The methodology section is done!

After almost a week of non-stop typing, I finished my methodology section and the paperwork for the university ethics approval process last Thursday night and submitted everything on Friday morning. I am pretty chuffed that I actually managed to write 12k in two days and have high hopes that similar spurs of productivity will help me next year when it comes to writing up the thesis!

In the end, one of the toughest issues to write about were the ethical implications of working with children and working with informed consent. Because there are 15 focus children in my study who I want to closely monitor and interview, both they and their parents have to agree that they want to take part in the study. Unfortunately some of them have been chosen because they have a very low attainment level and so I had to find a compromise between working ethically (and letting them know why they had had been chosen) and not causing harm. I am hoping that by framing the selection in a positive manner (eg 'We have chosen you because you have this target level this year') I can justify my way of researching.

Generally, my research design included quite a lot of different factors:

You can find the introduction to the methodology chapter here. If, incidentally, you research with children, too, and would like to share your experience of working with informed consent with kids and their parents please get in touch! It would be great to find out more about how other academics work in the area. Of course there are plenty of examples in books, but hearing about first hand experience is always more exciting!

First international conference acceptance

Many exciting things have been happening in the last two weeks, starting with the official launch of the Bradford Film School on the 2nd July. Representatives from India and beyond  came to celebrate the launch with us and it was great to see such a warm reception. It has been amazing to be part of the team which made the new school possible and I am especially proud of my involvement in the BA (Hons) Film and a BFI Film Academy bid which I submitted last week.

One of the guests at the reception was David Wilson, who spoke about the importance of learning in the world's first UNESCO City of Film. 

Two days ago we also had the last day of the City of Film literacy scheme, where seven of the participating teachers write up their case studies and commented on their experience of the year. All of them were overwhelmingly positive and most of them the teachers will continue on the scheme as mentors for next year's teachers.

In other great news, I have been accepted to two further conferences, the Media + Learning Conference in Brussels which takes place in September and the Media Education Summit in Sheffield in September. On both occasions I will be speaking about the differences between media literacy and using media for literacy. Whilst the Media Education summit it going to be my first 'professional' conference, Brussels is going to be my first international one. I am very excited!

My last two days have been completely taken up by the completion of my methodology chapter. After checking with the university about ethical approval last week, I was told that I had to submit my whole chapter (or rather most of its content) together with my application, so I am trying to get everything done before I start travelling for two weeks tomorrow. Yesterday I wrote 6,000 words in one hit, so have my fingers crossed that everything will be done tonight! I will post some ideas once everything is submitted.

Research questions

In the last weeks I have been thinking about my research design and the methods which I am hoping to use. Gorard (2013) emphasises that research questions should be the beginning of every active research journey. My questions have evolved substantially over the first year of the PhD, but even the first thoughts on ‘film literacy’ have proven useful. Research needs research questions because ‘otherwise research is not really research at all, it is just data gathering’ (Gorard 2013, 36).

Gorard also argues that it is vital to divide an overarching research question into a series of puzzles, which are easier approachable and answerable. While my overarching research question could now be ‘Does the City of Film media literacy scheme have benefits to the students who are involved in it?’, I am really interested in the kind of benefits the scheme potentially offers and the reasons for this.

In accordance with my hypothesis above, the following sub-questions (or puzzles) have been phrased:

1)      What emotional impact does working with films in the classroom have on students? 2)      Is this impact connected to a motivation for writing and if yes, how so? 3)      Does the students’ engagement with the film literacy scheme impact on their writing scores and if yes, how so? 4)      What other potential benefits does the film literacy scheme have?

These questions have the advantage of drawing on a wide range of qualitative and quantitative research which will aid the triangulation process. I am also personally interested in their answers and feel connected to this research direction due to my personal believes and history.  In addition, I also have some potential answers in mind, which might prove beneficial to the warranting process (Gorard 2013).

To lighten the mood after all that heavy thinking, have a look at the wordl I made from the thesis as it is now: