The representation of research in the national curriculum and secondary school pupils’ perceptions of research, its function, usefulness and value to their lives

Abstract

Young people’s views on research, how it’s conducted and whether it’s important, influences the decisions they make about their further studies and career choices. We investigate how research is represented within the English national curriculum and the examination boards because we recognise that what is being taught influences secondary pupil views on research. We use questionnaire data to focus particularly on pupil perceptions of research in the sciences and the scientific method. The questionnaire was a 25-item Likert Scale (1-5) distributed to seven collaborating schools. We received 2634 returns from pupils across key stages 3, 4 and 5. We also asked teachers to complete the questionnaire to reflect how they thought their pupils would respond. We received 54 teacher responses. Statistically significant differences in the responses were identified through a chi-square test on SPSS and the interpretive part of our analysis considers how the term ‘research’ appears in the national curriculum for England and Wales and the three main English exam boards. The main theoretical construct that informs our analysis is Angela Brew’s 4-tier descriptor of perceptions of research (domino, trading, layer, journey). We use this framework to map the national curriculum for Science in England to establish the when, what and how research is presented to school pupils in England and Wales. We highlight and discuss certain pupil views on: research as involving the identification of a research question; research as a means to confirm one’s own opinion; research as involving the generation of new knowledge and the collection of new data, such as interviews and questionnaires as well as laboratory work, field trips and library searches. We also discuss pupils’ statements of confidence in their ability to do research, school experiences of research, perceptions of difficulty and importance of research to future career choice.

‘Just Google It?’: Pupils’ Perceptions and Experience of Research in the Secondary Classroom

“…As we note in Yeoman et al (2016), and in resonance with Bills (2004), research in schools is often of the 'r' type (non-systemised fact-finding, new to self, also noted in Meyer et al's CoRI as 'research as information gathering'). Our interview data tends to corroborate this view.…”

“…Our conjecture, arising from our previous research (e.g. Yeoman et al, 2016) and experience, is that pupils are more experienced, and confident, in some aspects (e.g. research as fact finding, gathering information from primary and secondary sources) than others (e.g.…”

“…While "research" is not explicitly defined in the NC (ibid., 2014), there are explicit references to research related activitiesparticularly in the context of science -with wording such as "working scientifically" used to describe "the key features of science enquiry, so that pupils learn to answer relevant scientific questions" (p.169). We have explored the research-related wording in the NC in Yeoman et al (2016) and we return to the insights that emerged out of this exploration later in the paper.…”

“…Details on this phase of SUPI are in (Yeoman et al, 2016). Here we summarise its key steps before proceeding to the second phase, which is the focus of this paper.…”

“…The questionnairesee Appendix 3was a 25-item Likert Scale (1-5) distributed to seven SUPI schools. We received 2634 returns from pupils across KS 3, 4 and 5see Appendices 1 and 2, excerpted from (Yeoman et al, 2016). We also asked teachers to complete the questionnaire in order to explore how they thought their pupils would respond.…”