Child-Led Research
We all know that it is important to give pupils a voice and
to include them in educational research. However, when we as adults carry out
the research, we set our own agendas and may not ask the questions that pupils
want answered. Professor Mary Kellett, who pioneered child-led research,
believes that:
“…the key to a better understanding of children and childhood
is children themselves – as active researchers. Children ask different
questions, have different priorities and concerns and see the world through
different eyes.” (Kellett, 2005: p3)
Various researchers have extolled the benefits for pupils of
conducting research which include greater awareness of their rights, increased
confidence, motivation, literacy skills, criticality, data analysis and leadership
skills (Child to Child, 2016 and Kellet, 2005).
Pupils may be more honest with their peers than with adults
and they may be more likely to take the results of research seriously when it
has been conducted by people their age. When adults conduct research on
children there is always a power imbalance and the risk that pupils will just
say what they think the adult wants to hear (Kellett, 2005).
With this in mind, I am trialling a child-led research
project at Canons High School. The trial group is the student government, made
up of a selection of children from Years 7-11. Sixteen children have chosen to
take part and they have split themselves into seven groups. I started by
teaching them about various aspects of research (based largely on Kellett, 2005)
including criticality, ethics, the components of a research paper and data
collection.
The students then discussed in their groups what their broad
areas of interest are in school and then narrowed this down to specific areas
of interest, what they wanted to find out and finally what questions they would
like to ask. The questions that they have chosen are as follows:
Year 7
- Why do pupils misbehave in lessons?
Year 9
- Does the welfare room look after pupils’ health properly?
- What techniques do teachers use to help pupils learn?
- Is homework effective?
- Are tests effective to determine students’ achievement?
Year 10
- Effectiveness of homework and interventions
Year 11
- Does the teacher’s gender affect subject choices that students make?
The groups have begun to plan how they will carry out the
research and some teachers have been approached to participate. When they have
identified any pupils that they would like to recruit to take part in the
research, I will help them construct permission letters for parents. We are
still in the planning stage but hope to start conducting the research soon.
Later on in the year, I will have a second teaching session with them about
data analysis and dissemination. The aim is for them to share their findings in
a way that they choose – perhaps by producing a video or by presenting to a
selected groups of teachers. At this point, I am mostly interested in the
process and whether it would be feasible to conduct pupil-led research on a
larger scale at Canons High School.
Lindsay Jacobs
References:
Child to Child (2016). Participation
matters! [online] Available at:
<http://www.childtochild.org.uk/child-participation/participation-matters/>
[Accessed 8 September 2016.]
Kellett, M. (2005). How to develop
children as researchers: A step-by-step guide to teaching the research process.
London: Paul Chapman.
