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Using focus groups to support conceptual development in social studies

Jody Plummer
Abstract: 

What supports students to develop their conceptual understanding? Taking part in focus groups helped the Years 9 and 10 Māori and Pasifika students in this study to focus on understanding the concepts underpinning social studies units, rather than the content. Discussions between students in the focus groups resulted in the students clarifying their understandings and gave formative information to the teacher to help plan next steps.

Journal issue: 

Using focus groups to support conceptual development in social studies

JODY PLUMMER

Key points

In this study, discussions in small focus groups helped enhance the conceptual understanding of Years 9 and 10 social studies students.

Aligning focus group activities, classroom activities and learning goals with the key concepts from the achievement objectives helped shift the teaching and learning focus to concepts rather than content.

Information from discussions in the focus groups provided formative feedback that directed future teaching.

The focus groups acted as a learning community, with students working together to help each other learn.

The focus groups provided a metacognitive environment, where students were given a variety of strategies to monitor and reflect on their learning goals.

What supports students to develop their conceptual understanding? Taking part in focus groups helped the Years 9 and 10 Māori and Pasifika students in this study to focus on understanding the concepts underpinning social studies units, rather than the content. Discussions between students in the focus groups resulted in the students clarifying their understandings and gave formative information to the teacher to help plan next steps.

Introduction

This article reports findings from two years of action research I undertook as I embarked on a journey to shift the focus of my teaching so that I could better support students to recognise and understand the key concepts underpinning social studies learning. The main approach that I explored was the use of student focus groups. In contrast to a traditional market research structure and format, focus groups in my action research were loosely structured, ongoing and involved the same group of students through an action research cycle. They blended learning tasks with discussion. The focus groups resembled a group of siblings—sharing their opinions, values, understanding, perceptions and experiences about their learning, typically over a packet of biscuits.

Methodology

Over two years, and in different classes, I carried out four cycles of action research in relation to my classroom practice. The research was carried out in a decile 4 coeducational secondary school in an urban setting. Two cycles of action research carried out in the first year were part of a Ministry of Education-funded collaborative project, Quality Teaching Research and Development in Practice Project: Social Studies, aimed at improving Māori and Pasifika student achievement. In the first year the focus group consisted of six Year 10 social studies students: three male, three female; four Pasifika, two Māori students. These students were selected to ensure a gender balance and met a school-wide focus on raising the achievement of Pasifika and Māori students. The students represented a cross-section of the academic abilities of students based on a range of data. The focus group met for one hour each week throughout Term 2 as part of the formal action research project.

In the second year, the focus group initially consisted of four Year 9 social studies students, all male, and of Māori and Pasifika ethnicities. This met the school’s strategic focuses of continuing to raise achievement of Pasifika and Māori students as well as male students. In Term 3 this group expanded to include three female Year 9 social studies students of Pasifika, Māori and Asian ethnicities.

In the second year I undertook the research independently, continuing to use focus groups as they were used in the earlier action research cycles with some differences in structure and format. They were now held fortnightly, over an extended form spell and interval.

Data were gathered from a range of sources: recorded interviews; focus group notes and audio recordings; common assessment tasks; student written and verbal reflections; student workbooks; student portfolios; student reflection notebooks; and student home learning.

The names used throughout this article are pseudonyms chosen by students. Where they did not choose a pseudonym, I have selected a different name.

Research questions

My research questions morphed over time, as I came to know more about my practice and students’ needs. My focus in the first year was on improving my Māori and Pasifika students’ conceptual understandings; that is, knowledge and ideas about society and participating in it. My initial research question was about the impact of discussions at home (relating to homework tasks) on students’ conceptual understanding of migration (cycle 1) and discrimination and prejudice (cycle 2). In the second year, I shifted the focus of my research to exploring the impact of the focus group process on students’ level of conceptual understanding and metacognitive skills.

