Critical Research Study From a presentation by Julian McDougall – OCR Examiner June 2003

Specification Requirements  Angle/ Focus – own agenda, eg advertising, kids TV, cartoons, quantity of TV, positive?educational aspects of TV  Methods  Audience – active/passive  Understanding of the field  Primary Research  Sensible conclusions – something interesting about your primary research

Examiner’s experience  Less is more in terms of data  Ask the kids – use friends/siblings – 3x kids= easy  Ask the Parents – Parents’ assumptions will be challenged by kids  Critique existing research  Poetic licence/ “spin” – how can you angle your research into something interesting  Q1 Production Log What did I do? What order? Why? Research tools  Q2 Thesis

Understanding research  Watson/ OCR A2 book  What is research/ Different kinds?  What do they have in common? Medical/ marketing…Academic research not as outcome driven – does not need a fantastic result  Simple is best  Realistic ambition  Subjectivity is good – how your bias might influence your focus group

Secondary Research – academic  Buckingham  Livingstone  Hodge and Tripp  Gauntlett  Gunter and Mcateer  You find two others – cross referenced in above? Panorama video  Significant differences

Secondary research – popular  Press – tabloids and broadsheets  Reports  Websites – lobbying groups  Panorama and other TV documentaries, eg can you live without…TV? Parental controls over quantity  Industry issues – BBC critique of reality TV

Hypothesis  Test out an idea/ a hunch  Research questions  Don’t start with this – work this out after secondary research – the journey  Changing / evolving the focus is good  Focus on “how” questions not “do”  What audiences think not whether actions can be changed by the media

The Angle/ focus  New – primary will be new Qs to audience who haven’t been asked them before  Specific  Local  Linked to texts or issues – not abstract  Easy data generation  Always about ideas  Never about effects/ behaviour  Should arise from access to kids, etc

Textual Analysis  Use your AS skills to analyse focus texts – part of the hunch, eg project on junk food advertising related to student’s choice of food  Own interpretations to be written in – celebrate subjectivity- selection of clips – your own choice  Students can be objects of own research

Primary research – Paper  Questionnaire design – skills needed  Produce bad questionnaires  First – blunt data acquisition (quantitative). Ten people: four kids & six adults ; pick out variants  Second – selecting sample from data (demographic)  Third – open questions for discourse analysis (qualitative). Why are adults lying about the amount of TV their children watch  Fourth – request follow up

Primary Research – people  Interview – construction  Focus groups  Recording – major issues to approach  Permission/ethics  Participant/non-participant- reflection  Discourse analysis/ Self-presentation and identity- never objective/ transparent

Data  Teaching on research schools/ methodologies  Bad research needed for evaluation- something wrong, wrong Qs, talking too much,etc  Mistakes to lead into good practice – then I did this  What is it? No assumptions  Away from scientific notions – no big debates on subjectivity/objectivity  Gathering/transcription/analysis-time – more is less; max 2 weeks for data

Findings  Data selection  Data analysis – share and present findings in groups  Conclusions  Returning to secondary work – last assignment needed  “Spin”

Relating primary to secondary  Gaps filled?  The field extended through local application  Link quotes to findings  Be sensible- different contexts/time scales/ resources – it is easier for Buckingham

Postmodern approaches  Researcher as reflective object of study  How do I think about all of this?  Are my thoughts changing?  How am I constructed?