RESEARCH PURPOSE: WHY ARE YOU DOING THE RESEARCH?

Refining The Focus For Research And Formulating A Research Question

12

For example, a secondary school English teacher was dissatisfied with the way her students

wrote biographical sketches and on ‘drilling down’ found that her students did not know

how to structure or correct their writing. She decided that she would intervene to develop

and evaluate a new teaching approach. The teacher’s key research question was ‘What

teaching strategies will help my students recognize the gaps and mistakes in their writing?’,

and a sub-question was ‘How can I help my students write better transitions?’. The new

approach involved setting up situations for her students to do peer editing using a new guide

designed to help them locate transitions and missing transitions in the text. She monitored

the students’ work during and following the intervention.

Formulating a clearly stated question will help you to decide on the most useful data

to collect to answer your research question. Moreover having a clear focus will also prevent

you stashing away too much information that may be vaguely relevant. Having too broad

an approach is more likely to cause you angst because of the sheer volume and complexity

of information available. In the example given in Figure 2.3 the teacher has narrowed her

original very broad approach to a much narrower and manageable question: ‘How can I

increase students’ self-esteem in my lessons?’.

 

• What is a school day or a lesson like from a pupil’s point of view? Are any

individuals or groups getting a relatively poor deal out of schooling?

• What happens when pupils disrupt lessons or behave in an anti-social

manner?

• What happens when children work in small groups? What sorts of assignments

are undertaken? Who decides what? Are the groups collaborative?

Thirdly, to explain a situation or problem, account for patterns relating to

the phenomena being researched, or to identify relationships. For example:

• Do teachers and children perceive the same events in different or similar

ways?

• Do children read better as a result of a new programme?

• Do children read better in this programme compared with the standard

programme?

• Do teachers in the same school or department have similar or different

practices, beliefs, expectations, rewards and punishments, and conventions,

and how are these understood by the pupils?

Fourthly, to intervene to bring about changes in your classroom. For example:

• Can I raise students’ self-esteem in my lessons?

• How can I improve my own teaching?

• What happens in the classroom when there is a change of policy, a new

curriculum, work scheme, textbook, course, or new forms of assessment?

Refining The Focus For Research And Formulating A Research Question

13

Figure 1.3 

Narrowing your focus

Additionally, having a clear open-ended research question calls for deep thinking about issues

and makes it easier to know when you have done enough reading.

Furthermore, it is vital that you focus on a research area that is manageable in the

timescale you have available to you and that what you set out to find what is measurable.

For instance, it is very difficult to measure understanding directly as in the case of students’

understanding of addition and subtraction. This is because understanding these concepts,

facts and skills occurs within the student and requires probing more explicitly; therefore a

more useful variable to investigate would be to measure student accuracy in applying addition

and subtraction by counting the number of times each student answered subtraction and

addition problems correctly.

Finally, beware of trying to measure impact or of trying to attribute increased

understanding or better pupil test performance directly to your new teaching approach,

because there are many variables in each very different classroom. Be cautious in making

such causal claims. There is a tendency to want to link pupils’ outcomes directly to teaching

approaches, however, there are many mediating factors in operation such as the motivation

and aptitude of individual students, the mix of students in your class and the resultant

classroom dynamics which could account for changes.

Refining The Focus For Research And Formulating A Research Question

Refining The Focus For Research And Formulating A Research Question

For example, a secondary school English teacher was dissatisfied with the way her students 

wrote biographical sketches and on ‘drilling down’ found that her students did not know 

how to structure or correct their writing. She decided that she would intervene to develop 

and  evaluate  a  new  teaching  approach. The  teacher’s  key  research  question  was ‘What 

teaching strategies will help my students recognize the gaps and mistakes in their writing?’, 

and a sub-question was ‘How can I help my students write better transitions?’. The new 

approach involved setting up situations for her students to do peer editing using a new guide 

designed to help them locate transitions and missing transitions in the text. She monitored 

the students’ work during and following the intervention.

 

Formulating a clearly stated question will help you to decide on the most useful data 

to collect to answer your research question. Moreover having a clear focus will also prevent 

you stashing away too much information that may be vaguely relevant. Having too broad 

an approach is more likely to cause you angst because of the sheer volume and complexity 

of information available. In the example given in Figure 2.3 the teacher has narrowed her 

original very broad approach to a much narrower and manageable question: ‘How can I 

increase students’ self-esteem in my lessons?’.

