What is research?
People always want to find out why things happen, and how they happen. Scientists do this by testing things, making rules, proving hypotheses (ideas).
Social scientists look at people - and argue whether you can make rules about what is 'true' for human experience.
Is there only one truth? Or is there something that is true today, that will not be true tomorrow?
Some researchers say that you can still say what is 'true' about human behaviour, others (including me!) say that different things are true at different times, in different cultures.
'Normal' is always changing. In English society we don't put an unmarried woman in a mental asylum now for having a baby, but we did less than 100 years ago.
But how do we measure it?
Social science research can be measured in two ways:
Quantitative - numbers, statistics.
Qualitative - how, what did you think, getting an idea of a situation.
My Research
My research is asking about the experience of a small number of people, and is asking how they feel about the issues. This qualitative work may help to identify ideas for learning, and encourage other research to focus on these issues over a longer period and with larger groups of people.
What is happening in related research about learners and refugees?
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Resources:
- National Research and Development Centre
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ESOL resources web site
- Working with adult learners of community languages
- Promoting adult learning