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Walking, well-being and community: racialized mothers building cultural citizenship using participatory arts and participatory action research
Get PDFCommitted to exploring democratic ways of doing research with racialized migrant women and taking up the theme of “what citizenship studies can learn from taking seriously migrant mothers’ experiences” for theory and practice this paper explores walking as a method for doing participatory arts-based research with women seeking asylum, drawing upon research undertaken in the North East of England with ten women seeking asylum. Together we developed a participatory arts and participatory action research project that focused upon walking, well-being and community. This paper shares some of the images and narratives created by women participants along the walk, which offer multi-sensory, dialogic and visual routes to understanding, and suggests that arts-based methodologies, using walking biographies, might counter exclusionary processes and practices, generate greater knowledge and understanding of women’s resources in building and performing cultural citizenship across racialized boundaries; and deliver on social justice by facilitating a radical democratic imaginary
Assisted Reproductive Technologies in Europe. Usage and Regulation in the Context of Cross-Boarder Reproductive Care
Get PDFThis chapter reviews assisted reproductive technologies (ART) usage and policies across European countries, and scrutinizes emerging issues related to cross-border reproductive care (or “reproductive tourism”). Although Europe is currently the largest market for ART, the extent of usage varies widely across countries, largely because of differences in the laws, the affordability, the types of reimbursement, and the norms surrounding childbearing and conception. Since 2009, the regulation of ART has been expanding in Europe, and all countries now have some form of ART legislation. Countries where the treatments are completely covered by national health plans have the highest level of ART utilization. Being in a legal marriage or a stable union is often a prerequisite for access to ART. Currently, only half of European countries allow single women to use ART, and even fewer grant access to lesbian women. Surrogate motherhood is strictly prohibited in many countries in Europe, and where it is allowed, strong restrictions against commercial surrogacy are in place. While restrictive national legislation can be easily circumvented by crossing national boundaries for ART treatments, questions of equity of access have been raised, as not all prospective parents can afford to travel for treatment
Ageing: what do we actually know? - Mr Johannes Hechler
No full textIs the population really getting older? If so, why? How long do people stay healthy? Are there ever more pensioners and fewer payers? Or do people just work longer? Every day you get as many answers as there are newspapers. Claims and counter-claims swirl around, based on anecdotes, rushed research and personal bias, all disguised by skilful rhetoric. Luckily there is the Office for National Statistics (ONS). The Office for National Statistics produces the hard evidence. You may know the ONS from the Census in 2011 or the monthly economic figures, but the ONS also estimates the number of old people in the UK and survey their behaviour. Our research is part of an international statistics system so we can compare the UK to other countries. The talk will show what type of data actually exist, what we can say about the questions above – and what we cannot. This talk was part of the Hope & Hops: the science of society event organised by NCRM, CPC and ADRC at the University of Southampton. This event was included in the the ESRC Festival of Social Science 2017. bit.ly/HopeAndHop
Are you better off living with your parents and are your parents better off living with you?
