English Fee System and Student Employment - Essay Example

Research Methods Essay Introduction Prior to September, 1998, all higher education in the UK were excused from paying tuition fees (Croll and Attwoodb 187). It was the then Labour Party, under the then Prime Minister of the UK, Tony Blair, that led to this change with a proposal, which stated that the cost of student continuance should be repaid through graduates on a job-related basis. Nevertheless, it was the Conservative Party, managed by PM David Cameron, who raised the highest tuition fee to ?9,000 from ?3,000 per years from English Universities (Bachana 56). When Cameron was asked why his party chose to increase the tuition fees, he replied that it would mainly do two things; firstly, it would ensure that UK’s English universities are well funded and; secondly it would mean that the UK government would not go on raising tuition for higher education students so fast (Vasagar 1). The increasing of tuition fees in the UK has led to a lot of controversy, which has caused many individuals lash out at the Conservative regime and a majority of perspective students traumatized at the thought of having to pay off ?27,000 worth of education fees, prior to adding up the fee of their maintenance loans, as well (Bachana 56). In the wake of all this, university students in the UK are turning to employment to be able to pay this high school fees rate, as well as settle the loans they use while in school. This paper conducted surveys with regards to how the new English fee system has affected student employment. The main survey method that was used was conducting interviews through questionnaires were the survey from were passed to 250 university students in order to come up with the findings. This paper will discuss some aspects of the research method used below. How A Research Question, Which Required both Secondary and Primary Data to Effectively Address It, Was Formulated A research question should be clear, concise, centered, complex and arguable. It should be a question that everybody in the team was genuinely interested in (Munn 23). These aspects were particularly important because they helped us center on our research by providing a way through the research, as well as writing process. My group’s specificity of a well-developed research topic helped us avoid the “all-about” types of papers and endeavour towards supporting a particularly arguable thesis, “the new ?9000 per year English fee tuition has affected student term time employment habits.” Due to the recent debate in UK universities with regards to raising the annual tuition fee from ?3000 to ?9000, we saw this as an extremely important topic to discuss. Particularly, how the new ?9000 per year English fee tuition has affected student term time employment habits. A majority of students are now turning to employment while they study in order to cater for these high fees of studying (Vasagar 1). Also, the income acquired from these endeavours is channeled towards repaying the loans for education. Therefore, many students cannot miss something to say about this occurrence (The Scotland Government 1). We did some preliminary studies on our topic and found that literature with regards to this topic were limited so were decided to venture in it. Finally, we also considered our audience (university students and the government) since they were the vital concerns of this law, as Cameron, the current UK Prime Minister stated. Hence our research question, how the new ?9000 per year English fee tuition has affected student term time employment habits. How It Was Decided the Identified Research Question Could Best Be Answered We all come across questionnaires at some point in our lives. They also come in many forms: opinion based to factual, from text responses to tick boxes. Whatever the form they come in, questionnaires are normally perceived as a quick, as well as easy method of carrying out a research (Browne 67). This is not to say that they do not have any challenges, but when effectively conducted, they are very helpful to the research question. According to (Oppenheim 69) questionnaires, when effectively conducted, they provide firsthand information to the surveyor. This is if the respondents are effectively explained to the subject matter. For our topic, “how the new ?9000 per year English fee tuition has affected student term time employment habits,” we saw that it was vital to issue questionnaires to a certain number of students (250), with specified questions on the topic. We found it extremely practical and that large amounts of significant information were gathered from many students in a short time span, which was also fairly cost effective. Also, due to our limited skills, we were restricted to somewhat an “unprofessional method” of surveying. This is because we were in no position of analyzing number and other aspects that can make a survey appear professional. However, our findings are fully reliable. This is because the findings of the questionnaires were qualified by a software package. The respondents were eager to join in, in the study, because of the effect that the new English university fee package had brought to them. Therefore, this method was very effective. The Sourcing, Evaluation and Analysis of Relevant Secondary Data A majority of the literature, available with regards to this topic, were newspaper articles, journal articles, online sources and one significant book. The main reason why fewer books are published with regards to this topic is the fact that the law was passed late last year. These sources assess contemporary on learners’ perception on the likely effect upon future learners as new fee structures are introduced from 2012. The sources examine the issues that university students may face with subsequent debt and the dawn of student loans provided that they are normally combining multifaceted lives with their education, with little time to repay their loans in their working lifetime. In spite of government rhetoric on the need to raise participants from these working students, most guidance and advice has centered on the customary full-time market, with little being carried out to study the views of term time learners or to offer appropriate assistance for them from 2012 onwards. We incorporated these sources because their views had been gathered from focus group discussions with learners in a traditional English university, as well as four of their extra education partner colleges through online discussion forums. We analysed their resultant data to look at rising themes that can be summed up as: the respondents had shunned away from the new fee regime; students lacked understanding on the current funding system; student feared that their sponsors would suffer and acquiring a loan would rather be a ‘selfish’ strategy; and finally, term time feared that graduate employment would still dodge them. How Relevant Primary Data Were Accessed, Gathered, Recorded and Analysed The objective of our study was to form questionnaires to evaluation the effects of the new fee structure systems of the