DRAFT ONLY … DRAFT ONLY … DRAFT ONLY …DRAFT ONLY
Foregrounding issues of consent in visual research with children: ethical tales
from the field
Renold, Emma, Amanda Coffey and Bella Dicks.
Cardiff School of Social Sciences, Cardiff University.
Introduction
It could be argued that ethics become of greater concern in social research that uses
visual methods and social research in which the participants are children because of
the power of the visual and the power relations of researching with children and thus
the “ambiguities, ambivalence and resulting questions of responsibility” (Papademas
2004:123) that can arise. This paper offers some thinking in progress around these
issues by reflecting upon visual ethnographic fieldwork with young children (age 6-7)
on a school trip to a local science discovery centre (Coffey et al. 2006). Some of the
ethical issues under consideration include the contentious nature of negotiating
‘informed consent’ with children under the surveillance of adult gate-keepers, the
temporality of ‘consent’ in relation to the research process (before, during and after)
and the impact of moral panics around representations of the ‘digital child’ on the
process of negotiating consents. All indirectly and directly attend to the problematics
of confidentiality and anonymity and the issues of representation in a visual project
which sought to negotiate consent with children in active participatory ways.
The project: visual ethnographic research with young children
The paper draws upon a research project designed to develop an integrated, digital,
hypermedia environment for data collection, analysis and authoring in qualitative
research. The project built directly on previous methodological work undertaken by
the research team (Dicks and Mason 1999; Mason and Dicks 2001; Dicks et al. 2004).
A primary aim of this research was to address the theoretical, methodological and
empirical implications of undertaking substantive qualitative research that exploits the
full possibilities of contemporary information and communication technologies. This
was attempted through undertaking a multimedia ethnographic project of one research
site, and seeking to document, analyse and represent ethnographic data in digital,
hypermedia form.
While the main focus of the project was methodological (and is the focus of this
paper), there was also significant substantive focus, through the detailed ethnographic
exploration of an interactive science discovery centre. The centre receives a
substantial element of its funding from a local government education budget, and is
also a major visitor attraction to a city site that has undergone and is undergoing
major regeneration. Hence the science discovery centre has both an education and an
entertainment remit. The centre offers a number of different opportunities and spaces
for visitors, and especially (primary) school age children, to engage with science.
These include an exhibits hall and a science theatre. The exhibits hall (see figure 1), is
a large open ‘interactive’ space, in which are situated multiple gadgets, machines,
computers and devices (‘exhibits’), designed to be easily operated by children. In the
science theatre (see figure 2), ‘performances’ of scientific themes are presented on
stage by live presenters to visiting groups of schoolchildren.
Figure 1
Exhibits Hall
Figure 2
Science Theatre
The project sought to explore and understand the kinds of scientific knowledge that
are produced with/in the discovery centre, and how these are communicated to, and
received by visitors, particularly primary school children. Hence we were interested in
exploring the ways in which the centre creates environments and spaces for science
engagement and learning, the ways in which scientific knowledge is reproduced and
performed through exhibits and theatre, and the ways in which children interact and
engage with (and reflect upon) the exhibits and shows.
Research activities
The project adopted an ethnographic approach to the generation of data collection and
the generation of research questions. Hence data collection was exploratory and our
analytical ideas emerged from our data. We conducted an intensive period of
fieldwork at the science discovery centre, utilising digital technologies. Data
gathering strategies included participant observation, qualitative interviews, focus
groups, soundscapes and the collection of documents (including annual reports,
brochures and posters). Data recording strategies included still photography, digital
audio recordings and digital video, alongside ‘conventional’ ethnographic fieldnotes.
Research activities included working with staff throughout the centre (including
education officers, management, exhibit designers and builders, and helpers on the
‘floor’), engaging with children, teachers and families visiting the centre, participating
in primary school trips, and working with children at school prior to and following the
school visit (the latter being the focus of this paper). The project therefore had an
extensive multimedia data set documenting the everyday activities and work of the
science discovery centre, and the ways in which various significant social actors
(centre staff, children, teachers, and families) interact with, and reflect upon their
engagements with/in the centre.
