The design and use of a mapping tool as a baseline means of identifying an organization’s active networks¹

1. This article is based on the work of Learning How to Learn in Classrooms, Schools and Networks. This was a four‐year development and research project funded from January 2001 to July 2005 by the UK Economic and Social Research Council as part of Phase II of the Teaching and Learning Research Programme (see http://www.tlrp.org). The Project (ref: L139 25 1020) was directed by Mary James (University of Cambridge until December 2004, then at the Institute of Education, University of London) and co‐directed, from 2002, by Robert McCormick (Open University). Other members of the research team were Patrick Carmichael, Mary‐Jane Drummond, John MacBeath, David Pedder, Richard Procter and Sue Swaffield (University of Cambridge), Paul Black and Bethan Marshall (King’s College London), Leslie Honour (University of Reading) and Alison Fox (Open University). Past members of the team were Geoff Southworth, University of Reading (until March 2002), Colin Conner and David Frost, University of Cambridge (until April 2003 and April 2004 respectively) and Dylan Wiliam and Joanna Swann, King’s College London (until August 2003 and January 2005 respectively). Carmel Casey‐Morley and Nichola Daily were project administrators. Further details are available at: www.learntolearn.ac.uk.

Abstract

As part of the Learning How to Learn in Classrooms, Schools and Networks Project, a mapping tool and associated interviews were devised to capture practitioners’ views of the networks associated with their schools and local authorities (LAs). This article discusses the development and use of the mapping tool, including its trialing, and the first stages of analysis. The task was open‐ended asking respondents to represent with whom and how their organization communicates. LA advisers and officers offered an LA‐based perspective and both headteachers and school project coordinators offered a school‐based perspective. Forty‐eight maps have been collected from 18 schools and 5 LAs. Theoretically, the development of the mapping tool draws on three main areas of work—sociograms dating back to the 1930s, social network analysis, currently being used by Finnish researchers, and the work of Mavers et al. in mapping children’s representations of the virtual world of computers. Initial discussion of the range of map structures drawn by respondents is presented. In all cases it was possible to extract from the maps a list of people, groups, places and events, termed nodes, and information about how these nodes were connected, termed links. Most maps were organized around one or, in some cases, two central nodes. Descriptive analysis of both nodes and links has been used both to give respondents feedback on their maps, incorporating them in the validation of further analysis, and for comparative purposes. Respondents were largely positive about both the mapping task as a useful, reflective task to focus on their networking activities and the validity of the feedback given to them. Map representations are also explored from a spatial perspective with reference to ideas drawn from Sack and Castells. Reference is made to networked learning communities as supported and developed by the National College of School Leadership and also the Government’s Virtual Education Action Zone initiative, examples of which were represented in the project.

Notes

1. This article is based on the work of Learning How to Learn in Classrooms, Schools and Networks. This was a four‐year development and research project funded from January 2001 to July 2005 by the UK Economic and Social Research Council as part of Phase II of the Teaching and Learning Research Programme (see http://www.tlrp.org). The Project (ref: L139 25 1020) was directed by Mary James (University of Cambridge until December 2004, then at the Institute of Education, University of London) and co‐directed, from 2002, by Robert McCormick (Open University). Other members of the research team were Patrick Carmichael, Mary‐Jane Drummond, John MacBeath, David Pedder, Richard Procter and Sue Swaffield (University of Cambridge), Paul Black and Bethan Marshall (King’s College London), Leslie Honour (University of Reading) and Alison Fox (Open University). Past members of the team were Geoff Southworth, University of Reading (until March 2002), Colin Conner and David Frost, University of Cambridge (until April 2003 and April 2004 respectively) and Dylan Wiliam and Joanna Swann, King’s College London (until August 2003 and January 2005 respectively). Carmel Casey‐Morley and Nichola Daily were project administrators. Further details are available at: www.learntolearn.ac.uk.

2. The analysis of the electronic communication data is reported in Carmichael and Procter (2006).

3. See Cordingley (2003) and the National College of School Leadership web site: www.ncsl.org.uk/index.cfm?pageid=nlc‐index.

4. Details of the trialling and pilot analysis, along with preliminary data, have been presented in an exploratory paper drawn from seven maps (James et al., 2003).

5. Thus, although we cannot avoid referring to ‘the network’, there is no implication that there is some complete (even if unseen) network that could be drawn. See Carmichael et al. (2006) for a discussion of complete and ego‐centred analysis of networks.

6. The lack of an associated transcript for some school coordinators, may underestimate the number of nodes they might otherwise have offered.

7. These two subsamples did not have similar numbers of nodes per map set, perhaps because of the lack of transcripts for some of the coordinators or limitations in opportunity to make connections (time restrictions and nature of their jobs; unlike headteachers, they usually have a substantial teaching commitment).

8. For example, the strength of links is related to the nature of the information transferred (Carmichael et al., 2006; Fox et al., 2006a, b).

9. This section draws on comments by the four task administrators and three researchers involved in feedback generation, along with the data from respondents.