 Good evening. Overwhelming excitement in the room. It's just too much to handle. This is, I don't know what the right word is, I think the best way to describe it is as a workshop in the sense that I've got a basic structure to work through in terms of what I might suppose we might call a quality assurance with regard to your dissertation. Basic checks, is it working? But I'm equally concerned that we can use it in terms of a problem-solving approach. You can raise issues from your own experience. I can't always guarantee to give you an authoritative response because that's really got to come from your supervisor. But nevertheless, let's use each other as a resource, please, in the course of the session, in order to increase confidence that you are in control. Because these things tend to have a life of their own, do they not? And they can run away with you and so on. My worst experience was somebody in one university, the master's dissertation was 15 to 17 and a half thousand words, and she presented me with 32,000 and said, will it do? And I said, no. And then she said, I said, you've got to cut hard. And she said, but it's my baby. Oh Lord, how do I respond to this? You will find, I'm sure you have, that sometimes there's just not enough space or time enough to do your topic justice. So we need to have it under control. We need to make sure that you do the, you know, being pragmatic. You keep the focus right on what has to be done, but also hopefully you enjoy the experience of actually engaging with it. So at any time stop me and question and raise points. Because we're filming this, the Oscars were last night and we just missed out sadly, but I'm sure some of you will get best supporting roles. Unfortunately, my body double Johnny Depp wasn't available for this evening. But basically if you ask a question or raise a comment then I will rephrase it back so that we can capture it on the movie. So this is dissertation management, the movie. The films that won last night have nothing on compared to what we're going through. And I was trying to think of a way in to really capture what I see as the key issues around this notion of really developing a piece of research. And I suppose that one way of understanding, and this isn't on the handout because I've just made this up, but is the essence essentially that of a really effective piece of research I think is the interaction between theory and practice. That's the thing that really does make the difference. And I think some people are very good at writing about the theory and they really need to write about the practice. But it's when you get the interaction going that we get really high quality work. And that's where the scholarship comes in, I think. And so what I would suggest to you all the way through your review of how you're structuring and organizing your writing, how you're actually putting it forward, is to think to what extent does this part of my research show the interaction between theory and practice and crucially between practice and theory. Because if we're doing a professional qualification, then all the way through there is this notion there's the academic and there's the professional. And keeping that balance right is absolutely fundamental. And at the heart of that, I think, is allowing your theoretical constructs and conceptual maps to inform the practice that you've investigated and vice versa. So there's a real issue, I think, of saying, is this an interaction of the theory and the practice? The balance will vary enormously according to your topic. I can't give you a nice neat formula for that. But the overarching issue, I think, ladies and gentlemen, is the notion that this is, the completed document is evidence that you have been thinking both about the conceptual and about the practical. And I guess that's the difference. That's what makes it a master's degree as opposed to a piece of professional writing and so on. Is that reasonably coherent as a starting point? The other way of thinking about this, and again, apologies for the lack of a diagram, but if you think of a classic Venn diagram, the three circles, then I think the quality of your dissertation is determined by the interaction between the three circles, one of which is the academic. And the criteria for assessing your work are academic criteria quite properly because this is leading to the award of a qualification. But then there's the professional, and you are all practitioners, and therefore the professional dimension has enormous significance. And then there's what we might call scholarship, which is very difficult to pin down and define. But I think for me, it's the integrity with which you are working and matching the other two. In other words, does this make sense? Is it an authentic piece of research? Is it an effective piece of writing? So therefore, don't be frightened about saying this piece of theory is contradicted by this example of practice, and vice versa, and please bear in mind that it needs to... Your dissertation has several masters, if you like, of which the academic excellence is a crucial one, the professional relevance is a crucial one, but underpinning both of those is scholarship. Just the way you write, the way you actually engage with the ideas. Is that making sense? Is that okay? Anything at this stage, or we're too early in our relationship, are we? Fine, okay. The other point that we should have mentioned, of course, is that this session is timetabled from 6 until 7.30, and I will not be here at 7.30. Okay, about 7.15 we think about 7.20, so you keep your eye on the clock, because if you've got a question to ask and it's getting towards the end, then you may not get a full answer. So let's now use the handout as a structure for exploring issues and really beginning to elaborate what they might mean in practice, and how you do this, of course, is very much your approach. I see this as some sort of review checklist, and that you need this almost as a way of saying, all right, everything's in place. And this sounds a bit mechanistic, I know, but there's a really interesting book published a couple of years ago now called The Book of Checklists, which sounds just about the most boring book ever written, doesn't it? It was written by an American surgeon called