Download Methods in Context

Methods in Context
Using observation to investigate education
Sociologists are interested in a range of possible
classroom interaction issues. These include:
• Gender and classroom behaviour
• Teacher expectations and labelling
• Language codes in the classroom
• Pupil subcultures
• Racism
• The hidden curriculum
What is different about
observing education?
•
•
•
•
•
Legal issues
Ethics
Problems of access
Power relationships
Availability of secondary data
Types of observation
• Pre-categorised observational
schedules preferred by positivists
and usually non-participant
• Less structured more open ended and
flexible methods favoured by
Interpretivists
Structured observational
methods
• Flanders system of interaction
analysis categories (FIAC). The
observer uses a standard chart to
record interactions at three second
intervals. Observations are
converted into quantitative data by
counting the number of times each
type of behaviour occurs
Flanders interaction
analysis categories (FIAC)
Teacher Talk
1.
Teacher accepts pupils’ feelings
2.
Teacher praises or encourages pupils
3.
Teacher accepts or uses ideas of pupils
4.
Teacher asks questions
5.
Teacher lectures
6.
Teacher gives directions
7.
Teacher criticises pupils or justifies authority
Pupil Talk
1.
Pupils talk in response to teacher
2.
Pupils initiate talk
Silence
1.
Silence or confusion
Strengths and
Limitations
• Structured observational techniques are
likely to be easily replicated and generates
quantitative data
• Interpretivist sociologists criticise
structured observation for its lack of
validity, simply counting classroom
behaviour ignores the meanings that pupils
and teachers attach to it
Less structured
observational methods
• Practical issues- schools are complex
places and more time consuming to observe
than many other settings
• It may be easier to gain permission to
observe lessons than to interview pupils or
teachers
• Personal characteristics such as age,
gender and ethnicity affect the process of
observation
• Observations of interactions in school settings is
limited by the restrictions of the school
timetable, holidays, controls over access and so on
• Schools are busy places and so the observer may
find it difficult to note down observations in
privacy
• For interpretivists the main strength of
observation is its validity
• However the power difference between young
people and adults is a major barrier to uncovering
the real attitudes and behaviour of pupils
• Teachers are also skilled at hiding their feelings
and altering their behaviour when being observed
• Most observation has to be overt in
classrooms because covert
observation is difficult
• Difficult to avoid the Hawthorne
Effect where the presence of the
researcher influences the behaviour
of those being observed
• The limited resources of the typical
researcher, together with the sheer
size of the education system, mean
that observing school interaction is
unlikely to produce representative
data
Exam questions
• Examine the reasons why some sociologists
choose not to use overt observation when
conducting research (20 marks)
• Assess the strengths and limitations of
participant observation for the study of
labelling in schools (20 marks)
Tasks- Methods in
context P.O- Education
•
1.
P-g 214-217
Give an example of ‘structured
observational methods’- are they
reliable?valid?
2. What are the issues surrounding ‘less
structured observational methods’ (i.e
practical issues, ethical issues, validity,
hawthorne effect, representativeness
and reliability)