methods in context

• practical issues of interviews in education 


  to interview children you may need to get consent from head teachers and pupils
• practical issues for interviews in education 


  interviews take longer than questionnaires and head teachers may be unwilling to let students miss lesson time

  this links to marketisation because teachers want students to get the best grades possible
• practical issues for interviews for education

  interviewers may need a DBS check

  interviewers for children need to be carefully designed as they have less developed language skills and may not be able to concentrate for long periods of time
• practical issues for interviews in education


  finding appropriate quiet place to conduct interviews in a busy school may be hard

  teachers or parents may not be able to find the time to be interviewed
• ethical issues of interviews in education 


  the interviewer must not cause distress to the child.

  interviews must be kept confidential

  however if the interviewee mentioned abuse they would have to report it

  safeguarding overrides confidentiality
• theoretical issues of interviews in education 


  interviewees may see the interviewer as an authority figure (power in balance)

  therefore if they do not enjoy school or are part of an anti school subculture they may be unwilling to give full and honest responses

  this reduces the validity in data
• theoretical issues for interviews in education 


  teachers may not be honest during interviews as they may fear damage to their proffesional reputation
• practical issues of questionnaires in education 


  there are sampling frames of lists of students and staff so this makes it possible to choose random samples

  for example could be registers
• practical issues of questionnaires in education 


  it is relatively easy to access large numbers of respondents concentrated in schools
• practical issues of questionnaires in education 


  researchers are limited in the questions that they can ask young children and older children with poor literacy skills
• Ethical issues of questionnaires in education 


  anonymity is critical especially if the questionaire asks about sensitive issues and consideration of age needs to be take into account

  Duty of care on a sensitive topic for example mental health and safe guarding
• ethical issues of questionnaires in education 


  schools would have to be kept anonymous because they would be unhappy with any research that may damage the reputation of the school and might lead to job losses if the school became less popular
• ethical issues of questionaires in education 


  difficult to get truly informed consent from young children
• theoretical issues of questionnaires in education 


  influence of peer groups within education which may influence the type of answers pupils give

  it might be difficult to prevent discussion among pupils of the questionnaires and the responses they think appropriate which could affect the validity of the findings
• theoretical issues of questionnaires in education 


  children may make up answers ‘for a laugh’ which could undermine the validity of the data
• theoretical issues of questionnaires in education 


  parents and teachers filling in questionnaires may tend to provide socially acceptable answers rather than saying what they really think

  eg parents lying about how much they help their child with homework
• practical issues of observations in education 


  it is difficult to do participant observation as a researcher

  as they are older than students and it is therefore difficult to blend in
• practical issues of observations in education 


  there is the issue of access

  you may need to get permission from the parents the head teacher or local authority

  observation is time consuming and therefore expensive
• practical issues of observations in education 


  how do you record notes? if you are taking notes you may miss out on important information

  but filming requires consent
• ethical issue of observations in education 


  covert observations of children by an adult is unlikely to be ethically acceptable

  you may need a DBS check to conduct an observation
• ethical issues of observation in education 


  if an observer sees rule breaking behaviour by children eg truancy they must decide whether to report this

  safeguarding issues override the research
• ethical issues of observations in education 


  there must be anonymity for the school students and staff as the reputation of the school could be harmed

  this links to marketisation as schools want a positive image
• theoretical issues of observations in education 


  the hawthorne effect may occur this reduces the validity in data
• theoretical issues of observations in education 


  teachers and students may change their behaviour if they are aware of the observer
• however observations may be the only way of seeing what really goes on in schools
• practical issues of official statistics in education


  easily accessible however information required by the researcher is not always available eg there is often data on achievement broken down into gender but less on class and ethincity
• practical issues on official statistics in education 


  sociologists may have to rely on survey data carried out by other bodies

  this can make comparisons difficult and data is not produced by every school
• practical issues of official statistics in education 


  official definitions of social class do not always match sociology definitions and therefore sociologists sometimes have to use indirect measures such as eligibility for free schools meals
• ethical issues of official statistics in education 


  there are no real ethical issue with suing official statistics

  however statistics produced by individual schools or local authorities may not be intended for publication so there may be ethical issues about using them in published work
• theoretical issues of official statistics in education 


  they are reliable as the government imposes definitions and categories that all educational institutions must follow
• theoretical issues of official statistics in education 


  this should mean that comparisons can be made over time

  exam gradings are different now so it’s impossible to compare exam results from now and the past
• theoretical issues of official statistics in education 


  statistics may lack validity as schools may manipulate data

  for example schools may not accurately record truancy or some schools may count lateness as truancy whereas some schools do not
• practical issues of documents 


  public documents tend to be easily available to researchers are relatively cheap easy and quick to access
• practical issues of documents 


  however personal documents are not available in such large quantities nor are they necessarily easy to access

  therefore little research has been done using these resources
• practical issues of documents 


  it can be difficult to base a complete study on secondary sources especially qualitative ones but can be useful alongside primary research methods

  for example ball used marketing materials and interviews with parents to understand in the 1990s how the education market worked
• ethical issues of documents 


  none with public

  when private documents are used ethical issues are more significant

  the researcher may need to seek informed consent from those who produced the documents

  if they fail to do so the research could be considered unethical
• ethical issues of documents 


  some documents such as school reports could be considered confidential and researchers should try to maintain the anonymity of the pupils to whom they refer
• theoretical issues of documents 


  the validity of public documents can be questioned

  do inspections reports really prove a valid description of a school

  schools publicity material will also put a positive gloss on the image and performance of the school

  documents produced for the government by schools may be manipulated to maximise funding or to increase the likelihood of a positive report
• theorists issues of documents 


  private documents have the potential to provide a valid information on the subjective viewpoints of those involved in education

  however it is always important for the researcher to consider why the document was produced in order to try and assess its validity