United Kingdom to term time students. We focused on providing estimates of the parameters of certain characteristics of the introduced fee structure in the United Kingdom. We also providing a systematic comparison of characteristics across several fee structure systems and explore the association among variables for the new system. Our questionnaires incorporated open ended, discrete and ordered scales questions. These forms of questions were also seen in sources such as Croll, and Attwoodb (190), Harrisona et al. (81) and Shawa (67). Closed questions, also known as discrete questions, made the analysis of the data quite easy. Harrisona et al. (81), in particular, was quite specific with the way he gathered his information. His team cautiously explained to the students the subject matter and also specifically picked those who were willing to take part in the survey. Our recording process, also known as a coding scheme, was defined prior to the survey. This allowed us directly to enter data from the survey forms into our database for evaluation. Critics argue that the numbers in boxes or wordings should correspond with the variables in the database in which the responses with be kept. After screening the final question summaries, we created principles of answering more specific questions concerning our data. We filtered, compared and presented rules that allowed us to focus in on particular subsets of our data, which enabled us to can analyze our results in a method that was most significant to us. The Presentation and Defence of the Research Process and Findings at the 'Undergraduate Research Conference' According to Williams 250, so as to present questionnaire results, the surveyor should follow a series of simple tasks such as establishing a primary report. Then they should write a CEO’s synopsis of their findings. After that, the technical element of the report, as well as the actual survey procedure involved, should be addressed. The surveyor should also focus on presenting an appendix along with a summary at the end of the report. The background of our report were structured on the following basis, introduction to the survey research, research objectives, clear explanation of data collection methods, clear findings and final thoughts and recommendations. We listed all factors, which motivated us to come up with our report in order to give a clear introduction to the survey report. We also prioritised our objectives and goals so that they objectives of the survey could be clear as possible. Factors that were considered when doing this were whether or not our respondents successfully completed the survey. The report specified a clear data collection process. The final report presented at the Undergraduate Research Conference had the following structure: title page, executive summary, table of contents, method, findings, conclusions and the recommendations. We used MS PowerPoint in order to not complicate the work and also ensure that everybody clearly had a chance of viewing the presentation. We tried to make our slides as colourful as possible and also used as limited number of slides so as to ensure that the report in not too long. How Ethical Issues Were Addressed Whether a surveyor is an educator, psychologist or anthropologist, the main responsibilities to respondents are clear: acquire consent, shield from harm, as well as ensure privacy (Oppenheim 102). Nevertheless, there is one field of responsibility, which is normally less clear for both the participants and the researcher: deliberate deception. As for our survey, we ensured that the procedure through which someone might opt whether or not to take part in the study was clearly followed. We made sure that the participants had a clear comprehension of what they were getting into (risk involved, significance of their participation and also the demanded needed from them as participants). Browne (158) argues that the participants should be able to evaluate the information on the research papers in order to ensure the validity of the data. We chose our respondents in their ability to gain, retain, and assess information. In essence, we considered whether the respondent was deemed competent or incompetent. Competence is partly decided through legal qualification and ability. The place where the survey is conducted is likewise important. For example, according to Williams (250), if a request for contribution is made in the classroom, then students might feel compelled to take part. When the voluntariness of the respondents is not guaranteed, the legitimacy of their replies cannot be guaranteed. For instance, asking minors questions associated to immoral or illegal acts, such as socially undesirable matters or smoking, is not likely to create reliable responses. In addition, when the obtained responses propose an illegal activity, what would be the morally proper thing for a surveyor to do? For instance, what moral obligations would surveyors have if responses gotten from senior high school learners showed that they use illegal drugs? Conclusion Prior to September, 1998, all higher education students in the UK were excused from paying tuition fees. It was the then Labour Party, under the then Prime Minister to the UK, Tony Blair, that led to this change with a proposal, which stated that the cost of student continuance should be repaid through graduates on an job-related basis. Nevertheless, it was the Conservative Party, managed by PM David Cameron, who raised the highest tuition fee to ?9,000 from ?3,000 per years from English Universities. This paper has presented the survey methods used to come up with the findings of the research question, “how the new ?9000 per year English fee tuition has affected student term time employment habits.” The main research method that this paper used was survey forms and the process was very effective. This paper would, however, advice further research into that topic. Works Cited Bachana, Ray. “Students' expectations of debt in UK higher education,” Studies in Higher Education 6.8 (2013): 56-60. Print. Browne, Green J. Principles of Social Research. New York: Open University Press, 2005. Print. Croll, Paul and Attwoodb, Gaynor. “Participation in Higher Education: Aspirations, Attainment and Social Background,” British Journal of Educational Studies 61.2 (2013): 187-202. Print. Munn, Paul. Using Questionnaires in Small-Scale Research: A Beginner's Guide. Glasgow, Scotland: Scottish Council for Research in Education, 2004. Print. Oppenheim, Anna. Questionnaire Design, Interviewing and Attitude Measurement. London, UK: Continuum International Publishing Group Ltd, 2000. Print. Shawa, Angela. “Examining the potential impact of full tuition fees on mature part-time students in English higher education,” Journal of Further and Higher Education 3.7 (2012): 56-67. Print. The Scotland Government. Graduate Endowment Scrapped. N.p, 2008. Web. Vasagar, Jeevan. Tuition Fees Increase led to 15,000 Fewer Applicants. N.p, 2012. Web. Williams, Anderson. “How to … Write and Analyse a Questionnaire,” Journal of Orthodontics 30.3 (2013): 245-252. Print. Read More