SUBPARTE J DATOS ELECTRÓNICOS SOBRE EL TERRENO Y OBSTÁCULOS

9.4.1 Review of Q-Methodology

The Q–sorts give a comprehensive picture of how the school construes all 35 of

the issues in the Q–set. Thus Q-methodology has provided a methodology to

136 nuances of the topic. In addition Q-methodology has provided a rich and textured picture of viewpoints.

An advantage of using a Q-sort rather than other qualitative methods was negating the risk of saliency. It is contended that the viewpoints identified reflect the school staff’s view on the issue of engaging with parents in decision making rather than what they remembered about this issue at the time of data gathering (i.e. semi-structured interview). Another critique of semi-structured interviews is that the questions used are devised by the researcher and without the necessary reflexive precautions then the findings could be argued to only relate to the participant’s perspective on the researcher’s questions and not necessarily on the topic being investigated. Again, a Q-sort reduces the risk of this threat to the validity of the study. Another advantage is that because in the Q-sorting activity the participant engaged with the Q-sort and not the researcher, then this reduced any risk of incurring a social desirability effect.

The use of factor analysis in Q-methodology provided a transparent and credible way to simplify complex data and presented it in an understandable way. The 2-factor solution and the factor arrays were produced through the use of algorithms. The factor viewpoints are grounded in the factor analysis data. It is acknowledged that an element of interpretation is inevitable in the authoring of the viewpoints. However, scrutiny of the viewpoint descriptions presented in this study is possible by means of examination of the factor tables.

In order to gain an appreciation of whether Q-methodology has allowed a better understanding and engagement with the participants it was important to elicit feedback from the participants who completed the Q-sorting activity (see section 5.2.2). Although each participant was invited to comment on the procedure only 5 comments were given. One of the comments:

 “I found this quite difficult as several of the statements had very similar meanings”

137 relates to a difficulty encountered by several participants in that they did not agree with the norm distribution pattern (2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 5, 4, 3, 2) and found it problematical to assign a statement to each square. However each participant did eventually comply with the distribution pattern once the researcher had talked through the aims of the Q-sort with them. This would not have been possible if the Q-sort had been completed remotely or the size of the participant groups been too large to prevent the researcher being available to answer the questions and queries that arose during the completion of the Q-sort.

Part of the reasoning for using Q-methodology was with the goal to elicit the meanings and interpretations (human subjectivity) that individuals have from which an understanding of the participant’s ‘internal’ frame of reference about the concept of ‘good parental engagement’ may emerge. A comment given by a participant shows how they were able to engage with the process and reflect on their understanding of the topic:

 “I found this very interesting to where I placed certain statements, and found some very difficult to place, especially the statements in regards to parental situations. Really made me think about my views” (participant 023)

The other comments:

 “I found this quite difficult as several of the statements had very similar meanings” (participant 015)

 “Some of the comments are difficult to interpret, e.g. ‘the decision making process’ – what is meant by this?” (participant 036)

 “I found it difficult to be reflective at the end of a demanding working day” (participant 024)

relate to the process about the Q-sorting procedure. These are acknowledged as criticisms to this study and will now be considered further.

138 The comment “I found this quite difficult as several of the statements had very similar meanings” was somewhat surprising as a thorough process had been undertaken to ensure that the statements were not only balanced; appropriate and applicable to the issue; intelligible and simple; and comprehensive (as advocated by Stainton-Rogers, 1995) but also non-repetitive. However this comment could be a reflection of the timing of the Q-sort activity as another participant acknowledged they “found it difficult to be reflective at the end of a demanding working day”; and thus the participant found it difficult to reflect adequately on the nuances between each statement. These comments came from the Q-sort activity which took place during a staff meeting at the end of the school day. This time was agreed with the head teacher of the school as a time when staff could be available without causing a disruption to their teaching practice. This is a time identified for staff training and development and therefore it was not thought to be unreasonable that the participants could be reflective on their practice of engaging with parents in decision making processes.

The final comment “some of the comments are difficult to interpret, e.g. ‘the decision making process’ – what is meant by this?” is acknowledged to have been an oversight by the researcher who assumed that the participants would

already have had a clear understanding of the school’s decision making

processes. Although some explanation was provided as part of the introduction to the activity clearly this explanation was not adequate. Consequently the term ‘decision making’ was clearly clarified in the focus group activity and the parents’ survey. However as this was a comment made by one participant and the researcher was present for all of the Q-sorting it is not perceived that this was a major issue in the Q-sort and will not have had a detrimental effect on the outcome of the Q-sorts.

139 9.4.2 Review of focus group methodology

The focus group is deemed to have been appropriate methodology because it fitted with the reasons given by Krueger & Casey (2009):

 The researcher was looking for a range of ideas that school staff had about the features of their system for engaging parents in decision making

 The researcher wanted the ideas to emerge from the group

 The researcher needed information to design a further study (namely, the parents survey)

 The researcher needed information to help shed light on the data already collected (namely the two viewpoints)

In addition, because a focus group is regarded as a way of being able to elicit the sought for information in a time efficient manner (Krueger & Casey, 2009) it was deemed expedient to adopt focus group methodology. That is a focus group was a more efficient use of time than, for example, conducting individual interviews with the participants would have been.

There was an acknowledged threat to the validity of the results of the focus group due to the large group size and there being only one facilitator present. However some measures were put into place to reduce this threat (see chapter 7.1.3).

9.4.3 Review of survey

The purpose of surveys is to study social perceptions on a phenomenon and to draw comparisons between participants (Aldridge & Levine, 2001). Surveys do not seek to identify an individual viewpoint but to produce aggregate viewpoints. Therefore the use of Q-methodology would not have been appropriate for this phase of the study which identifies a rich and textured picture of viewpoints. The

140 how they valued the features of the school’s system in engaging them in decision making processes.

As with focus groups, surveys are a time efficient way of collecting information from participants. Therefore as there was not enough time to collect individual interviews with parents it is deemed that the use of surveys was an appropriate method to adopt for this part of the study.

Another advantage to using surveys as a method of data collection is the flexibility offered to participants in the completion of the survey, for example, postal, interactive or face-to-face. An alternative method, such as semi- structured interviews or Q-sort could only have been completed face-to-face. It is contended that a reason for the high response rate was that participants could complete the survey in the manner that was most convenient to them.

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10 Conclusions

This three phase study set out to answer three research questions:

1) How does the school view the idea of engaging with parents in decision making processes?

Q-methodology was used to explore the answer to this question. Two distinct viewpoints on the idea of engaging with parents in decision making processes were identified. Chapter 6.2 presents the viewpoints and Chapter 8.1 offers a discussion of the viewpoints identified.

2) What are the activities that the school employs in engaging with parents in the process of decision making?

A focus group was held to explore the answer to this question. The results from the focus group are presented in chapter 7.2 and a discussion is presented in chapter 8.2.

3) What do the parents see as the important features in relation to the school’s system engaging with them in decision making processes? A survey was used to ascertain what parents’ value and the results are presented in chapter 7.4 with a discussion presented in chapter 8.2.