Alison Fox

Teachers' networks in and out of school

A ‘mapping task’ was used to explore the networks available to head teachers, school coordinators and local authority staff. Beginning from an ego‐centred perspective on networks, we illustrate a number of key analytic categories, including brokerage, formality, and strength and weakness of links with reference to a single UK primary school. We describe how teachers differentiate between the strength of network links and their value, which is characteristically related to their potential impact on classroom practice.

Ethics in educational research: introducing a methodological tool for effective ethical analysis

Ethics is a complicated field and much has been written about its application to educational research. In this paper we introduce a way of planning for and dealing with situations that arise in the course of research that promotes detailed ethical analysis. We present a framework based on the work of Seedhouse and Flinders and describe a methodology for its use, alongside two examples in which the framework was used to achieve a comprehensive ethical analysis. The framework encourages us to view each situation from different philosophical perspectives and in doing so addresses issues about how to behave ethically, alongside methodological considerations, thus ensuring the integrity of the research. Use of the framework involves what Pring (2004) refers to as ‘practical thinking’ and addresses many of the concerns that other people raise about the limitations of linear codes and principles in a complex field.

Learning how to learn: Tools for schools

Learning how to learn is an essential preparation for lifelong learning. This book offers a set of in-service resources to help teachers develop new classroom practices informed by sound research. It builds on previous work associated with ‘formative assessment’ or ‘assessment for learning’. However, it adds an important new dimension by taking account of the conditions within schools that are conducive to the promotion, in classrooms, of learning how to learn as an extension of assessment for learning.

The Design and Use of a Mapping Tool as a Baseline Means of Identifying an Organization's Active Networks.

As part of the Learning How to Learn in Classrooms, Schools and Networks Project, a mapping tool and associated interviews were devised to capture practitioners’ views of the networks associated with their schools and local authorities (LAs). This article discusses the development and use of the mapping tool, including its trialing, and the first stages of analysis. The task was open‐ended asking respondents to represent with whom and how their organization communicates. LA advisers and officers offered an LA‐based perspective and both headteachers and school project coordinators offered a school‐based perspective. Forty‐eight maps have been collected from 18 schools and 5 LAs. Theoretically, the development of the mapping tool draws on three main areas of work—sociograms dating back to the 1930s, social network analysis, currently being used by Finnish researchers, and the work of Mavers et al. in mapping children’s representations of the virtual world of computers. Initial discussion of the range of map structures drawn by respondents is presented. In all cases it was possible to extract from the maps a list of people, groups, places and events, termed nodes, and information about how these nodes were connected, termed links. Most maps were organized around one or, in some cases, two central nodes. Descriptive analysis of both nodes and links has been used both to give respondents feedback on their maps, incorporating them in the validation of further analysis, and for comparative purposes. Respondents were largely positive about both the mapping task as a useful, reflective task to focus on their networking activities and the validity of the feedback given to them. Map representations are also explored from a spatial perspective with reference to ideas drawn from Sack and Castells. Reference is made to networked learning communities as supported and developed by the National College of School Leadership and also the Government’s Virtual Education Action Zone initiative, examples of which were represented in the project.

‘Support our networking and help us belong!’: listening to beginning secondary school science teachers

This study, drawing on the voice of beginning teachers, seeks to illuminate their experiences of building professional relationships as they become part of the teaching profession. A networking perspective was taken to expose and explore the use of others during the first three years of a teacher’s workplace experience. Three case studies, set within a wider sample of 11 secondary school science teachers leaving one UK university’s PostGraduate Certificate in Education, were studied. The project set out to determine the nature of the networks used by teachers in terms of both how they were being used for their own professional development and perceptions of how they were being used by others in school. Affordances and barriers to networking were explored using notions of identity formation through social participation. The focus of the paper is on how the teachers used others to help shape their sense of belonging to this, their new workplace. The paper develops ideas from network theories to argue that membership of the communities are a subset of the professional inter‐relationships teachers utilise for their professional development. During their first year of teaching, eight teachers were interviewed, completing 13 semi‐structured interviews. This was supplemented in Year 2 by a questionnaire survey of their experiences. In the third year of the programme, 11 teachers (including the original sample of eight) were surveyed using a network mapping tool in which they represented their communications with people, groups and resources. Finally, three of the teachers (common to both samples) were then interviewed specifically about their networking practices and experiences using the generation of their network map as a stimulated recall focus. The implications of the analysis of these accounts are that these beginning teachers did not perceive of themselves wholly as novices and that their personal aspirations to increase participation in practical science, develop a career or work for pupils holistically did not always sit comfortably with the school communities into which they were being accommodated. While highlighting the importance of trust and respect in establishing relationships, these teachers’ accounts highlight the importance of finding ‘peers’ from whom they can find support and with whom they can reflect and potentially collaborate towards developing practice. They also raise questions about who these ‘peers’ might be and where they might be found.

Events and professional learning: studying educational practitioners

Purpose – By trailing data collection and analytical methods this study aims to address the dearth of research into the use of attending off‐site events for professional learning.Design/methodology/approach – Three events, for academics and school leaders, were studied. A range of methods was trailed during 2006‐2007, with the aim of collecting real‐time data. These included shadowing individual delegates, interviews of other delegates, still and moving imagery and a survey questionnaire.Findings – Collecting evidence of professional activities in real‐time requires sensitivity to minimise its impact on the activities. It is ideal if everyone at such events can be informed fully in advance of data collection. Any assistance, including participating in the research, in reflecting on the benefits of attending an event was appreciated. The most important benefit of attending events was in networking rather than the formal purpose of the event itself. It was found that such interactions are likely to affect t...

