Research #4 & Dissertation Writing - The anomalies, who is different and why?

Why do people hold alternative view points to the main bulk of society?
Why do some people choose to study the supposed lesser-academic, soft, "fake" subjects?

To answer this question I would like to make that point that intelligence is not innate, it changes over the lifespan of an individual and when studying intelligence it is important to note that there is not any one type of intelligence but rather there are many different types of intelligence such as street smarts and academic ability based intelligence, but there are many other types out side of this.

In links to intelligence, some people are better at academic subjects and have very good written communication skills but the opposite is also true, some people are better at subjects where their is less written work and more practical based work. These are the so called anomaly in society those that share beliefs of mutual respect for the soft subjects and believe that there is no superior subject or show the complete opposite belief that practical is better than academic as it is applicable in labour jobs and also jobs outside of offices.

People who differ from the norms by preferring the soft subjects are often less academically inclined and have low academic ability but not all are like this, some are both academically inclined and prefer the soft subjects. The fact is that people who take subjects such as those from the expressive arts are more likely than not to be worse at academic subjects.

Research #3 - Student Interview No. 1

I interviewed a number of students to see their attitudes toward subject choice and what they deemed real subjects, soft subjects and academic as to check the beliefs of students one-to-one.

As to remain integral to the study and not ruin the ethics of the study the participant's name has been changed to John, no information other than the fact he attends the school and is in year 13, plus subject choice for analysis, shall be given away as to keep the study ethical.

John, a year 13 student here at Tupton Hall Sixth Form, who I interviewed, claimed that subjects such as psychology, sociology, media studies, law, health and social care, Religious Studies, Music, art, drama, photography, dance, hospitality and catering are not real subjects, they are not academic and the arts are not as important as science and maths.

John studied Computer Science, Business Studies (this was ironic as he made a remark that if it has studies in the name it isn't a real subject) and also Economics. He believed that computer science was useful as the world was becoming increasingly influenced by the media, he also believed that business and economics were easy subjects and so he would get easy grades in them.

In conclusion, John was your typical student taking on views that maths and science were superior subjects and claiming that the expressive arts and anything that could be deemed as remotely as a soft subject were not useful and were poor subject choices.

Results from study #2, Year 12 study

The results from this study were invalid due to the bias presented from the sample and so I have chosen to eliminate these results and rely solely on the year 13 results, from study one, as the results from this study showed high bias, low generalisability and extremely low validity and so the study is not true to life in any way and the results show clear and undeniable error that leads me to conclude that the results and conclusion should be stricken from the record for undeniable and truly preposterously invalid results.

Study #2 - Year 12 and Subject Choice

My Conducted Study Of The Chosen & Respect Of Subjects Offered At A-Level:

Hypothesis:

1. People will chose to study academic studies over non-academic studies.
2. Academic studies are the most respected studies
3. Lesser-academic studies are the least respected studies

Sample:

Self-Selected/Volunteer Sample - I went into a year 12 form room and requested volunteers to be apart of the study and received a biased sample of students (who were mostly apart of the same friendship group, did very similar subjects and had very similar attitudes and values)

Data Type:

I gathered quantitative data as it was most useful and easy to translate into comparative methods like correlation. I collected this data in the form of three tally charts. This allows anonymity of the participants as no personal data has been acquired nor is required to take part in this study.

Reliability:

The method I highly reliable as it was a standardised procedure that I repeated for every participant, it also was a tally chart and every participant was asked what subject they did, what they respected the least, what subjects they respected the most.

Generalisability:

This study was not generalisable due to the biased sample I gathered through the self-selected sampling method and as they were almost all friends doing the same subjects and did not have differing attitudes to make it generalisable.

Research Method:

This was a interview where students were asked what subjects they did, which ones they respected the least and which they respected the most.

Experimental measures design:

N/A

Ethics:

Participants were briefed and filled out consent forms that gave them full details about the study. The participants names were not used and so they have confidentiality. I have also offered the participants a chance to withdraw from the study. Also participants were not deceived about the study, this however did invalidate my results see below.

Validity:

Participants did suffer from demand characteristics and interviewer bias because they knew the intentions of the study, therefore they may have chanced their answer to suit the study and what they believe I, the researcher, would have wanted to hear. This was particularly evident with one student who's results had to be stricken from the record. The sample biased my results and rendered my study invalid because they shared similar values towards subject choice and shared the same subject choices.

Study References

Student Room Forums:

Academic subjects -
https://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=2110711

Most & Least Respected Subjects
https://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=180984

Subjects & Student Views
https://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=3446227

News Articles:

Arts decline in schools - 

https://news.sky.com/story/arts-decline-in-schools-short-sighted-and-morally-wrong-says-arts-council-england-head-11836265

Blacklisting method of the working class students from state schools -

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/top-universities-using-a-secret-list-242896

University and subjects:


Cambridge official site -

https://www.trin.cam.ac.uk/undergraduate/applying/a-level-subject-combinations/

Hull University -

https://www.hull.ac.uk/choose-hull/study-at-hull/admissions/undergraduate/entry-requirements.aspx -

Politics and Subject Choice:


Labour Party Education Manifesto -

https://labour.org.uk/manifesto/education/

Views on Subject Easiness Rating:

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/649891/Perceptions_of_subject_difficulty_and_subject_choices.pdf 

Will be updated as study and research continue...

Research Project #2 - Student Attitudes & Values

Upon looking into students' attitudes towards subjects being regarded as "hard" and "soft" subjects I found out that students often gravitated towards the "academic" subjects being classified as hard and "lesser-academic" subjects being viewed as soft. I tested this by looking online across various forums, mainly the student room, to which I found myself surprised to see such close minded and prejudiced individuals who bullied and ridiculed students for subject choice, claiming their subjects were not academic and soft subjects that they might as well drop out or do real subjects.

After studying such values for an extended period of time these attitudes do not surprise me and seem to be a cultural norm here in the united kingdom possibly due to the way that the government prioritises in education, mainly on memory recall and less on elaboration. (see below evidencing from OECD learning styles PowerPoint ) The United Kingdom is high in memorisation, the highest, and low in elaboration, the lowest.

Often note worthy when looking at actual values of students would be the rigidness of the categorisation of hard and soft almost to the point that these values have been instilled in them from a young age by a system of education. For example, "Anything with 'studies' at the end is probably on the soft side" This shows the typical view that some subjects just shouldn't be regarded as subjects even though they should be held on equal grounds. (see references)