Media analysis and political biographies

For this thesis, use was made of newspaper reports and the biographies/autobiographies of politicians. These were read and analysed with an acknowledgement of potential bias. For example, it is widely known that newspapers will have an ideological viewpoint and will, therefore, report from this perspective. Newspapers that are traditionally Conservative in outlook, such as the Telegraph and The Times and those that are more centrist, such as the Guardian, must be read with such a bias in mind. For this thesis, not all newspapers were used as sources of reporting on the NC. The Sun, Mirror, Daily

Mail, Mail on Sunday, Daily Express and Sunday Express were excluded. These

newspapers tend to be more sensationalist and do not give depth of coverage. The key newspapers searched were The Times, Guardian, Telegraph and The Independent, plus their associated Sunday publications. The Times Educational Supplement (TES) is

another potential source of news reporting on events. There is no digital archive for the period covering the introduction of the NC. The digital archive begins in 1999. The TES was excluded from the analysis on this basis as access to the print archive was difficult, costly and only 50% (roughly) of the period being researched could be reviewed online. Where TES stories have been cited, the content was specific and relevant to any argument being made.

Table 4.1 Document analysis log aspects

Aspect

Related analysis questions

Document Title Record the full document title

Document Origin What organization/who published the document?

Where was it published?

Authors Who authored the document?

What is their affiliation?

Document Date When was the document published?

Intended Audience

Who was the document written for? (Teachers, politicians, academics, education experts, education leaders etc.)

Contextual Information

What was the political context at the time the document was produced?

What was the educational context at the time the document was produced?

Document Purpose

What was the intended purpose of the document? (information, consultation, statutory, evaluation, professional analysis/viewpoint etc.)

Document

Content List the key information the document provides

Document

Deficiencies What does the document not say that you expected to be said?

Document Classification

Is the document a research report/ Government document/ policy/ statute/ green paper/ white paper/ curriculum document/

evaluation/consultation etc.

Document format Article/online/booklet/report etc.

Document reliability

Is there a set of citations/references?

Another issue in the use of newspaper reports is that the agenda of the journalist, that is, the type and number of questions (with or without follow-up questions) will be set by the journalist rather than a researcher. The key to good journalism is to create a ‘story’ that will capture the reader and that the reader will wish to read in full. It is not the intention of a journalist to capture an accurate historical record of what is happening.

In viewing and analysing other reports from organisations such as HMI, OFSTED etc. it was acknowledged that although these are ‘independent’ organisations they would, nevertheless, be reporting on or monitoring the progress of the Government curriculum and standards within the various subjects, including science as a key or core subject. There may be a bias towards Government or there may also be a bias introduced by the author(s) unconsciously.

In the case of Government documentation and reports, care needs to be taken in understanding how these reflect the actual situation. With Government documents, there is a definite chance of bias as Government seeks to report or record those things that can be promoted as ‘successful’ implementation of policy, to make a case for putting to the electorate that any policy ideas suggested, then legislated for, have been a success regardless of the evidence. It is a case of playing down, even hiding the negatives and overstating the positives.

The introduction of a NC was a key education policy for the Conservative party. The media extensively reported on the lead up to and implementation of the 1988 ERA. Media reports provide a view on how policy is being implemented and received by political parties, teachers, unions and other stakeholders. As such, an analysis of these reports will add to the formal document analysis allowing for a more nuanced analysis.

Biographies and autobiographies of politicians will be written from the perspective of that person. As such they provide a view of the ‘reality’ of what happened during their terms of office which will naturally project their own contributions in a positive light. Accounts of the actions and views of other politicians will also be from their personal perspective. These accounts, while not bias free, are still important given that major theme within this thesis is political influence.

4.18 Semi-structured interviews

A curriculum is enacted by teachers and experienced by children. The main purpose of the interviews in this case study was to understand the experiences and reflections of a small sample of people taught science during the implementation of the SNC. I wanted

further to try to understand how some teachers, who had been taught under the SNC, viewed the NoS and the scientific method.

The interviews were not intended to gather data to form an opinion on how well science teachers understood the NoS or TSM and neither was it about trying to fulfil Posner’s (2004) set three – the enacted curriculum – for the curriculum analysis framework. It has already been established that teachers’ conceptions of the NoS is flawed, limited, even confused (Abd-El-Khalick, 2013; Bayir et al., 2014; Kremer et al., 2014; Mihladiz and Dogan, 2014; Rudge et al., 2014; Sumranwanich and Yuenyong, 2014; Demirdogen and Uzuntiryaki-Kondakc, 2016).

As science teachers, the interviewees would have an educational influence over how a curriculum was enacted. This will differ from the educational influence of those who developed the SNC and those who revised it. The interviews were designed to prompt the teachers to reflect on their experiences of science and articulate their understanding of aspects of the NoS and TSM.

The interviewees were randomly selected for interview from a range of science teachers who expressed an interest in the project, following a general call for interviewees via a general e-mail to science teachers in the Sussex Education ITT Partnership, personal contacts and science teachers on social media (e.g. Twitter). The interviewees were drawn from a range of subject disciplines. All the selected interviewees were given alternative identities (see confidentiality and anonymity later).

In selecting interviewees, I needed to ensure that science teachers well known to me, who I trained as science teachers, or who were very aware of my work on the NoS did not form part of the group. Having written a book (Williams, 2011) that deals with several aspects of the NoS and TSM as well as running training sessions for ITT explicitly dealing with this topic, those teachers would be more likely to provide answers to questions that they knew, consciously or sub-consciously, would align with my own views. This was one way of trying to eliminate some bias within the process. One volunteer for interviews, for example, was a former student who had read my book and who I had supervised for her MA dissertation, which was based on aspects of the NoS. While she was a useful contributor to the pilot phase, she could not form part of the sample of teachers and there would likely be a bias to her responses that would favour my own thoughts and views. The questions for the interview were also trialled with other current and past trainee science teachers to test possible responses and to refine the questions so that they did not introduce an unconscious bias.