researching teacher

• Researching teachers

  • Feel overworked and may be less fully cooperative
  • Means interviews and questionnaires need to be kept short (restricts the amount of data that can be gathered)
• Teachers are likely to be sympathetic to educational research
• Power and status

  Teachers have more power due to their age, experience and responsibility within the school<|>Nature of the classroom reinforces the power of the teacher<|>Teachers may call it 'their classroom'<|>Teachers are not fully independent as governors, parents and pupils all constrain what teachers may do
• Covert investigation by researchers

  1. Represent themselves as a supply teacher

  2. Gives the researcher access

  3. Groups with lower status within school may not be treated as equals by other teachers
• Impression management

  Teachers are highly skilled at manipulating the impression that others have of them<|>Researchers have to find ways to get behind the public face that teachers put on<|>Goffman states how as social actors we behave differently when we are acting out a role 'front stage' as opposed to back stage (back stage= staff room)
• Getting back stage

  Comes with issues as due to being a newcomer you may be treated with some suspicion
• Teachers may be reluctant to answer certain questions honestly as they know it could affect their career
• Using observational methods rather than direct questions

  May overcome teachers' reluctance to answer honestly
• Head teachers may try to influence which staff are selected to be involved in the research and these may not be fully representative of all the teachers within the school