Daños Colaterales (Emitido el 10 de diciembre de 2008)

I have already explained that the research was based on schools within the Secondary Partnership of schools related to the University Of Exeter Postgraduate Certificate of Education (PGCE). This included the majority of secondary schools within Somerset, Dorset, Devon and Cornwall and was a complete cross-section of school types: comprehensive, grammar, Academy, private, girls only, boys only and mixed sex. Not all schools within the sample would be obliged to adhere to the NC (2008).

This was a convenience sample (Cohen, Manion and Morrison, 2000; Creswell, 2007; Blaxter, Hughes and Tight, (2006). Cohen, Manion and Morrison point out the inescapable truth that the convenience sample:

Saves time and money and spares the researcher the effort of finding less amenable participants (p.144)

Arguably this relates to much small-scale educational research because of the inevitable limits of working within school institutions or classrooms; however Cohen, Manion and Morrison also note that the opportunistic nature of the convenience sample is irrelevant if the researcher both reports that the sample is a convenience one and does not seek to generalise from it. It is also relevant to note that since the participants were all volunteers, they are not representative of more general views; however I was not seeking to generalise from the participant sample.

In designing this research access to participants was a factor, although I did not opt for the easy access (p.102) cited by Cohen, Manion and Morrison, simply relying on teachers willing to participate and schools and departments willing for me to come on site and interview students at the school. As researchers in school

123 we need to have a symbiotic relationship between our subjects (the school communities) and the outcomes of our research. I was not offering immediate potential solutions to actual problems perceived in the volunteer schools. Teachers and pupils are increasingly busy and time is precious. However years spent in school both as a teacher and later as a university lecturer visiting PGCE trainees in English departments, had led me to believe that the quality of the fiction available to 11 – 16 year olds for reading for pleasure and for reading in class was an issue for many teachers.

In the light of this it seemed a reasonable research decision to begin by circulating the questionnaire to all the English departments in all the schools in the University of Exeter secondary PGCE Partnership. As I have already indicated, whilst the geographical spread was limited to the South West of England, nevertheless the questionnaire sample included a broad spectrum of school types as well as encompassing schools with different demographic profiles: urban, rural, areas of high deprivation, areas of low deprivation, ethnographic variety and limited ethnographic mix.

In total 502 questionnaires were distributed to 118 different schools with, as I have said, the possibility of requesting extra electronic versions if required. Of the distributed questionnaires 45 were returned from 19 different schools. This was a very small return (less than 10%) and may be due to the teachers failing to see direct value to themselves in the research (Sapsford and Jupp, 1996). It may also have been a factor of timing: I sent the questionnaires out in the middle of the Spring Term, always a busy time. I followed Cohen, Manion and Morrison’s (2000) juncture to follow up questionnaires and, since questionnaires were not collecting information for statistical analysis or for generable dissemination, the small sample returned did not seem a significant limitation. As it was, the sample provided sufficient common themes to inform the structuring of the interview schedule and the Diamond Nine Activity cards (Appendix 9). The questionnaires also provided themes about book usage and about quality to illuminate the findings from the analysis of the interviews.

124 Arising from responses to the questionnaire, the interview samples of teachers and pupils were also convenience samples (Cohen, Manion and Morrison, 2000); this implies a non-probability approach to data collection. It is important to be open, as a researcher, about the use of the convenience sample. The convenience sample may reduce the possibility of generalisation but does mean amenable participants (Cohen, Manion and Morrison, 2000, p.144). However, I knew teachers in all the volunteering schools and I had to be aware that this might bring a degree of power imbalance (Creswell, 2007) and that this might need to be considered when conducting interviews. However I did not know all the teachers whom I interviewed and I knew none of the students.

I finally drew on 4 volunteer schools: one selective mixed sex, 11- 18 grammar school; and 3 mixed sex, comprehensive schools. I also interviewed one advisory teacher. All of the comprehensive schools were 11 – 16. Two of the comprehensive schools were in demographically mixed areas (average free school meals compared with the national average) the grammar school represented a socially comfortable demographic (very few free school meals); one comprehensive school was in a relatively deprived area (above average free school meals). The free meal summaries are based on the latest OFSTED reports for each school.

In total I interviewed 12 teachers (4 male and 8 female), and 15 groups of pupils. When arranging interviews I indicated that I would prefer groups of 5/6 students if possible. In practice the group size varied from 2 – 7. Most of the groups knew each other and were from the same class but I interviewed one group who represented a range of year groups and were not in friendship groups. There were 11 groups from KS3 (Years 7-9) and 4 groups from KS4 (Years 10 and 11).

Schools represented Teachers Groups of students Questionnaires received 19 45 N/A Interviews 4 12 (4M, 8F) 15 (KS3, 11, KS4, 4)

125 As a researcher I was grateful to the volunteer schools, department and students for giving up their time for my research. It was also the case that, as I have indicated, I knew some of the teachers; I was familiar with the working of the English departments who volunteered to support my research; and I knew that they had a genuine interest in promoting a range of reading amongst their pupils, at school and at home. As a researcher this meant that I needed to be aware of the potential for bias.