January 2022, F2F 4

Welcome to 2022

FOCUS: a proper look at your data (analysis) – what story is it telling you (synthesis) – what is missing (further collection)?

‘Go back to your research question(s) and think about what your data is telling you. It may confirm a hypothesis you had. It may shed new light so that you would want to ask a different question, or set of questions. It may completely contradict what you had thought. One of the delights, and frustrations, with research is that it rarely offers simple solutions: if those were out there, we’d be doing them already. Rather it offers you a framework for thinking about that problem or issue with greater precision, clarity and insight. That is why research is about professionalism – it gives an informed voice, capable of evaluating evidence rather than simply accepting the views of others.’

CamStar – Cambridge University Research School group

A reminder of the remaining dates and topics:

28.01.2022 29.01.2022	Face to Face 4 Planning now to April; Analysis of data continued, data into evidence; examples from different research projects past and present. Friday 4.00pm-6.00pm; Saturday 09.30-1.00pm
04.03.2022 05.03.2022	Face to Face 5 Evidence into findings – Presenting your findings and recommendations; exploring innovative ways of presenting; writing a paper (optional).
08.04.2022 09.04.2022	Dress rehearsal for presentations; we will split into 2 sub-groups (one with Helen, one with Phil); each research group/project presents with feedback within their sub-group
14.04.2022	Community Research Conference – overview of research at ISF; input from keynote speaker; focus on the parent research group; each project is then presented to the community simultaneously and probably online.
15.04.2022	Staff Research Conference – full day of presentations, including a keynote; short presentations from Cohort 2 follow-up; each Cohort 3 group presents 3 times out of 4 sessions – see Conference page for 2021. Ideally this will be in person, mostly with ISF staff and some invited externals (colleagues from Iceland, for example). All to be confirmed.
?.05.2022 date to be confirmed	Celebration  Recommendations and Commendations for SLT and evaluation of the programme; additional stipend available for recommendations into practice/action.

Questions and suggestions for discussion

suggest we focus on Q7-10 in our 1:1 meetings before the weekend

and you personally reflect on Q1-6 (useful for Field journals/presenting) :

1. Summarise the different kinds of data collection methods you have used so far -interviews, questionnaires, observations, collection of school documentation…
2. Did you trial or pilot any collection tools before using them on your chosen sample?
3. Do you have a sufficient range of methods and resulting data to triangulate?
4. What methods have worked well – given you a good response, or provided you with rich data?
5. What has proved difficult – which methods or tools have been inefficient or produced a lack of response, or poor quality responses?
6. What would you do differently in future?
7. What is your data telling you now? Just as a ‘surface’ reading – a gut feeling, your professional intuition…?
8. What is it not telling you – what is missing? Would it be better to have 10 more responses to your questionnaire? Was there a response you didn’t record that you should really go back and ask again of your interviewee?
9. What data collecting do you need to revisit as you move towards the end phase of your project intervention (between now and the beginning of March)? A re-test…a repeat questionnaire…a new set of interviews so you have before/during/after responses and reactions?
10. What ethical issues have troubled you/have you dealt with?

ACTIVITIES – FRIDAY

4.00pm ROOM 22 Welcome back and focus for the sessions:

The data and the story – collection – analysis – synthesis – presenting the evidence

Example of detailed analysis from Cohort 2 Project (parent presentation – TBC)

Review your data activity

Qualitative Data Analysis short video (see previous Blog posting)

Timeline to April 14/15 – personalise your timeline

ACTIVITIES – saturday

Breakfast from 09.00 – earlier start NOTE – ROOM 21 – NOTE ROOM CHANGE DUE TO OPEN DAYS

09.30 Short examples of data analysis leading to presenting evidence – see below

10.00 Time to work on projects

12.30 Confirmation of dates to presentations/conference; rehearsals, community and staff sessions – outline of expectations – next meeting is dedicated to presenting findings.

1.00pm LUNCH provided

Examples

• a) Creative Partnerships Change Schools Programme: Sampling and coding from a large scale evaluation project – looking for commonalities and themes from structured and semi-structured interviews and documentary evidence from 20 schools (10% sample from 200 schools in the programme); this research was presented as a formal report;
  • SEE the attachment –impact-and-evidence-data-analysis-3 for a summary and a way of thematically organising.
• b) Writers in Prison Project: research journal notes – see example of highlighted text identifying and analysing common themes from examples -4 above; ethical and safety considerations working in a Category B prison; how this project was presented as performance and publication of works.
  • See the Journal photos and the CD of performed poetry – 2 poems as audio files to listen to. They are strong pieces of evidence and powerful performance as presentation examples.
    In my Research Field Journal I highlighted Reg’s contribution during each session:
    Sometimes he only stayed 10 minutes and said nothing; other times he stayed through the hour and a half and was animated but reluctant to write. By the final session and in the evaluation interviews afterwards, I wrote: Reg reported this evening that he’d done plenty of bad things in his time, ‘I’ve had guns and robbed and shot people; I wan’t scared of nothin’ til this. The thought of writing something and then reading it out to an audience…I was shit scared… I was shaking.’
  • Glen wanted to get out of prison as soon as he could (!), keeping his ‘nose clean’ and do something for his Liverpool community – using performance poetry to keep kids off drugs and away from violence. I don’t know if this happened.

Reg from HMP

Glen reads Riot Baby from HMP Writers’ Project

c) Service Learning – data analysis from 76 students, 2019 and 2020
Service Learning project group; data provided by Sue, analysis by Clare F-R

Service Learning Dimension of CAS:

The experiences of 12th Grade ISF Students service-learning-dimension-of-cas_21jan01Download

d) We may not get on to this example during the session

House of Visions: journal observations and reflections; email feedback; semi-structured interviews; focus groups; audio recordings; photos; academic and professional literature (and what can go wrong along the way!).

Full version of the initial interview with the gallery director is available but too long to add in here as an audio file. If we have time I’ll play an extract.

The House of Visions link takes you to the webpage and a simple ppt version of an e-poster capturing the process in part.

House of Visions e-poster