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Data Collection

Consider what information will help you answer your research question
Select methods that will help you gather this information and make a plan for when you will collect it
Design data collection tools and collect data

Introduction

Teachers are already experts on observing carefully how students are engaging and progressing with their learning, and on reflecting on and adapting their own practice in response to this. This module provides a guide to how to use this expertise in a systematic way in relation to your research question. We will encourage you to collect a range of information, or data, and to transparently report on how you are doing this, so that you can reach trustworthy findings that are useful to you in developing your practice, and can be confidently shared with others.

A wealth of existing resources is available that provide comprehensive guides to a range of different methods so we will provide links to these rather than repeating them here. We provide some examples of how these methods were used in Penryn Creativity Collaborative to look at developing creative skills and pedagogies, and we include an introduction to the ‘Creative Skills Data Collection Wheel’ that we designed to support teachers on this project. We would encourage you to use these and any other methods flexibly, adapting them to suit your own context and research question.

A word of caution in relation to data collection: any audio or video recordings you make will need to be transcribed before you can analyse them. It can take as much as five times as long to analyse data as it does to collect it. This is definitely a moment for quality rather than quantity!

Activity 1: Selecting data collection methods and making a plan

Download the Research Journal Data Collection Plan Template to complete this activity

What kind of information might help you answer your research question? Note down information that might be useful: e.g. student perspectives, student work, exam grades, colleagues’ perspectives, examples of teaching in progress, or something else.

Utilising the following list of research methods, make a list of 2-3 methods that will help you to collect the information you need to answer your own research question; add these to your Data Collection Plan

Interviews and Focus Groups. Can be spoken questions, discussion points, prompted reflections, can use conceptual drawing, ranking exercises, key word collections… and more! Get creative! Can be linked to existing student voice forums.

Questionnaires. Using closed questions (yes/no, rating scales, multiple choice), or open-ended questions (for collecting perspectives, perceptions, ideas)

Documents. Assessment schemes, syllabus, policy etc etc

Artefacts. Artworks, students’ exercises, essays, assignments, other documents like your lesson plans, formative feedback to students, etc.

Photographs, video and audio recordings. Plan all of these carefully in relation to your research focus; NB video takes a long time to analyse so use with caution. Note photographs can be very helpful to stimulate discussion in interviews and focus groups.

Observations. You can consider participant or non-participant observations (i.e. is the observer part of the activity they are observing?)

Journals, reflective diaries, blogs, vlogs, story telling, concept mapping, drawing. Any of these reflective methods and more may be used by teachers or students

Hints for selecting methods: There is no hierarchy of research methods and no ‘right’ number of data collection methods to use. Depending on your question, you will need to assess which methods are the most likely to help you collect the information you need. There may also be ways you are already collecting information – for instance through regular student voice sessions, or through assessment. You can use any of these information gathering methods for your research (provided you have asked the students and their parents for permission to do so – see Ethics module).

For example:

Do you want to understand how students will respond to an aspect of creative pedagogy? Try: using observation and focus group interviews

Do you want to see how a teaching method impacts the creative work students produce? Try: Observing individual students to collect information about creative processes, and collecting samples of student work for analysis to reflect on creative outcomes.

Do you want to know how a creative project impacts the way students feel about their creative skills? Try: Student reflective diaries or vlogs and a self-assessment questionnaire before and after the project.

Why use more than one method and/or participant group? Described in research as ‘triangulation’, using more than one method and/or participant group helps to provide more than one point of view on an issue, and so it makes findings more comprehensive and trustworthy. It can apply in relation to participant groups (e.g. interviewing teachers as well as students) as well as methods (e.g. conducting an interview, an observation and utilizing a reflective diary).

For each method, now complete the rest of the Data Collection Template. You will need to consider who you will collect the data from; when and how often you will collect it; and who can support you with this.

Methods Selection Examples

Example 1, KS3-4 Engineering: Alex Childs asked How does working on real-world projects lead to learners being powerful in their understanding? By talking to a small group of students in a focus group, he developed understanding of students’ self-perceptions of what made them feel confident in their understanding. By using a survey he got information from a cross section of his class linking a specific real-world learning experience to their self-perception of creative skills. Through his own reflective notes on lessons following their real-world learning experience he was able to document how he observed students going about problem-solving subsequently.

Example 2, KS2 Forest School: Cassie Kent asked How do we encourage creativity through outdoor learning? Through observations, she could see students demonstrating a range of creative skills as defined by the Penryn Creativity Collaborative Creative Skills Framework. Photographs were used during the observation to document how students used creative skills in their dialogic process, and also how their creative skills were demonstrated in creative artefacts. She used her own reflective notes to clarify and evidence the creative pedagogies she was using in relation to the Penryn Creativity Collaboratives Creative Pedagogies framework. She triangulated her observations and self-reflection with a short questionnaire that explored students’ perceptions of outdoor learning.

