Students as Researchers - an approach to literacy education

Author(s):

Tuva Bjørkvold(presenting / submitting)

Conference:

ECER 2015

Network:

31. LEd – Network on Language and Education

Format:

Paper

Session Information

31 SES 07, Different Research Approaches towards Multilingualism

Paper Session

Time:

2015-09-09

17:15-18:45

Room:

3002. [Main]

Chair:

Andrea Haenni Hoti

Contribution

This presentation aims at discussing how elementary school students doing research can create an arena for literacy events with divergent outcomes. In the approach students as researchers (Kellett 2005, Mason and Watson 2014), students find their own research question, put up hypothesis, make a plan for data collection, gather and analyze data and finally write a report. In the case of this study, the students also submit the report to a research contest for elementary school, organized by the Norwegian Research Council (Nysgjerrigper 2006).

During the students’ research project, the students write all kinds of text, both for the report, to gather information, to plan and for instance to contact experts. This study focuses on the students’ awareness of their writing situations, and further if and to what degree the purpose influences the students’ writing. The purpose includes what the text is used for, its aim (Smidt 2010) and audience awareness (Magnifico 2010). In this presentation, I examine the way the students themselves reflect upon their writing and their decision-making in the literacy events (Barton 2007). My focus is on the students, not the quality of the texts.

My theoretical background is rooted within New Literacy Studies, where literacy as social practices is central (Barton, 2007; Street, 1995). The social aspect is twofold. First literacy is situated, tied to specific situations where text is in use, called literacy events (Barton 2007). Secondly, the texts develop in an interhuman relationship, and play a role in the coexistence between humans (Street 1995). To connect the more general literacy theory to the praxis in school, I use the approach from Kalantziz and Cope (2012). They categorize “literacy pedagogy” according to the contents of literacy knowledge, the organization of the literacy curriculum, how learners are doing literacy and the social relationships of literacy learning (ibid 2012:114). Further, I look to the studies of Larson and Marsh (2005), where literacy education, which is, considers good, but not a representative of a certain school or theory, is analyzed through a theoretical framework. This brings in another theoretical foundation for my study, subject didactics, understood as how a teacher in a certain context realizes a certain content with a group of students (Hudson 2002). Together I approach the case with literacy education / didactics as an offspring.

Method

The presentation is based on a case study of a 7th grade class, the last grade in elementary school, in a suburban area in Norway. The class consists of 21 students, whereas 6 girls and 15 boys. The study is an information-oriented case study (Flybjerg 2010), meaning it is chosen because of possible richness of information. I have used purposive sampling, as I wanted to study normal praxis in a class, which would participate in the contest by doing student research. The school is chosen, as students as researchers, is part of the local curriculum, and has been for years. Further, the teacher has ample experience with the method, and is a local as well as national tutor of the method. The class has participated in the contest earlier, and is therefor acquainted to the approach. The case is also considers a good praxis case, as the method is highly evaluated at the school (Stake 1995, Yin 2014). There is a triangulation of data sources in collection of students texts, analog and digital, video observation using class-camera and head mounted cameras on students and video /text stimulated group interviews (Cohen, Manion, Morrison, & Bell, 2011, p. 197). The material consists of 26 video-recorded lessons, 344 student texts and 15 student group interviews. The primary data source for this presentation will be the interviews with the students, focusing on the beginning of their writing situations of different texts. The interviews are conducted no more than 60 minutes after the literacy event, and are either video- or text-stimulated. I used a semi-structured interview guide. There were two to five students in each interview, which lasted between 5 to 15 minutes. I use discourse analysis (Gee 2012) in working with the interviews. The analysis is both theory and data driven. This implies that the data collected is systematized according both to structures in the interview guide and other patterns that occur (Robson 2002). I use the realist approach, characterized by data reduction, presentation and systematizing (Miles, Huberman and Saldña 2014) as it emphasis the importance of context. Further, I use the writing triangle (Solheim, Larsen, Torvatn 2010) where three aspects of the writing situation is highlighted; content, form and purpose. Content implies the theme of the text. Form includes genre, wording and textual organization. Purpose incorporates both the aim of the text, audience awareness and usage (Smidt 2010).

