Readings in Post-compulsory Education

Yvonne Hillier is Acting HOD at City University and co-ordinator of the LSRN. Anne Thompson is Vice Principal of Waltham Forest College and member of the LSRN.

• Preface - Andrew Morris; 1. A Case for Practitioner Research - Peter Davies and Leo Salter (Cornwall College); 2. Research Workplace Basic Skills Policy in the UK - Fiona Frank (Cartmel College, Lancaster); 3. Research Journeys: Learners' Views on Progress and Achievement in Literacy and Numeracy - Jane Ward (Consultant); 4. Destination Drop Out: Long Term Impact of Drop Out from Full-Time Education - Helen Kenwright (York College); 5. Beyond Common Sense to a Common Sense - Christine Tyler (Eccles College, Manchester); 6. Action Research: A Model for Improvement? - Sue Cousin (DfES); 7. Fomulating 'Facts' about Flexibility in Further Education - Roger Harrison, Julia Clarke and Mahnaz Marashi (all at The Open University); 8. Insider to Outsider: A Personal Research Journey - Ros Clow (Westminster Institute of Education); 9. The Potential for Realism as a Best Methodological Option - Norman Crowther (Cambridge Regional College); 10. Attitude Measurement to Bridge the Post-16 Gap - Glen Williams, Bob Whittome and Phil Watts (Educational Psychologists P.A.S.S.).

"This book is, over and above anything else, a personal book -- and although the research ranges from small scale qualitative to large scale quantitative, within each paper we can 'hear' the voices of practitioner-researchers. It is also a political book -- not promoting one concerted message for change in any particular area, but on its desire to push the need to create and use this kind of research to effect change, to influence policy, and to shape the future of the sector... One of the aims of this book is to represent a guide, a first step perhaps, towards the creation of such a research-informed profession. Although such notions may seem a little optimistic or grandiose, the quality of the papers presented in this book, and the realities they explore, do leave you with a sense that with such dedicated practitioner-researchers as these this may not be so farfetched."   Reviewed by Rebecca Hodgson in Higher Education Review, Summer 2008