No full textTalk by Miss Natalia Permyakova, University of Southampton With an increasingly ageing population and lack of affordable housing across Europe, many families experience multiple changes in their living arrangements. Common scenarios include: coming back to the parental home after divorce or financial issues; parents moving in to receive informal care from adult children or provide help with grandchildren. All of these and many other reasons for intergenerational co-residence are present in the UK context. The UK picture is similar to Western Europe but is in contrast to Eastern European countries, which have a high share of intergenerational households. What are the implications of intergenerational households for the well-being of both older parents and adult children? On the one hand, living in a small living space, providing financially and taking care of those in need can be burdensome. On the other hand, when sharing a living space, generations are more likely to support each other physically and emotionally, which can boost self-esteem and well-being. This talk will introduce the importance of ageing and informal caregiving for both younger and older generations, taking into account the effects of different socio-economic contexts across Europe. This talk was part of the Hope & Hops: the science of society event organised by NCRM, CPC and ADRC at the University of Southampton. This event was included in the the ESRC Festival of Social Science 2017. bit.ly/HopeAndHop
Recognising Activities at Home: Digital and Human Sensors
Get PDFWhat activities take place at home? When do they occur, for how long do they last and who is involved? Asking such questions is important in social research on households, e.g., to study energy related practices, assisted living arrangements and various aspects
of family and home life. Common ways of seeking the answers rest on self-reporting which is provoked by researchers (interviews, questionnaires, surveys) or non-provoked (time use diaries). Longitudinal observations are also common, but all of these methods are expensive and time-consuming for both the participants and the researchers. The advances of digital sensors may provide an alternative. For example, temperature, humidity and light sensors report on the physical environment where activities occur, while energy monitors report information on the electrical devices that are used to assist the activities. Using sensor-generated data for
the purposes of activity recognition is potentially a very powerful means to study activities at home. However, how can we quantify the agreement between what we detect in sensor-generated data and what we know from self-reported data, especially nonprovoked data? To give a partial answer, we conduct a trial in a household in which we collect data from a suite of sensors, as well
as from a time use diary completed by one of the two occupants. For activity recognition using sensor-generated data, we investigate the application of mean shift clustering and change points detection for constructing features that are used to train a Hidden
Markov Model. Furthermore, we propose a method for agreement evaluation between the activities detected in the sensor data and that reported by the participants based on the Levenshtein distance. Finally, we analyse the use of di�fferent features for recognising
di�fferent types of activities
Mixed-device online surveys in the UK
Get PDFThere is a move towards online data collection in the UK, including the plan to collect 75% of responses online in the 2021 Census. Online survey response is complicated by respondents using different devices. So far, no research has been conducted in the UK to study characteristics of people using different devices in mixed-device online surveys. This analysis uses all publicly available UK social surveys with an online component: Understanding Society Innovation Panel, Community Life Survey, European Social Survey, 1958 National Child Development Study, and the Second Longitudinal Study of Young People in England. Bivariate analysis and logistic regressions are used to study significant correlates of device use in online surveys. The results of bivariate analysis suggest that age, gender, marital status, employment status, religion, household size, children in household, household income, number of cars, and frequency of internet use are significantly associated with device used across surveys. The associations with age, gender, employment status, household size and education are consistent with the findings from other countries. The knowledge about characteristics of respondents using different devices in online surveys in the UK will help to understand better the response process in online surveys and to target certain subgroups more effectively
Research Ethics - Ethical Theories
No full textDr Helen Kara, NCRM visiting fellow, in the first (of three) part of the ‘Research ethics: theory and practice’ NCRM online course.
This video is part of the online learning resources from the National Centre for Research Methods (NCRM). To access the supporting materials (presentation slides, datasets, recommended reading, links to related publications and resources) visit https://www.ncrm.ac.uk/resources/online/research_ethics_theory_and_practice
The Pedagogical Content Knowledge of Social Science Research Methods Teachers and Why it Matters
Get PDFThe topic of this paper is what can be known and shared about the pedagogical knowledge involved in educating social science students and researchers to be literate and competent in the use advanced and innovative research methods. The desire to build capacity among social science researchers is evident across Europe (Kottmann 2011; Murray & Pollard 2011). The need to understand the pedagogies involved in this began to be flagged relatively recently, e.g. by Hurworth (2008); Garner, Wagner and Kawulich (2009); Payne & Williams (2011). This was reinforced by literature reviews that highlighted the paucity of the pedagogical culture (Wagner, Garner and Kawulich 2011; Earley 2014). Networks supporting pedagogical developments have developed in the UK (NCRM nd); Norway and Sweden (Murray & Pollard 2011) and Spain (Hernández-Hernández & Sancho-Gil 2015). Empirical research across national, disciplinary and methodological contexts and cultures though is more recent (Nind, Kilburn & Luff 2015), with the study discussed here representing a significant advance (Nind, Kilburn and Wiles 2015; Lewthwaite and Nind 2016.
