Committee Reports > List of Committees > Joint > 2000 > Committee on Education and Science > Report - The Educational Research Centre

HOUSES OF THE OIREACHTAS

Report of the Joint Committee on Education and Science on the Educational Research Centre

July, 2000

CONTENTS

Page No.

2.Introduction

2.Presentation and Discussion

- History

- Current resources

3.- Research

5.Discussion with Members of the Joint Committee

7.Recommendations

Appendices

(i)List of members of the Joint Committee

(ii)Orders of reference of the Joint Committee

Introduction.

On 6th June, 2000, at the invitation of the Joint Committee on Education and Science, Dr. Thomas Kelleghan, Director of the Educational Research Centre at St. Patrick’s College, Drumcondra, made a presentation to the Joint Committee on the role and work of the Centre. Following his presentation, Dr. Kelleghan dealt with questions put to him by members of the Committee.

While this report does not purport to be an exhaustive examination of the role and work of the Educational Research Centre, the Committee’s meeting with Dr. Kelleghan was sufficiently thorough to give rise to a number of matters of concern which impact on the effectiveness of our system of education and which therefore need to be addressed expeditiously.

Presentation and Discussion.

History

Dr. Kelleghan informed the Committee that the Educational Research Centre had been founded in 1966, at a time when very little educational research was being carried out in Ireland. Apart from small scale research, two large studies had been carried out by the time the Centre was established - the Investment in Education Report and the MacNamara study of bilingualism. At that time, the State’s interest in education was broadening to include economic factors. It saw education as playing a role in economic and social development. It was felt that research was needed to support the increased activity by the State in the field of education.

While the Educational Research Centre was set up on the campus of St. Patrick’s College it remained outside the university structure, following the approach established with the ESRI and An Foras Talúntais. The functions of the Centre were not clearly defined on its establishment and these evolved and changed over time.

Current Resources

Dr. Kelleghan outlined the resources currently available to the Centre. It had fifteen researchers who were supported by seven clerical and administrative staff. The budget for 1999 was £785,000 provided by the Department of Education and Science through the Higher Education Authority. This represented about 0.0305 per cent of the money spent in the State on education or about three pence for every £10,000 spent: Dr. Kelleghan wondered how many businesses would function with that level of investment in research. Approximately 75 per cent of the Centre’s budget was accounted for by salaries while the remaining 25 per cent was used for survey materials and other expenses.

Research

Research could, said Dr. Kelleghan, be divided broadly into two main categories. Firstly, there was research which was directly relevant to teaching and learning, such as a study of methods of teaching. The second category was research relating to policy, i.e., decision making by politicians, managers etc. The two categories were not completely mutually exclusive as policy would, in time, impact on schools and on teaching and learning. The Centre worked at all levels of the education system, from pre-school to third level.

Most of the research undertaken by the Centre related to policy rather than to teaching and learning and much of this was in response to requests from the Department of Education and Science.

The research undertaken by the Centre could be divided into eight general categories:

Surveys of Practice or Conditions in Schools.

The Centre had completed, in the context of research on gender equity, a study of provision, practice and teachers’ perceptions of girls and boys in primary schools. The Centre was in the process of surveying factors associated with socio-economic disadvantage in primary schools. This survey, being carried out for the Department of Education and Science, was an effort to indicate degrees of disadvantage in all primary schools in the country.

Critical Analysis of Issues in Education.

Dr. Kelleghan informed the Committee that the Centre was currently researching the factors associated with early school leaving and the supports required to implement preventative and support services. This research, which was also commissioned by the Department of Education and Science, was being carried out using surveys, interviews and case studies in disadvantaged areas. The Centre had already completed a study of the extent and distribution of educational disadvantage throughout the country: a surprising outcome of that study had been the finding that there were numerically as many disadvantaged children in rural areas as in cities although most of the resources go to city schools. This study had led to the Breaking the Cycle scheme set up by the Department.

Evaluation of Services and Existing Provision in Schools.

Under this category, Dr. Kelleghan cited as an example a survey which had been carried out a number of years ago on the operation and effectiveness of remedial teaching services in primary schools. An analysis by gender, field of study etc., of public examination results had also been carried out over a number of years. The Centre had followed up at Leaving Certificate level students who it had surveyed at Junior Certificate level. The Centre was also in the process of surveying non-completion rates, both in universities on behalf of the HEA and in institutes of technology on behalf of the directors of the institutes.

Evaluation of Initiatives and New Programmes.

Beginning in 1969, the Centre had evaluated the Rutland Street project for disadvantaged children. More recently, Dr. Kelleghan said, the Centre had carried out a number of evaluations of new programmes, all of which related to disadvantage. These included the early start scheme, the home/school community liaison scheme, and the "breaking the cycle" scheme - this last evaluation was ongoing.

Development Work.

Over the years, the Centre had been involved in the development of standardised tests and profiling systems which teachers can use in assessing pupils. Dr. Kelleghan said that the Centre was, at present, working on the development of a diagnostic test for reading.

Monitoring the Outcomes of Education.

Dr. Kelleghan informed the Committee that interest in this area was relatively recent both in Ireland and globally. Rather than simply looking at the inputs to education, there was now an interest in examing how students were benefiting from being in the education system - although this was an issue in industrialised countries, the problem was particularly acute in developing countries where children often dropped out of school after as little as three or four years attendance and achieved nothing in that time.

The Centre had also been carrying out national assessments in certain curriculum areas such as reading and mathematics and it was proposed to extent the scope of its interest to other areas of the curriculum.