The data were archived and are being analysed and (re)presented using digital,
hypermedia technology. This has meant exploring and exploiting various
technological solutions for working with and across a range of different media and
data types. Moreover our aim has been to develop an ethnographic hypermedia
environment in which to present and represent both the original data and analytical
interpretations of those data. In sum then, the project that we have undertaken was
specifically designed as a demonstrator project – to explore and document the
practical and methodological accomplishment of qualitative research in the digital
age. The choice of research site also provided an opportunity to consider a range of
issues and challenges of undertaking such work in an educational and entertainment
setting (see Coffey et al. 2006), and with a variety of social actors, including primary
school age children, and the ethical issues and challenges that such an approach can
bring. For example, our decision to visually and textually record a school field-trip via
video camcorder and fieldnotes afforded a range of methodological possibilities and
helped address a number of ethical dilemmas, some anticipated, some unanticipated.
We specifically chose to use two researchers to observe the school trip to the science
discovery centre, with an explicit aim to compare and contrast the methodological
implications of using and integrating textual (pen and paper) and audio-visual
(camcorder) forms of participant and non-participant ‘observation’. We also planned
to (and did) use edited video clips of the children’s visit in our second phase of data
collection, when we returned to the primary school to invite children to reflect upon
their experience [link to next para]
Ethics and research with children:
We come from the starting point that methods are fundamentally embedded within
epistemological and ontological frameworks. This runs counter to the ‘tool-box’
approach of purpose for fit, as if methods are somehow atheoretical (i.e. not guided by
a conceptual framework) and thus separate from, initially un-informed by, or only
follow and never precede (such as in much ethnographic work) substantive research
questions. For those researching the field of ‘personal experience’ then, the ways in
which we conceptualise what we know and how we go about knowing are rooted in
our particular theorizations of the social and the subject. The ways in which theory
informs method, hence the term methodology is well recognised within the field of
critical social science studies, although is somewhat downplayed in research methods
textbooks and edited collections on research with children (although see, Christensen
and James 2000 and Pole et al. 1999) and either absent (BSA and BERA guidelines)
or actively denied in professional ethical codes of conduct (ESRC’s REF 2005). Thus
we are mindful of the need (as suggested by Pole et al. 1999) for those working in the
field of childhood studies to locate and scrutinize what one of us (Renold et al. 2006)
has termed ‘method/ological and theoretical synergy’, and thus how our own
perceptions of the local, global and historically specific ‘child’ and specifically in this
project, the ‘child-as-pupil’ shape our methodologies and inform our ethical values
and practice.
Although it is not the purpose of this paper to explore these issues, it is important to
foreground the political backdrop to the ways in which government rhetoric and
practice has embraced notions of child participation and participatory methods.
Indeed, such developments have been greatly informed and underpinned by a range of
social research documenting the experiences and perspectives of children – work that
has provided a fundamental challenge to the social construction of the ‘child’ as
passive recipient imprinted upon or socialised by society, and a fundamental
recognition of children as socially competent and active agents fully implicated in the
construction and maintenance of their social and cultural worlds and actively caught
up in processes of subjectification.
