RSS Feed for the unit Introducing observational approaches in research with children and young people

Introduction

The Open University — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 10:54:32 GMT

This unit introduces you to analysing academic writing and, in particular, the way an article might be structured to clearly explain an investigation to other researchers. It explores observation of children and young people using qualitative observation approaches in small-scale studies.

This unit is an adapted extract from the Open University course Research with children and young people (EK310).

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Learning outcomes

The Open University — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 10:54:32 GMT

After studying this unit you will:

begin to understand observation as a research method;
gain some experience of research studies with children which use observation as a data collection tool;
understand the difference between a quantitative and qualitative approach to research;
be able to distinguish between describing and explaining in a research study.

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1 Small-scale qualitative research using observation

The Open University — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 10:54:32 GMT

The first research paper for you to read in this unit is a small-scale qualitative study that uses observation as its central approach. In her paper Coates explores whether or not there is a relationship between what children talk about when they are drawing and what they actually draw. You should read this paper in stages and reflect on each part in turn as suggested below.

Good titles should reflect the content of a research paper and should give you enough information to decide whether or not the paper is relevant to your interests. You may already be familiar with carrying out literature searches. However, what is important to note now is that when searching for relevant papers you can base your search on words included in the title only. Titles are therefore very important and worth thinking about carefully.

Now read the ‘Abstract’ section of the research paper.

This part of the research paper provides an overview of the study. Notice how the abstract begins with three sentences giving some background information and a rationale for the study. The next three sentences outline the approach which was taken in the study. This is followed by several sentences which summarise the results of the study. Finally the abstract discusses aspects of the findings and identifies future research questions. It is worth noting this division. Research papers are very often divided into four sections – ‘Introduction’, ‘Method’, ‘Results’ and ‘Discussion’ – although there are exceptions to this, as you will discover when you read the rest of Coates's paper. Nevertheless, when writing an abstract it is useful to bear in mind that you should have one or two sentences summarising the content of each of the four main parts of the paper. As you can see, this is essentially the rule that Coates has followed.

Now read the first part of the research paper up to the heading The pilot study – observations’.

Activity 1

Jot down any points you notice about the functions of the information Coates includes in her introductory section.

Discussion

Your list might have included some of the following points:

reports research which has been done before;
develops a rationale for her study;
engages the reader's interest;
justifies further study of children's drawings;
brings together two different areas of drawing and language;
provides the context for the study;
criticises current practices.

If you haven't included some of the points above within your list, re-read the introductory section. A good introduction will perform all of these functions as a way of providing a clear framework for the research which follows.

Now read the next section, The pilot study – observations’.

In this section you may have noticed that Coates describes what she did and what she found through her observations. As already noted, researchers often report the method (what they did) and the results (what they found) in two separate sections. But in this paper Coates has combined them. She calls this a pilot study although later in the paper she talks about it as a small-scale study. The latter is probably a better term in relation to this research because the term ‘pilot study’ is often used to refer to preliminary work which is done to ensure that the methods which are going to be used will provide appropriate data (i.e. that the methods work). However, as you will see later in her commentary, Coates was using this study to explore the appropriateness of her methodology, and in this sense it is a pilot study.

The description of the method is a crucial part of a research paper. It needs to give sufficient information to allow the reader to repeat the research in exactly the same way, albeit in the case of this paper, with different children in different schools. As you read Coates's account, ask yourself whether you could do exactly what she did.

Look at Coates's results carefully. Are they clear and succinct? Can you identify any ways in which you could improve on the way in which they are reported?

Finally, read the section headed ‘Concluding discussion’.

Activity 2

Make a list of what you think Coates is aiming to achieve in the ‘Concluding discussion’ section.

Discussion

Your list might include the following points:

to relate her findings to previous findings;
to summarise her findings, i.e. that language and drawings change with age in a related way;
to identify further aspects to study.