Atul Gawande, and he noticed that on some fairly basic routine operations there was a significant number of unexpected deaths, and he began to investigate why a good piece of empirical research, and what he found was that usually these unexpected deaths were the result not of malpractice or incompetence, but simply people forgetting to do things. So he introduced this notion of a checklist, which has now been taken up by the World Health Organization, and it has 19 elements, and the first seven are before the patient goes into the operating theatre. Who is this person and which leg are we removing? That sort of thing. Then before the operation actually starts in the theatre, the revisiting and the checking again, and then a further seven after the operation just to make sure that everything's been done properly. And that basic procedure has led to a 30% reduction in unanticipated death. Really interesting, you know, that the notion is that if you're really going to be confident about your dissertation, then you really need something like this in order to be absolutely confident that you have covered all the components. I'm not saying this list is definitive, but hopefully it moves in that direction. The other interesting thing that he actually picks up in the book is remember a few years ago now there was the aircraft that crashed after takeoff in New York and landed in the Hudson River. You can see it on YouTube actually, it's one of the most popular things on YouTube, and the pilot is an amazing guy, and he talks about the way that he saved... I don't think a single person died. I don't think virtually nobody was injured in the crash. And basically he said that he had about 30 seconds because it was a virtually unique experience of a double multiple bird strike. So about 30 seconds after takeoff, complete loss of power. If you're planning to fly in the next few days, I do apologize for this. And he said the basic protocols kicked in instantly. And then having got things under control, he was then able to be creative and make sure the aircraft came down safely. And I think that's a really powerful way of thinking about the way that you manage your work is that you need to have the confidence that the basics are in place. But then if I got those right, you can then have the confidence to go on and do things which are interesting, exciting and different. Yeah. One of the great shots of that aircraft on YouTube shows some people, there's big rafts, they have big slides that turn into rafts, lots of people standing on those, and then some people standing on the wing up to their waste in water. The people in the raft who are dry were business class. The people on the wing up to their waste in water in midwinter were economy. So it's always worth saving up to fly business, ladies and gentlemen. You just get a better class of disaster. Right, so the argument is essentially, do not neglect on the basic, let's just say the quality assurance issue, get it right. And that's why the first point on the review is this notion of the presentation of your project. And I can't stress to you, and it's over and over and over again, and we've all done it, but basically, you finish a piece of work, you set it off to be bound or you set it off to be published, and you have a look at it when it comes back and the first thing you spot is a typo. Life is like that sometimes, isn't it? And therefore, first of all, the use of computer systems has enormously reduced the basic errors. But it's amazing, even at a very sophisticated level, for example, how sometimes in the middle of somebody's dissertation there's a change of font size. You're usually done by the machine itself, not by you. It's to be quite clear that sometimes, for example, the ultimate is you've got this lovely quotation and you can't find where it came from. And you spend a week hunting for that elusive page number and eventually, of course, you make it up. But that's not to be recorded, that last comment. But the notion is, you see, that all of those things are part of the scholarly component of your research. The clarity of presentation, the accuracy with which your dissertation is presented and, crucially, the consistency right the way across. And this is just basic good housekeeping, isn't it? But the notion is essentially that this has an enormous impact upon the credibility of your research. And I can't stress that strongly enough. If it looks right, the chances are it is right. And therefore, investing time and even buying a friend, a colleague, a large bottle of wine in order to say, please go through this with a fine tooth comb. It's a very, very necessary component. If you've been cutting and pasting, sometimes we forget to go back and sort out the mess that will be cut and pasted from, yes? There are all sorts of simple, trivial things which on the one hand are so routine, it's almost embarrassing to mention them. But on the other hand, really do make the difference in terms of scholarship. And I suppose the bottom line, the absolute bottom line on this is internal consistency. If you adopt a certain method of referencing, please do it right the way through. If you find that, you know, the way that you present any tables or diagrams or whatever, is it all consistent all the way through? That's the professional bit. That makes it look good and gives it status. Any observations on that? Any comments? It's very basic and I apologise, but actually you'll be amazed how, I mean, last year I was examining a PhD and there were several parts of it where it had just lost control, you know, that it wasn't coherent. And immediately you turn against it. So it's important. Do your thinking justice by having really coherent, systematic approach to your presentation and organisation. Yeah, all clear? Any thoughts, any comments? Okay, let's just take a moment to... and welcome to those of you who've just arrived. And just with your neighbour, please, just say to what extent are you in control of your text, please? And those of you who've just arrived, if you'd like to grab a quick cup of tea in the bun, there's some over there. Just two minutes, quick conversation. What level are you managing your text, et cetera, et cetera? So, as I say, sorry to start with the basics and I hope it's