeated
because they think it must have been wrong.

The interview is a social interaction. The inequalities between children and adults, pupils and
teachers, may influence this interaction and thus distort the data obtained.

USING OBSERVATION TO INVESTIGATE EDUCATION

Sociologists are interested in a range of possible classroom interaction issues:

 Gender and classroom behaviour;

 Teacher expectations and labelling;
 Speech codes in the classroom;
 Pupil subcultures;
 Teacher and pupil racism;
 The hidden curriculum.

STRUCTURED OBSERVATION

PRACTICAL ISSUES

One example of the structured observational schedules favoured by positivists is the Flanders
system of interaction analysis categories (FIAC). This is used to measure pupil-pupil and pupil-
teacher interaction quantitatively.

Observations can thus be easily converted into quantitative data simply by counting the number of
times each type of behaviour occurs.

The relative simplicity of structured observational methods such as FIAC means that they are
quicker, cheaper and require less training than less structured methods.

RELIABILITY

They are likely to be easily replicated, e.g. FIAC uses only 10 categories of classroom interaction,
which makes it relatively easy for other researchers to apply in a standardised way.

VALIDITY

Interpretivists say it lacks validity, e.g. by simply counting classroom behaviour and classifying it into
a limited number of pre-defined categories ignores the meanings that pupils and teachers attach to
it.
UNSTRUCTURED OBSERVATION

PRACTICAL ISSUES

Schools are complex places and more time−consuming to observe than many other settings.

But, it may be easier to gain permission to observe lessons than to interview pupils and teachers.

Personal characteristics such as age, gender and ethnicity affect the process of observation. E.g.
Wright (1992) was carrying out her research and there were a few black teachers in which she found
that her African Caribbean ethnicity produced antagonistic reactions from some white teachers.

Observation of interactions in school settings is limited by the restrictions of the school timetable,
holidays, health and safety legislation etc.

Schools are busy public places, so the observer may find it difficult to find the privacy needed to
record observations.

ETHICAL ISSUES

A covert approach to study pupils is not appropriate. Their greater vulnerability and limited ability to
give informed consent means that observation normally has to be overt.

Delamont points out that every observer in a school sees and hears things that could get pupils into
trouble. In some cases, this may even involve the law, such as when pupils steal from school.

Given that harm can be done to pupils, teachers and schools, additional care should be taken to
protect their identity. This is even more of an issue in a marketised education system where a good
public image is important to the success of a school.

VALIDITY

Interpretivists favour it because it is valid, this understanding is particularly important when

researching issues such as classroom interaction or labelling in schools.

However, the power difference between YP and adults is a major barrier to uncovering the real
attitudes and behaviour of pupils. They may present a false image when being observed by an adult
researcher, thus undermining the validity of the research.

There is also the problem that the language of the pupil may be very different from that of the
researcher. This makes it difficult for researchers to be certain that they understand pupils’
meanings.

THE HAWTHORNE EFFECT

It is very difficult to carry out covert observation of educational settings, especially classrooms. This
is because there are few ‘cover’ roles the researcher can adopt and because he or she stands out as
being much older than the pupil.
This means that most classroom observation has to be overt. But, this makes it very difficult to avoid
the Hawthorne Effect, where the presence of the researcher influences the behaviour of those being
observed.

REPRESENTATIVENESS

It takes time to become familiar with the setting, gain the trust of teachers and pupils, and carry out
the actual observations. The limited scale of the typical observational study, combined with the
sheer size of the education system, mean that observing school interaction is unlikely to produce
representative data.

RELIABILITY

Participant observation studies of education tend to lack reliability. This is because data recording is
often unsystematic and hard to replicate. E.g. Hammersley found that on one occasion he had to
write his notes on the back of a newspaper because he was observing staffroom conversations
covertly.

The personal characteristics of different observers may evoke differing responses. E.g. Wright found
that as a black female, she was met with hostility by some white teachers, but was readily accepted
by black pupils. A white male researcher may well have found the opposite.