Expected Outcomes

The preliminary findings show that the students act on challenges in their own research, as finding an expert or getting attention from others, with a variety of literacies, across school subjects. The students mainly work in groups they have created to a large extent because of different competence according to knowledge about their research, ability to do good literature search, writing expertise or for instance leadership. In these groups, the students discuss how to solve challenges, and how to plan, write, rewrite and finish texts. It seems like the context of doing actual research in school, with a research question of the students choosing, creates opportunities where the students themselves have to act through reading and writing. The students also seem aware of their influence of the writing situations. On several occasions, the students identify the purpose of a challenge in their research and thereafter choose to solve it through writing, with an adequate text type and content. The texts they produce are different, even with similar understanding of the purpose of writing such as designing posters, writing factual articles or using video as documentation for their research.

References

Barton, D. (2007). Literacy : an introduction to the ecology of written language. Malden, Mass.: Blackwell Publ. Cohen, L., Manion, L., Morrison, K., & Bell, R. C. (2011). Research methods in education. London: Routledge. Flyvbjerg, B. (2010). Fem misforståelser om casestudiet. [Five misunderstandings about the case study] In S. Brinkmann & L. Tanggaard (Eds.), Kvalitative metoder: en grundbog (pp. 463-487). København: Reitzel. Gee, J. P. (2012). An Introduction to Discourse Analysis. Hoboken: Routledge. Hudson, B. (2002). Holding Complexity and Searching for Meaning: Teaching as Reflective Practice. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 34(1), 43-57. Kalanziz, M. and Cope, B. (2012). Literacies. New York: Cambridge University Press. Kellett, M. (2005). Children as active researchers: a new research paradigm for the 21st century? ESRC National Centre for Research Methods, NCRM Methods Review Papers, NCRM/003. Larson, J., & Marsh, J. (2005). Making literacy real: theories and practices for learning and teaching. London: Sage. Magnifico, A. (2010). Writing for Whom? Cognition, Motivation, and a Writer's Audience. Educ. Psychol., 45(3), 167-184. doi: 10.1080/00461520.2010.493470 Mason, J., & Watson, E. (2014). Researching Children: Research on, with, and by Children. In A. Ben-Arieh, F. Casas, I. Frønes & J. E. Korbin (Eds.), Handbook of Child Well-Being (pp. 2757-2796): Springer Netherlands. Miles, M. B., Huberman, A. M., & Saldaña, J. (2014). Qualitative data analysis: a methods sourcebook. Los Angeles: Sage. Nysgjerrigper (2006) In English – The Nysgjerrigper Method. Retrieved 28.01.2015 https://nysgjerrigper.no/Artikler_Engelske/in-english0 Robson, C. (2002). Real world research: a resource for social scientists and practitioner-researchers. Oxford: Blackwell. Smidt, J. (2010). Skrivekulturer og skrivesituasjoner i bevegelse - fra beskrivelser til utvikling. [Cultures of writing and writing events in movemet – from descriptions to development.] In J. Smidt (Ed.), Skriving i alle fag: innsyn og utspill (pp. 11-38). Trondheim: Tapir akademisk forl. Solheim, R., Larsen, A. S., & Torvatn, A. C. (2010). Skrivekulturar på mellomtrinnet - tre døme. [Writing cultures at intermediate level – three examples.] In J. Smidt (Ed.), Skriving i alle fag - innsyn og utsyn (pp. 39-67). Trondheim: Tapir Akademisk Forlag. Stake, R. E. (1995). The art of case study research. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage. Street, B. V. (1995). Social literacies: critical approaches to literacy development, ethnography and education. London: Longman. Yin, R. K. (2014). Case study research: design and methods. Los Angeles, Calif.: SAGE.

Author Information

Tuva Bjørkvold (presenting / submitting)

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Teacher Education

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