 

Figure 1.3

 Narrowing your focus

Additionally, having a clear open-ended research question calls for deep thinking about issues 

and makes it easier to know when you have done enough reading.

 

Furthermore, it is vital that you focus on a research area that is manageable in the 

timescale you have available to you and that what you set out to find what is measurable. 

For instance, it is very difficult to measure understanding directly as in the case of students’ 

understanding of addition and subtraction. This is because understanding these concepts, 

facts and skills occurs within the student and requires probing more explicitly; therefore a 

more useful variable to investigate would be to measure student accuracy in applying addition 

and subtraction by counting the number of times each student answered subtraction and 

addition problems  correctly.

 

Finally,  beware  of  trying  to  measure  impact  or  of  trying  to  attribute  increased 

understanding or better pupil test performance directly to your new teaching approach, 

because there are many variables in each very different classroom. Be cautious in making 

such causal claims. There is a tendency to want to link pupils’ outcomes directly to teaching 

approaches, however, there are many mediating factors in operation such as the motivation 

and  aptitude  of  individual  students,  the  mix  of  students  in  your  class  and  the  resultant 

classroom dynamics which could account for changes.

•  What is a school day or a lesson like from a pupil’s point of view? Are any 

individuals or groups getting a relatively poor deal out of schooling?

•  What  happens  when  pupils  disrupt  lessons  or  behave  in  an  anti-social 

manner?

•  What happens when children work in small groups? What sorts of assignments 

are undertaken? Who decides what? Are the groups collaborative?

•  Thirdly, to explain a situation or problem, account for patterns relating to 

the phenomena being researched, or to identify relationships. For example:

•  Do teachers and children perceive the same events in different or similar 

ways?

•  Do children read better as a result of a new programme?

•  Do children read better in this programme compared with the standard 

programme?

•  Do teachers in the same school or department have similar or different 

practices, beliefs, expectations, rewards and punishments, and conventions, 

and how are these understood by the pupils?

Fourthly, to intervene to bring about changes in your classroom. For example:

•  Can I raise students’ self-esteem in my lessons?

•  How can I improve my own teaching?

•  What happens in the classroom when there is a change of policy, a new 

curriculum, work scheme, textbook, course, or new forms of assessment?

Refining The Focus For Research And Formulating A Research Question

14

LOOKING AT EXPERT RESEARCHERS’ QUESTIONS

Reading more expert researchers’ work will help you to learn how to undertake 

classroombased  research.  Identify  the  authors’  research  focus  and  locate  their  research 

questions. In the final published paper this will seem like a straightforward linear process 

moving effortlessly from identifying a focus through to formulating the question, but as you 

now know this was probably not the case. The expert researchers will also have spent hours 

reading relevant literature, thought long and hard about the purpose of their research before 

finally framing the research questions. Consider the style of research questions that expert 

researchers use in their work set out in Box 1.2.

 

Box 1.2 - An example of an expert researcher’s school-based research

Paper used: O’Brien, C. (2007) ‘Peer devaluation in British secondary schools:

young people’s comparisons of group-based and individual-based bullying’,

Educational Research, 49 (3), 297–324.

O’Brien sets out her research area early in the opening pages; this is to focus

on young adolescents’ perceptions of two distinguishable bases for being

bullied:

1. For group membership, such as one’s race or sex as a whole.

2. For individual, unique differences.

At the end of her literature review and before her methods section, she also

clearly states her research questions.

This exploratory study has a threefold aim:

1. Do students evaluate pejorative names differentially?

2. How do students justify their value judgements? On what dimensions are

group and individual-based name-calling perceived as similar and different?

3. Are appraisals comparable? Are we comparing ‘apples and oranges’?

Activity 1.2

Use the grid in Figure 1.4 below to help you clarify your thoughts about your

focus and research question.