If you have missed some of the above points you should re-read the discussion section and see if you can identify these aspects.

Coates also includes a note at the end of the paper pointing out that the research was reported previously at a conference. It is important to include this sort of information because within the research community it is agreed that normally research findings cannot be reported in an identical form in more than one place. However, this only applies to the medium of the reporting. Thus, exactly the same research findings should not be reported verbally at more that one conference or written up and published in more than one research paper or book chapter. Nevertheless, despite this rule, different aspects of the same data, or different ways of interpreting them can be reported in different places.

Coates also lists all the references she cited in her paper. Look carefully at how she lists the references. As you read other research papers you will notice that references are listed in different ways. The same information is normally provided, but the style varies. For example, sometimes the date of publication is in brackets, sometimes it is not. The publisher of the book or journal in which the research appears specifies the style which should be used.

Now that you have read the whole paper, go back to the title and the abstract. Do you think that they adequately capture the content of the paper? If not, how would you change them?

In some Open University courses we make use of specially commissioned author commentaries to give an insight into many aspects of the research process that are not visible in polished pieces of research as they appear in published journals. These commentaries illuminate some of the more problematic aspects of data collection and highlight some of the choices – and occasionally dilemmas – that researchers meet along the way. You will find the ‘Author Commentary’ by Coates after her research paper in Chapter 2.

Now read the ‘Author Commentary’ by Coates at the end of Chapter 2.

View document

Activity 3

Note down the answers to the following questions in relation to Coates's commentary.

What led Coates to carry out her research?

Did she have a hypothesis? What was it?

Was her research affected by any factors beyond her control?

Why does she call this a pilot study?

She chose an observational method. Why?

She took a qualitative approach. Why?

From whom did she get permission to carry out the research?

Are any ethical issues raised by this research paper? What are they?

How did she go about analysing her data?

Has the research led to further questions? What are they?

Discussion

When we first read Coates's commentary we found that it enhanced and enriched our understanding of her research study. We hope you found the same.

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2 Small-scale quantitative research using observation

The Open University — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 10:54:32 GMT

The second research paper that we are going to consider is a rather different study from the one you read by Coates. This chapter is by a Japanese researcher, Takei. It differs not only in terms of the topic – the emergence of signs in young deaf children as a precursor to the development of sign language – but more importantly in terms of the underlying methodology. Both studies are observational in that both Coates and Takei watched and recorded what children were doing in relatively naturalistic settings, though as you will see, Takei video-recorded the two infants he studied. However, whereas Coates's approach was qualitative, meaning that she did not transform her observations into numbers, Takei's approach was quantitative in that he reported numerical data. This distinction is important in research, and you will read more about this later in this unit.

As you read, think about the guidelines that were given for your reading of Coates's research paper. To remind you, the key points to consider as you read through the paper are summarised below.

Is the title a good summary of the paper? If not, what changes would you suggest?
Does the ‘Abstract’ reflect the four main parts of the article (i.e. ‘Introduction’, ‘Method’, ‘Results’ and ‘Discussion’)? If not, what changes would you make?
Does the ‘Introduction’ provide a clear framework and rationale for the research which follows? Would you have taken a different approach?
Are there sufficient details in the ‘Method’ section for you to be able to replicate what Takei did? Identify any aspects of the methodology which are unclear.
Are the results succinct and clear? Note that there may be aspects of the results, in particular the presentation and analysis of the data, which you do not understand at this point. Don't worry about this now.
Does the ‘Discussion’ section relate the findings reported in the present study to the literature reported in the ‘Introduction'? Are there ways in which this section could be improved?
How are the references listed?

Click on 'View document' below and read the chapter by Takei.

View document

You will also see that Takei includes a section titled ‘Acknowledgements’. This is normal practice when research has been funded by an external agency and when other people have played a part in the research but not a sufficiently large part to justify their inclusion as authors. Note that Takei has also expressed his appreciation to the infants and their mothers.

