CONTENTSThe quality of the information we gather is more important than the quantity. We want to make sure that the information we gather provides us with the evidence we need to evaluate our practice in terms of what works well and what doesn't, thus providing direction for change.
Me pehea tātou e whai mohiotanga? | How will we find out?
We gather together the information we need by using the records and/or the processes we identified in preparing.
For example, we might seek feedback on the effectiveness of a particular policy or teaching strategy by asking others, or we could collect information by observing one another. We might also look through our daily diary to see the sorts of comments parents make about a particular issue, or we could revisit children's profiles to check that we really do involve children in documenting their own learning.
There are 2 main ways we can gather information.
Quantitatively
We can gather it quantitatively by counting or measuring number-based information. Processes such as questionnaire scales, multi-choice questions, and duration or event recordings of observations can assist us in gathering information quantitatively.
Qualitatively
We can gather it qualitatively by discussing and recording ideas or comments. Processes such as open-ended questions, recorded conversations, or narrative recordings of observations can assist us in gathering information qualitatively.
When gathering information, we draw on a range of information sources to ensure that we have a sound evidence base from which to make judgments about our practice. In gathering information, we will want to consider issues such as:
Example
The Aratika Educare review team found that gathering information took longer than they had anticipated. This was partly because they discovered that their original plan needed adjustment once they got under way. Their description of gathering highlights the interwoven aspect of review – where movement back and forth between parts of the process is sometimes necessary to provide the most relevant information.
Here is their story.
As there was a lot going on, we worked hard to avoid putting any pressure on anyone to participate. Some aspects took longer than expected, and others were very easy to administer. For example, the parent survey took a lot of time for the review team to design in a way that would give us the information we needed, but it was very quick for parents to do and for us to make sense of. We chose to use a 5-point scale based on our previous survey. We felt that this would give parents options for a wider variation of responses.
Having parents involved in the development of this survey was so good. We changed a lot because the parents would say things like “Well, what is that? You need to give me some space on this form, some space where I can talk about things that are important to me – like the gate that annoys me every time I come into the centre – where is my space to write about that?” This made us think about being open to other things that we hadn't thought about before, or to priorities that other people had, which led us to develop a format that provided more blank spaces for comments.
In our original plan, we said that we would read through each profile, but with only 5 teachers on the review team, this proved to be unrealistic. In the end, we decided to narrow it down to the investigation of 2 profiles from each member of the larger teaching team (as each teacher is responsible for a group of children's profiles). These were randomly selected. We have 20 staff across both centres, so this meant analysing 40 profiles!
We also decided to take a closer look at book 5 of Kei Tua o te Pae (Assessment and Learning: Community), which had recently arrived in our centre. We did this to see if there was any important information that we should be considering in our investigation of the profiles that we might not otherwise have considered.
We revised our review plan to take in these changes and to include a longer timeframe and the provision of teacher-release time to enable the teachers to gather the information from the profiles.
- Are we sure that this information will give a fair representation of this aspect of practice?
- Do we have confidence that this information will provide evidence to inform our judgments?
We monitor the gathering process to make sure that the information we gather and the way we gather it represents an authentic view of our practice. It would be unwise to gather information that was incomplete or flawed in some way. We want to make sure that the time and place where information was gathered represents an ongoing reality rather than a one-off event. For example, Aratika Educare could have chosen to survey only the parents on their management committee or to select profiles from the most experienced teachers. However, in doing so, their selection would not have represented the views or practices of the whole centre. Section 3 provides further examples of issues to consider when gathering valid and reliable information to use as evidence for review.