not insulting, but believe me, over and over again, when it comes down to marking these things, the mistakes come through. And it just diminishes the quality of your thinking if it is not given appropriate quality in terms of presentation and so on. Now, number two is simply, and again, regulations vary, but for most purposes, any kind of dissertation or thesis does require some sort of abstract. And I don't know what the regulations are. So, think of that as a praisey, essentially, and it's a real piece of intellectual skill to actually compress your dissertation into 200 words is really tight. And yet, it's one of those key factors because that's how your work will be known. And so, it's worth putting in a lot of effort into that and really working and shaping it and shaping it and shaping it because it is one of those indicators that this is an example of somebody who has been scholarly in their approach and really summarized. And essentially, if you think about it, 200 words is what about, what, 20 lines, something like that? It's a half a page. And it's up to you. It's on the nature of your study, but nevertheless, you need to indicate certain key components in your abstract so that the reader can say, this is worth following up or not. And, I mean, I think it's one of the great sadnesses that the art of the praisey has virtually disappeared from the world of education, but in fact, your abstract needs to be a quality praisey which provides signposts of the key elements of your dissertation. And I suppose to put it crudely, you need a sentence saying what it's about. You need a sentence to say how you did it. You need a sentence to say what your key findings were and you need a sentence to say what your conclusions are. Something like that, Mary, would you say? Indeed, I would. We would say single-spaced and indented as well. Key words, you would say. The key words is important, isn't it? Yes. Yes, absolutely. And you see, all that you're doing there is what every piece of published research in the world has to conform to. You will not get into a journal, you will not get into any significant academic publication without identifying keywords and having an abstract which really synthesizes what your piece of work is about. It's a good discipline, really is. Any comments, anybody done it? Anybody have heartbreaking stories about how long you've slaved over those 200 words? Oh, right. Yeah, right. First of all, what's it about? In other words, you need to say what the broad area of your study is in the sense of this is an investigation into changing classroom practice, for example. Secondly, you need to say how did you carry out your research? This is a case study of blah, blah, blah. Or this is based upon the journals kept by teachers of their experience of working on a change of strategy, something like which gives an overview of the methodology that you've adopted. Thirdly, what does your study show? Yeah. So we found that the majority of teachers were totally confused by which bewildered and had given up. Or something like that. It's just one of those positive outcomes. And then fourthly, where does this take you? What are the conclusions? What are the implications? This study has demonstrated that. For example, a lot of the work that's going on at the moment is on classroom-based research. We say this study confirms the overall proposition made by David Hargreaves in his study for the National College that classroom-based research is a powerful tool in school improvement. Happy with that? Yeah, thanks. So it's something on those lines which simply gives the snapshot. And in doing what I've just done, I'm not very far off 200 words. But you do need to be careful because it's part of the discipline of presenting your dissertation. Okay, right. Now the next two are again, and if I sound obvious, then I do apologize, but is the purpose clear? Is the title accurate? So important. Now you know the cliche. With any piece of research, the last thing you write is the title. In other words, because the title has got to be a descriptor of what follows. And sometimes these things do take on a life of their own, don't they? So you need to actually say, this is my study, because one of the part of the process of assessing very complex pieces of work, like your dissertations, is to say to what extent does the dissertation substantively respond to the issues identified in the title. So if you say a study of changing practice in classroom teaching, then that would better be the leitmotif right the way through your study. Because if you go off on a different tangent, then being absolutely brutal, one could say this study has failed because it does not reflect the intentions in the title. And that sounds so obvious, it's embarrassing, but actually it does happen. So make sure that your title is absolutely clear. And also, what's the purpose of your study? Why are you doing it? Is it to investigate a school improvement strategy? Is it to evaluate a CPD project? Is it, is it, is it, is it, is it? And sometimes it's quite a useful idea to have a short main title colon and then a slug and longer subtitle like to do with many books. A study of, an investigation of. But nevertheless, the project, the purpose of your project needs to be robust up front and almost to the point of that your first sentence is the purpose of the study is to. And that's not a bad thing to do at all. And then we come on to the issue of context. And this is a courtesy to the reader, essentially. But it's also a very important way of mapping out your territory and saying this is a study of developing the use of feedback in assessment in a small primary school because that's totally different to the use of feedback in assessment in a large secondary school for all sorts of reasons. So you need to be very clear about the context and you also need to recognize the variables that are in place. Yeah? That what are the significant variables that determine the way in which you carried out your research? You know, this is a school that has been outstanding for several years but has recently become good. Therefore, there's a fair degree of paranoia about and my research was compromised by nobody would be wanting to talk to me. Yeah? You know, things like that are valid. Explain