The paper discusses a UK research-council funded research project which encompasses international perspectives and data. It is aimed at: (i) advancing pedagogical culture and pedagogical content knowledge for social science research methods teaching; (ii) creating a typology of pedagogical approaches to inform policy and practice in this arena; and (iii) developing a coherent theoretical framework for methods teaching. The research questions being pursued include: (i) how is the subject matter of advanced and innovative research methods being taught and learned? And (ii) how can methods teachers’ methodological and pedagogical craft be most powerfully articulated? Sub-questions within this relate to identifying the distinctive pedagogical challenges that arise in the methods classroom and how teachers respond and build their pedagogical knowledge.
Responding to the need to build social science research capacity has led to large investments, such as the UK National Centre for Research Methods funded by the Economic and Social Research Council to do just this. Alongside there has been formalization of doctoral training in Europe connected to the Salzburg Principles (Kottmann 2011). In this paper we argue that capacity will only be built if attention is paid to the pedagogies involved, knowing those pedagogies in ways that support their sharing and development. The study is underpinned by two crucial theoretical concepts: First that pedagogy is hard to know (Shulman 1987; Nind, Curtin & Hall 2016), and second, that it helps to focus not just on pedagogical knowledge or on subject knowledge, but on the combination of these in pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) (Shulman 1986, 1987). Shulman (1987, p. 6), referring to school-based education, observed that ‘teachers themselves have difficulty articulating what they know and how they know it’. This is even more evident when there is no formal training and sparse pedagogical culture as is often the case in teaching research methods. Our research has involved a multi-component design to allow us as researchers, together with the teachers and learners involved in the study, to understand subtle aspects of teachers’ pedagogical decision-making that has often been invisible to us, making tacit, practical knowledge (Traianou 2006) knowable and accessible to us as a community of stakeholders. PCK is critical in research methods education as it is PCK that allows teachers to transform their methodological knowledge and experience into a form that is comprehensible to learners in a process in which pedagogy specific to the subject matter develops (Nind, Kilburn and Wiles 2015). The study was designed to explore teachers’ active knowing (Kind 2009) taking us beyond individual pedagogical narratives (van Driel, Verloop, and de Vos 1998, 674) to useable concepts.
The research design involves four parts: expert panel; video-stimulated recall, reflection and dialogue; learners’ diary circle; and in-depth case studies. It is primarily through the first two methods that PCK has been elucidated.
Part one, the expert panel involved: first, individual interviews with 21 experienced methodologists/ teachers of methods with expert knowledge; second, their online discussion of key themes raised by them; and third, exploration of the themes by seven focus groups of methods teachers working in particular domains/ways (e.g. teaching quantitative or qualitative methods, teaching face-to-face or using digital technology). The focus was on experienced methods teachers reflecting on their craft and beginning to identify their communal PCK. While the research is based in the UK, the interviews deliberately involved participants from, or working across, Europe, the Americas, Africa and Asia to incorporate international perspectives.
Part two involved video-recording six diverse days of research methods teaching and then using excerpts of video to stimulate recall, reflection and dialogue among teachers and learners in focus groups following on closely from each pedagogical encounter. The intention here was to move the elicitation of PCK closer to the pedagogical context; it allowed exploration of action - and thinking in action – by getting close enough to it to share insights (Nind et al. 2015). Like Moyles, Adam and Musgrove (2002), we were interested in reflection as much as recall, and we sought dialogue between teachers and learners to facilitate co-production of knowledge rather than judgemental gaze.
In both parts, preliminary analysis was dialogic in the active stages of generating data. Later, data were coded independently by two researchers in a process of seeking shared interpretations between researchers and where possible between researchers and participants. The analysis focused on pedagogical themes, such as learning challenges, and on pedagogical episodes, such as when the subject matter required specialist language. To organize the codes and work towards a typology for the pedagogies, a framework of approaches, strategies, tactics and tasks was adopted, each moving closer to the minutiae of pedagogical decision-making. PCK spans all of these from approach (how the teacher goes about their pedagogical task cohered around a theory, set of values or principles) through to task (the activity that learners or teachers actually do). This paper, though, is focused at the level of strategy - the goal directed work of implementing an approach - as this is where the PCK shows through very clearly.
