Is there a shortage of quantitative work in education research?

Abstract

This paper considers the range of research methods used by the UK education research community. Using insights from 25 interviews with key stakeholders it describes their views on the current strengths and weaknesses in methods, and of what methodological developments are needed for future improvement in this field. Using survey returns from 521 active researchers, the paper goes on to describe the techniques that are available for use, and those where further ‘training’ or experience is required. Using the 8,691 individual RAE returns to education, the paper then summarises the methods reported to be in actual use. Finally, it uses a brief analysis of journal contents as triangulating evidence.Our informants were generally in agreement that there is currently a widespread weakness in the quality of UK education research. Much of this weakness is attributed by them to a shortage of skills in ‘quantitative’ methods. Our other data sources suggest that the latter is less likely than the informants believe. A clear majority of education researchers report having used some quantitative methods, and the substantial number of publications involving quantitative methods supports this view. It is, perhaps, rather the type and quality of both quantitative and qualitative research along with unreasonable expectations by its users that leads to the poor public image of education research. Improvement is not going to come simply by enlarging the group of people using quantitative methods.

Notes

Corresponding author. Department of Educational Studies, University of York, YO10 5DD, UK. Email: [email protected]

Of course, this consensus does not make it fact. These senior stakeholders in education research could be wrong, and there is anyway no way of telling how good the research would have to be to make it good enough. But presumably we would want to take stock and pursue avenues for improvement whatever the current absolute standard might be.

In the same way, they complain about people simply taping a few unstructured interviews with a convenience sample, and then using grounded theory to extract a few quotations to make a paper, ‘by numbers’ as one of our informants said (Taylor, 2002).