so the reader understands the areas in which you are significant in influencing the way that your project went. Yeah? Okay, on that one. And then here comes the first really, really big one. The central issue, problem or topic. In other words, you were investigating, you're researching, therefore by definition you're problem solving and you need to think of it about that there's the big field of, say, effective teaching and learning and how do we reduce that down, reduce that down, reduce that down and make sure that we really are focusing in. A colleague of mine years ago used to say that the three golden rules of the effective dissertation are firstly, focus. Okay, got that one? Secondly, focus. And some of you may be just anticipating me at the moment. Thirdly, focus. In other words, you cannot, you need to drill it down because often one of the weaknesses of dissertations is they attempt to be too big, too broad and lack clarity and focus. And therefore, don't try and take on the entire issue of the quality of pedagogy in your school. Focus in on a particular dimension of pedagogy which is under your control. And make sure that when you write up your dissertation that you really are consistently following through that particular focus. Yeah. Now, the practice varies and I wouldn't want to undermine anything said to you both of us. I personally think that research questions are a very good idea. I think they give you clarity and focus and also they do help you to at the end of your study say I started out with these questions and here are my answers to them. It's a very good way of sort of bringing a full circle. I would suggest to you that the big research question, the overarching research question is actually your title. Your title turned into a question if you follow me. And then there are the subordinate research questions which are essentially the chapters or the sections in your study. Yeah. So for example, here's my big title which is investigating classroom practice. So the first subordinate question is what is the conceptual background that I'm going to employ? What does the theory tell us? Then there's an issue about methodology. Then there's an issue about interpreting results. Then there's an issue about conclusions to be drawn. Yeah. And I think that in your introduction it's worth saying these are the key questions that I am going to use this study in order to increase my understanding or however you define the outcome that you're looking for. Are you comfortable with that? Okay. You're all doing this, I can see from the notes that you're writing down. It's absolutely second nature to you. All right. And I'll pause there for a minute just to give you an address from my voice and just say with your neighbor and if you have a choice, pick the right one, please. Yeah. So far, how confident are you? Are you in control? Is everything good to plan? But because the middle column on the handout, yes, this is okay, therefore, response, action, no action required. Or saying, actually, I think I need to go back and just recheck the referencing. I need to go back and really work through the extent to which the questions that I'm asking are clear and part of it, et cetera, et cetera. Just have a couple of minutes, please. Question your neighbor. Are you confident about the dimensions that we've looked at so far? Okay. And of course, there's plenty more tea and coffee and buns still available. Any thoughts, any observations, any comments at this stage? Yes, ma'am. I mean, my own personal view is that it's very plastic. Sorry, the question was how much can you change your research questions at this late stage of the process? I said, as long as the changes are firstly accounted for and saying, because of this particular finding I need to rethink my approach. I think that's actually very powerful. I always welcome that when somebody's consciously managing their research rather than simply going through and writing everything up. It's a bit like the best school improvement plans are made up of post-its and rubbings out and so on. In the last 15 documents, the best piece of research says I tried this, it didn't work, so I've changed. I couldn't get hold of this data so therefore I've had to rethink this question. I think that's fine, because as long as you're actually describing to the reader why you are where you are then I think the process is almost continuous. And in many ways you draw your conclusion and say I didn't quite achieve what I wanted, but on the way I have found the following useful things. In my regard as being professionally valid because you're saying we don't always control these things. Things change. The people who agree to be interviewed suddenly change their minds. So therefore it's a living thing and it's a breathing thing and as long as you are consciously responding to the environment in which your research has taken place and analyzing your responses to that, I think that's great. Are you happy with that? Now at this stage of having written an interim report I think it's the rule rather than the exception probably that the majority of people anyway that there's tweaking to be done with nothing more to the question so I would encourage that very close group to need the question between now and submitting the dissertation because you will probably not about quite answer the question you set out. Yeah, exactly. Just that slightly. That's lovely, thank you. That's very helpful of you, thank you. Right, let's move on. Now, again personal prejudice but if I'm marking whether it's a master's dissertation or a doctorate I tend to read the literature review first. Simply because I think that's where you find the extent to which there's real scholarship. That's when the academic rigor begins to demonstrate itself in essence the literature review it may be very small, it may be very substantial it depends upon your topic but I would suggest to you ladies and gentlemen that it's in the literature your engagement with the literature that you begin to assemble the concepts that are going to inform your actual investigation and you need to do the literature review in order to establish your own conceptual framework. Yeah? And Mary and I were just saying that the nightmare is when somebody is doing some