Críticas y evolución del Enfoque Monetario de la Balanza de Pagos

4.6.1 Cycles of research

This research was designed to capture and analyse data in a number of cycles, which is represented graphically in Figure 2. This section explains the cycles of the research, further details about the methods are explained in section 4.7.

Cycle one: The process began with exploratory questions to ascertain the students’

beliefs about feedback they received from their teachers. This enabled Research Objective one to be met:

1. Identify the range of feedback given to students

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And Research Objective two to be partly met:

2. Explore student perceptions of feedback they received

This cycle initially captured the views of 152 students in July 2015 by questionnaire. The students were then in year 8 (aged 12-13).

At the start of the research, an Art teacher (Katie) asked to be involved in the project as she was reviewing strategies she currently used and saw this as an opportunity to engage students in the process of developing her practice. Interviews with eight students from the target group (now year 9) were undertaken in October 2015 to explore their views on the feedback process in Art and how it could be improved. Katie used the data to reflect on her current approach and identified alterations to the design of her feedback. These students were re-interviewed nine months later to gain their views on the changes implemented (cycle two). This aligned with Research Objective three:

3. Using student voice, investigate how current teacher feedback processes might be enhanced to promote student learning

Swanborn (2010) advises case study researchers incorporate a process of member checking which involves presenting the preliminary results to the participants to gather information that may lead to corrections or additions. This was incorporated into the process of validation (section 4.9.1) to ensure the data collected aligned with the intentions of the research. The Year 8 questionnaire data was presented in graphs and shared with SLT in a focus group who discussed it, considered it in relation to their knowledge of practice within the school and decided on further action to take. This included disseminating the data to each Head of Department and presenting it to the teaching staff at the INSET event with the intention that teachers could use it to inform a reflection of their practice and to identify improvements. This event provided an

opportunity to further disseminate the data to a wider audience, to reflect on whether the students’ views aligned with the teachers, to use the data to influence changes to teachers’ practice in providing feedback and gain further data about the teacher responses to the student views, addressing Research Objective four:

4. Present the data to the teachers so the student voice can be used to inform and shape practice with the aim of improving the student learning experience

An outcome from this process resulted in one teacher who taught English and Law (Kirstie) requesting to be involved in the research. She wanted to ascertain the views of all her students from years 7 to 11 regarding the feedback she provided so she could evaluate her practice. The sample participants therefore changed from the initial

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research, which can be a common feature of a case study (Silverman 2010) and was incorporated into cycle two of the research process. The involvement of Kirstie enabled an exploration of student perceptions of feedback to be obtained where the teacher was a constant factor and it broadened the scope of views gained.

Cycle Two: The eight students interviewed in October 2015 (cycle one) were

re-interviewed in July 2016 to obtain their views on the changes that had been made to the process of feedback in Art by Katie.

The Year 8 questionnaire was amended and references to other the other seven subjects were removed before it was completed by 111 English students and 47 Law students.

The English students were from years 7-10, the Law students from years 10-11. Some of the year 10 students may have completed the questionnaire twice, once for English and again for Law. The year 9 English students (n=23) would have had the opportunity to participate in the Year 8 survey in 2015.

Four students from year 10 and three from year 7 were interviewed to explore their views in more depth about the feedback they received from Kirstie, how they valued it and factors that influenced how it was received.

Interviews were carried out with Katie and Kirstie to explore the impact the student views had on their practice. This also enabled validation by providing an opportunity to discuss the survey and interview data and explore the value it provided (McNiff et al 2003).

This cycle enabled further progress to be made on Research Objective two:

2. Explore student perceptions of feedback they received

And Research Objective five to be met:

5. Establish the impact of using student voice to inform and shape the practice of providing feedback on student learning

Cycle Three: The views of the original target cohort were sought again. This was undertaken in December 2016 when the students were then in year 10. The

questionnaires used in July 2015 were adapted to include aspects that had emerged from analysis of earlier data. This is explained in Table 7 and enabled further progress with Research Objective two:

2. Explore student perceptions of feedback they received

In July 2017, Annie, the DHT who had responsibility for teaching and learning in the school was interviewed to discuss the outcomes of the data and the school’s policy and

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practice in relation to assessment and feedback. This provided another opportunity to validate the data by exploring her view of current practice and determine whether there was alignment between this and the student perceptions.

In April 2018, a task group was set up to develop a new Assessment and Feedback Policy for the school. I met with this group on two occasions and shared the outcomes and recommendations of the research which were used to shape the new policy.

These processes enabled Research Objective four to be met:

4. Present the data to the teachers so the student voice can be used to inform and shape practice with the aim of improving the student learning experience

In July 2017, I re-interviewed Katie to gain any further reflections she had on being involved in the research. This enabled further data to be gained to progress Research Objective five:

5. Establish the impact of using student voice to inform and shape the practice of providing feedback on student learning

The cycles of research can be seen in Figure 2. The stages of reflection (reflecting on data to inform action); action (implementing changes), dissemination (sharing the data with stakeholders for further reflection) and validation of data can be seen within the cycles. These are based on the process of action research from Efrat Efron and David (2013) and embeds validation into the process (McNiff et al 2003), which is described further in section 4.9.1.

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(reflection) Shared the year 8 data

with teachers at INSET