Using material from Item A and elsewhere, assess the strengths and limitations of
experiments for the study of labelling. ( 20 marks)
Mark the essay below using three different colours:
Colour 1 : Methods only (advantages and disadvantages
Colour 2 : Education and methods
Colour 3: Methods applied directly to issue
There are two main types of experiments: laboratory and field experiments, both of
which have advantages and disadvantages.
Sociologists rarely use lab experiments, however, because they are concerned with
physical things rather than social issues such as education.
As Item A mentions research has found that teachers sometimes label pupils unfairly
which can affect pupil’s self-esteem, and as a result, educational results. This process
is known as labelling.
One practical advantage of using experiments in a school would be that if using a
field experiment which has the advantage of being more natural than a lab
experiment, the teachers might act naturally towards the pupil as they wouldn’t know
what was happening. However, this would be an important ethical disadvantage as
deception and lack of informed consent would mean that the research would be
unethical. An example of a field experiment which showed this disadvantage was the
one carried out by Rosenthal and Jacobson on labelling and teacher expectations. An
advantage of a field experiment in schools is that it can be repeated and therefore
show labelling taking place year after year. However, in practice, in terms of teaching
styles, age of pupils etc it is unlikely that the experiment could be replicated exactly.
A major practical problem for the use of field experiments into labelling would be
getting access to the classroom or school itself. The researcher would need to ask the
permission of the headteacher, governors, teachers and children themselves especially
if they were carrying out research into labelling which might endanger the pupils for
example, by negative labelling by teachers, or show the school in a bad way. Schools
today are very concerned about marketing themselves in a favourable way as this can
affect student applications and numbers. Negative publicity could affect these issues.
Moreover, the children might not understand the purpose of the research because of
their age, intelligence or problems with language. However, if the true purpose of the
research was known then it may affect the purpose and the outcome into the
experiment.
Schools are large, complex institutions in which many variables may affect teacher
expectations and consequently labelling. For example, teachers may be influenced by
a wide range of variables such as class size, streaming, type of school and so on. In
practice, it is impossible even to identify, let alone control, all the variables that might
exert an influence on teachers expectations and labelling.
Lab experiments have a major disadvantage in that they are small scale and it is
difficult to control all the variables. However, a lab experiment by researchers
examined whether teachers had preconceived ideas about pupils of different social
class. They showed teachers photographs of children from different social
backgrounds. To control other variables, the photographs were equally divided in
terms of gender and ethnicity. Teachers generally rated lower class pupils less
favourably. Lab experiments that do not involve real pupils, such as the above study,
have real ethical problems than those that do as children suffered negative effects.
However, others that have used real pupils have major ethical concerns especially due
to a young person’s vulnerability and their more limited ability to understand what is
happening. In addition, lab experiments generally only concern one issue of teachers
expectations such as body language- although this is useful because the researcher can
isolate and examine this variable more thoroughly, it means that teacher expectations
is not seen in the wider process of labelling and the self-fulfilling prophecy.
Another disadvantage of lab experiments is that they are not carried out in the real
world and therefore findings could not necessarily be applied to labelling in real-life
class room situations.
Whilst positivists favour experiments due to their objectivity and high reliability,
interpretivists criticise them because they lack validity and do not show the true
nature of the situation in real life.
Finally, the influence of the Hawthorne effect, which means that teachers and pupils
are unlikely to act naturally if they know they are taking part in an experiment which
means that results are not valid and are likely to be untrue.
How many marks would you give this out of 20?
How could you apply more strengths and weaknesses to the issue of labelling?