Teaching
Allen Bartley teaches Advanced Skills in Research and Qualitative Research Methods to postgraduate students at The University of Auckland. For these courses he has been using qualitative UK Data Service data collections such as Cultural Capital and Social Exclusion, Inventing Adulthoods and Radical Participation. Bartley has specifically focused on Inventing Adulthoods because of the breadth and scope of the collection, which he feels has the potential to be explored by a large number of students in the same class without running into the risk of having similar analyses.
He and his colleague Peter Davis have taught Advanced Skills in Research to teach qualitative data analysis to sociology and political studies students using the software Nvivo alongside quantitative analysis using SPSS. He believes that approaching both qualitative and quantitative frameworks in the same course proved to be a great exercise for students to understand how data analysis, interpretation and presentation vary based on methodology.
Bartley had previously chosen other data collections that were not suitable for analysis in Nvivo and he ultimately chose Inventing Adulthoods because it fit well with qualitative data analysis software. Students are asked to choose from the transcriptions and to do original analysis on the data. He feels that his use of real data has made students more engaged with both the information and the course. Ultimately the students are more encouraged to do their own analysis and practice the technical aspects of doing research. In this context, Bartley adds, it is not unusual for his students to continue carrying out original work reusing qualitative data collections after the course.
He has been very satisfied with the student response to Inventing Adulthoods and he plans to explore other qualitative studies with unstructured interviews.
Bartley is a supporter of using digital means to share experiences and materials with teachers and other colleagues since these make it easier to overcome distance barriers.