Concern 3: Reflexive space

General background

‘Reflexive researchers’ examine how they do their research, in recognition that certain research practices can generate only the results that the researcher is looking for. Some RESPECT participants raised this concern about their research projects, although they didn’t use the term that has been coined by the CEIEC team. Participants were aware of the risk that when they ask parents their views - e.g. about the Centre’s program - parents will say what they think staff want to hear and/or that the questions themselves might invite particular responses that, left to themselves, parents might not make. (This concern is related to ‘Teachers as experts’ because of the possibility that parents will defer to staff expertise when answering their questions.)

Lessons from the case studies

The RESPECT project offers two lessons about ‘Reflexive research’.

1. Any and all researchers have the potential to influence the outcomes of their research, but this potential is increased when research subjects regard researchers as experts in their field (as is the case with parents and early childhood staff).

2. Early childhood researchers - especially practitioner-researchers such as participated in the RESPECT project - need to be aware of their potential to influence the outcomes of research with parents and act to prevent this.

Participant actions and reflections

Participants’ concern is caught in Case Studies 3 (Lena) and 4 (Amber). Each Case Study highlights a aspect of the shared concern - the need for practitioner-researchers to be reflexive when doing research with parents. It is also caught in Lydia’s question:

Lydia: ‘Will they (parents) feel they have to write only positive comments and/or what they think we want to hear?’

Lena believed that despite staff expectations that parents will talk frankly to them about their child, parents often wish to make life easier for staff, so they don’t necessarily say what they really think. She was also concerned that under the guise of incorporating parents’ views, she was deciding what information is and isn’t relevant to her work with a child: ‘What I thought I was doing was telling parents that I value their knowledge and insight; but actually what I was doing was telling them what I think is important for me to know and in doing so benefiting myself because it makes my job easier.’

Amber was so concerned about the possible ‘directing’ effects of tightly-defined questions that she made it the central feature of her research with parents. She asked them a question that was as open-ended as possible, to reduce the risk that parents might think that there was a ‘right’ answer - i.e. the one she wanted to hear. Amber saw two reasons to believe that her strategy had worked. First, parents’ responses failed to reflect the Centre’s emphasis on educational outcomes, indicating that they responded in their own terms, rather in those of the experts. (One might ask, however, whether their responses reflected Amber’s resistance to such an emphasis!) Second, her question had led some parents to respond who had not spoken-out previously, perhaps indicating that these were their views, but that they had felt unable to express them before: ‘(I) asked questions to see parents’ expectations, values, morals; parents that were silent now speak more for children.’

Amber voiced her concern at the lack of adequate and appropriate time and space as part of her broader concern at the shift in early childhood education away from social and emotional development and towards educational outcomes. In her view, ‘Teachers are far more stressed - trying to impart knowledge, rather than relaxing enjoying being with the children and the children being with them. Thus, where is the nurture of the social/emotional child? Too busy!! Time!! Must meet tasks!! Need results!’

A question for reflection: Does an approach to the care and education of young children that is based on explicit, perhaps quantifiable outcomes necessarily put staff under time pressures? If the answer is ‘Yes’. How should regulators assess the quality of a service without using such outcomes? If the answer is ‘No’. How can an outcomes-based approach offer staff more time (e.g. for reflection, etc.) than they feel they have now?