Visually based reflections on a learning dispositions framework

This paper will be based around the methodological issues inherent in collecting and analysing visual data gathered as part of the base line information for the first year of the ‘Learning to Learn in Schools Phase 4’ research project. This project is funded through the Campaign for Learning and aims to explore how the development of lifelong learning can be fostered in schools. It builds on a dispositions framework of the ‘5Rs’ which was constructed as part of Phases 1 to 3 (Rodd, 2001; 2003; Higgins et al. 2007). These dispositions are Readiness, Resilience, Resourcefulness, Reflectiveness and Responsibility and aim to give schools, teachers and pupils a starting point from which dialogue, enquiry and innovation around learning can happen (for more information on the methodology see Higgins et al. 2007; Baumfield et al. 2008 and Baumfield et al. 2007). The project includes more than 40 schools, including both primary and secondary age phases, from four socio‐geographically different regions in England. This paper present the methodological challenges and initial findings from using visual methods to investigate to what extent students in the project are interpreting these dispositions using a visually based methodology (Prosser, 2007) and will evaluate pupils’ interpretations and understandings of the Rs and how they relate to their learning. Teachers were asked to invite their students to draw their own representations and interpretations of the Rs and submit them to the Campaign for Learning as part of a competition in the first term of the project. All of these drawings will be analysed by the University team. The data for this paper is therefore drawn from the visual representations submitted by the students for the different dispositions. Analysis will be conducted by the authors as an iterative process of theory and construct generation (Glaser, 1992) using the common themes and representations used by the students. These will then be used to create a classification of students’ views of learning as supported by this framework.