2.2 - Choices In Research

• What are the practical issues in research?

  1. Money
  2. Time
  3. Possibility
• What are the ethical issues in research?

  1. Confidentiality
  2. Gaining consent
  3. Effects on people being studied
  4. Effects on wider society
  5. Issues of legality and morality
• What do Positivists believe?

  • human behaviour can be objectively and scientifically studied
• What are the key beliefs of positivists?

  1. Express facts using quantitative data
  2. Can look for correlations
  3. Correlations may represent causal relationships
  4. Causes of behaviour are true for humans everywhere
  5. Human behaviour is shaped by external stimuli
  6. Study what you can observe
  7. Supports the methods such as questionnaires and statistics
• What do interpretists believe?

  • humans have a conscience, free will and choice to determine behaviour
  • social world is constructed by interaction and interpretation
• PRACTICAL ISSUES WITHIN STAFF -

  • teachers have a lack of time and cannot devote time for interviews or research
  • teachers can only take part if their managers give consent
  • teachers may be unwilling to help if their career/reputation is at risk
• ETHICAL ISSUES WITHIN STAFF -

  • researchers should ensure they do no harm to their careers
  • maintain confidentiality for staff
  • observations - all teachers should give consent
  • researchers may avoid observations like assemblies where it is hard to get consent
• THEORETICAL ISSUES WITHIN STAFF -

  • staff may act unnatural when researchers observe - associate them with OFSTED inspectors - raises validity of classroom observations
  • may be interviewer bias and teachers may give cautious answers rather than personal opinions
  • representativeness of staff - may be hand picked by senior staff
• PRACTICAL ISSUES WITHIN PUPILS -

  • access to children may be limited if parents are unwilling to give consent
  • researchers will need to undergo a DBS check
  • researchers will have to conform to the demands of organisations - access when they have time
  • young children - lack of skills to answer complex questions and they stray away from question
• THEORETICAL ISSUES WITHIN RESEARCH -

  • problems with children expressing genuine understanding of question - affects validity
  • typically low status - may not have the power to express views
  • classroom observation - unnatural behaviour
  • unrepresentative sample - willingness of teachers/parents
• ETHICAL ISSUES WITHIN RESEARCH -

  • children are vulnerable - research should not harm or cause psychological distress
  • hard to gain consent - may not understand purpose of research
  • hard to gather consent from parents
• PRACTICAL ISSUES WITHIN PARENTS -

  • parents are not usually present in school - hard to gain access
  • practical issues in finding addresses of parents
  • interviewing parents is time impractical and time consuming as they need seperate times
  • cannot research behaviour about attitudes towards homework - private setting of home
• THEORETICAL ISSUES WITHIN PARENTS -

  • problems in getting representative sample - those who are more interested in children's education may take part
  • questionnaires - uneven response rate - affect representativeness of data
• ETHICAL ISSUES WITHIN PARENTS -

  • adults can give properly informed consent
  • general ethical issues taken into consideration