Literature that informed my action research

Three main areas of literature supported my research and subsequent reflections: the use of focus groups in schools; developing conceptual understandings; and supporting metacognition. There was a lack of relevant literature that connected these areas to learning in social studies. However, I was able to take some key ideas from existing sources and build them into my process of action research.

First, the idea of using semistructured, in-depth interviews as conversation, as used in the Te Kotahitanga project (Bishop & Berryman, 2009). The Te Kotahitanga project uses Years 9 and 10 Māori student voice to enable teachers to gain an understanding of their students’ experiences in the classroom, ultimately with the intent of improving teacher–student relationships, teacher pedagogy and Māori student achievement. The first phase of the Te Kotahitanga project involved the use of semistructured, in-depth interviews as conversations to produce narratives of experience (Bishop, Berryman, Tiakiwai, & Richardson, 2003, p. 27). These conversations were then analysed, with the intention of “promot[ing] change in their [teacher] practices through their critical reflection on what students are reporting of their classroom experiences” (Bishop et al., 2003, p. 28).

Second, Afamasaga-Fuata'i’s (2004) ideas about assessing student conceptual understanding. Conceptual understandings are the generalisations learners develop about the nature of a concept or set of concepts. A range of conceptual understandings can be associated with one concept (Ministry of Education, 2009, p. 6). Conceptual understanding varies in depth. At a surface level, for example, students may be able to label, sort and define concepts. At a deeper level, students may develop networks of connected knowledge structured around those concepts (Ministry of Education, 2009). Afamasaga-Fuata'i (2004) uses concept maps and vee-diagrams as strategies to assess student conceptual understanding in mathematics, and to scaffold students’ critical thinking and reasoning in problem solving. She presents a variety of ways these strategies can be used.

Third, the idea of “alignment” as an important mechanism in developing learners’ conceptual understanding, as suggested by Aitken and Sinnema (2009). Alignment involves accessing and evaluating students’ prior conceptual understandings, ensuring that activities are aligned to the learning purpose and sequencing learning activities so that multiple opportunities to engage with concepts and ideas are provided.

Fourth, the idea of developing a metacognitive environment. This is based on sharing power and making thinking and learning processes clear to students, which both reduces teacher reliance and enables students to uncover blocks to their learning (Aitken & Sinnema, 2009). Strategies suggested in the literature to promote metacognition include: the ongoing use of monitoring and reflection on students’ concept maps (Askell-Williams, Lawson, & Ellis, 2008); the co-construction of strategies with students so that they have greater ownership and control of the learning process (Butler, 2002); having conversations about task difficulty and identifying strengths and weaknesses in relation to the task (Tomlinson & McTighe, 2006); and determining successes and next steps (Steer, 2007).

Using focus groups in social studies

Conversations in focus group sessions were based around three tasks:

1.The use of a concept circle diagram to monitor shifts in the students’ confidence about their understanding of concepts. The students placed those concepts that they felt they had mastered in the centre of a series of concentric circles (much like a dart board), those that they were still unclear about in the outer circle, and the rest somewhere in between. This stimulated a great deal of discussion as students sought to articulate their understanding of each concept and the connections between them.

2.Conversations students were having about their learning with others inside and outside school. To encourage these conversations and help stimulate metacognition, I had students keep a record of them in a learning notebook. I gave them a choice of who they spoke to (anyone they had a significant relationship with, not just someone at the same address) to address some of the barriers they were experiencing to discussing learning at home: distractions, parents overseas, shift work and the nature of relationships at home.

3.A co-operative task to embed or introduce new concepts. For example, students identified the concepts used in a sequence of lessons and ranked the importance of each concept to the context under investigation. Students need to be able to justify and discuss their reasons for the ranking, which often resulted in students reassessing their initial ranking. In one focus group discussion about the migration of a girl their age from Samoa to Auckland, the students decided that integration was more important to the context than assimilation. Their reasoning was that “she can be whatever she wants to, bits kiwi, bits Samoan rather than having to be one culture”.