Re-framing children as participants in research (rather than objects, see Woodhead
and Falkner) and developing participatory approaches which necessitate researching
‘with’ rather than ‘on’ children (Mayall 1994) has a long and varied history (see Prout
and James 1998, Qvortrup 1994; Oakley 1994). Essentially this shift came about from
confronting the way in which (particularly pre-teen) children have been (and in many
ways continue to be) perceived almost as alien ‘others’ with their own and distinct
‘alien’ worlds that are somehow separated off from the ‘adult’ world. Much of this
thinking derives from outmoded yet deeply embedded developmental theories and
their conceptual frameworks in which children are positioned as ‘immature’,
‘culturally neutral’, ‘passive bystanders’ within processes of socialisation (see James
et al. 1998; Woodhead and Montgomery 2003). Consequently, children’s accounts of
social reality and personal experience are rarely taken as competent portrayals of their
experiences (Hutchby and Moran-Ellis 1998) with children rarely exclusively
participating as subjects of study in their own right or what Barrie Thorne (1987)
referred to as the denial of ‘conceptual autonomy’. In terms of ethics, Christensen and
Prout neatly summarise how this perception of the child as object framed research
relations:
This approach more or less neglects the understanding of children as persons in their
own right … their lives and welfare are investigated from the perspectives of adults
…. researchers (are) suspicious of children’s trustworthiness and doubtful of their
ability to give and receive factual information. Children are perceived as incompetent
and accordingly unable to understand the idea of research, lacking the ability to
consent to it or have a voice in its design, implementation and interpretation”
2002:480)
Foregrounding children’s conceptual autonomy, locating children as active social
agents via participatory methods, and in particular, ethnographic methods (as the
methodological gold standard of ‘hearing children’s voices’, see James and Prout
1990/8) is in many ways our own approach to research with children. In particular, we
critically engage with Leena Alanen’s position to design and conduct research from
the ‘children’s standpoint’ (adapted from feminist-standpoint epistemology), that is,
empowering, respecting and giving voice to children as knowledgeable and active
subjects (although recognising these are contested, yet desirable concepts) and using
the research process as a vehicle to enable children to communicate experiences that
are important to them. In their discussion of ‘ethical symmetry’ Christensen and Prout
(2002) stress the need for researchers engaging in participatory research to connect
with children’s own ‘local cultures of communication’ by paying attention and
establishing a dialogue to better understand “the social actions of children, their use of
language and the meanings they put into words, notions and actions” (2002:483) in all
their complexity, temporality and diversity. Indeed, like many other projects, the use
of visual methods for data generation has considerable potential for making
ethnographic fieldwork both pleasurable and participatory (see for example, Bolton et
al. 2001; Rasmussen 2004; Young and Barrett 2001a and 2001b; Gauntlett and
Hlawarth 2006; Brannen 2005; Flewitt 2005; Clarke et al. 2002; Buckingham et al.
2001). In our own project, for example, the majority of children were very familiar
with camcorders with over half of the children having one in their home. We found
that using video and photographic methods enhanced children’s direct participation in
the research process in a number of ways. Taking photographs or video footage was
something the children immediately understood, and already had experience of in
their lives (this contrasted with the ways in which taking notes in a field notebook was
more difficult to explain). Many were excited to “be on the tele” and talked to the
camcorder (personifying it as “Cammy”) directly to the extent that it almost became a
third researcher. For example, the children would rush up to Cammy and with the
words ‘come on Cammy’ directed the researcher behind the camera around the
research site, eager to draw attention to events and artefacts that they wanted
recorded. We could also share footage immediately with them (in ways that are often
not possible with illegible fieldnotes) and in terms of reciprocity in research relations,
we were also able to very quickly share our ‘data’ with the children, returning to their
school with photographs and video (and later a DVD which they could keep and take
home). The children’s interactions with the camcorder and the images were thus
purposeful and reflective and, in some ways, disrupted many of the asymmetrical
power relations between adult researchers and child participants during the fieldwork
stage, for the children at least1.
Although levels of child participation vary from project to project (from the lofty aims
of including children at all stages of the research to minimal participation such as
choice over research method, or as in much ethnographic research wielding some
control over the direction of the research) most researchers, in their rationale for
choosing a participatory approach, foreground the ways in which it has the potential
to disrupt and blur the frequently asymmetrical power relations, while acknowledging
1
In line with many other research using visual methods, many adults were reluctant to be filmed (e.g.
all teachers and parent helpers on the school trip declined to be filmed, with many ducking out of the
way of the camera if it shot in their direction). Thus the pleasures many of the children experienced
were certainly not shared by the adults. Thus the inclusion of visual methods had differential impacts
upon participation, engagement and access for adults and children.
or exploring the challenges that such an approach entails (David 2002, Smith et al.
