Doing Research in Special Education

Ideas into Practice

Richard Rose, Ian Grosvenor

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781134128891
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

This book incorporates an international perspective of research related to special education across all phases of education. It draws upon the experience and expertise of recognized researchers and practitioners in special education. As a research handbook for practicing teachers this book provides exemplars of good classroom based research practice addressing a broad range of special needs issues. Methods are presented which can be generalized to situations beyond the case studies immediately presented.

Chapter 1
Educational research – influence or irrelevance?

Ian Grosvenor and Richard Rose

Educational research, like all research, is fundamentally concerned with making a contribution to knowledge. This imperative informed Lawrence Stenhouses definition of research as any ‘systematic, critical and self-critical enquiry which aims to contribute to the advancement of knowledge’ (Stenhouse 1975:156). However, in recent years educational researchers in the UK have been severely criticised for failing to fulfil this duty. In 1996 David Hargreaves, formerly Professor of Education at Cambridge University and currently Chief Executive of the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, argued in his Teacher Training Agency (TTA) Annual Lecture that educational research is not in a healthy state’ and there was too much:

second-rate educational research which does not make a serious contribution to fundamental theory or knowledge; which is irrelevant to practice; which is uncoordinated with any preceding or follow-up research; and which clutters up academic journals that virtually nobody reads. (Hargreaves 1996a)

In particular, he singled out the ‘gap between researchers and practitioners’ as a ‘fatal flaw in educational research’. Hargreaves’ critique provoked quite heated debate in the press and academic journals (Bassey 1996, Budge 1996, Hargreaves 1996b, Gray et al. 1997). In 1997 the TTA issued its own fourfold criticism of current educational research:

1. Too few research projects focus on classroom teaching …;
2. Too much research stops short of working out the meaning of research findings for day to day practice;
3. Traditional research vehicles for reporting findings are not geared sufficiently to the needs of practitioners – findings of research tend to be disseminated to other researchers rather than to classroom teachers and when new findings are disseminated, they are not disseminated in a way that encourages teachers to consider the implications for their own practice; and
4. Too few research projects are used to inform the policy making process – research is not sufficiently focused on areas where action can be taken and findings are not made available to policy makers in an accessible way. (Teaching Matters^ Autumn 1997:14)

The following year, the then Chief Inspector of Schools, Chris Woodhead, entered the debate and caustically asserted:

Life is too short. There is too much to do in the real world with real teachers in real schools to worry about methodological quarrels or to waste time decoding unintelligible prose to reach (if one is lucky) a conclusion often so transparently partisan as to be worthless. (Woodhead 1998)

OFSTED also commissioned James Tooley and Doug Darby to subject educational research published in journals to scrutiny in the context of Hargreaves’ earlier criticisms. Their report concluded that there was sufficient evidence to vindicate Hargreaves’ critique: the majority of articles were not concerned with raising standards or improving classroom practice, employed ‘sloppy methodology’ and were partisan (Tooley and Darby 1998:79). In 1998 Hargreaves returned to the debate: appealing to the model of medical research and evidence-based clinical practice, he criticised the failure of educational research to investigate ‘the symptoms and causes’ of classroom problems and to develop ‘therapeutic interventions’ (Hargreaves 1998:2). In the following year he berated educational researchers for withdrawing ‘from the messy world of short-term practical problems into intellectual obscurities masquerading as profundities whilst dreaming of ultimate recognition’ (Hargreaves 1999:243). David Blunkett, Secretary of State for Education and Employment, in an address entitled ‘Influence or Irrelevance: Can Social Science Improve Government?’ expressed his frustration with the tendency for research to ‘address issues other than those which are central and directly relevant … to policy debate’, to be ‘driven by ideology paraded as intellectual inquiry or critique’ and to ‘fail to take into account the reality of many people’s lives’ (Blunkett 2000:12—13).