In the first year, semistructured interviews provided the format, with preset questions and statements designed to guide the discussion, such as “What were the main push factors we looked at this week?” when working on the unit Impacts of Migration. I tried to find natural opportunities in the conversation to link their thinking and experiences into the focus for learning, and gather their ideas about what they wanted to happen in class. These sessions were audio recorded to support later reflection. In the second year a typical format developed: an open discussion about “what’s on top”, their concept circles and what had been covered in class, followed by a co-operative task. I kept notes concerning what students said, including their explanations, judgements and opinions.

Changing teacher practice

Adapting current practice to refocus on concepts

To better align classroom activities with the key concepts in the social studies achievement objectives, I made sure that unit planning was concept led. In each unit, I identified the key concepts from the relevant achievement objective, and related concepts derived from these, to provide a larger field of concepts. Learning intentions and success criteria had a conceptual focus and this was discussed with students to make the outcomes more visible. Previously, these were focused on content.

Flying in Fives were adapted to try to get students to transfer concepts to their local context/community. Flying in Fives are short activities designed to get students engaged in learning within five minutes of entering the class, and often involve revision of previous learning. They also act as a diagnostic tool. Examples of this were: “How could the government and community build social cohesion in migrant communities?” and “Is there social cohesion in our community?” Flying in Fives were also used to encourage reflection. Students assessed their coverage of concepts by referring back to the concept domains to identify the concepts they were relying on more heavily. Students were encouraged to work with others who could support them to use the more challenging concepts.

In addition, I paid more attention to what I was setting for home learning. The home learning now provided greater opportunities for students to develop their understanding of concepts, see the connections between these concepts and their own experiences, and encourage collaboration and discussion beyond the classroom. For example, one option in a home learning task about the Discrimination and Prejudice unit was: “Ask someone at home about a time they were treated unfairly or differently because of [their] age, ethnicity [etc.] … Record what they have told you.”

Development of new strategies with a concept focus

Concept circles were used with the whole class. For example, each Monday all the students would map their understanding of key concepts, compare diagrams with previous ones to monitor shifts, and discuss this with their peers and myself.

“Start and finish boards” provided an opportunity for students to demonstrate the shift in their understanding of concepts. Throughout each unit, students would store samples of their work that provided evidence of their use of concepts, selected by reflecting on the success criteria, discussing their work with peers and through conferencing with me. Students made annotations about what the work showed and the shifts that had occurred in their thinking. For example, in reflecting on a task where the students had to colour code a piece of text, Iosefa was able to identify his area of confusion:

As you can see at first you can see I was confused because of the two colours that are mixed together and it shows [I] didn’t really understand the word[s] push factor, pull factors and challenge.

Though he didn’t describe what he now understood by these terms on the finish board, he was able to confidently distinguish between them in discussion with me.

Focus group discussions informed the direction of future classroom and home learning activities by providing formative feedback. For example, I noticed through these discussions that Sione began relying on a small set of related concepts, rather than venturing out and using more challenging concepts. Using this information, I designed classroom activities that would support Sione and others to use a wider range of concepts.

Change in students’ conceptual understanding and metacognitive approaches

Understanding and transferring concepts

All students developed a greater understanding about the concepts that underpinned each unit of work, and could connect these to evidence and information. In the unit Impact of Migration, Kaihautu and Iosefa began to clarify their understanding of social cohesion through discussion with each other: “All the Indian people are coming together,” said Kaihautu. “That’s social cohesion, all the Indian cultures came together,” said Iosefa. Through that same discussion both students were able to link the concept of social cohesion to a current event in South Auckland in June 2008, in which Sikh liquor store owner Navtej Singh was killed in a robbery, spurring widespread complaints from the wider Indian community at the lack of protection provided by the police. In another example, and again in a focus group discussion, the students were asked to choose which concepts were related to a story about a girl moving to New Zealand. The students decided “perspectives” was the central concept: “It should be at the top coz she has a lot to say,” said Henry. “Her own opinion, her story,” added Kaihautu.