The research is showing how the strategies and associated PCK of methods teachers develops from their experiences of learning/being taught, methodological experiences, formal training, early experiences with teaching, pedagogical beliefs and values (their pedagogical roots). It is also showing that pedagogical challenges stimulate the development of strategies and shape the ongoing development of PCK. The data show such challenges are posed by:
a) the learners (unpreparedness, fearfulness, poor motivation, problematic expectations, their diversity and unknown qualities);
b) the context (constraints with time, space, group size, curriculum, teachers’ own expertise and the changing data landscape); and
c) the challenging subject matter/content (the difficult concepts and language, the complexity of the subject matter, the requirement for reflexivity and the number of decisions involved in using research methods competently).
PCK is about how the responses to these challenges form into know-how that combines pedagogical and subject matter expertise. Findings indicate this know-how relates to:
• classroom organization to meet pedagogical goals (e.g. group/pair work);
• structuring content to manage the challenges (e.g. scaffolding, chunking, reverse engineering);
• pacing strategies (e.g. the ‘data sprint’);
• pedagogical starting points (data vs theory, craft vs art, teacher’s vs students’ experiences); and
• pedagogical hooks for connecting students to research methods, getting them interested and confident.
The presentation of this paper will drill down into one particular pedagogical hook – the teaching of, with, and through data - as this represents a concentration of the teachers’ PCK. This includes teachers utilising their own experiences with data and exploiting the benefits of learners’ real-world or simulated immersion in authentic data to learn by doing. The findings help us to show the importance of coming to understand advanced research methods pedagogy in the social sciences as part of efforts to build methodological capacity across Europe and beyond.
References
Earley, M. (2014) A synthesis of the literature on research methods education, Teaching in Higher Education 19(3):242-253.
Garner, M.,Wagner, C. & Kawulich, B. (2009) Teaching Research Methods in the Social Sciences. Farnham: Ashgate.
Hernández-Hernández, F. & Sancho-Gil, S.M. (2015) A learning process within an education research group: an approach to learning qualitative research methods, International Journal of Social Research Methodology 18(6):651-67.
Hurworth, R. (2008). Teaching Qualitative Research: Cases and issues. Rotterdam: Sense.
Kottmann, A. (2011) Reform of doctoral training in Europe: A silent revolution? In J. Enders et al. (Eds) Reform of Higher Education in Europe. Rotterdam: Sense.
Kind, V. (2009). Pedagogical content knowledge in science education: Perspectives and potential for progress, Studies in Science Education 45:169–204.
Lewthwaite, S. &Nind, M. (2016) Teaching research methods in the social sciences: Expert perspectives on pedagogy and practice, British Journal of Educational Studies DOI:10.1080/00071005.2016.1197882.
Moyles, J., Adams, S., & Musgrove, A. (2002) Using reflective dialogues as a tool for engaging with challenges of defining effective pedagogy. Early Child Development and Care 172:463–78.
Murray, J. & Pollard, A. (2011) International perspectives on research capacity building, British Journal of Educational Studies 59(3):219–224.
NCRM (nd.) Pedagogy of Methodological Learning. http://pedagogy.ncrm.ac.uk/
Nind, M., Kilburn, D. & Luff, R. (2015) The teaching and learning of social research methods: developments in pedagogical knowledge, International Journal of Social Research Methodology 18(5):455-61.
Nind, M., Kilburn, D. & Wiles, R. (2015) Using video and dialogue to generate pedagogic knowledge: teachers, learners and researchers reflecting together on the pedagogy of social research methods, International Journal of Social Research Methodology 18(5):561-57.
Nind, M., Curtin, A. & Hall, K. (2016) Research Methods for Pedagogy. London: Bloomsbury.
