BERA UK Podcast

The British Educational Research Association (BERA) is the leading authority on educational research in the UK, supporting and representing the community of scholars, practitioners and everyone engaged in and with educational research both nationally and internationally.BERA is a membership association and learned society committed to advancing research quality, building research capacity and fostering research engagement. We aim to inform the development of policy and practice by promoting the best quality evidence produced by educational research.This podcast consists of research informed content on key educational issues. This podcast gives our members a voice to promote their research and features educational leaders and experts speaking about hot topic issues in Education. Our aim is to produce and promote episodes that attract policymakers, parents, teachers, educational leaders, members of school communities, politicians, and anyone who is interested in education today.

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BERA UK Podcast

Innovative Research Methodologies: Corpus assisted discourse analysis

October 23, 2023 • BERA UK • Season 6 • Episode 6

This podcast is the sixth and final instalment in the series commissioned by the Research Methodology in Education Special Interest Group to showcase the variety of methodologies and methods being undertaken by researchers in education. In this episode, Dr Bukola Oyinloye, co-convenor of the RME SIG, is in conversation with Dr Kathryn Spicksley. They discuss corpus assisted discourse analysis, an approach which uses computer programmes to explore patterns of grammar and vocabulary in selected text or corpora. They discuss its main element, discourse analysis, including its more critical type, and compare with other ways of interrogating text such as thematic analysis. Dr Spicksley recommends Hansun Zhang Waring’s book ‘Discourse Analysis: The Questions Discourse Analysts Ask and How They Answer Them’ as a helpful introduction to discourse analysis, as well as Norman Fairclough (Discourse and social change) and James Paul Gee (An introduction to discourse analysis) for useful frameworks on discourse analysis. In her article, ‘The very best generation of teachers ever’: teachers in post-2010 ministerial speeches, Dr Spicksley applies corpus assisted discourse analysis to government speeches in the UK.