I felt the analysis was less successful this time round, as we were pushed for time and I was very tired after a morning of intense tutorials, which I think effected the liveliness of the discussion. However, through using the same method of getting students to write down responses in class, I was still able to gather many different understandings of how research takes place in different students’ practice.
On first glance and first feeling, I felt that the answers were quite similar to the answers at Point A, despite my intervention. This was because the answers remained quite vague, with none of the research trips I’d taken the students on mentioned at all.
As with the data at Point A before, however, I then decided to analyse the specific words students used using textual and thematic analysis.
From the process of thematic analysis, I realised that, while a few of the same themes were emerging, there were also some interesting new themes that had emerged since I first asked the students what research was.
Overall, the themes are more varied – there is less homogenaeity around what research is. Perhaps this means that students are beginning to come up with their own definitions of research, rather rely on what they’ve been told elsewhere (e.g. in school).
Most popularly referenced were now visual sources (12), followed by ‘the humanity in research’ (11). Words relating to these themes are a little more varied than before. For instance, types of films are referenced (video essays, documentary). After this ‘Research as a journey’ is regularly evoked, as well as methods of interpretation and visual sources (8).
The middle section of data is the one that is most interesting to me:
Emotions, both positive and negative were referenced 7 times – a category that previously I hadn’t created as there had been no emotional responses mentioned. This includes words and drawn symbols: love, goated, feeling, dissappointed, heart, surprising. Research is regularly spoken about in terms that imply students think it useful (7) times, up from one mention when they were last asked.
Despite my initial feelings post discussion, through tectual analysis, I could see that there were in fact some specific research sites mentioned (6 times), whereas in the previous discussion at the beginning of the unit, there had been none. Interestingly, all these research sites were ones the students had gone to on their own, rather than ones I’d taken them on. The Tate and the Wellcome were on the worksheet I’d given them, but the BFI was not.
The nature of the trips mentioned, and the high frequency of emotional language and reference to research as useful in some way, leads me to the preliminary conclussion that I was successful in empowering some students to find ways of doing research that was genuinely useful for them.
You can see further analysis in the files below.