Payne, G. & Williams, M. (Eds.) (2011) Teaching Quantitative Methods: Getting the basics right. London: Sage.
Shulman, L. (1986) Those who understand: Knowledge growth in teaching, Educational Researcher 15:4–14.
Shulman, L. (1987) Knowledge and teaching: Foundations of the new reform, Harvard Educational Review 57(1):1–23.
Traianou, A. (2006) Understanding teacher expertise in primary science: A sociocultural approach, Research Papers in Education 21:63–78.
van Driel, J. H., Verloop, N., & de Vos, W. (1998). Developing science teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge, Journal of Research in Science Teaching 35:673–695.
Wagner, C., Garner, M. & Kawulich, B. (2011) The state of the art of teaching research methods in the social sciences: towards a pedagogical culture, Studies in Higher Education 36(1):75-88
Pedagogic Language and Pedagogic Competence: Does it Make Sense to Talk about Research Methods Pedagogy in the Social Sciences?
Get PDFThis short paper reports from ongoing research at the National Centre for Research Methods into the pedagogy of advanced methods teaching. This work widens the focus of research from individual experiences of methods teaching to empirical evidence that bridges disciplines, schools of method and international contexts. Here we consider the relationship between pedagogic language and pedagogic competence, and how these relate to the development of pedagogical culture in methods teaching.
Across Europe increasing attention is being paid to the development of research capacity in Universities, government and industry. Spurred by the challenges posed by new forms of data, multiple archival digitization projects, central investments (such as Big Data Europe1) and a push towards professionalization, the need to equip researchers with advanced (post graduate/postdoctoral) methods competencies is felt as never before.
In practice, this places emphasis on doctoral and postdoctoral training that focusses on the acquisition, maintenance and continuing development of transferable skills necessary for effective research across different contexts, rather than within the discrete boundaries of (for example) the doctoral project. This takes the form of the formalization of doctoral training connected to the Salzburg Principles (Kottmann, 2011) and short courses, high-profile international summer and winter schools2 and online learning. In the UK, these efforts are supported by large government investments, such as the National Centre for Research Methods (funded by the Economic and Social Research Council).
Methods demand a unique mix of technical skills, procedural knowledge and conceptual understanding (Kilburn et al, 2015). However, despite seismic developments in doctoral training and capacity building, pedagogical content knowledge (PCK, Shulman, 1986) concerning how teachers answer the specific challenges of methods teaching is limited. This is exacerbated by a lack of pedagogical culture (Earley, 2014; Wagner et al, 2011) evidenced by lack of pedagogical research, networks and dialogue within the field (for example, expressed in cross-citation, events and other markers indicative of the exchange and development and critique of ideas). As a result, new methods teachers must rely on trial-and-error and immediate peers to develop their practice (Earley, 2014). To address these gaps, our ESRC-funded research at NCRM asks: How are advanced social research methods taught and learned? This invokes a central concern with making pedagogy visible. We contend that ‘pedagogy is hard to know’ (Nind et al., 2016), but that developing knowledge of how pedagogy is specified, enacted and experienced in practice (Nind et al., 2016) is essential developing PCK (Shulman, 1986) and with it, pedagogic culture.
To advance these goals our research is built upon four underlying principles. First that there is a need to develop the pedagogical culture around research methods. Second that there is benefit in identifying and deepening pedagogic content knowledge. Third that dialogue represents a particular pedagogic and methodological asset in the furthering of our research aims. Fourth that there is value in the use of explicit, shared pedagogy.
To this end, we have established meta-themes from our analysis that characterise methods teaching activities. In this paper we explore two key aspects of the research. Firstly, insights into methods teaching and pedagogy from the first wave of our analysis. Second, what these insights into methods teaching have to tell us about language and competence in the development of research methods more broadly.
Our research design incorporates four strands, expressing a commitment to dialogic methods that build pedagogic knowledge with participants, by deepening conceptual exchange rather than judging or evaluating. Methods used include expert panel; video stimulated recall, reflection and dialogue (VSRR); online learning diaries; and case studies. The results and conceptual work discussed here flow from expert panel and VSRR research and our analysis on the role and use of pedagogic language within expert methodologist/teacher talk.
