INTRODUCTION
Over the past few years new policy initiatives from the
Scottish Executive and Parliament have given a new focus to
the importance of Lifelong Learning and Literacies. (See Interim
Report on Lifelong Learning Inquiry, HMSO 2002, and Literacy
2000, HMSO 2000). With this new policy focus has come a need
for research which might generate knowledge about current
levels and standards of provision (Adult Literacy and Numeracy
in Scotland, HMSO 2000). Much of the research is being carried
out by policy making bodies and adult education providers
with students as the objects of research. In this research
it has been our intention to make students both the subjects
and the objects of research.
BACKGROUND
In 2001, the Scottish Executive dispersed funding to partnerships
in all Local Authority areas in Scotland to develop adult
literacies provision to attract new learners.
A bid from ALFiE was submitted to the Edinburgh partnership
- now named CLAN Edinburgh: City Literacy And Numeracy - to
fund a small scale research project to look at students' experience
in literacy groups. The Adult Learning Project (ALP), an affiliated
member of ALFiE, was invited to help carry out the research
work on the organisation's behalf. ALP's Democracy Group is
a group of adult learners who study politics and have a particular
interest in new forms of democratic participation, especially
at a community level. Their interest in more participative
forms of research was inspired by the number of external consultants
being commissioned to carry out community based research in
and on local communities. The group is keen to promote forms
of community based research which engages communities in their
own or commissioned research using participative methods.
RATIONALE
If we are to get an authentic view of students experience
then the greater the involvement of students at each stage
of the research is essential. ALFiE is interested in trying
to encourage student involvement in adult education research
wherever possible and has published one other small scale
report on some focus group meetings with adult students in
Edinburgh, entitled Access and Power: Adults Returning to
Higher and Further Education (ALFiE 1999). The report found
that ‘Many of these research projects have been sponsored
by the government and H.E. institutions with the clear aim
of finding ways of attracting more people through their doors.'
The design of the research and the analysis of the data collected,
it seems to us, is premised on the belief that the financial,
dispositional and cultural reasons for peoples non-participation
can be overcome, mainly through the improvement of the attitudes
of the individuals concerned, and secondly, by the adjustment
of some institutional procedures’. (ALFiE 1999)
This view that provider sponsored research is often carried
out as a limited consumer study with the aim of improving
provision or making it more attractive became the inspiration
behind the groups pursuit of student lead research. The focus
of provider research might be characterised as institutional,
centred as it is on people's experience of the institution
or their non-engagement with it. ALFiE in their earlier report
did not want to discourage this research but rather wanted
to point out its limitations and encourage more varied approaches
to research including learner lead projects. Student lead
research attempts to focus on students experience in terms
of their individual and sometimes collective interests.
RESEARCH DESIGN
The design of the research was carried out between ALFiE and
members of the Adult Learning Projects Democracy Group. All
are currently adult students. The main concern to emerge in
terms of the design of the research was that it should be
informal in nature and have as much involvement as possible
from the participating students.
The method chosen comes from the research approach known
as Action Research and in particular, Participatory Action
Research (PAR). According to Reason, PAR has two complementary
objectives, ‘One aim is to produce knowledge and action directly
useful to a community,’ and secondly, it aims to ‘empower
people through the process of constructing and using their
own knowledge, so that they learn to "see through" the ways
in which established interests monopolise the production of
knowledge for their own benefit.’ (Reason, 1994). The aim
of the PAR approach is to engage the respondents at each stage
of the research project from the design stage, through the
active research phase and at the analysis and editorial stages.
This participative research method was chosen in order that
the students being interviewed as well as those in ALFiE could
feel that they had some ownership over the material and the
findings.
Members of the Democracy Group would act as data gatherers,
meeting with groups and individuals. They would present a
report of raw data to the ALFiE annual conference in May which
would examine the data and give their recommendations. As
a result of the conference, reports would be prepared for
ALFiE, the literacies partnership and, if possible, the participant
respondents.
RESEARCH METHOD
What follows is a brief account of the methodological approach
and how it was adapted for our use.
A short literature search would be carried out into recent
literacies research and Executive policy. This would be followed
by a series of contacts with Senior Community Education staff
in Edinburgh to establish the location of literacy groups
in the city. A range of groups was selected to be contacted
to ask for permission to carry out interviews. The aim was
to meet with different types of literacy groups, with different
constituencies.
The method chosen to interview the groups was a method known
as decoding which uses visual images as stimulus for discussion.
A method of structuring discussion called ORIS is used to
lead people through a discussion of the issues held within
the image. The choice of visual images was seen as an appropriate
for literacy groups as it avoided the use of text based material.
The ORIS method has four levels of questions: 1. Objective
questions that help people establish a relationship to the
image; 2. Reflective questions which allow the participants
to relate the image to their own experience; 3. Interpretive
questions which address underlying themes; 4. Summative questions
which summarise people's views as a result of the session.
The questions used in the research sessions were as follows:
Objective: Tell me all the things you see in the picture?
Reflective: What is going on here?
What are people doing?
How do they feel?
Does this feel like your group?
How did they start?
Interpretive What is important about how these groups are
run?
Who is/isn’t there?
What more could be done to encourage folk to come?
What might stop folk from coming?
What might make people leave?
What makes a good tutor/teacher?
What could your tutor do better?
Summative What do you hope will happen as a result of being
in your group?
If there was one thing that could be done
to improve adult learning what would it be?
Two researchers met with the groups with one conducting the
de-coding and the other taking notes. The conductor of the
session would also take flipchart notes for the groups approval
as the session progressed. These notes were processed at regular
meetings where they were passed on for typing and filing.
Next page:
Data collection process • Initial data analysis
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LITERACIES RESEARCH REPORT