research and they come up to you and say I've got my data, now I'm going to do my literature review. Long way round. You cannot gather your data unless you have reviewed the prevailing existing literature because the way that you investigate, the way that you interrogate the particular area the questions that you're asking your questionnaires the issues that you raise in your interviews have to be logically and clearly and explicitly derived from your analysis of the data. Can I make it any clearer or stronger than that? You know, the thing is that every question that you ask must have a pedigree. Does that make sense? That you must be able to say in reading A and B and C they all three propose the following components of this particular approach. By synthesizing A, B and C I've come up with my own model which I'm then now going to use in order to inform the design of my research method. Yes? With me? But you need to make it explicit. And so what I would suggest to you ladies and gentlemen and here's something where you can go back and check and say right has my literature review because if you like a clear logic to it which culminates in my definition. Let me give you one example which is I was doing some teaching over the weekend and there was a fairly fierce debate on Sunday morning around how if we're talking about strategies to support people learning in the classroom then one of the best there is according to all the evidence we have is co-coaching. Yeah? And that led to a big debate about what's the difference between coaching and mentoring. Now then countries have gone to war over this and there's a whole theology around the difference between mentoring and coaching which I'm going to burden you with tonight. But the notion is there are multiple interpretations most of which are wrong. I'll tell you the correct answer later if you'd like to know. But what you have to do is to say I am following X and Y and Z who argue that coaching has the following characteristics. I'm aware that A and B and C actually say something different but I found that W actually makes sense and therefore I'm following it. Does that work? And so what you're doing is using the different sources to build up your own conceptual framework, your conceptual model which is saying that the coaching in the classroom is undoubtedly a highly significant pedagogic strategy but we need to define it. So go back over your literature review and say have I defined clear have I provided sharp, clear definitions of key concepts? In this study X means this and I'm aware that it could have other meanings but I'm saying it means this for my purposes now. And that actually really does demonstrate the scholarship aspect. You are taking on the writers, the theorists and saying this is how I'm going to use them and this is how they fit and then having defined what the key concepts mean you can then go into the evidence base and say this is what it looks like and so for example if we were looking at co-coaching then the work of John Hattie would obviously kick in as a significant factor. You would look at the work of Bloom, he of the taxonomy he did a lot of work on coaching and effective learning and basically you would build up a case saying it does seem to be the case with regard to Hattie and Bloom and the work done by the University of Durham on the pupil premium that co-coaching is a very, very potent strategy of having advantages and the following disadvantages and suddenly you're building up this rich picture of the key conceptual framework of your study. Do you recognize that? Is that clear for everybody? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah Great, serve. Yeah. That's, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I think the point you've raised is really important. Thank you. The notion is there is no measurement. It's how long is a piece of string or how many books do I read? You can't answer that. It's partly driven by as you indicate the notion of does this particular topic have a historical literature and if it does you need to be aware of that but the decision to say there are four pivotal texts I think is fine as long as you acknowledge that you're focusing in on these four texts because bang, bang, bang and that I'm aware that there are these other texts but they are not as relevant or they are using a different methodology or they've been discredited or whatever and so you are making sure that your choice of texts is justified that's the first point and secondly that you are able to defend it against the charge that you haven't dealt with so and so and so and so. That's great. Thank you for raising that very much. Yes ma'am. As you've talked about co-coaching could you just say a sentence about the mentoring because you did a lovely sentence there about Hatton and Bloom and Delft. You can do it later. No, I'll do it now actually because I've argued if you go on to the National College website there are three separate documents saying this is what coaching and mentoring are about and all three are different and therefore what you say is having analyzed these alternative perspectives this is what I believe so for example in my own work on mentoring I've said that mentoring is a long-term developmental and supportive relationship designed to enable the learner to engage in effective learning. Something like that. Support developmental coaching in my definition is a specific intervention designed to bring about change and so for example the literature on sports coaching is really helpful there we have some very very useful models in sports coaching of saying the way to help somebody improve their performance by such a minute amount of time is absolutely fundamental so the intervention with regard to a child who has real conceptual problems with a particular aspect of the curriculum that's a coaching model and then sometimes we can actually modify the coaching of the adult supporting the child into the child supporting other children and there's quite a rich literature on that but what it comes down to is Benjamin Bloom's research which is usually referred to as the two-sigma problem the two-sigma as you know is a standard deviation and in Bloom's research coaching was two standard deviations more effective than classroom teaching