Module EDUC59315: Qualitative Research In Educational Settings

Department: Education

EDUC59315: Qualitative Research In Educational Settings

Prerequisites

• None.

Corequisites

• None.

Excluded Combination of Modules

• None.

Aims

• To introduce the student, through in-depth study of carefully selected studies, to the range of approaches that have characterised qualitative and/or ethnographic approaches in education.
• To illustrate and explore critically the range of positions that exists within this field on such matters as validity and truth, the relation of the quantitative to the qualitative, the role of theory, the political or non-political role of the researcher, and the relation of the researcher to the researched.
• To introduce the student, via a critical examination of the data collection and analysis techniques employed in these studies, to the range of techniques available for the analysis of qualitative data gathered in educational settings.

Content

• Research Studies in education employing qualitative/ethnographic approaches will be studies in depth, and critically. These will be chosen to illustrate the range of approaches that have characterised the field over the past 40 years. Exemplars will include explanatory/descriptive case studies of institutions and individuals (some of which will employ mixed quantitative and qualitative methods). 'critical' ethnographies, and 'postmodernist' studies. Candidate examples include: Lacy's Hightown Grammar, Balls's Beachside Comprehensive, Miller and Parlett's Up to the Mark, Willis' Learning to Labour, Mclaren's Schooling as a Ritual Performance, Lather's Getting Smart, and Stronach & Maclure's Educational Research Undone, In addition to these studies, course content will also include papers debating the merits and demerits of these various approaches taken from such sources as the America Educational Research Association's Educational Researcher, the journal Qualitative Studies in Education, Martyn Hammersley's writing on ethnography, and Denzin and Lincoln's Handbook of Qualitative Research.

Learning Outcomes

Modes of Teaching, Learning and Assessment and how these contribute to the learning outcomes of the module

• Students will be required to study in depth a small number of key exemplars of qualitative research in education. Prior reading will be followed by seminar discussion, supplemented by exercises in data analysis.

Teaching Methods and Learning Hours

Summative Assessment

Formative Assessment:

■ Attendance at all activities marked with this symbol will be monitored. Students who fail to attend these activities, or to complete the summative or formative assessment specified above, will be subject to the procedures defined in the University's General Regulation V, and may be required to leave the University