Refining The Focus For Research And Formulating A Research Question

15

Figure 1.4 

Refining a research question

FURTHER EXAMPLES OF CLASSROOM-BASED RESEARCH PROJECTS

The  next  section    below  shows  four  further  examples  of  classroom-based  research.  In 

these examples, the work was undertaken by beginning teachers during their initial teacher 

education. Two research projects were stimulated by a developing awareness of practice 

through exposure to new ideas, and the broad research aims were to better understand 

history teaching and student motivation. The history teacher set out ‘primarily to problematize 

or characterize an aspect of subject learning’, while the motivation study was an attempt at 

understanding why a small group of boys were disaffected in science lessons. The other two 

projects took the form of an intervention whereby both teachers tried a new approach and 

monitored the effect on student learning.

THE M-LEVELNESS OF PGCE WORK

Each university will have specific criteria for judging M-level work which is used to assess and

make judgements about students’ work. However, in the introduction we set out generic

descriptors for Masters level work which I will use here to illustrate how PGCE schoolbased

research can met these requirements.

In essence, these require that Masters level work demonstrates:

knowledge and understanding

the application of knowledge and understanding through problem-solving abilities

the ability to integrate knowledge and handle complexity by making judgements

the communication of conclusions and underpinning knowledge and rationale to specialist

and non-specialist audiences

the ability to study in a manner that may be largely self-directed or autonomous.

Refining The Focus For Research And Formulating A Research Question

Refining The Focus For Research And Formulating A Research Question

LOOKING AT EXPERT RESEARCHERS’ QUESTIONS

Reading more expert researchers’ work will help you to learn how to undertake classroom-

based research. Identify the authors’ research focus and locate their research questions. In the 

final published paper this will seem like a straightforward linear process moving effortlessly 

from identifying a focus through to formulating the question, but as you now know this was 

probably not the case. The expert researchers will also have spent hours reading relevant 

literature, thought long and hard about the purpose of their research before finally framing 

the research questions. Consider the style of research questions that expert researchers use 

in their work set out in Box 2.2.

 

Figure 1.4

 Refining a research question

FURTHER EXAMPLES OF CLASSROOM-BASED RESEARCH PROJECTS

Table 2.1 below shows four further examples of classroom-based research. In these examples, 

the work was undertaken by beginning teachers during their initial teacher education. Two 

research projects were stimulated by a developing awareness of practice through exposure 

to new ideas, and the broad research aims were to better understand history teaching and 

student motivation. The history teacher set out ‘primarily to problematize or characterize an 

aspect of subject learning’, while the motivation study was an attempt at understanding why 

a small group of boys were disaffected in science lessons.

 

The other two projects took the form of an intervention whereby both teachers 

tried a new approach and monitored the effect on student learning.

THE M-LEVELNESS OF PGCE WORK

Each university will have specific criteria for judging M-level work which is used to assess and 

make judgements about students’ work. However, in the introduction we set out generic 

descriptors for Masters level work which I will use here to illustrate how PGCE school-

based research can met these requirements.

In essence, these require that Masters level work demonstrates:

knowledge and understanding

the application of knowledge and understanding through problem-solving abilities

the ability to integrate knowledge and handle complexity by making judgements

the communication of conclusions and underpinning knowledge and rationale to specialist 

and non-specialist audiences

the ability to study in a manner that may be largely self-directed or autonomous.

Box 1.2 - An example of an expert researcher’s school-based research

Paper used: O’Brien, C. (2007) ‘Peer devaluation in British secondary schools: 

young people’s comparisons of group-based and individual-based bullying’, 

Educational Research, 49 (3), 297–324.

O’Brien sets out her research area early in the opening pages; this is to focus 

on young adolescents’ perceptions of two distinguishable bases for being 

bullied:

1.  For group membership, such as one’s race or sex as a whole.

2.  For individual, unique differences.

At the end of her literature review and before her methods section, she also 

clearly states her research questions. 

This exploratory study has a threefold aim:

1.  Do students evaluate pejorative names differentially?

2.  How do students justify their value judgements? On what dimensions are 

group and individual-based name-calling perceived as similar and different?

3.  Are appraisals comparable? Are we comparing ‘apples and oranges’?

Activity 1.2

Use the grid in Figure 2.4 below to help you clarify your thoughts about your 

focus and research question.

