Success with your Education Research Project

John Sharp

• Publisher: Learning Matters
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9780857259486
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Research in Education

Success with Your Education Research Project is a practical, user-friendly text on research methods aimed specifically at undergraduate students on education courses. Research projects are carried out in schools and non-school settings by nearly all undergraduates in teacher training, Education Studies and other educational disciplines, and this book makes clear references to these courses and contexts throughout. All chapters include learning outcomes, worked examples, practical and reflective tasks and summaries of key points. Topics such as using the Net and plagiarism are covered with up to date information, while key content on literature searches, critical thinking and the development of argument provides clear guidance and ensures deeper understanding. This new edition has been updated throughout to provide greater depth on many topics.

Study Skills in Education

This series addresses key study skills in the context of education courses, helping students indentify their strenghts and weaknesses, increase their confidence and realise their academic potential. The books are suitable for students on:

- any course of Initial Teacher Training leading to the award of QTS (primary or secondary)

- degree course in Education or Education Studies with or without QTS

- degree courses in Early Years or Early Childhood Studies;

- foundation degrees in Education or any education-related subject discipline

1. Let's Get Acquainted

Learning Outcomes

Undertaking an individual research project in education can be a particularly daunting task but it really doesn't have to be that way. Once you've tackled some of the ideas and principles underpinning educational research as a whole, the rest, as they say, should be a walk in the park. By having read this chapter and completed the tasks within it, you will:

• know about educational research as a process of enquiry;
• be familiar with the scope of educational research and how it has diversified and become more complex over time;
• be aware of some of the philosophical perspectives associated with educational research in terms of its two major research paradigms;
• be able to identify and evaluate some of the educational research literature available to you in your own library and online.

What is Educational Research?

Educational research has now become so diverse and complex that beyond even the most basic of definitions it no longer has any single identity. Educational researchers do what they do in a whole manner of different ways, for a whole manner of different reasons and for a whole manner of different purposes. Over the years, the boundaries between the different approaches that exist, the different methods available for collecting data, the different means of data analysis employed and the different philosophical perspectives which bind educational researchers together and shape their values and beliefs have become blurred and confused. As a direct consequence, and while studying education for the first time or training to be a teacher, attempting to understand and to undertake educational research can be a difficult and, at times, hazardous activity. Nevertheless, each and every aspect of your own individual research project has to be justified in full and it is important to be able to attempt to do this well even if it means having to learn to tread delicately through the educational research minefield.

Practical Task

The Diversity and Complexity of Educational Research

One of the easiest ways to get familiar with the diversity and complexity of research activity within education is to visit the education section of your library. Begin by finding out where the current journals are on display. Just take a look at how many different journals exist. Some are very academic in nature while some are more professional. Some publish articles on a wide range of topics while some are more highly specialised. Take a closer look at an academic and professional journal from the area of education you are specialising in or interested in. Compare each one in terms of:

• content;
• writing style;
• accessibility of material;
• presentation.

Which do you prefer and why? Most journals are also available online. Find out which e-journals your library subscribes to and how to access them.

Similarly, you can find out about research funded or commissioned by a wide range of educational organisations. In the first instance, a useful shortlist might include:

• the Department for Education (www.education.gov.uk);
• the Training and Development Agency for Schools (www.tda.gov.uk);
• the Office for Standards in Education (www.ofsted.gov.uk);
• the National Foundation for Educational Research (www.nfer.ac.uk);
• the British Educational Research Association (www.bera.ac.uk).

Visit each website in turn and browse the research pages. It might also be useful to consult the websites and research pages of the professional associations related to the area of education you are specialising in or interested in too. How do funded or commissioned research reports compare with what you find in journals (content, writing style, accessibility of material, presentation)? Does this tell you anything about the nature of the research and its intended readership?

To get a good feel for how educational research has moved on over the years, find the library shelf holding the books on educational research methods. Try to find one book written in the 1960s, one in the 1980s and one written since 2000. Examine the contents lists in detail. What has changed and what has remained the same? Many books are also available online. Find out which e-books your library subscribes to and how to access them.

Towards a Definition

In its loosest sense, research concerns itself with finding things out. It follows, then, that educational research can be loosely defined as concerning itself with finding things out about education. Education itself is often presented as something which refers to those morally acceptable activities, formally planned or otherwise, which bring about worthwhile learning. Educational activities do not take place within a vacuum, of course. They are shrouded in most instances by entire education systems such as those which support and govern the day-to-day and longer-term functioning of schools and other educational environments including the likes of outdoor centres, museums and galleries. Each system has its own historical, social and political background and other cultural influences, all of which helps to explain why educational research is as diverse and complex as it is.

So, educational research is something which concerns itself with finding things out about education. This includes everything from the raising and testing of educational theories and hypotheses to undertaking the sorts of investigations which inform educational actions, judgements and debate. It may be pure or applied. But this doesn't really help you here. What you need is an operational definition from which you can begin to visualise the form your own individual research project might take. One particularly extended definition derived from the educational research literature perhaps encapsulates the essence of educational research more than any other:

Educational research involves the rigorous and self-critical process of arriving at dependable answers to questions and solutions to problems of an educational nature through the systematic collection and analysis of data, the interpretation and presentation of findings, and the logical construction of sustained argument.