The Centre also took part in assessments with other countries of issues on an international level. Because of differences in curricula, language, translation of tests and other matters there were special difficulties involved in working at this level. Since the 1980s the Centre had participated, in respect of both primary and post-primary levels, in international studies in English, mathematics and science. It was also participating in a new OECD programme for international student assessment which would examine reading, science and mathematics among fifteen year olds, this being approximately the age at which compulsory schooling ends in most OECD countries.

At the adult level, the Centre took part a few years ago in the international adult literacy survey and the international results had been published.

Various Research Issues.

Other issues which the Centre has addressed include efforts to identify factors in students’ home backgrounds which affect their progress at school.

Services to Other Organisations.

Apart from its research work, the Centre also provided services to other organisations. In Ireland, for example, it was involved in the initial training of inspectors. Dr. Kelleghan himself chaired an expert advisory group on certificate examinations and a group on primary pre-service teacher education - this latter group would report later this year to the Minister.

At an international level the Centre provided services as requested to the OECD, European Union and the Council of Europe.

Discussion with Members of the Joint Committee.

Following his presentation, Dr. Kelleghan dealt with questions put to him by Members of the Joint Committee.

Dr. Kelleghan dealt with the extent to which the Educational Research Centre is free to decide its own programme of work. Most of the Centre’s funding was provided by the Department of Education and Science - £785,000 annually - and the Centre itself would raise approximately a further £100,000 per annum through contract work. The Government funding was, in theory, a grant-in-aid which was not tied to any particular projects. However, the Department would, from time to time, approach the Centre with projects which the Centre would, if feasible, deal with within its budget: where this was not feasible, the Department would provide supplementary grants.

In practice, a great deal of the Centre’s work was directed towards projects for the Department of Education and Science. This at least indicated an acknowledgement within the Department of the need for research and monitoring of trends. If the Centre decided entirely itself what areas it would target for research its work might be considered less relevant. The Centre did not have a Board which could make its own decisions in this regard although it was likely that a structure of this kind would be put in place.

With regard to access to the results of research carried out by the Centre, the Centre published the results of any research which it generated on its own initiative. Where it was working for a client, whether the Department or any other organisation, the Centre did not feel free to publish the results of its research without the permission of the client. It was not the case that the Department was in the position of a client in all cases where it asked the Centre to become involved in an area of work, a case in point being its involvement in the OECD project to monitor the educational achievements of fifteen year olds: although the Department had asked it to become involved, the Centre would not be reporting specifically to the Department on the outcome. In other cases, where a client pays the Centre for a project, whether the client is the Department or the HEA or any other organisation, Dr. Kelleghan did not consider that the Centre had a right of publication. The scarcity of resources was an issue as this meant that the Centre was somewhat constrained in deciding itself what areas to focus on in its research.

The scarcity of resources also affected the capacity of the Centre to exploit and analyse fully the data which it gathered. The Centre was simply moving from one project to another and trying to turn each around.

With regard to the practicality of the outcomes of the Centre’s research projects, Dr. Kelleghan explained that he did not always envisage that every project would produce an agenda or a solution - the projects would often become part of a broader context. There were many issues, in addition to research, which had to be considered before decisions on an issue were made. The aim of research was to inform debates on those issues: if research was always published the debate would be more transparent.

While there was often a considerable lapse of time between the initiation and the evaluation of a programme Dr. Kelleghan explained that this was a product of the need to allow time for a programme to become established, for the effects to take place and for the people involved to become properly prepared for an evaluation process.

Dr. Kelleghan acknowledged that there was a degree of overlap between some of the initiatives concerning matters relating to educational disadvantage. When decisions were being made on individual issues, the decisions were not made on the basis of single pieces of evidence about the performance of a particular programme. In the past, Dr. Kelleghan had collated research from various sources in relation to educational disadvantage and this had contributed to the establishment of the Breaking the Cycle programme.

Dr. Kelleghan dealt with other matters concerning the findings of specific research projects which, while important in themselves, are not directly pertinent to the purposes of this report.

Recommendations.

The recommendations beneath represent the initial views of the Committee only and these may be elaborated on further in a later report.

Management structure.

In view of -

(a)the desirability of making more widely and freely available the results of the research of the Educational Research Centre,

(b)the need for the Centre to initiate more of its own work,

(c)the need to facilitate a more independent approach by the Centre in determining its programme of work, and

(d)the need to generate more widely-based research on an ongoing basis,

the Joint Committee recommends that consideration be given to establishing an appropriately constituted board of management of the Educational Research Centre.

Work Programme.

For the purpose of addressing -

(a)the pressing research needs of the Irish education sector,

(b)the serious deficit in ongoing statistical information and other indicators and research on Irish education, and

(c)having regard to best international practice,

the Joint Committee recommends that, following its establishment, the board of management of the Educational Research Centre put in place a detailed programme of work and that the board indicate at an early date the scale of the budget required to enable it to pursue that programme efficiently and effectively.

Budget.

In view of the recommendation at (ii) above and, furthermore, in view of -

(a)the very small proportion of overall education spending represented by the grant-in-aid made available to the Educational Research Centre,

(b)the importance of research as a contribution to the education system,

(c)the need for new initiatives to be based on well grounded research, and

(d)the need to generate more widely-based research on an ongoing basis,

the Joint Committee recommends that the grant-in-aid to the Centre be increased to a realistic level in line with the needs of the Centre as determined by the board of management recommended at (i) above.

Michael P. Kitt, TD,

Chairman,

Joint Committee on Education and Science.

July, 2000.

Appendix (i)

List of members of the Joint Committee

Appendix (ii)

Orders of reference of the Joint Committee