Refining The Focus For Research And Formulating A Research Question

16

For a range of example of the sort of research work carried out by PGCE students at

the University of Cambridge please see the online Journal of Trainee Teacher Educational

Research http://jotter.educ.cam.ac.

In the next section, I will use a further example of PGCE – M level work to illustrate

how school-based research can meet these descriptors of M ‘levelness’. Further examples

will be continually added to the website. The work used was submitted by Owain, a beginning

teacher completing a one-year PGCE M-level secondary science course. This work is the

final 8500-word report of a classroom-based case study undertaken in the second and third

terms of his professional school placement.

The title of his work is: ‘A Case Study of Assessment for Learning: A Critical Analysis of the

Perceptions and Interactions of Science Students Engaged in Peer-Assessment Exercises in a

Year 10 Triple Set Living and Growing Teaching Episode’.

This work extends Owain’s knowledge and understanding through applying ideas

in a research context. It also illustrates how Owain applies knowledge and understanding

through problem-solving in a new classroom environment within broader multidisciplinary

contexts. Box 2.3 provides Owain’s rationale for undertaking this work.

Refining The Focus For Research And Formulating A Research Question

Refining The Focus For Research And Formulating A Research Question

For a range of example of the sort of research work carried out by PGCE students at 

the University of Cambridge please see the online Journal of Trainee Teacher Educational 

Research  http://jotter.educ.cam.ac.

 

In the next section, I will use a further example of PGCE – M level work to illustrate 

how school-based research can meet these descriptors of M ‘levelness’. Further examples 

will be continually added to the website. The work used was submitted by Owain, a beginning 

teacher completing a one-year PGCE M-level secondary science course. This work is the 

final 8500-word report of a classroom-based case study undertaken in the second and third 

terms of his professional school placement.

The title of his work is: ‘A Case Study of Assessment for Learning: A Critical Analysis of the 

Perceptions and Interactions of Science Students Engaged in Peer-Assessment Exercises in a 

Year 10 Triple Set Living and Growing Teaching Episode’.

 

This work extends Owain’s knowledge and understanding through applying ideas 

in a research context. It also illustrates how Owain applies knowledge and understanding 

through problem-solving in a new classroom environment within broader multidisciplinary 

contexts. Box 2.3 provides Owain’s rationale for undertaking this work.

Research aim

Understanding

Intervention

Stimulus

Develop new awareness

Dissatisfaction with practice

Topic area

History teaching

Motivation

Modern 

languages

Group work

Emerging 

questions

Elaborate 

the working 

conceptual 

apparatus around 

moral vs. historical 

debate, in order 

to strengthen 

the analytic 

power of the 

definitions/goals 

history teachers 

work with. What 

concerns in my 

own practice am I 

seeking to address 

and illuminate? 

Justify and define 

focus on pupil 

experience? 

Why are some 

pupils disengaged 

with school work? 

What prevents 

students from 

working? What 

is work-avoidant 

behaviour? 

Differentiation? 

Can teachers of 

MFL differentiate 

lessons? Is there 

evidence of 

impact on FL 

learning?

Can A-level 

chemistry 

teaching be less 

didactic? 

Working title

A critical analysis 

of commonality 

and divergence 

across moral 

reasoning and 

causal reasoning, 

drawing upon 

a study of four 

Year 9 pupils’ 

experience of 

constructing causal 

explanations of the 

Holocaust. 

A case study of Y9 

examining pupils’ 

self-perceptions 

towards learning 

in a science 

classroom. 

A critical analysis 

of the impact 

of teaching 

strategies 

that cater for 

differentiation 

in a class of Y9 

pupils of French 

learning the 

perfect tense. 

Does the use of 

active teaching 

approaches 

to encourage 

independent 

learning increase 

students’ 

understanding 

in Year 12 

chemistry 

lessons?

Research 

questions

What forms did 

pupils’ reasoning 

(oral and written) 

take? How might 

those forms 

be classified? 

What counts as 

‘reasoning’ for 

me as a history 

teacher? How 

adequate is the 

existing conceptual 

apparatus for 

framing these 

pupils’ reasoning 

experiences?

Why do 

pupils display 

work-avoidant 

behaviour in my 

Y9 class?

How does the 

use of different 

modes of 

differentiation 

impact on 

individual 

learning?