and so the two-sigma problem is how do we move away from generic teaching into coaching because it leads to two standard deviations improvement in the work yeah does that go somewhere towards responding have I just done a paragraph or two for you oh good it's good to be of service thank you and I suppose the way to really check it out is that sometimes the literature review is really interesting and people are pulling in ideas and so on and it comes to a rather limp and lame end and what I would suggest to you is that on the basis of this review of the appropriate literature then I would argue that coaching in pedagogy in schools has the following key characteristics and I can find each of those characteristics identified in the literature where you've argued that it's a significant and therefore at the end of your chapter or section you have given me a very explicit summary of what you found which then goes on to inform how you gather your data in the next part of your dissertation happy with that? is that okay for everybody? sorry it sounds again obvious but actually it's not because sometimes I'm so glad to have got through the books let's just move on quickly so coherent logical and crucially saying sometimes this study has to be if you're doing something on change for example the literature on change in education is fast but it all comes down to Michael Fullen in the end doesn't it? and therefore if you have done a study of change in terms of middle leadership in school and you don't mention Fullen then my antennae will immediately start twitching and saying not that you have to mention Michael Fullen but rather have you been able to give an account of leading change without the use of Fullen if you have congratulations it's probably worth publishing but nevertheless if you ignore one of the key sources if you talk about pedagogy and don't refer to John Hattie you might have problems is that fair? yeah although it's contentious the University of Durham stuff on the pupil premium the Sutton Trust report is one of your most powerful sources of empirical data about what makes a difference and therefore it needs to be included if it's appropriate yeah just to give you one example sometimes you have to really go down the highways and the byways when it was announced that the provision of a free school meal would be for every child between five and seven isn't it? that there was a lot of research done to justify that decision and so on the the Deputy Prime Minister's website you can find a piece of small scale research project which actually says that providing every child between five and seven with a hot meal has had a greater impact on literacy than the literacy hour ever did isn't that great? and so therefore you say actually let's have structures about literacy let's have interventions around literacy but there's a piece of research out there which actually says actually giving a child a hot meal almost anything else we can think of and that is and if you miss that bit then saying that we need this strategy and that strategy whereas I would simply scroll across the page dinner yeah because that's where it really does seem to one piece of evidence points in that direction so the combination of coaching and dinner may well be the breakthrough that your research demonstrates anything else on literature ladies and gentlemen is your bibliography beg your pardon not your bibliography your references a small plea it's not a bibliography it's references do not include in your references anything that you have not quoted it's not an opportunity to show off I'm aware of the existence of the following 32 books not interested here are the books I've actually cited very important there's so much stuff there now and make sure that you cite it correctly please yeah because it's part of the academic courtesies being able to say where this came from so you've asked your questions one of which is about the conceptual framework and your literature review has answered that question right to give my voice a break for a moment are you at the moment confident that your literature review meets the criteria that we've just been discussing okay I'll move on think of your the current stage of development of your dissertation please are you confident and comfortable that your writing is demonstrating that you understand the difference between methodological issues and methods so the spotlight can go around the room now and when it stops on you you stand up and say here's my methodology and here are my methods it's a very very interesting and significant area essentially the methodology is concerned with the epistemological status of your study now I know that saying epistemological after four o'clock on a Monday afternoon is not helpful but essentially what it comes down to is what sort of knowledge is your study creating that's the best way to put it and you need to be aware that if you are carrying out a study based on teacher's journals of their responses to change in practicing their classrooms that's a totally different form of knowledge to that developed by a survey of a large number of a big sample yeah and you need to recognize essentially the status of the evidence that you are generating in order to support your main propositions and so on so now the culture in which we work by and large we give greater deference to the quantitative and the so-called objective than we do to the quantitative and so-called subjective but in fact of course if we are looking at certain as for example teacher's emotional responses to leadership let's have a big survey rubbish what we want are teacher's narratives what their emotional responses actually are that their language is the most important thing of all so and the thing is it's all valid there's some really powerful stuff been done in feminist research on this the authenticity and the integrity of the personal voice is something that we should not diminish or marginalize because it's not objective what we need to recognize though is that we can have different degrees of confidence it's a bit like an evidence in a court case isn't it usually the DNA is seen as incontrovertible but in fact we are now discovering that in fact DNA depends upon the integrity of the processes in order to be valid and