First data analysis and mastering SPSS

Good evening everyone!

After spending most of the last two months on the live coding project for Cambridge Uni, I am slowly but surely returning to working on my PhD full time. I finished collecting all of my data over the summer and this is what I am going to analyse over the next months:

1. Questionnaires (2 sets for teachers and 4 sets for students)
2. Lesson observations
3. Interviews from the end of the year (with the teachers)
4. The writing scores

I learned a lot on the Cambridge project and I am looking forward to open coding and engaging further in SPSS. After a few weeks of being quite uncertain about how to approach the masses of data, I read parts of Doing Quantitative Research in Education with SPSS and it really helped me to understand what I wanted and how I could achieve it.

The chapter is still a bit of a mess, but here you can see the components I have added already:

I have already got a few results, but they are not certain yet- it's going to be fantastic to actually have something special to say! I am especially interested in the relationship between the different variables and achievement: Did the use of film have more of an impact on boys/ older students/ better students due to the use of film? I am hoping to have completed the data presentation chapter by the end of next week...

More publications and research for Cambridge uni

Since my last post much has happened. In July I got a job offer for work for the Faculty of Education at the University of Cambridge to work on a really exciting and very geeky live coding education project and have been busy with that since. However, my part time contract will be up next week and I will return to completing the PhD. I am hoping to be done by spring next year so there will be enough time to get through the viva and find a new job before my scholarship runs out.

After more than 12 months, I finally got the news yesterday that my first journal article is now online. You can find it on the Corerj journal website. I also submitted another article on our Free School application to the Journal of Education Policy so keep you fingers crossed for me! I am hoping to submit one or two more before starting to apply for work at the end of the year.

First thoughts on some of the attainment data

Disclaimer (08/09/2014): I wrote this blog post at a point where I had very little data AND did not understand how to use the software and statistics properly. What I have written is not accurate any more, so please don't quote these results. I left the post, instead of deleting it, as even 'wrong' analysis is part of my research journey- and this instance taught me to check my results three times before being sure of ANYTHING!

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Hello everyone!

This week I have finally hit the interesting point where I am collecting the attainment data of the schools which are taking part in the film literacy scheme. So far, I have the results from ten of the 21 schools I am researching and after capturing the data, I can make some tentative first observations:

- On average, the students of the schools on the scheme have made almost four points progress over the year (three are the expected progress)
- The older the class was, the more progress the students made (rising to 4.2 points in Year 6)
- The 'worse' the school had been graded by Ofsted, the more progress the students made (rising to 4.2 for the 'requires improvement' schools)
- Although girls made a little bit more progress on average (0.2 points) this is really minimal
- There was little to no difference in attainment between students who had started the year below their expected level in writing and those who started at the expected level

Please don't quote me on anything yet- there is still lots more data to come! Great to see that the scheme is actually making a difference though and that I can finally use some of my new statistics skills!

Publications and the Bradford Media Literacy Screening day

The last two days has marked the end of the media literacy year for the students of the Bradford primary schools. Over the course of two morning and two afternoons all 30 schools came to the Media Museum to introduce and screen the short films they had made over the past months. The quality of the films was mixed (as expected), but it was wonderful to see how excited everyone was to see the films on the big screen.

Yesterday at the Leeds Young Film Network meeting I heard that Leeds is now thinking about running a similar scheme as part of their Young people's film festival. It's great to see that the scheme is spreading and they seemed to be keen to collaborate.

In two weeks time (on the 7th) the Media Literacy teachers are meeting for one last time to evaluate the scheme. I hope to gather the last questionnaires and writing levels then. Fingers crossed at least most of them bring the required material!

In the meantime, I have been busy starting and editing a few journal articles I'd like to send off in the next weeks. The first one is a condensed version of my Master's dissertation which looks at how, why and when teachers use films in lessons. Cutting 20,000 words down to 6,000 is really hard but I am proud of the final product. The article has just gone off to two tutors for review and hopefully I'll be able to submit it next month. Two further ones on the PhD and the Free School experience are in the pipeline.

Unfortunately there have also been some sad news: After several weeks of trying to negotiate/ collaborate with the New Schools Network, my friend Natalie and I have decided that we are going to withdraw from the Free School School application process. Things got too stressful and after not being able to satisfy one of the main criteria we decided that this was going to be the end of the road for us. I am still incredibly grateful for the experience and look forward to continue to write about Free Schools- it's a fascinating research topic!

More thoughts on Florence and other things

Hello again from Florence!

By now, I am back at the hostel to have a bit of a breather before my friend and I are going to head out for the first World Cup game of the year. So far, I've had a great time in Florence. This evening we took a walk around the city centre and I bought a pasta roller to inspire me when I get back home.

The conference is interesting (and I am still super chuffed about being here) but unfortunately I don't quite feel that it lived up to its title 'Future of Education'. It's been a shame to hear a few vague desinterested people talk about their commercial projects and I've really been missing the amazing key notes I am used to from other conferences. That said, the programme for tomorrow looks a little bit better and I already made a good friend today. I am also looking forward to my presentation tomorrow afternoon.

My talk is going to be on Free Schools (see post below) and unfortunately we've been having a really tough time with the New Schools Network and the application in general. It seems that one of the primary requirements for the applications at the moment is that the team has to have at least one outstanding school leader as one of the main applicants and although we've got a lady who is helping us with it, she is unsure whether she'll be able to commit. And as a busy principal who would be able to dedicate an extensive amount of time to a project like a completely different school to their own?!

My friend Natalie (who is also an academic) and I have been thinking and writing extensively on our application and I am hoping to try to finish a prospective journal article at the end of June. Additionally, I would really like to finish my PhD data gathering by the end of the month. In three weeks' time I am seeing the Film Literacy teachers for the last time and have just sent out a batch of questionnaires to them. Hopefully at least some of them are going to come back!

I have recently started to work with SPSS and NVivo and can't wait to post some exciting findings next week when I am back home. SPSS has helped to to think about how girls and boys think about writing and it will hopefully also show me whether the film literacy scheme has actually made a difference to attitudes and attainment at the end of the year. Fingers crossed something useful is going to emerge!

At the Future of Education conference in Florence

Yesterday I arrived in Florence for this year's Future of Education conference. Unfortunately I don't have time to write a whole blog post (more tonight!) but just wanted to share some joy for now. This morning I picked up my copy of the conference proceedings which have been published as a book- and found my first printed paper!

I am very lucky to be here in Florence and that the University of Bradford funded my attendance- thank you! More thoughts later...

More conferences and publications

Last week I had some brilliant news: I have been accepted for this year's Kaleidoscope conference in Cambridge and the Future of Education conference in Florence! The latter even includes a publication and I am chuffed to bits that the University of Bradford is paying for me to go. Here is the submitted abstract:

Ros McLellan, my new second supervisor from Cambridge, came to see me last month and together we discussed many questions I have had for a long time. She also encouraged me to do get involved in some additional research and to potentially apply for a postdoc position for next year. It was really wonderful to talk to someone who has so much experience in the academic education community and I am looking forward to working with her over the next year. Our next meeting is at the end of the month at the Kaleidoscope conference.

In the last month, I also re-submitted an article for the Kaleidoscope journal and hope to hear back from them soon. It would be great to go into my second research summer knowing that I have two publications under my belt already.

My research is currently focused on observing as many media literacy lessons as I can. I am working closely with one particular teacher and I think her school might become a case study for the scheme. I am also planning my questionnaires and interviews for the end of the year. The project evaluation day is not actually until the beginning of July, but I am hoping to see a couple more classes until then. I am particular looking forward to evaluating the data about students' emotions about writing. It's going to be fascinating!