Los Géneros Periodísticos

How the study was designed does have implications for the quality of the research. Furthermore, how long the findings may be current should be considered.

8.3.1 Using teachers to inform on children

Phase 1 uses teachers to inform on children. This could be considered problematic for two reasons. Firstly, a child’s perspective is missing from this research. The phase 1 study is entirely from the perspective of teachers and phase 2 is based on observations. There is a danger that using adults to inform on children makes children the object of the research rather than subject (James et al., 1998). However, the approach taken here is thought to be acceptable for the purpose of this study as it is teachers who decide whether the search activity takes place and only an objective description of search tasks is sought. Nonetheless, this study should be complemented by further research that considers search from the perspective of children. Secondly, it is possible that some search tasks were missed. In phase 1, teachers were able to report on how the search tasks they gave children evolved. They could do this because this is a collaborative environment where teachers and children were sharing information with each other. However, it is quite possible that many changes of search task were missed, as children may not have or may not have been able to express all their information requirements (Belkin, Oddy, & Brooks, 1982; Hackman, 1969; Taylor, 1968). Furthermore, as observed in phase 2 children also did search tasks “under the desk” (Maybin, 2007).

8.3.2 Short engagement with few participants

Studying real-life is difficult and gaining access to primary school classrooms in this study was hard. As such the length of time spent in the schools was short. Furthermore, only 10 teachers were interviewed in phase 1. However, this was a sampling decision and these teachers were purposefully selected so as to gain as much variation in the sample as possible. Whether more interviews were necessary was considered but it was thought that no new insights would be generated.

Only two schools participated in this study and this has implications for the transferability of the findings. Whether the findings are transferable should be tested in further research. If primary schools are an IUE then it is thought likely that many of the findings will be

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search are likely to be similar across all primary schools. However, as noted in section 7.1.3.3 settings do differ, and what impact this has on the IUE does require further investigation.

8.3.3 Re-using data

In phase 2 data was re-used from earlier observations. This has some advantages in that the data collection was not influenced by phase 1 but also had the disadvantage that the data collection was not designed for the purpose of phase 2. That the interviews for the West Sheffield observations were largely not relevant and there were no interviews for the East Sheffield observation is particularly problematic. Had the observations been collected for the purpose of the study, interviews could have helped to validate the representation scheme and provide a more complete description of the search tasks. Some of the difficulties encountered in operationalising levels of tasks may have been alleviated.

8.3.4 Use of existing research and theory

Where possible existing research and theory was used to support this study. However, in places this use was not straightforward.

It was difficult to apply conceptualisations of search task and work task as defined in the more general literature to the data collected in phases 1 and 2. This could be linked to a weakness in the study design as only teachers were interviewed. Had there been interviews with children to accompany the observation data it may have been possible to have identified different task levels.

The representation scheme was initially developed from the research literature based on what the field consider important properties of task. The scheme was then amended to reflect the search tasks as they occur in primary schools. Whether the scheme does actually describe properties of the task that are important to search has not been tested and should be in future research. Furthermore, the representation scheme is at its strongest where existing

categorisations could be built on. Where categorisation schemes could not be found they had to be built from the data. Notably the categorisation of outputs is weak, and could be

improved with further research.

8.3.5 Stability of the primary school IUE

The stability of the primary school IUE and how long the findings will be current needs

consideration. While many of primary school problems may be typical they are not immutable and what constitutes resolution of problem also changes. Notably, the curriculum (theme 1), best practice (theme 2) and what resources are available (theme 5) have changed over time and will likely continue to change. This could account for some of the discrepancies in the findings of this study compared with prior work. How long the findings of this study will continue to be relevant also needs to be considered.

That best practice (theme 2) and resources available (theme 5) have changed in recent years in primary schools could account for differences with Gross’s (2006) study. It used to be that the curriculum was taught by teacher’s delivering all information requirements. A change in ethos (theme 2), where children are now expected to lead their own learning, coupled with easy access to information via the Internet (Kuhlthau et al., 2007) has changed how and why

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information is searched for in the classroom. So although, Gross (2006) found that teachers already know the answers to the search tasks that they assign children, in this study teachers reported that because lessons evolve they were searching for information in class that they did not know.

What influences search activities in primary schools may continue to change and in future work differences will be found with this study too. Notably, government initiatives such as the move towards schools becoming academies (Cook, 2016) whereby schools are no longer required to follow a national curriculum (though most state schools still do, Department for Education, 2017), and the current funding crisis threatening many primary schools (Coughlan, 2017) and the impact that could have on resource, could change the information use

environment. Furthermore, a new curriculum had been introduced the year of the West Sheffield interviews. The challenge teachers faced implementing the new curriculum could have impacted on search activities in ways that might not be seen in future years when the curriculum is more embedded.