High School Students 'Talk Back' to the Anonymous Researcher behind the Questionnaire

Routledge. Available from: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. 530 Walnut Street Suite 850, Philadelphia, PA 19106. Tel: 800-354-1420; Tel: 215-625-8900; Fax: 215-207-0050; Web site: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals

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13

Foreign Countries; High School Students; Student Attitudes; Student Participation; Educational Research; Student Surveys; Likert Scales; Student Experience; Student Empowerment; Grade 11; Educational Researchers

10.1080/00220973.2019.1573795

0022-0973

This paper discusses high-school students' perspectives on their participation in educational survey research. Students responded to a Likert-style questionnaire about their school's social-educational portrait and were invited at its end to briefly comment on the survey itself. Qualitative analysis showed that a sizable proportion of students crafted emotionally laden relational responses addressed to the researchers, spanning a broad spectrum ranging from "gratitude" through "skepticism" to "angry suspicion." For some students, interest in their school experience was very empowering, giving students a sense of recognition and of being heard. Other students showed discomfort with the quantitative survey as a research tool. The study argues for the existence of relational stances in quantitative research and suggests that these be taken into account in planning the research and interpreting the results.

As Provided

2021

EJ1282439