The new researcher, as Seamus Hegarty sagely observed, ‘could be forgiven for thinking that research is a blight on the education landscape and should be eliminated forthwith’ (Hegarty 1998b:21). In short, educational research in the UK at the end of the twentieth century was examined and found wanting: it failed to answer the questions which policy-makers wanted answered, it offered little or no help to practitioners in the classroom, it was fragmented, it lacked rigour and it was too often partisan. Such criticisms, it should be said, were not unique to the UK, in the USA disdain for educational research has been equally trenchant as John Goodlad observed:

Criticism of educational research and statements regarding its unworthiness are commonplace in the halls of power and commerce, in the public market place, and even among large numbers of educators who work in our schools. Indeed, there is considerable advocacy for the elimination of the locus of most educational research ― namely, schools, colleges and departments of education. (Berliner et al. 1997:13)

The diagnosis of ‘unworthiness’ has also been accompanied in the UK by a series of prescriptions for improving the health of the ailing body of educational research.

Hargreaves in the TTA lecture stated that educational research should seek to produce findings that offered ‘conclusive demonstrations’ that changing from one teaching approach to another would lead to a significant and enduring improvement in teaching and learning’. He advocated the establishment of a National Educational Research Forum whose function would be to sustain a continuing dialogue between all the stakeholders and to shape the agenda of educational research and its policy implications and applications’ (Hargreaves: 1996a). The DfEE established the Forum in 2000 with a remit to ‘develop a strategy for educational research, shape its direction, guide the co-ordination of its support and conduct, and promote its practical application’ (NERF 2001: Annex A). The TTA, in turn, developed a research strategy based on a greater role for users in determining and conducting educational research. Practice was to be informed by research evidence. The volume of ‘relevant classroom-based pedagogic research’ was to increase, ‘teacher effectiveness’ was to be examined ‘in the light of evidence about pupil learning gain’, ‘rigorously evaluated digests’ of research into teaching and learning were to be published and funding bodies were to be encouraged ‘to pay more attention to how useful educational research is to headteachers, teachers and policy makers’ (TTA 1997). Woodhead, in a little noticed observation, advocated in 1998 ‘a third way’ for educational research:

This is to recognise that the future lies, if it lies anywhere, in rediscovering the importance of historical perspective; in the patient application of disciplines such as economics and philosophy to the understanding of our education system; in suspending political and professional prejudice; and above all, in a return to what was once the classical terrain: issues, that is, concerning social class and educability and schools as social systems. (Woodhead 1998)

In the same year officials at the DfEE stated that the Government wanted research that improved ‘classroom practice and policy development’, that was geared to benefiting pupils, that was effectively disseminated to national policy-makers, local decision-makers and teachers, and teachers had to be trained to engage both with research findings and the research process themselves (Gold 1998, Budge 1998). More recently, Blunkett, at a meeting convened by the Economic and Social Research Council, defined the goal of educational research instrumentally:

‘We need to be able to rely on social science and social scientists to tell us what works and why and what types of policy initiatives are likely to be most effective. And we need better ways of ensuring that those who want this information can get it easily and quickly.’

Blunkett ended his speech by commending to the research community this ‘vision and inviting researchers ‘to work with us to achieve it’ (Blunkett 2000:21).

Educational research: thinking about context and the authorial voice

Engaging in research ‘is not something that can be done by slavishly following a set of edicts about what is right and wrong (Denscombe 1998:3). That said, ‘good’ research always involves an act of location. The first part of this chapter has been concerned with identifying the perceived limitations of educational research in the UK. It has also identified some of the proposed solutions. Taken together these two elements provide the context in which to locate this text: educational research today constitutes both a politicised and contested space. This book is intended to fill a gap in the current literature relating to educational research and special needs education. It is aimed at practitioners in the classroom. However, before explaining in more detail the purpose and structure of this text it is necessary – again as in ‘good’ research – to locate the position and voice of the authors. Our position, by this we mean our understanding of, and response to, the criticisms and solutions associated with the critiques of educational research in the UK, has determined the process by which this book has been constructed. To this end, we have chosen to make four observations; given more space there would be others.

