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Jon Swain

Many social science undergraduate programmes include modules where students are asked to carry out a small piece of qualitative research. This usually takes the form of interviews with real people. Although sample sizes are usually quite small (2-5 people), getting to grips with the resulting data can nevertheless be daunting for a novice researcher.

This blog post outlines the guidance I use with my own BA students, which, they tell me, is a clear and an effective method of showing them how to organise and begin to analyse interview data. The beauty is in its simplicity. (more…)

Ask A Professor is an occasional blog by UCL IOE academics. From now on it will appear as part of the IOE London blog.
 
A teacher at the London Festival of Education this past Autumn asked about the Green Party’s plans to abolish Ofsted. What would replace it or could we do without an inspection system?
In this audio clip Dr Melanie Ehren describes the work of Ofsted and explains why some teachers have called for its abolition. She compares it to other quality assurance systems in Europe and elsewhere, and discusses the impact of Ofsted on national policy making and on parental decision making. She is enthusiastic about the increasing sophistication of inspection in understanding the contribution of school networks to excellence in education.
https://blogs.ucl.ac.uk/ioe/files/2015/11/ehrenedit.mp3