Iosefa also demonstrated the transfer of conceptual understanding. He was able to transfer the idea that decisions have positive and negative implications immediately and in the future from the context of Tibet to the migration of refugees:

The decision that these people/refugees have made was a positive and negative decision. This is positive because they are safe from the war, the violence and the racism. The negative effect is that the children will not be able to learn their own language so they then have to learn a new language. It is also negative because they have to find new homes.

This change was also reflected in the assessments. A general pattern that emerged was that students were able to use concepts in response to a question in the assessment tasks. Students often supported their use of concepts with examples. The success of this varied between students, with some making greater improvements than others.

Enhanced metacognition

Student written and verbal reflections suggested that the greatest shifts might be in the students’ metacognition about their conceptual understanding and the activities that supported this learning. In one reflection form, Kylie wrote that the biggest shift for her was in relation to perspectives thinking: “[I’m] writing more, going into depth, thinking deep, thinking in their shoes, what it would be like to be in their position.” Students were also better able to select strategies to achieve their next steps, and describe why these were helpful. Sione, for example, chose to underline concepts when he was using them in his writing and found diagrams helpful to illustrate how concepts linked. Others got a peer to check that they were using a range of concepts and not relying on the same ones.

Enhancing students’ identities as learners

A shift in the students’ identities as learners was also noticeable. Students developed a greater understanding of what they were learning and the helpfulness of different strategies to support and monitor their learning. Referring to his repeated use of a concept circle, Pockets said: “You think they [the different concepts] mean something else but then when you actually start learning them you know that they don’t mean that so you put them out [to the outside of the concept circle] and then you start learning them and they come into the middle.” Many students were pleasantly surprised about how far they had come in their conceptual understanding and/or motivation to learn:

I didn’t know that if you move there would be consequences so this term we have been learning about all sorts of people moving from Samoa in to New Zealand and how it affects others and consequences they would get. I didn’t even know that if you go into a country without permission there could be consequences. (Iosefa)

When we started I did not know anything about migration or integration. I did not even know what a push factor was. So we learned about it and we learn about harder words that I never heard in my life, one is called social cohesion. I tryed [sic] my hardest to learn about them and every Monday at school we get a sheet of all the words and we had to place [them] ... if I know one I put it in the middle and if I don’t I have to put it out of the circle. (Sione)

I also observed greater engagement and interest by students in their learning. For example, Iosefa explained: “I have achieved things I never thought I would have achieved like getting Level 5 and 6 in social studies.”

Learning how to learn from others

Over time I noted that the classroom began to function as a learning community. Focus group students emerged as leaders as their confidence and understanding of how to achieve learning goals increased. They supported their peers by modelling learning strategies, often clarifying concepts and making suggestions of how they could improve. It appeared that focus group students gained as much from this as their peers as they could clarify and confirm their own learning as well as having “on task” discussions with their peers. Pockets said “the group” had made a biggest difference to his social studies learning and explained: “You can talk to each other and, like, see what they mean and everything.” Others commented that the encouragement they got from their teachers and friends helped their learning.

Using focus groups to support achievement in social studies

What was it about using focus groups that made this difference? First, aligning focus group activities, classroom activities and learning goals was foundational to supporting the development of conceptual understanding and metacognition. Previously the link between these was often tenuous. The achievement objective/big idea became the centre of planning rather than content. Importantly, flexible planning allowed me to use the assessment information I was gathering to provide multiple opportunities for students to engage with relevant concepts.

Second, the ongoing nature of the focus groups—with the same participants—appeared to influence their effectiveness. By meeting regularly, students created a group identity and bond, built upon a common interest in working together to achieve their learning goals. It was evident in the focus group discussions that each member felt responsible and therefore contributed to discussions and activities in meaningful ways. In particular, making the learning transparent to each other became the centre point of discussion. Key to the success of open discussions in the focus group was the shared understanding that we were working together to help each other learn. Significant value was placed on students contributing and sharing their thoughts about their own and each other’s learning. Many of the focus group students commented on the encouragement they received from their friends that had a positive impact on their learning.