2002, Stafford et al. 2003, Pole et al 1999, Holt 2004, Grover 2004). Discussing
methodology and its relationship to method, Pole et al. (1999) for example, reflect
upon the ways in which theoretical desires to promote and realise children’s agency
are routinely thwarted in an adult-centric world in which cultural and structural odds
are stacked against children as being anything but ‘participatory’ in the research
process. Thus, as many researchers embarking on participatory research with a view
to disrupting rigid structural generational hierarchies (or what Pole et al. 1999 term
lack of ‘age capital’) the participatory ethos is frequently compromised in the first
stages of access via a range of adult gate-keepers. Our own project was no exception
with its own multiple hierarchies of access, although as will be outlined and discussed
in more detail below, recognising and attending to structural generational hierarchies
and in particular children’s own cultures of participation (in addition then to
connecting with children’s local cultures of communication) was central in going
some way to disrupt the ways in which young children are frequently positioned
through a range of regulatory discourses and practices (see Devine 2002) as passive
subjects rather than agentic actors with little ‘voice’ when it comes to their rights as
‘pupils’ and indeed ‘citizens’ within the institutional space of the school to shape
practice or policy. In terms of the ways in which children-as-pupils are constructed
within school discourse (and frequent lack of participation) we generated
methodological techniques which disrupted conventional forms of participation, from
disrupting (adult) question and (child) answer sessions within group work by using
video-footage rather than direct questions to explore children’s reflections of their
experience of the science discovery centre through to the ways in which we
negotiated the various hierarchies of consent and indeed children’s own consent to
participate in the research. And it is our approach to consent within our commitment
to ‘ethical symmetry’ in which “the rights, feelings and interests of children should be
given as much consideration as those of adults” (Christensen and Prout 2002:493) that
we critically explore below.
Young children and ethnographic research: the (im)possibility of informed
consent
We take as our starting point, that notions of informed consent cannot be easily
separated out from other ethical issues (such as respect, protection from harm,
anonymity, confidentiality etc.) and is located in specific socio-political and historical
moments and thus mediated by the ways in which ‘the child’ is constructed and
represented (from public discourse to legislation). For example, since the respect for
children’s rights has grown with the UK’s ratification in 1991 of the United Nations
Conventions on the Rights of the Child (particularly article 12 which specifies that
children have a right to express views on all matters that affect them) and the legal
grey area (via Gillick ruling) in which it is possible for children’s consent to override
parental dissent (see Alderson and Morrow 2004) children’s consent to research has
been taken increasingly seriously. Professional guidelines (SRA; BSA 2002; BERA
2004; MRS 2005; ESRC’s REF 2006) now specify that children’s consent must be
sought in addition to obtaining parental (or equivalent) consent and that researchers
must ensure that children are provided with opportunities to withdraw their consent
are made available throughout the research process. Indeed the temporality of
consent, as something always in process, always in negotiation and always in a state
of renewal (Thorne 1987) is something that is recognised and thus supported in the
ESRC’s research ethics framework under ‘participatory research methods’:
In the case of participatory social sciences research, consent to participate is seen as an
ongoing and open-ended process. Consent here is not simply resolved through the formal
signing of a consent document at the start of research. Instead it is continually open to
revision and questioning. Highly formalised or bureaucratic ways of securing consent shdoul
be avoided in favour of fostering relationships in which ongoing ethical regard for
participants is to be sustained, even after the study itself as been completed. (ESRC 2005:24,
para 3.2.2).
Indeed the acknowledgement of the ‘open-ended’ and ‘on-going’ nature of consent in
participatory approaches (e.g. ethnographies) are particularly pertinent to the
frequently provisional, partial and indeed changeable nature of the ways in which
young children can be simultaneously keen and reluctant participants. As we explore
in more detail below, the ways in which institutionalised settings such as schools
close-down rather than open-up spaces in which children can refuse to participate (see
Heath et al. 2005), the grey legal area on children’s consent and the UNCRC
foregrounding children’s rights have all facilitated and shaped our approach to the
negotiation of consent from the hierarchy of adult gate-keepers and specifically from
children themselves in a multi-media ethnographic research project, all of which
involved lengthy yet crucial discussions on the temporality of consent in relation to
initial access, participation during fieldwork and representation following fieldwork.
