Abstract:

Some groups of young people have been identified as particularly vulnerable to negative outcomes of school closure and moves to home learning. However, assumptions of vulnerability must be examined and not simply accepted at face value. This study used an innovative methodological approach and the opportunity presented by COVID19 to explore empirically established theoretical ideas of school education as one possible cause of difficulties some young people have managing their behaviour in school. The aim was to investigate whether, as the literature would predict, some aspects of education under lockdown were experienced positively by pupils with a history of disruptive behaviour.

The Research Questions addressed were:
1. What aspects of home-schooling/ blended learning promoted engagement with learning, and which presented most challenges, for pupils with a history of disruptive behaviour?
2. Where there were positive experiences, how can these be explained?

One group frequently identified as ‘vulnerable’ is young people whose behaviour gives schools cause for concern. The associations between having behavioural problems at school; exclusion from school; diagnosis of disruptive behaviour disorders; and growing up in poverty are well-established. Many concerns around poor educational experiences during the pandemic relate to poverty: access to internet, data and devices; access to space and reluctance to engage online from a chaotic household. There is also concern about young people who have spent more time in households affected by domestic violence, parental mental ill health and addiction issues. This study did not seek to minimise or challenge these concerns, however, there has been little or no consideration of whether not being in school might be advantageous for some young people. If there were positive aspects, it is important to understand them and to consider to what extent they may be transferable to the post-pandemic context.

This study was methodologically innovative using qualitative data from 13 (to date) triadic interviews with young people, their parents and a member of school staff to generate an holistic account and shared understanding each young person’s experience. Underpinning the approach is the understanding that the same event will be experienced differently by different participants. However, the aim of the research was to build, as far as possible, a shared understanding of the educational experience of the pupil over the previous few years, by bringing participants together to share their accounts in a supportive environment. In traditional approaches the different perspectives would be elicited independently, with the researcher making judgements about how to interpret conflicting accounts. By supporting the triad to identify areas on which they can reach agreement, this resulted in a more richly authentic account than where the researcher does this triangulation work alone. The interviews were recorded and transcribed and analysed thematically. The analysis was largely inductive, although informed by previous research. As well as coding the content of the interviews, coding also attended to the shared construction of the narrative, and therefore avoided decontextualization with connecting strategies employed to also identify the structure of the narrative within the transcript. This presentation will focus on methodological challenges and lessons learned as well as presenting preliminary findings.

Keywords:

Behaviour, secondary education, triadic interviews, school closure.