What are the 

key features 

of an effective 

differentiated 

approach?

(1) As far as the 

pupils themselves 

are concerned, 

are lessons 

dominated by 

symmetrical 

dialogue more 

effective at 

developing their 

understanding 

than lessons 

without such a 

bias?

(2) Does a topic 

taught through 

symmetrical 

dialogue result 

in enhanced test 

performances, 

compared to 

a topic taught 

without such a 

bias?

Refining The Focus For Research And Formulating A Research Question

17

Refining The Focus For Research And Formulating A Research Question

Refining The Focus For Research And Formulating A Research Question

For a range of example of the sort of research work carried out by PGCE students at 

the University of Cambridge please see the online Journal of Trainee Teacher Educational 

Research  http://jotter.educ.cam.ac.

 

In the next section, I will use a further example of PGCE – M level work to illustrate 

how school-based research can meet these descriptors of M ‘levelness’. Further examples 

will be continually added to the website. The work used was submitted by Owain, a beginning 

teacher completing a one-year PGCE M-level secondary science course. This work is the 

final 8500-word report of a classroom-based case study undertaken in the second and third 

terms of his professional school placement.

The title of his work is: ‘A Case Study of Assessment for Learning: A Critical Analysis of the 

Perceptions and Interactions of Science Students Engaged in Peer-Assessment Exercises in a 

Year 10 Triple Set Living and Growing Teaching Episode’.

 

This work extends Owain’s knowledge and understanding through applying ideas 

in a research context. It also illustrates how Owain applies knowledge and understanding 

through problem-solving in a new classroom environment within broader multidisciplinary 

contexts. Box 2.3 provides Owain’s rationale for undertaking this work.

Research aim

Understanding

Intervention

Stimulus

Develop new awareness

Dissatisfaction with practice

Topic area

History teaching

Motivation

Modern 

languages

Group work

Emerging 

questions

Elaborate 

the working 

conceptual 

apparatus around 

moral vs. historical 

debate, in order 

to strengthen 

the analytic 

power of the 

definitions/goals 

history teachers 

work with. What 

concerns in my 

own practice am I 

seeking to address 

and illuminate? 

Justify and define 

focus on pupil 

experience? 

Why are some 

pupils disengaged 

with school work? 

What prevents 

students from 

working? What 

is work-avoidant 

behaviour? 

Differentiation? 

Can teachers of 

MFL differentiate 

lessons? Is there 

evidence of 

impact on FL 

learning?

Can A-level 

chemistry 

teaching be less 

didactic? 

Working title

A critical analysis 

of commonality 

and divergence 

across moral 

reasoning and 

causal reasoning, 

drawing upon 

a study of four 

Year 9 pupils’ 

experience of 

constructing causal 

explanations of the 

Holocaust. 

A case study of Y9 

examining pupils’ 

self-perceptions 

towards learning 

in a science 

classroom. 

A critical analysis 

of the impact 

of teaching 

strategies 

that cater for 

differentiation 

in a class of Y9 

pupils of French 

learning the 

perfect tense. 

Does the use of 

active teaching 

approaches 

to encourage 

independent 

learning increase 

students’ 

understanding 

in Year 12 

chemistry 

lessons?

Research 

questions

What forms did 

pupils’ reasoning 

(oral and written) 

take? How might 

those forms 

be classified? 

What counts as 

‘reasoning’ for 

me as a history 

teacher? How 

adequate is the 

existing conceptual 

apparatus for 

framing these 

pupils’ reasoning 

experiences?

Why do 

pupils display 

work-avoidant 

behaviour in my 

Y9 class?

How does the 

use of different 

modes of 

differentiation 

impact on 

individual 

learning?

What are the 

key features 

of an effective 

differentiated 

approach?

(1) As far as the 

pupils themselves 

are concerned, 

are lessons 

dominated by 

symmetrical 

dialogue more 

effective at 

developing their 

understanding 

than lessons 

without such a 

bias?

(2) Does a topic 

taught through 

symmetrical 

dialogue result 

in enhanced test 

performances, 

compared to 

a topic taught 

without such a 

bias?

Refining The Focus For Research And Formulating A Research Question

18

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