Participation: consent and time present
Opting in, opting out: negotiating consent with adult gate-keepers
As many researching with children are familiar, it is almost impossible to directly
negotiate consent with children without first gaining access (and thus consent to seek
children’s consent) from either one or multiple adult gate-keepers. In the case of the
local primary school, an initial access letter proceeded by a follow up phone-call and
a visit to the school to meet the head teacher and classroom teacher (of the class we
would be accompanying to the science discovery centre) to discuss the project (see
information leaflet, Appendix A) all had to be negotiated before we could introduce
ourselves and our project with the children and their parents. To achieve the starting
point of ensuring that children were sufficiently informed and thus could
‘provisionally’ (Flewitt 2005, see below) consent to and thus participate in the
research project, we took an ‘opt out’ approach to parental consent and an ‘opt-in’
approach to children’s consent. The decision of an ‘opt out’ approach for
parents/guardians was informed by our own political and theoretical position of
assuming children’s competence (supported by Alderson 19972) and the knowledge
that this was a relatively undemanding short piece of fieldwork (3 days maximum)
generating data on a non-sensitive topic. In liaison and with the consent of the class
and headteacher, our ‘opt-out’ approach involved sending a letter home (via children)
and encouraging children to discuss the project and their possible participation, with
their parents (NB. the children also had their own leaflets).
To ensure that parents did not become overly protective (see Aldereson and Morrow
2004) or anxious over sharing the visual images of their children being (even within a
relatively small educational/social science community) in ways that might prevent or
override children’s own desire to participate in the project we separated out
participation from dissemination. Our ‘consent’ letter (see Appendix B) thus stated
Alderson’s view is that we should assume that school age children are ‘gillick’ competent (and thus
the onus would be on parents/guardians or teachers in locoparentis who disagree to prove
incompetence).
2
that parents would be contacted at a later date regarding issues of representation. On
reflection and in hindsight this softly softly approach was perhaps overly cautious
given children’s own positive comments when asked by the two researchers (Renold
and Soyinka) on what their parents thought about them being ‘on film’. As a
consequence, our anxiety levels decreased and on our next school visit (which
involved meeting and filming a group of children at the centre) we included in our
‘opt-out’ letter the ways in which the data might be used (see Appendix C).
Negotiating ‘provisional’ (Flewitt 2005) consents within asymmetrical power
relations: time past, time present, time future
Foregrounding children’s consent was provisionally negotiated informally in our first
meeting with them (a week before the fieldtrip) as a whole class and then in informal
group and individual conversations at playtime. We then returned to the school the
day before the fieldtrip and spent 15-20 minutes at each table (approx. 5 children on
each) talking through in ways they seemed to understand and engage in, the aims of
our research (children’s experiences of and reflections on the exhibits and shows at
the science discovery centre), the research methods (e.g. taking fieldnotes still
photographs and moving image via camcorder and radio-mikes placed on 5 children),
the research activities (accompanying children on school trip, talking with children in
groups about their visit) and type of dissemination (producing a DVD for use and reuse for educational purposes). This included a hands on introduction to the camera,
camcorder and fieldnote diary. What was interesting during discussions was the ways
in which the children were excited about being ‘on the tele’ or ‘on film’ and then the
same children said they were a ‘bit shy’ and ‘not sure about being filmed’. Two
children (one girl, one boy) changed their minds over four times during the morning
session. In relation to the radio-mikes, some were very keen and others were adamant
that while they enjoyed being filmed, they didn’t want to be hooked up with radiomikes. On the day of the trip, however, almost all of the children wanted to be
‘tracked’ with the radio-mikes and the majority of the children were visibly excited
about being filmed for the day (running up to the camera with smiling faces, laughing
and waving their arms to attract our attention, including the original ‘reluctant two’).
Those that weren’t sure had no problem in turning the camera away or ducking its
gaze. Thus, what became increasingly noticeable both during our discussions around
participation before the trip and during the trip was that how the children seemed
more than happy to be part of the project and share their experiences with us and
specifically, in relation to our multi-media approach, they all seemed to be making
informed choices over whether or not and the extent to which and the way they
wanted to be filmed (via camera or radio-mike). Moreover, the ways in which some of
the children were frequently changing their minds by withdrawing and re-engaging
consent also drew our attention to the impossibility and meaningless activity in this
context of consent as a one-off activity and as already indicated above. Indeed the
ways in which children ducked out of the camera’s gaze or embraced the camera and
directed its gaze really foregrounded active consent and consent as always in
negotiation and in process.
