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| Students Speak Toolkit > Annotated Bibliography |
This short report presents information from 16 focus groups conducted with high school students (mostly seniors) in the four states listed above. Principals at each participating high school designated about 10-12 students who were supposed to represent a variety of achievement levels, career paths, extracurricular activity involvement levels, genders, ethnic backgrounds, and attitudes towards school. Researchers pretested their set of focus group questions in several high schools. This report presents student views across the region, as well as views within the individual states. In the focus groups, researchers explored a wide variety of topics with students, including their daily experiences with teachers and peers, technology, school safety, preparation for life after high school, reactions to changes in scheduling, and views of learning. The report offers areas of similarities and disagreement, though without identifying the source of these views. It also highlights the importance of the student voice and encourages educators to stimulate discussions of these issues with students in their own schools.
In Kentucky, AEL staff talked with 44 students in four rural high schools in central and western Kentucky. Researchers report they talked with "a mix of students." Since the focus of the AEL study was students' reactions to educational changes, it is important to note that students in Kentucky generally responded favorably to such innovations as block scheduling and an alternative calendar. Students also reported, however, that with the exception of a few courses, they weren't being challenged enough in school. As underscored in the Partnership's own student-based research, these students expressed a wish for more freedom and more input and their desire to be treated more like adults.
In this article, Dick Corbett and Bruce Wilson assert that "new definitions of student success imply new definitions of what being a student means." Reform efforts ask students to change their customary ways of acting in order to make the transition between current expectations and future ones, just as they require teachers to assume new roles and take new approaches to education. Yet according to the authors, current literature on the process of changing and reforming education pays very little attention to redefining the role of students or considering ways to facilitate change among young people. This tendency to think of students as the beneficiaries of change, not as participants in change, may have a detrimental effect on the intended results of reform, since it expects students to comply with and produce results based on change without first seeking their input. By including students as participants in change, however, and allowing them to experiment with their new roles, schools may actually see more meaningful and lasting improvements.
While Corbett and Wilson do not offer specific strategies for involving students as responsible actors in the change process, they do advocate using qualitative approaches for listening to students and considering their thoughts, actions, and opinions. In addition, they encourage schools to implement methods that establish collaborative relationships between adults and students, recognizing the central role that such relationships play both in reform and students' views of schooling. Such collaboration will increase the likelihood that students and educators alike will embrace their new roles in school improvement.
This project of The Restructuring Collaborative, a national network of staff from regional educational laboratories and educators and students from throughout the United States, presents seven case studies of student-centered approaches to gathering data about school improvement and restructuring. The book was produced by a collaborative of people across the United States who are interested in bringing students and their voices into school restructuring efforts and who share a commitment to making school a more learning-centered and engaging place for students. Each case study includes information on the context for school changes, the researchers' approach to gathering data from students, the results of what they learned from students, and the application of this data by school communities. Some of the research efforts took place at individual schools, while others involved statewide projects. A few efforts included students in the design and implementation. Collectively, the case studies present a wide variety of research methods with the same basic intention: to increase the student voice in restructuring efforts.
Look Who's Talking Now also presents some findings across the case studies, including what members of The Restructuring Collaborative learned from the data they collected from students and what they learned from the process of talking with students. Chapter Nine is particularly insightful in its presentation of three broad themes that seemed to cut across the individual research efforts:
The final chapter in this book is a "how-to" guide for schools that are interested in conducting similar research efforts but have limited time and resources. Here members of The Collaborative describe a one-day data-gathering process involving students. While the timeline presented seems rather short for an in-depth analysis, the description of the process highlights many important pieces of any significant school-based research effort, including forming an inclusive research team, developing carefully constructed questions, and conducting thoughtful analysis.
This case study focused on the effects of statewide reform, specifically students' perceptions of their education and changes in their schools since passage of the Kentucky Education Reform Act (KERA). The study also sought information from students on what they thought reform ought to accomplish. Researchers collected data from a brief inventory on selected components of KERA. They obtained this data from individual interviews and focus group interviews with randomly selected middle and high school students from six schools in three regions of Kentucky, as well as with the principals of these schools. Researchers selected sites on the basis of documented implementation of various KERA components, geographical representation, and urban/rural mix. The study reports that students were aware of changes resulting from KERA and could describe their effects, focusing mainly on an increased emphasis on writing and group work. Interestingly, the case study also reports that most students conveyed a positive attitude towards reform and believed the changes resulting from reform were having a beneficial impact on their success as learners.