that's what defence councillor now often doing is saying can we have an absolute guarantee that this DNA sample has got integrity and then the circumstantial evidence under the spectrum isn't there but actually sometimes circumstantial evidence is powerful corroboration so we don't dismiss it out of hand that's why courts still will allow third party perspectives if it helps in order to support or deny a particular perspective you'll find most of the standard texts on research methods include at least one chapter on this whole notion of the objective sorry qualitative quantitative debate and depending upon the way your study is formulated you need to acknowledge that there are different types of knowledge and that your study falls within this particular category and that has the following implications for it yeah that's quite quiet isn't it have you justified the epistemological status of your study please no methodological is quantitative generally methods are questionnaires that's right and the epistemological assumption is whether you're objectively looking or you're in it that's great that's lovely the interpretive perspective most of these books most of the study of the text books have got a table left-hand side quantitative right-hand side qualitative positivistic etc and all you've got to do is say my study resides here because of the nature of the study I'm carrying out and I recognize that this has the following strengths and the areas which are potential the crucial thing that I would really almost demand to see in a discussion of this would be first and foremost I am confident for the following reasons that my research is valid and reliable and that there's been quite a lot of literature recently saying we need really to talk about trustworthiness we can trust these findings because yeah and if you want to understand the valid and reliable argument think of your bathroom scales please yeah if you are broadly consistent reading over time then your bathroom scales are reliable if however when you go to the doctors you find that the doctor's scales mean that you're weighing rather more than your bathroom scales tell you then your bathroom scales are not valid it's good yes well no no no the doctors are authoritative the doctors are trustworthy whereas yours are made for commercial purposes or alternatively you believe the ones that are closer to your own self image yeah absolutely no exactly but let's not go too far down that road the notion is do I as reader have confidence in what you're telling me and by identifying the methodological issues the epistemological assumptions underpinning your research by recognizing the strengths and weaknesses of different approaches so hopefully we build up a picture of what your research is actually does it have integrity yeah and we're not looking for page after page of post-modern perspectives and so on simply saying this research has adopted the following approach and that means that we're going to use the following methods and so for example the areas which I think is really under used in education is the whole notion of using various types of ethnographic research you're simply actually listening to people talking the work of the great anthropologists is usually simply collecting people's perspectives if you're looking at, for example looking at the school as a faith community and I'll defer to my colleague immediately on this one but actually we're going to do a survey of how important is faith in our school life you want people's voices, don't you David? and that's when it becomes real you get teachers talking about the difference in working in a faith community and school you get children to articulate what it means to be part of a faith community that's far more appropriate than carrying out a survey for heaven's sake if you've got lots of time on your hands do a survey of half dozen schools and see what the overall picture is but the real integrity of your research will come down to interviews or journals which people have written from their own personal perspective that's it absolutely yep all those factors, the things that make it rich and then you end up with a lot of rich data and you deploy them in order to reinforce or challenge the key points made in your literature review so sometimes quantitative is good sometimes the qualitative is right sometimes different types of qualitative are right if you're talking about teachers' career aspirations for example then what you want are people's subjective views of their own lives yes you don't want a massive survey of individual perspectives you have to be careful though there's a big debate going on in ethnographic studies over the past few years because you all had a Margaret Mead coming of age in Samoa and again it's part of the politics of academia and Australian anthropologists was really very suspicious of the way that this young American could go to Samoa and get this amazing data and so he went to Samoa and said do any of you I'm senior ladies remember talking to a young American 50 years ago oh yes she was a lovely girl they said she kept asking us about sex and we kept telling her things which we thought would amuse her and this led to the huge rouse saying actually Margaret Mead was totally naive because what she didn't do was to corroborate the evidence that she got that's why you need triangulation sometimes yeah at the end of your your section on methodology and methods you say given the key research question given what I'm seeking to establish this is the optimum way forward yeah because this is the best way that I can find to go forward and then the question oh yes sorry if your research involves colleagues and particularly involves children then you must go through the full ethical you have to do it automatically anyway but again it needs to be included that this research blah blah blah I confirm that I have followed the ethical requirements of the university is there a pro forma yeah yeah we encourage students to to either write a section in terms of the ethical issues they've addressed or to actually embed them in the text of the whole project to at least be upfront on the ethical issues that's lovely it needs a couple of pages of discussion and I think it's really the notion is can I demonstrate that