Activity 2: Designing your data collection tools.

For each of your selected data collection methods, you should now create a design: a plan for how you will collect data using that method.

This includes, for example, planning your observations in detail, planning your interview questions, designing a questionnaire, making a plan for what photographs you are going to take, designing any creative tasks you would like students or colleagues to complete, designing sentence starters for your student vlogs, making a protocol for selecting examples of student work and so on. These detailed plans (sets of questions, carefully structured plans for observations) are your data collection tools, and this stage is about designing those tools.

The core approach here is to think carefully about how you’ll use a method (interview / observation/ questionnaire etc) to get the information you need to answer the research question you’re asking.
There are many textbooks dedicated to research methods and design, but provided you’re logical (figure out what information you need, and find a systematic way of asking for it using your chosen method), and transparent (make a note of how you’ve done this, and why), then you can use your creativity and existing professional knowledge to go ahead and make your own design.
Further guidance on this in relation to researching creative skills and pedagogies is provided below in three examples with linked templates; for more comprehensive existing guides to designing research tools please refer to the further reading section.

Example 1: The Penryn Creativity Collaborative Data Collection Wheel

Designed to support data collection as part of the Penryn Creativity Collaborative project, the Penryn Creativity Collaborative Data Collection Wheel will be useful for collecting data in relation to creative skills and pedagogies. Based on the Penryn Creativity Collaborative Creative Skills framework, it includes each part of the framework in ‘teacher language’ (the inner circle) and in ‘student language’ (the outer circle) so it can be used by teachers, students, or by both together. It also has space to note whether each part of the framework is evidenced ‘a little’, ‘some’, or ‘lots’. The Wheel can be used to support observations, interviews and self-reflection. Suggestions for how to use it in each of these ways are included on the downloadable Penryn Creativity Collaborative Data Collection Wheel resource.

Example 2: Focus Group Schedules

The downloadable Focus Group Schedule Template will support you to design your own focus group interview – a similar approach can be taken for individual interviews if needed. It includes a template for designing your own focus group, and it also includes an example of the questions designed for a focus group as part of the Penryn Creativity Collaborative project. This shows how an overarching research question can be split down into interview questions that are specific and age-appropriate for the participants. In our example you will see that the responses requested from the group include one word answers, a ranking exercise, spoken answers and a drawing activity – feel free to get creative in eliciting responses in your focus groups!

Example 3: Observation Schedules

Two downloadable observation schedule templates are provided. Both use the approach of ‘thick description’ which means writing down as much detail as you can about what you see in relation to your chosen focus in the time you have available. With this approach don’t try to abstract what you see in the moment and make judgements about whether or not students are demonstrating particular creative skills. Write down what you see happening so that you can make judgements later as part of your analysis from your rich descriptions. The key here, as in all observation, is to be very clear on what your focus is, or you will quickly be overwhelmed with detail. Choose one person (student or colleague) or one small group to focus on for a set amount of time, and decide what it is about them or their actions that you are observing. Observation Schedule Template 1 is less structured: you can use this to select your own focus appropriate to your research question. Observation Schedule Template 2 is a more structured observation schedule that was designed for Penryn Creativity Collaborative and relates directly to the Penryn Creativity Collaborative Creative Skills Wheel – this will be helpful if you have chosen to work with the Penryn Creativity Collaborative Skills Framework.

Activity 3: Collecting your data

You are now ready to collect your data.
Use the plan that you designed in Activity 1 (your data collection plan) to put your data collection tools (designed in Activity 2) to work. You may want to do this over the course of a term, a week, or a single lesson.
Make sure that as you collect your data you are storing it in a secure and confidential place, ready for the next stage of your action research – analysis!

FAQs

I can’t find a research method here that suits my research

There are an almost endless range of different research methods – search for alternatives in further reading (above), or invent your own (as long as you can describe and justify the method clearly).

How can I observe creativity?

Creativity is a great example of a complex abstract concept that is difficult – or impossible without the steps outlined below – to observe. We suggest that when conducting observations in relation to creativity (or any other abstract concept!) it is important to:

Be very clear on what your definition of the concept is (revisit Understanding Creativity here if needed): know what it is you are looking for, and make sure everyone involved in your research has at least some level of agreed understanding on this.
Turn your abstract concept into observable actions, attributes, features or skills. This is what we have done by first of all developing the Penryn Creativity Collaborative Creative Skills Framework, and then by turning this into the Penryn Creativity Collaborative Data Collection Wheel. Feel free to use this existing work, or to design your own version of it in relation to your own understanding of creativity.

Data collection

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