The School Change Collaborative, a group of regional educational laboratory staff working with K-12 school partners across the country as part of a national Laboratory Network Program, developed this Toolkit "for K-12 educational leaders and school-based teams interested in including students in continuous school improvement." The Toolkit describes four simple approaches to listening to student voices, all of which depend upon strong partnerships between students and adults. The four tools are: Data in a Day; Structured Reflection Protocol; Student-Led Focus Group; and Analyzing Surveys with Kids (ASK).
Data in a Day
In this approach, a design team consisting of students, educators, and interested
community members identifies a school-related theme to examine. During data
collection day, adult and student observation pairs informally observe students
in multiple locations in the school and record examples that illustrate key
themes. Members of the design team then come back together at the end of the
day to analyze their findings and discuss the implications.
Structured Reflection Protocol
This is a time-efficient group process that can be used by staff or students.
During a structured reflection protocol, participants analyze student work
to promote self-study, reflection, and strategies for improvement.
Student-Led Focus Group
This meeting between students and faculty or members of the community puts
students' perspectives at the center of an issue. During the focus group,
students sit in a circle and discuss their responses to a small number of
questions generated by adults at their school. A peer facilitator guides the
discussion. Meanwhile, the adults sit in an outer circle, listening. After
the students have discussed all the questions, they exchange places with the
adults. Now in the inner circle, the adults reflect on what they heard. If
there is time, the adults may answer the same set of questions.
Analyzing Surveys with Kids (ASK)
This tool involves students in all stages of survey research, from helping
to design the survey questions to interpreting the results and making recommendations.
During the process, small groups of students analyze certain portions of the
survey data and make suggestions to educators based on their own experiences
and on the survey responses.
The Listening to Student Voices Toolkit contains an informational brochure, an introductory booklet, an overview video about the tools, and four school stories.
The Consortium on Chicago School Research is an affiliation of local universities, professional associations, educational research and advocacy groups, and the Department of Research, Analysis and Assessment of the Chicago Public Schools. In this report, the researchers focus on what they categorize as upper elementary school (grades 6-8) and the early high school years, paying particular attention to students' transition to high school. They seek to give voice to students' perceptions regarding their Chicago Public School experiences: how they describe their teachers and peers, their classes, and their own efforts. Sources of information for the report include: results of a survey sent to 39,000 students in grades 6, 8, and 10; interviews; transcript records for 10th graders; and extensive observation in several schools.
There are essentially four major focus areas included in the report: school climate and its impact on students' ability to learn; cooperative adult effort in the school community; academic engagement and school participation; and academic difficulty during high school. The report also looks closely at low-achieving elementary schools in the Chicago area and seeks to understand the underlying reasons behind these schools' poor performance. The researchers conclude that a key difference between the top- and bottom-ranked schools in Chicago is the level of cooperative adult effort by the principal, teachers, and parents.
According to the researchers, they uncovered significant obstacles to learning in Chicago high schools. The study reports that Chicago schools generally fail to help students weather the transition to high school, fail to help them recover from academic difficulty, and fail to encourage them to form strong attachments to their schools. "The Students Speak" is particularly valuable for its description of and insight into the great disparities that appeared between grades 8 and 10 on nearly all factors.
"The Students Speak" is the second in a series of reports by the Consortium on Chicago School Research examining the Chicago Public Schools' five essential supports for learning. The first report, released in 1995, examined three of the five essential supports: effective school leadership, parental involvement, and professional development and collaboration among teachers. This second report considers a fourth support, a climate focused on student learning. A third report focuses on the final essential support, a quality instructional program.
*We thank Dan Birdwhistell for bringing many of these resources to our attention.
Resources that help you produce high-quality focus groups are becoming more available now after years of skimpy information. Even so, a problem remains. Because most focus groups produce information that is both significant and sensitive, the reports are largely proprietary. It would be particularly harmful to allow access to the findings for focus groups conducted in political campaigns or competitive private sector companies. As a result, opportunities to read and learn from real focus group reports are rare. Thanks to Jessamine County Schools, however, we are able to include the report from their 1998 focus groups in the back pocket of this Toolkit.
We have a few other suggestions for resources on focus groups.
Books
Here are two excellent, readable reference books designed for people other than academic research experts. You should be able to access these through interlibrary loan.
There are six volumes in the kit:
1. The Focus Group Guidebook
2. Planning Focus Groups
3. Developing Questions for Focus Groups
4. Moderating Focus Groups
5. Involving Community Members in Focus Groups
6. Analyzing & Reporting Focus Group Results
Each volume guides you through a different stage or aspect of focus group research and is chock-full of useful examples and models.
Web Resources
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