Representation: consent and time future
We recognise that the non-sensitive nature of the projects substantive aims has
afforded greater flexibility in terms of digitising the data and the technological
possibilities for wider access and sharing of data, although made more challenging by
undertaking some of the fieldwork with young children (6-7). However, where
consent can be constantly renewed and negotiated at the level of participation, there
comes a time, on ‘leaving the field’ when issues of representation in terms of future
use of visual data cannot be continuously renewed. Our original idea to show a DVD
of selected episodes of the fieldtrip with parents and children after school as a way of
discussing some of our key substantive ‘findings’ (e.g. the ‘wow’ factor with the
exhibits) and a way of demonstrating the kinds of footage that we would like to share
with the educational and social science community was not taken up as a viable
option with the class teacher (mainly due to time constraints). As a compromise, the
class teacher offered to distribute the DVD’s to all the children from them to take
home and watch/share with their parents. However, while this enabled some form of
ethical reciprocity, re-negotiating consent from children and informing parents of our
intended use was at that time unresolved. A decision was thus made to send an ‘optout’ letter via the school to parents informing them of the intended use of the visual
and audio data and to re-visit the school at a later date, when we were ready to
disseminate more widely and more importantly when the children were two years
older (age 9) and perhaps in a better position to reflect on and think through whether
or not they would be happy with making this data more widely available. We are
currently discussing a range of audio or textual release forms and the possibility of
negotiating with the school some time to enable a discussion to take place with the
children from the original field visit their thoughts about the use of visual data where
children like themselves might be identifiable (although as a 6-7 year old, rather than
a 9 or 15 year old). The dilemma which we may face is discussing what would happen
if some children are adamant that they do not want to be identified. In such a case
anonymisation could only be achieved through ‘blurring’ faces (which for many of
the research team evokes feelings of unethical unease in the extent to which it erases
identities which sits uncomfortable in a participatory project to foreground children’s
experience and perspective). While it is possible (although time consuming) to edit
out the visual data from the school trip and the follow-up visit, this strategy which
would effectively exclude children’ voices, bodies, faces, identities, experiences and
participations from innovative qualitative research would by default create an ‘adults
only’ space within this kind of qualitative enquiry. While on one level (in relation to
the Data Protection Act 1997 and the law in relation to copyright and gillick
competence) we could share the visual data given that children themselves (as the
subjects of the research and thus of the data) all verbally agreed at the end of the
fieldwork period for the research team to share the visual, textual and audio data with
other researchers, our own professional and personal ethical values would be
compromised if we did not endeavour to re-inform parents and re-negotiate
consentfrom children and thus really foreground some of the issues around what it
means and how it feels to consent to representations during participation (at the age of
6/7) and renew that consent at age 9/10. We hope, if we are successful in returning to
the school to explore these issues further, that this will generate much needed and
further insights on the ways in which children feel about being involved in a social
research project using visual images a couple of years after the research has been
completed (see Hill 2005). [not very well articulated I know!!]
Conclusion
Taking photographs or video footage of children has unsurprisingly exacerbated a
range of ethical concerns about anonymisation, representation and data sharing. The
extent to which anonymisation is possible, or indeed desirable, with regard to visual
data is an issue that we continued to return to as a research team. In the project on
which this project draws the ethical manifestations of digital and multimedia research
practices have been a matter of ongoing debate and concern in discussions both within
the research team and with research participants. This paper, we hope, is a modest
contribution to sharing and engaging in the kind of ‘collective responsibility’ and
‘collective dialogue’ identified by Christensen and Prout (2002:494) as necessary to
inform the ‘strategic development of ethical research practice’ – particularly in
relation to some of the issues around consent and anonymisation in (visual) research
with child participants. Working with multi-media data generation and representation
techniques provide particularly exciting possibilities for research collaborations with
children. Being a research participant is at once a more active and visible role, and
researchers in turn can promptly share data with them. However using visual images
of children in the communication and representation of a project within an
increasingly heightened ethical climate (from Data Protection Acts to Research Ethics
Commitees) is problematic. Indeed our own heightened awareness of the moral panic
of what could be termed the ‘digital child’ informed our own cautious strategy of
prioritising participation over representation. This though leaves a dilemma for social
scientific research, where dissemination and communication are key components.