I've secured informed consent I think informed consent is really the key concept I'd be very worried if I read a dissertation which involved interviewing colleagues and getting children into some kind of focus group if there wasn't informed consent I would actually fail it I think because it would be that serious yeah in one university I worked the ethics form because they haven't always been about it's comparatively recently but the ethics form started with does this research involve experimentation upon animals and one student wrote no just children far easier you know much easier yeah really interesting that I don't know I think you've got to actually acknowledge the fact that there are public definitions of vulnerability aren't there and that's the area to go down in a way that the official literature government policy identifies vulnerability as a significant factor in closing the gap and that our current definitions of vulnerability are very limited but for example the documentation on the pupil premium indicates the following categories quite explicitly and in that way you identify those particular areas but you do recognize that this is sensitive to those definitions yeah absolutely that's right yeah it depends upon the culture of the school some schools are very open about it no I know what you mean the notion is that as long as they are not the unwitting subjects of your research that's okay as long as they've been actively engaged in a process which they understand then you're fine okay yes please right the graphic it depends how literate the senior management team is if you have an evidence based culture in school which of course all schools should have shouldn't they then essentially any kind of argument which is based upon valid and reliable data should be given respect in my view but because you see we do have this artificial deference to the quantitative and it can be nonsense you know I mean the case one which is slightly unsatisfactory as an example but it makes the point is the report during the Second World War that in one naval station 50% of the Wrens were pregnant and there were two Wrens and one of whom was married and that's the issue be very careful with the quantitative isn't it the case though working with an interpretive paradigm and predominantly collecting quantitative data you might be collecting quantitative data in order to springboard the questions you were asked the interpretations you were receiving so it's not quite as clear oh no it's never never one or the other absolutely right because it depends on where you are going to get your credibility for your investigation from and for example there's an American researcher I'm not sure I think she's retired now called Susan Rosenholz and she is just magically in her balancing of the quantitative and the qualitative and the quantitative provides the focus that allows you to draw the right questions out that's the issue but it depends upon the sort of research you're doing we're halfway down the analysis of your data this again is probably the second most significant area please please please please please do not just describe your data explain your data tell me what it means link it back into the literature tell me do not assume that I will pick up all the points that you're making please please please engage with your data it's not about nice neat gantt charts or anything else it's all about your interpretation your explanation and crucially if I may use the word your codification in other words what are the themes that emerge how can I prioritize them yeah and that then allows you to go into the final stages which are the notion of the recommendations and again it's the internal logic of your study ladies and gentlemen that is so important that A leads to B leads to C by the way we ignored E and F but we're now back to G yeah and so you must have an internal logic that follows through so that your conclusions and your recommendations are valid and appropriate and clearly derived from the evidence I always welcome somebody saying in the course of doing this research one of the key conclusions I've reached is that I now understand this better than I did that's good to see that I've learned about the issues around school based research in my role I think I can adapt the school based approach this classroom based approach just tell us what you've learned about yourself as a researcher as a professional and then will it make a difference and hopefully going back to this notion of the academic, the scholarly and the professional if your research is professional then hopefully it will make a difference in some way and tell us about that as well please okay five minutes any comments, questions, thoughts yes again thank you again the problems crop up right the way through so for example it has proved impossible to get hold of a copy of XYZ by ABC and therefore I know that my research is compromised because this quotation that I've used which is quoted by somebody else I can't verify and therefore there's an issue for me alternatively that halfway through my data collection the leadership team changed their mind and said I could only work with a smaller sample size and so again you comment on those issues it's a bit like the iterative process with your research questions so there's a similar process as you go through really a running commentary on doing, you're being a researcher it's very that's right I think so my own view is that I welcome that because research is a process not a series of events yeah thank you for that again learning through the research process is simply it's essentially you being met a cognitive about yourself as a researcher and as a professional and therefore for example having done this research I now recognize that part of effective leadership in schools needs to come down to being evidence based and that sort of conclusion but it's really all the literature there is on metacognition in terms of effective learning applies to reflecting on your role as a researcher what have you learned about yourself as a professional how would you do this again in the future those sorts of questions okay well thank you very much John and thank you for all your contributions you'd want to show your appreciation for John Dinsen very good