Aspirations and assumptions: a researcher's account of pupil involvement in school-based research

Abstract

This paper describes a research project conducted in collaboration with 10 'pupil co-researchers' (PCRs) and their classes in a secondary school in the Netherlands. The main research tools employed were online and face-to-face group discussions, in which PCRs contributed as consultants, co-designers and assistants. The research proved a learning experience for both the adults and the young people involved and led to the collection of insightful qualitative data. Working collaboratively with pupils, however, presented a number of challenges. Ethical issues such as consent, inclusion and the pressure placed on pupils, and logistical challenges such as the availability of time and resources, were particularly prominent. Perhaps the most valuable challenge, however, was the opportunity that this research presented to the adult researcher to reflect upon the role played by her own assumptions when working with young people.Keywords: students as researchers; inclusive research; bilingual education Introduction Inclusive research with young people in schools has its ups and its downs, its advocates and its critics. This contribution gives a personal account of one example of inclusive research, which involved working together with pupils in the design and implementation of online and face-to-face discussions with their classmates. We subsequently used the qualitative data we obtained through these means to inform the design of a motivation questionnaire, which I administered to pupils at five different schools in a later, non-participatory phase of my doctoral research. The methods and processes of the collaborative phase of this research are described in some detail, as are some of the challenges encountered and the resulting considerations for future work of this kind.We have chosen to write this account in the first person in order to reflect the personal nature of collaborative research. This project afforded an opportunity not only for data collection and for pupil learning, but also for researcher growth. The challenges involved in attempting to share the control over this research with a group of young people, and in balancing assumptions with their input, led to the investment of a significant amount of energy and personal reflection. We believe that this story is therefore better told from a subjective and possibly a more 'human' perspective. This paper is written largely with the singular 'I', not to belittle the contribution and considerable

Co-researching OR researching with teachers in the space between: pitfalls and benefits

“…It is believed that this might not have been the case if the overall thesis itself was presented to teachers due to the much longer time taken to produce the document, much larger scale of the writing, and the reduced personalization of the thesis, which presented integrated findings generated from across research design phases and settings. Overall, the process could be considered to be a valued learning experience, similar to that reported in Mearns, Coyle, and de Graaff's (2014) study.…”

“…Each of the teachers did propose research priorities that appeared relevant and important to their settings which included topic areas that might have been otherwise overlooked. Such rich, insightful data corresponds with the benefits of co-researching identified in the literature (for example, Mearns, Coyle and Graaff [2014]). Memberchecking and teacher report verification raised no discrepancies from the co-research phase of this project, suggesting that the data was deemed to be trustworthy in relation to teacher perceptions.…”

“…Within the literature, there is discussion of including students as co-researchers for various elements of research projects (for example, Mearns, Coyle and Graaff [2014]; Welikala and Atkin [2014]). Within Mearns, Coyle, and de Graaff's (2014) study, school pupils acted as co-designers and consultants.…”

“…Within the literature, there is discussion of including students as co-researchers for various elements of research projects (for example, Mearns, Coyle and Graaff [2014]; Welikala and Atkin [2014]). Within Mearns, Coyle, and de Graaff's (2014) study, school pupils acted as co-designers and consultants. Challenges identified included logistical difficulties, ethical dilemmas based upon power distributions, inclusion and consent, and the exposure of researcher assumptions.…”

Motivationfororfrombilingual education? A comparative study of learner views in the Netherlands

“…Groundwork for the questionnaire design had been carried out through a Student Participatory Research approach (Leitch et al 2007) at one of the research schools in 2011-12 (Mearns, Coyle, and de Graaff 2014). The researcher had worked closely with a group of ten pupils (five from bilingual, five from mainstream) and their classmates in order to investigate the issues that they found to be relevant and the language that they used to discuss their motivation for and roles within school.…”