System wide survey of pupil perspectives on the curriculum'

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System wide survey of pupil perspectives on the
curriculum.

• Presenters
• Paul Crisp and Laura Smith
• CUREE

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Building the Evidence Base
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What were we interested in?

• Concerned with 4 curriculum domains derived from
  QCA policy interests
• Challenge and inspiration
• Flexibility and choice
• Student lifestyles and health
• Motivational influences
• Mile wide, inch deep
• Take the pulse
• Provisional and illustrative

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Method of data collection

• Web based survey in March and April 2008
• 8 Focus groups used to
• Explore issues which could not effectively be
  dealt with via a survey
• Explore in greater depth interesting/ ambiguous
  findings from the survey
• Draw out the views of some students who were
  unlikely to participate in the survey

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Survey design features 1

• About 100 questions
• Separate secondary and primary (latter had fewer
  questions)
• Quick and easy to complete (max 20 mins)
• Looked for impressions, opinions and feelings
  (not verifiable facts)
• Few free text and mostly select from list
  answers
• Delivered entirely on-line

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Survey design features 2

• Separate (optional) sections for
• Contact details
• ethnicity
• Additional section for subsidiary enquiry on
  14-19 (Diploma)
• Extensive use of bi-polar (semantic
  differential) question type
• Some reversed questions for validation check

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What did it look like?
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Focus groups

• Conducted 8 focus groups in total all secondary
• Two at individual schools
• One at pupil voice conference
• Three specifically exploring 14-19 and diploma
  issues
• Two in pupil referral units

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The sample

• Total responses 2819 (target 1200)
• Secondary 1807
• Primary 1012
• Total participating schools 66
• primary 37
• secondary 29
• Close match to English school population for
  gender, disadvantage, student achievement and
  value added
• Sample from larger schools than English mean
  (sample mean 925, all schools mean 728)

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Sample - ethnicity

• Sample close to national average for overall
  proportion of ethnic minority students
• Under represented in Asian and black students
• Over represented in other category
• Could be consequence of students choosing to be
  non-specific in replies

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Findings primary now -challenge and inspiration

• Majority feel curriculum
• is varied
• takes account of what they know already
• contains a lot of practical activity
• involves a substantial amount of group/collective
  working
• draws on out-of-school experiences
• is useful to them out of school

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Findings primary future-challenge and
inspiration

• Would like broadly what they get now with more of
  the features they experience positively eg
• varied lessons
• practical activities
• use of the internet
• working with people from outside school

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Findings primary -challenge and inspiration

• But
• Though 50 think lessons are just the right
  amount of challenge
• 31.1 said they were too easy
• 17.1 said they were too hard
• Might suggest that the level of challenge in the
  primary curriculum is less than the students
  expect or are capable of

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Findings primary autonomy and influence

• Primary students experience the curriculum as
  largely directed by the teacher in these areas
• what they learn
• where they learn
• quantity of homework
• In the future, pupils want more autonomy/
  influence over
• how they are taught
• what they are taught
• who they work with
• how much homework they get

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Primary - lifestyles and health
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Primary motivational influences

• Parents and friends had high expectations
• 60 thought their friends wanted them to do well
  at school, rising to 85 for parents expectations
• Around 30 felt that parental pressure was a
  bit/lot too much while 22 felt that parents put
  too little pressure on them

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Secondary- challenge and inspiration

• More than 50 felt that
• they did a lot of practical activities
• they often used what they learned at school in
  their lives outside of school
• they did a mix of different things in lessons
• they used the internet often at school

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Secondary- challenge and inspiration

• A substantial minority felt that
• Their teachers often made connections between
  subjects
• Their teachers were good at finding out what they
  already knew
• They often worked in groups with other students
• They were not generally positive about
• connection between lessons and their own
  experiences
• the use of audio visual resources

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Secondary challenge and inspiration

• There was a broad spread of response about the
  degree of difficulty of lessons
• 51.5 said they were about right
• 31.2 said they were too easy
• 17.4 said they were too hard
• As with primary students, most secondary students
  wanted more of the features they felt positive
  about

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Secondary experience and aspiration

• The biggest (gt20) gaps between student
  experience and aspiration were in
• Opportunities to link lessons to experience
• Amount of practical activity
• Mix of activity
• Use of AV resources and the internet

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Secondary flexibility and choiceindividual
subjects

• From focus groups picture of
• idiosyncratic practice which varied by teacher
  and institution rather than by subject
• Postive view of practice in science, English,
  maths and PSHE but also unimaginative and teacher
  dominated learning in those subjects
• few practical activities in math although often
  challenging (e.g. Lots of problem solving)

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Focus group suggestions

• Maths
• more problem solving
• trips on a maths theme
• more practical work
• more explanations

• Importance of English
• speaking
• spelling
• having an expanded vocabulary
• being able to write letters etc in a business
  context

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Secondary autonomy influence

• Not surprisingly
• 66 have experience of peer-assessment/marking
• 47 say teachers ask what they are finding
  difficult
• 20 say they have a choice about how much
  homework
• 11 say they have a choice about what homework
• Over 70 of students would like to
• be able to choose who they work with
• have a say in how they are taught
• have a say in what they learn about in lessons
• Nearly 70 of students would like
• to have a greater choice in what subjects they
  want to do
• more say in how much homework they get

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Secondary lifestyles and health

• Significant majority say that they eat healthily
  and have been taught about healthy eating
• Only 13 claim that teachers dont know anything
  about drugs
• 56.8 say influenced by learning at school, but
• Only 4.6 say their friends are
• Focus groups said that schools teaching about
  drugs was not very effective

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Secondary motivational influences

• Secondary school felt more stressful and more
  demanding then primary school
• 17 felt not pressured enough by teachers
• 73 said parents expected them to do well at
  school
• Nearly 30 of students thought they were under
  too much pressure from parents.

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Some interesting points

• More students (primary and secondary) feel that
  their lessons are too easy than feel they are too
  hard
• Secondary students thought that maths was both
  the hardest and third easiest subject
• Focus group generally critical of the teaching of
  maths but recognised importance of the subject
• Apart from maths, no strongly perceived
  correlation between the subject and the manner of
  its teaching
• Some of the secondary curriculum reforms being
  implemented formally in 2008 are already
  experienced by significant numbers of students

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Some interesting points 2

• Drugs, alcohol and healthy eating education is
  well established in both primary and secondary
  schools..
• But , for secondary students, the sight of
  overweight people on television on the street
  had greater impact than school activities
• Dealing with stress was the least developed
  aspect of lifestyle personal wellbeing
  education
• Secondary schools were felt to be more pressured
  environments that primary but parental
  expectations were high in both.
• Substantial minorities of students felt they were
  under too little pressure from teachers or
  parents, although parents (at 24.5) did worse
  than teachers (17)
• Few significant differences in responses when
  examined by gender or Key Stage level . Age had a
  bigger impact but still not a very big one
  particularly in the areas of choice and autonomy.

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Contributors

• Philippa Cordingley
• Prof Mark Hadfield
• Colin Isham
• Emma King
• Prof Daniel Muijs
• QDP Services