Third, the focus groups provided a metacognitive environment. Students were supported with a variety of strategies to monitor and reflect on their learning goals. This required that students understood their learning goal and were able to identify their starting point. Though these differed for each student, because each had a different level of previous knowledge and experience, the collaborative nature of the focus groups supported students to identify the progress they were making and formulate new goals.

Conclusion

In this action research project student focus groups were effective in supporting the development of student conceptual understanding in social studies. I found focus groups to be flexible and versatile in nature and therefore a valuable tool for teachers and students. I hope that this article provides ideas and examples to enable teachers to target conceptual understanding in social studies.

Next steps

This article set out to explore the use of focus groups within action research cycles in ways that are practical for day-to-day teaching practice and illustrate how focus groups can inform teacher inquiry in an ongoing manner. Given that this research is exploratory, further research in this area is warranted. Through my action research I have identified additional areas for exploration:

What impact does the use of student focus groups have on other social studies outcomes (cultural identity, skills, affective and participatory)? Finding ways to explore the interactions between outcomes could reduce the fragmentation/compartmentalisation of learning that occurs in social studies.

How could the focus group process be used to support students to carry out individual inquiries into their learning? In doing so, students would be able to identify more clearly what they are learning, describe how the learning is meaningful and how they are making progress in their learning. This could be expanded further into students sharing their self-inquiries with their peers and/or using their evaluations of their learning as models for the others so that they can also carry out inquiry into their learning. In doing so, these students become leaders of learning.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Andrea Milligan for her invaluable support and guidance. In addition, I would like to thank the students in my social studies classes who have been willing to try new things and explore their learning in social studies.

References

Afamasaga-Fuata'i, K. (2004). Students’ conceptual understanding and critical thinking? A case for concept maps and vee-diagrams in mathematics problem solving. In M. Coupland, J. Anderson, & T. Spencer (Eds.), Making mathematics vital: Proceedings of the twentieth biennial conference of the Australian Association of Mathematics Teachers (AAMT) (pp. 8–17). Sydney: University of Technology.

Aitken, G., & Sinnema, C. (2009). Effective pedagogy in social sciences/Tikanga ā iwi: Best evidence synthesis iteration [BES]. Wellington: Ministry of Education.

Askell-Williams, H., Lawson, M., & Ellis, T. (2008, November). Classroom-based interventions to improve students’ learning capital. Paper presented at the annual conference of the Australian Association for Research in Education, Brisbane. Retrieved from http://www.aare.edu.au/08pap/ask081128.pdf

Bishop, R., & Berryman, M. (2009). The Te Kotahitanga effective teaching profile. set: Research Information for Teachers, 2, 27–32.

Bishop, R., Berryman, M., Tiakiwai, S., & Richardson, C. (2003). Te Kotahitanga: The experiences of Year 9 and 10 Māori students in mainstream classrooms. Retrieved from Education Counts: www.educationcounts.govt.nz/publications/series/9977/5375

Butler, D. (2002). Individualizing instruction in self-regulated learning. Theory into Practice, 41(2), 81–92.

Ministry of Education. (2009). Approaches to building conceptual understandings in the social sciences. Retrieved from Te Kete Ipurangi: http://www.ssol.tki.org.nz/

Steer, B. (2007). A thinking journey teaching and learning in the year 7 classroom. Teacher: The National Education Magazine, June, 40–43.

Tomlinson, C., & McTighe, J. (2006). Integrating differentiated instruction and understanding by design. Alexandra, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

JODY PLUMMER is currently the Learning Area Leader of Social Sciences at Onslow College, Wellington.

Email: jody.plumm@gmail.com