Expert panel research (after Galliers and Huang, 2012) has been completed in two stages. The first, with eight experts in methods and teaching in the UK (2012-13), the second with an international focus (2015-16). In this second panel of 13 experts, we purposefully targeted international experts across Europe (comprising academics from the Netherlands and Switzerland), the Americas, Africa and Australasia, to provide a nuanced account of pedagogical expertise in a socio-cultural frame. These ‘pedagogic leaders’ (Lucas and Claxon, 2013) were interviewed on the basis of methodological excellence, landmark publications, editorial roles in international journals and learned societies, and significant teaching experience at a postgraduate level.
Following transcription, an initial thematic analysis was conducted independently by two researchers. Emergent findings were then discussed among the experts in an online forum and by seven focus groups with experienced methods teachers, and an online forum of 18 early career and PhD researchers. In this way, dialogue was instigated across various groups involved in teaching research methods, to understand the resonance of the identified themes, and how these are realised and expressed in different contexts.
The second component involved observing and video-recording six days of short-course methods teaching and using video to stimulate recall, reflection and dialogue with teachers and learners in focus groups immediately after each event. This work engages learners and teachers in co-constructive dialogue about the learning process that is elicited by, and deeply referent to, tangible events within the classroom (Nind et al., 2015).
Again, data was coded independently by two researchers and interpretations shared, where possible, with participants. Subsequent analysis related to our research questions, and focussed on pedagogic themes associated with methods teaching, as well as understanding how learning theory and pedagogy and research have informed this process. We coded for typologies of talk, to recognise both the explicit and named pedagogies extant in the data, and the un-named, implicit pedagogies that teachers were also found to use.
Findings and Conclusions
Experts recognised the need to build spaces for dialogue, to share resources, ideas and ‘to continue to foster a kind of interdisciplinary pedagogical culture’. They observed a lack of ‘occasion to engage’ and a need ‘to look at various perspectives and exercises … used successfully in classes’. In lieu of this, the majority of teachers are found to build teaching expertise over the course of a life-time responding directly to the challenges of methods learners, content and context, rather than, for example, formal teacher training. Approaches to teaching are built upon pedagogic roots: experiences of learning and being taught, methodological experiences, early teaching experiences as well as beliefs and values. Experts and teachers with educational backgrounds and developed pedagogical interests demonstrate developed pedagogical vocabulary that enabled them to articulate their approaches and strategies. As a result, typologies of talk available in our data range from named and explicit pedagogies, where teachers and experts are able to talk about learning theory or pedagogy, alongside unnamed/implicit pedagogies that, with the dialogic methods we are using, can be made visible as teachers discuss their teaching repertoire and reflect on approaches pedagogically in new ways.
Named and explicit pedagogies were found to cluster around three themes: active learning – which connects learners to research through hands-on activities; and other more experiential approaches; and the pedagogies associated with engaging multiple perspectives, critical standpoints and reflexivity (see also, Lewthwaite & Nind, 2016). However, a substantial body of implicit and unnamed pedagogies identified in the data remain, raising interrelated questions going forward: Does pedagogic development require specialist language? Is pedagogic vocabulary necessary for the development of pedagogical competencies? It is hoped that findings addressing these key questions will help to bridge methodological and pedagogical divides to build methodological capacity across Europe and beyond
Scaling up qualitative data: with Dr Elena Zaitseva
No full textDr Elena Zaitseva, of the Teaching and Learning Academy, Liverpool John Moores University, has been using semantic analysis software Leximancer for analysis of large text-based data sets since 2011. Outcomes of this research are published in the Quality in Higher Education Journal, several book chapters and in two reports commissioned by the Higher Education Academy including: Zaitseva, E. and C. Milsom (2016), In their own words: Analysing students’ comments from the Postgraduate Taught Experience Survey. Report, York: Higher Education Academy