First, for some protagonists in the debate over the quality and ‘relevance’ of educational research criticisms are linked to broader political agendas. This point can be seen clearly in Woodhead’s forward to Educational Research. A critique (Tooley and Darby 1998:1):

To a significant extent teachers’ effectiveness depends … upon their intellectual command of the subject discipline(s) they teach and ultimately their personality. The training they receive as student teachers and teachers in service can, however, have a profound influence on their beliefs about the nature of the educational enterprise and the appropriateness and effectiveness of different teaching methods. The findings of educational research are important because for better or for worse they shape these influences and, in doing so, help to define the intellectual context within which all involved in education work.

Woodhead’s attitude towards educational research should not be separated from OFSTED’s declared distrust of the influence of university-based Initial Teacher Training (ITT). The questioning of the value of academic research in education has been paralleled by a series of government initiatives aimed at ITT and couched in terms of ‘quality’ and ‘accountability’ which have questioned the quality of existing ITT provision and seriously eroded professional and academic autonomy.

Secondly, this unprecedented increase in central control over the content and delivery of teacher training has been accompanied by a concerted effort to establish teaching as an evidence-based profession. Sir Stewart Sutherland in his report on teacher education to the 1997 Dearing Inquiry into the future of Higher Education stated:

the professional teacher should be one who has been trained and educated against a background of relevant and systematic research and has developed the critical capacities to use research findings as a basis for improving practice. (Sutherland 1997:5)

Student teachers as part of the requirements for Qualified Teacher Status have since 1998 been required to demonstrate that they ‘understand the need to take responsibility for their own professional development and to keep up to date with research and developments in pedagogy’ (DfEE 1998). The same year also witnessed the TTA in its Corporate Plan for 1998-2001 including among its strategic objectives: ‘To help secure teaching as an evidence- and research-based profession’ (TTA 1998). An ‘evidence- and researched-based profession requires educational research of a particular nature, research which is directly linked to ‘teachers’ effectiveness’ in terms of practice. This leads to our third observation.

Classroom focused research is important, but it is not the only locus for research. As Hegarty has written:

Classrooms and the students in them do not exist in isolation from the rest of the world. Educational research must therefore look at the classroom in context. It must take account of the multiple environments – family, cultural, socioeconomic, media – within which young people learn. It must investigate the many policies and structures which have an impact on schooling. And it must have regard for theory, since otherwise research risks producing a jumble of unrelated facts. (Hegarty 1998a)

Further, credibility for researchers is not dependent upon providing answers to ‘what works and why’ and ‘what is likely to be most effective’. Educational research can be concerned with improving our understanding of processes, practices and organisations associated with teaching and learning without requiring a rush to judgement, without needing to provide an answer. Educational researchers have a capacity and a responsibility to develop knowledge. This creative role can involve them in unsettling certainties, in being troublesome, in challenging the ‘what works’ philosophy and the single-vantage point, single-track model of education. Research independence is a necessary condition for advancing knowledge. Noam Chomskys assertion of the mid 1960s still rings true – it is the duty of the academic researcher to speak the truth and to expose lies’ (Chomsky 1966).

Our final observation relates to the increasing importance centred by government offices on the role of the practitioner as researcher. We fully endorse this principle in educational research – after all it is this recommendation that is at the centre of this book ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Dedication
• Contributors
• 1 Educational research – influence or irrelevance?
• 2 Action research
• 3 Enabling students with severe learning difficulties to become effective target setters
• 4 Observation
• 5 Promoting cultural, religious and linguistic diversity in a special school
• 6 Using documents
• 7 Studying the development of ‘teacherhood’ in trainee teachers for the education of adults with severe learning difficulties
• 8 Case study
• 9 Writing speed: What constitutes ‘slow’? An investigation to determine the average writing speed of Year 10 pupils
• 10 An investigation into the impact of Social Stories on the behaviour and social understanding of four pupils with autistic spectrum disorder
• 11 Interviews
• 12 ‘It’s not about just getting by, it’s about moving on’ – A study exploring a qualitative approach to involving parents of primary-aged children with autistic spectrum disorders in the cycle of school development planning
• 13 Questionnaires
• 14 Inclusive practice in secondary schools
• 15 Life stories
• 16 Research with people with learning difficulties: challenges and dilemmas
• 17 Special needs and the educational researcher: moving ahead
• Author index
• Subject index