Glynis Cousin

Ethnicity and Degree Attainment (2007)Broecke and Nicholls

Over 78,000 students Our results show that, even after controlling for the majority of factors which we would expect to have an impact on attainment, being from a minority ethnic community (except the “Other Black”, “Mixed” and Other” groups) is still statistically significant in explaining final attainment, although the gap has been significantly reduced. We used the 2004/05 HESA qualifiers dataset for our analysis.

The Student Experience of Reading, Mann, 200

4 students Extracts from four case studies of student readers are presented, describing how each student approaches the reading of the same text, and how this approach seems to be related to the student's general approach to academic reading, what reading in general means to them, and the significance that being astudent has for each of them. It is argued that the normally neutral or pleasurable private activity of reading is disturbed in the academic context by the potential for this activity to be made public through the various assessment activities which bound the student's daily reading life.

the quantitative side of me looked for the emergence of meaning from the repetition of phenomena, the qualitative side of me looked for the emergence of meaning in the single instance’. Stake (1995: 76)

Case study research: the science of the singular

the aesthetic dimension Many volumes have been written about how the theoretical or political (either implicit or explicit) shape the research task. However, at root, I feel that such positions have relatively little to do with many researchers’ sense of what constitutes a ‘worthwhile’ research problem, ‘interesting data’ or ‘compelling’ analysis….I believe that the most important impulse has more to do with our tacit sense of the sort of appearance or shape of a worthwhile piece of research. In that sense, research is informed by an aesthetic. Silverman, (1997:239)

and the craft dimension… Research is a craft skill, relatively autonomous from the need to resolve philosophical or epistemological debates, but it can nevertheless draw on these as resources in developing methodological awareness Seale (1999:31)

Intrinsic, instrumental, collective what is going on in this field trip? What is happening on this geography field trip that can tell us something about geography field trips in general? What is happening on these field trips that can tell us something about field trips in general?

The root source of all significant theorizing is the sensitive insights of the observer himself Glaser and Strauss’ (1967:251) Good research is not about good methods as much as it is about good thinking. Stake (1995:19):

American Education Research Association: code of ethics Researchers must ‘warrant their research conclusions adequately in a way consistent with the standards of their own theoretical and methodological perspectives’. Generative? Good thinking? Reflexive?

Reflexivity: can you claim that you have acknowledged your positionality in the research? Curiosity-led: have you read your data for the ambiguities, disconfirmations and rival explanations it offers? Have you avoided the forcing of an argument or an answer-driven orientation? Intellectually informed: have you developed a strong and convincing engagement with a literature to underpin the theoretical claims made? Data quality: can you provide a defence for the adequacy and quality of the data collected?

Data presentation: have you displayed enough data in the report to support the plausibility of the analysis? Corroboration: have you shared your analysis with research subjects and/or other researchers? Research report: is the report both engaging and plausible? Can it transport the reader to the research setting? Social responsibility: how have you addressed issues of equity, quality. academic freedom and respect for other scholars? Does your report protect the rights, dignity and confidentiality of the research participants?

references Mann, S. (2000)The student experience of reading, Higher Education, Vol.9, No.3 April, 2000 Broecke, S and Nicholls, T (2007)Ethnicity and Degree Attainment Stijn Broecke and Tim Nicholls Seale (1999) The Quality of Qualitative Research, Sage, London Silverman David (ed) (1997) Qualitative Research: Theory, Method and Practice, Sage, London Stake, Robert E (1995) The Art of Case Study Research, Sage Publications, Thousand Oakes, Calif.