Exploring research methods for educational leadership

When seeking to answer the question as to how the articles in this special issue contribute to understanding educational leadership, there is much to say, not least from their international scope (including studies in English, Maltese and Trinidadian contexts) and range of participants (from pupils, teachers, curriculum leaders, school principals, policy makers and academics working to support school leadership). Together, the articles provide a glance into a range of innovative and fascinating methods of collecting data for a range of educational leadership focused research projects. What is notable is the range of ways complexity is handled and the manner in which theory and method has been applied across the articles. As such, this special issue reengages the reader with an interesting, yet challenging, conversation as to the way in which educational leadership research could be conducted. The articles move us away from the perhaps more traditional approaches to educational leadership research to slightly riskier alternatives. With this comes a need to pay attention to the ethical considerations, which we also reflect on in this editorial. Moriah’s article is perhaps the most traditional in its use of a mixed method approach with a sample of 16 school principals, but makes its methodological contribution by powerfully applying an interpretive phenomenological analytical approach to examining principal perspectives. The thrust of the article gives voice to school principals’ views of what is crucial for inclusive practice to take place in their individual schools. The framework evolves around interconnecting questions about what a leader felt they were good at, what they loved doing, what needs they felt they could serve and what they considered they should be doing. Using such philosophical questions is a good way to introducing the following five special issue articles. Outhwaite’s article provides the reader with the opportunity to see the development of the methodological approach that took place when examining the process for the expansion of the International Baccalaureate Diploma programme in England. This article shows the author’s sheer resilience and determination to continue with the research to ensure that the voices of curriculum leaders were heard. This article allows insights the reader into what it is like to be a researcher when things do not work out as intended. This is an exciting article, which makes you think and reflect on your own research journey. Reid and Koglbauer’s and Hidson’s articles are arguably the most creative and innovative approaches methodologically in this special issue. Both articles alert the reader to possible approaches to collecting data to further understanding of (a) leadership curriculum and (b) leadership practice. Reid and Koglbauer’s article untangles any myth surrounding curriculum development and offers a different lens of visual methodology into the way in which the curriculum can be used to develop head teachers. Hidson’s presents the use of video observation as a powerful way to stimulate and then analyse responses to recorded practice, as a resource to support teaching and learning for future leaders. Poultney and Fordham’s article offers a time-efficient self-reporting tool; well suited for use by school leaders with hectic and busy schedules to analyse their research leadership. The methodology is illustrated through a pilot by a primary principal and university academic who took the opportunity, through critical discussion of the data generated, to examine their evolving school – university partnership relationship. Introducing the reader to the conscious quotient inventory could inspire others to review how such a tool could gather initial data and then look at a wider range of research instruments to offer further data. At first glance the final article in this issue, by Pulis, might not appear to be of relevance to researching educational leadership until one appreciates its purpose. Valuing the voice of pupils as a contribution to educational leadership is often omitted. The article uses a mixed method approach, which offers not only methods for gathering the views of pupils about what constitutes quality in schools, but also methods for gaining insights about how school leaders and policymakers view giving voice to pupils in the role of assessors. This design could have been extended by developing pupils as researchers to take on the further work of integrating pupils’ voices into educational leadership (Kim et al., in press; Thomson and Gunter, 2006). As noted earlier, ethicality is an important part of both research methodology and professional practice, yet is not always highlighted in research articles. The articles are discussed in the light of four key dimensions to ethical appraisal of a study (Stutchbury and Fox, 2009): consequential, ecological, relational and deontological. Starting with a consideration of a researcher’s aspirations for their study to be of value, consequential ethical thinking looks to its anticipated consequences – positive and negative. All the articles in this special issue spell out their aspirations to make contributions to academia and, ultimately, to the profession (as educational research is surely meant to do):

What Makes Useful Evidence for Educational Leadership Practice? An Interview.

An interview with Eric Addae-Kyeremeh about his views on the pressing question ‘What makes useful evidence for educational leadership practice?’ as advice for leaders in educational settings.

The Experience of Lesson Study in the UK

Originating in Japan, Lesson Study is a collaborative process characterized by teachers coming together to investigate an area of student learning through the joint planning, observation, and evaluation of a research lesson developed to address the chosen issue. This chapter outlines the potential of Lesson Study to transform teacher and student learning with reference to research projects implemented in secondary education, special education, and initial teacher education within the UK. It discusses the difficulties involved in embedding such a formative process within the results-driven ‘performative’ system currently established in England and Wales, and examines the opportunities and challenges facing schools, which choose to develop teacher communities through Lesson Study activity.

Designing a consequentially based study into the online support of pre-service teachers in the UK

This paper reports on the design of a pilot doctoral study into the online support of pre-service teachers. It highlights the significance of a consequential, rather than deontological, perspective in guiding the development of a studys design. The study initially aimed to explore pre-service teachers’ perceptions and use of social media on their school placements by setting up groups on Facebook and Twitter. However, several problems occurred in relation to the recruitment of participants. It became increasingly clear that there was significance in the positionality of the researcher as an “outsider” to the research context and the potential role for gatekeepers in understanding remote research sites. An ethical framework was used to make a more comprehensive analysis of the issues at play, which helped identify ways of proceeding. A redesign of the study followed with a stronger rationale for the way consequential considerations can help address deontological concerns.