Educational research, then, is something of a process of enquiry with a purpose. In terms of your own individual research project, the purpose might be to obtain empirical evidence with which you can generate valid and reliable educational knowledge in any or all of its many and varied forms, including knowledge for its own sake (knowing that…), the knowledge to improve practice (knowing how…) and the knowledge to challenge ways of looking at and seeing things (knowing why …). It is equally possible to do all of these things without looking for empirical evidence, of course, but this will be our starting point and theme throughout. As a process of enquiry more often than not involving you and other people (e.g. children, teachers, parents, members of the general public), educational research also involves being reflective or self-critical. This is important at all times but particularly so when you find yourself placed in a position to influence the research process itself and the findings which emerge from it. In some instances, for example, you may have no choice but to become an active player and voice in your own research project and this must be carefully accounted for in order to eliminate any suggestion that your work might be biased. Whether or not it is possible to ever truly understand or reflect anything of the educational community you aspire to belong to without being a part of it is of fundamental significance.

Practical Task

Words and Meanings

It's easy when you read a chapter in any book to forget to stop and take stock of what is being said. Education has been described here and elsewhere as best thought of as something which refers to those morally acceptable activities, formally planned or otherwise, which bring about worthwhile learning. What does the term education mean to you? What does it mean to have ‘received a good education’ or to be educated? Is the description of education described here acceptable to you or not?

The extended definition of educational research on page 3 is both long and loaded. Consider each of the key elements from within the definition in turn and consider what it means:

• rigour;
• self-critical;
• process;
• dependable;
• systematic;
• analysis;
• data;
• interpretation;
• presentation;
• logical construction;
• sustained argument.

Are you sure you grasp the full essence of educational research from the definition? Are there any other key elements of educational research missing from the definition that you could add? Can you come up with a better definition yourself?

A Philosophical Diversion

From the extended definition of educational research presented earlier, you might easily be misled into believing that educational research involves some form of experimentation. Certainly, and in the early days of educational research, experiments employing a scientific method of investigation were particularly common. Indeed, many authors have since written about and defended their view that research of an experimental and scientific nature is perhaps the only means for settling educational disputes and the only way to avoid throwing out what is known to work well in favour of inferior novelties. But the experiment is only one approach among many and experimentation in education today tends to have a more restricted and specialised application. It's just not always appropriate and it doesn't always give you the best answers or solutions you need.

Experiments in education, at least those involving a scientific method of investigation, help to exemplify what is referred to in education as the normative research paradigm (also referred to as the positivist or quantitative research paradigm depending on which book you read). This stands in direct contrast to the interpretive research paradigm (also referred to as the anti-positivist or qualitative research paradigm depending on which book you read). Research paradigms in education, the very mention of which takes you into a philosophical arena probably best avoided where possible, have been usefully described as the networks of coherent ideas about the very nature and existence of the educational world and how these networks and ideas implicitly or explicitly influence the thoughts and actions of researchers who knowingly or unknowingly subscribe to or support them. It's all a bit tricky to the initiated never mind the uninitiated. Research paradigms can, however, provide researchers with a shared sense of purpose in terms of what counts as valid and reliable knowledge and which means of obtaining it are both reasonable and legitimate. From a normative perspective, as it is frequently presented, there exists an educational world entirely independent of the researcher. Its fundamental components, characteristics and the realities that exist within it can be predicted, isolated, measured, tested, quantified and presented objectively. If it helps:

Research from a normative perspective can be thought of as something which is very often carried out on people, on places and on events by looking in at them from the outside.

However, such an impersonal view of the educational world and how it can be investigated is not to everyone's taste. From an interpretive perspective, as it is frequently presented, people themselves are an integral component of their educational world, interacting naturally with it and constantly altering and modifying its characteristics and creating their own realities such that everything evolves continually. If it helps again:

Research from an interpretive perspective can be thought of as something which is very often carried out with people, in places, creating events by looking at them from within.

Both differ fundamentally in their epistemological and ontological roots. Epistemology, which considers the very nature of educational knowledge itself (i.e. What counts as educational knowledge, how is it obtained and how is it structured?), and ontology, which considers the very nature of educational reality (i.e. What do we believe exists, what is it possible to know about and how might what is known about be perceived differently?), are particularly important. However, you've probably given very little thought to any of this...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• About this Book
• 1. Let's Get Acquainted
• 2. Finding a Focus and Formulating a Plan
• 3. Looking at Literature
• 4. Approaching it in Style
• 5. Discovering Things: Questionnaires
• 6. Conversations with a Purpose: Research Interviews
• 7. Seeing is Believing: Observation
• 8. From the past to the here and now: Documents and Documentary Research
• 9. Making Sense of Data: Analysing Numbers and Words
• 10. Writing up
• Index