Visual methods are becoming an increasingly important aspect of social scientific
inquiry, and offer exciting possibilities for innovative, engaged and participatory
research practice. We would wish to argue that they are especially well suited to
undertaking research with children and young people. Our own experience has made
us increasingly aware of the need for open dialogue on the possibilities, limitations
and problematics of using and sharing visual data where children are research
participants. Researchers of course need to be guided by professional ethical codes
and personal ethical values, ensuring that protection from harm, informed consent,
respect and dignity remain paramount aspects of research practice. We are also
convinced that the ethical hurdles are not insurmountable and that the participatory
possibilities and pleasures of taking part in such research are important ones for both
researchers and participants.
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Appendix A
Experiencing science @ Techniquest
Who is doing the research? This project is a research collaboration between the Cardiff
School of Social Sciences and Techniquest. The project team are Dr Amanda Coffey, Dr
Bella Dicks, Dr Emma Renold, Bambo Soyinka, Bruce Mason, Matt Williams.
Aims of the research The project is exploring how Techniquest communicates ideas about
science to visitors, and the processes of teaching and learning that take place as a result of a
visit to Techniquest. We are also particularly interested in children’s and teacher’s
experiences of the exhibits and shows. We are keen to explore how children anticipate the
visit, what occurs during the visit and how they reflect upon the visit afterwards. In addition
we are interested in how class teachers view Techniquest as a teaching and learning resource,
and what reflections they have on the school visit.
Research activities The project team are engaged in a number of research activities,
including observing the day-to-day running of Techniquest, interviewing key staff,
documenting the ways in which shows and exhibits are produced and received. One of the
ways in which we are gathering these experiences is by following a small number of school
trips to Techniquest.
What will it involve? The ‘school trip’ research activity has three parts. First, we would like
to visit the class shortly before the trip. The main research activity would be the school visit
itself. We would like to accompany the class as they travel to Techniquest and undertake their
visit. This would also include attending the show with them, and observing them in the
exhibit hall. Finally we would like to talk to the children in small groups about their visit to
Techniquest and if the class is engaged in any follow up activities we would welcome the
opportunity to observe these.
Multi-media and consent The research project is employing a range of multi-media
techniques for recording data and activities. This includes some video and still photography,
and audio recording. Children will have the opportunity to see the recording equipment prior
to he school trip, and appropriate permissions will be sought from parents/guardians, teachers
and children. The research team have considerable experience of undertaking research with
children and young people and are sensitive to ethical considerations.
What will it be used for As outlined above, a main of the research is to explore how
Techniquest communicates ideas about science to children and how children experience
science at Techniquest. For each school a visit a multi-media report will be provided at the
end of the project.
Questions If you have any questions or concerns please contact Bambo, Emma or Amanda
by e-mail or by phone on the numbers and addresses listed below.
Contact details:
Bambo Soyinka (029 2087 5123; Soyinkab@cardiff.ac.uk)
Emma Renold (029 2087 6139; Renold@cardiff.ac.uk)
Amanda Coffey (029 2087 5501; Coffey@cardiff.ac.uk)
APPENDIX B
Dear parent/guardian,
Re. Visit to Techniquest on Wednesday 4th June
I am writing to you on behalf of a research team at Cardiff School of
Social Science. We are engaged in a project to investigate how
Techniquest communicates ideas about science to children. As part
of this project we will be spending a period of time with <name of
school> School, observing what the children and teachers do
before, during and after their trip to Techniquest. We will be using
video-film and photography to record our observations.
If you do not want your child to be filmed please let <name of
teacher> know. Alternatively, if you have any questions about our
project, feel free to contact Emma Renold on 029 2087 6139 or
Bambo Soyinka on 029 2087 5123.
When we have finished the research we will make video clips and
photographs available for parents and children to watch. We will
write to you again to seek further consent if we want to reproduce
the video and/or photographs on an educational web-site or in a
book.
Yours sincerely
Bambo Soyinka and Emma Renold
on behalf of Emma Renold, Amanda Coffey, Bella Dicks, Mathew Williams and
Bruce Mason.
Email: soyinkab@cardiff.ac.uk
Email: renold@cardiff.ac.uk
Project website: http://www.cf.ac.uk/socsi/hyper