We hope you are beginning to get a feel for how research studies can differ even when they use a common approach such as observation. As you progress you will be introduced to an increasingly wide range of research studies and methodologies. Their common link is that they are all about children and young people but it is worth mentally logging, even at this early stage, any research topics, styles or approaches that particularly interest you as this will help you when you come to the examinable component.

Takei's commentary about his experiences of doing this study about deaf infants attaining their first signs will further inform your understanding. Again, this ‘Author Commentary’ immediately follows the research paper you have just read.

Activity 4

As you read Takei's ‘Author Commentary’, think about the following questions and make notes about them.

What led Takei to carry out his research?

Did he have a hypothesis? What was it?

Was his research affected by any factors beyond his control?

Do you think the fact that one couple were personal friends might have affected the research?

He chose an observational method. Why?

He took a quantitative approach. Why?

From whom did he get permission to carry out the research?

Are any ethical issues raised? What are they?

How did he go about analysing his data?

Has the research led to further questions? What are they?

Now read the ‘Author Commentary’ by Takei at the end of the chapter. As you read it, carry out Activity 4. above.

View document

Now that you have studied two examples of small-scale qualitative and quantitative research we can begin to put these into a wider theoretical framework.

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3 Observation as a research tool

The Open University — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 10:54:32 GMT

Observation is an important tool for all researchers and is frequently used to collect data in both quantitative and qualitative studies. There is much more to observation than just 'watching' and there are different types of observation techniques which can be employed. This is the focus of the two sections you are going to study in the next PDF.

Activity 5

For this activity you will need to revisit the first two PDF files that you looked at in this unit – links to these have been supplied below.

Click on 'View document' below to open the chapter by Coates.

View document

Click on 'View document' below to open the chapter by Takei.

View document

Click on 'View document' below and read 'Observation' from Introduction to Social Research by Keith F. Punch

View document

Reflect on the differences that Punch identifies between qualitative and quantitative approaches to observation. These are also referred to by him as unstructured and structured approaches. Make a table like the one below, using it to make a note of the characteristics of qualitative (unstructured) approaches. Then, think back to the research paper by Coates and see if you can give an example of each characteristic. We've suggested one to get you started.

Qualitative/unstructured characteristics	Example in Coates
Researcher does not manipulate the behaviour of those being observed.	Coates observed the children in a naturalistic setting – she did not manipulate the grouping or 'direct' their activity in any way.

Now try and do the same for the quantitative/structured approaches using examples fromTakei's research paper.

Quantitative/structured characteristics	Example in Takei

Discussion

This activity may suggest to you that research is either qualitative or quantitative. However, in reality many research studies involve both approaches.

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Next Steps

The Open University — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 10:54:32 GMT

After completing this unit you may wish to study another OpenLearn Study Unit or find out more about this topic. Here are some suggestions:

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Acknowledgements

The Open University — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 10:54:32 GMT

Except for third party materials and otherwise stated (see terms and conditions), this content is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Licence

Grateful acknowledgement is made to the following sources for permission to reproduce material in this unit:

Readings

Punch, K.F (1998) pp178-182 from ‘Introduction to Social Research, Quantitative & Qualitative Approaches’ Sage Publications Ltd.

Elizabeth Coates (2002) ‘“I Forgot the Sky!” Children’s Stories Contained Within Their Drawings’ in the Reality of Research with Children and Young People, (eds) Vicky Lewis, Mary Kellett, Chris Robinson, Sandy Fraser, Sharon Ding, The Open University in association with Sage Publications, 2004.

Wataru Takei (2001) ‘How do Deaf Infants Attain First Signs?’ Developmental Science, 4, pp.71-78, Blackwell

Unit Image

Adapted from CarbonNYC: http://www.flickr.com/ photos/ carbonnyc/ 144283862/ [Details correct as of 19th April 2007]

All other materials included in this unit are derived from content originated at the Open University.

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