High School Students “Talk Back” to the Anonymous Researcher behind the Questionnaire

Abstract

This paper discusses high-school students' perspectives on their participation in educational survey research. Students responded to a Likert-style questionnaire about their school’s social-educational portrait and were invited at its end to briefly comment on the survey itself. Qualitative analysis showed that a sizable proportion of students crafted emotionally laden relational responses addressed to the researchers, spanning a broad spectrum ranging from gratitude through skepticism to angry suspicion. For some students, interest in their school experience was very empowering, giving students a sense of recognition and of being heard. Other students showed discomfort with the quantitative survey as a research tool. The study argues for the existence of relational stances in quantitative research and suggests that these be taken into account in planning the research and interpreting the results.

Keywords:

• Assessment
• evaluation
• relational stances
• secondary education
• survey research

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1 One author of this paper is from the original research team and one is not.

2 Presenting research as beneficial to students, if not explicitly then implicitly, as our questionnaire did is not rare in educational studies (see Cooper Robbins et al., 2012).

3 According to Landis and Koch, a kappa of 0.0 to 0.20 is considered “slight” agreement; 0.21–0.40, “fair”; 0.41–0.60, “moderate”; 0.61–0.80, “substantial”; and 0.81–1.0, “almost perfect” agreement.

4 A pretense at true relationship is also a challenge for qualitative researchers. Carol Gilligan was struck by this when, in interviewing an 11-year-old girl and assuring her that “this interview is just between you and me,” the girl interjected: “and your tape recorder.” When Gilligan explained that only the other members of the research group would listen to the tape, the girl asked, “Then why don’t they just all come into the room?” (see Gilligan, 2011, p. 6).