FIELD STUDY REPORT

Introduction
This paper presents purpose of research, research questions, hypotheses, methodology, procedures, data analysis, discusses results of study and conclusion of study.

Purpose of the study
Aim of research is to examine schools from child rights friendly environment perspective. As per definition of UNICEF (2004); a child friendly school provides children quality education, with an environment that is fun, healthy and engaging activities. In other words school is a place where they can play, be protected from harm, express their views and actively participate in the learning process. Study conducted from students of class seventh of two different schools including one from public and other from private. Purpose of study is to explore differences in maintaining child rights friendly environment in both public and private sector schooling systems, and to understand the relationship between age level and students understanding about child rights-friendly environment in school. Results of research suppose to help policy makers, teachers, head teachers and students about the track record of child rights friendly environment in both systems and students understanding about this very important issue.

Research Questions
The study has two main research questions;
 To what extend, Government schools are different from private schools in maintaining child rights friendly environment?

2 - What is the relationship between the age level and the understanding of the students about child rights-friendly school?

Statement of Hypothesis
There are two main hypotheses according to the research questions;

• there is no difference between the public and private school in maintaining child rights-friendly environment.
• there is no relationship between the age level and the perception of child right school.





METHODLOGY/DESIGN
Study was designed by cross-sectional quantitative paradigm. Data collected from one public school by me and other one private school by my research partner on same day by single visit once a time. Cross-sectional studies are relatively inexpensive, takes up little time, can estimate prevalence of outcome of interest because sample is usually taken from the whole population. Face-to-face delivery method utilized for survey questionnaire. In “face-to-face the researcher can read the questions aloud, explain any difficult points if necessary, and record the responses in as much detail as he desired” Gorard, S. (2003). Applying the method I kept in mind the factors “cost, time, geography, length, complexity, control of the question order, visual aids, the use of respondents personal of the question for reference, rapport, sensitivity, sample bias, response rate, response bias, knowledge of the non-responders and so on” Gorard, S. (2003).
SAMPLE
“One of the most important steps in the research process is the selection of the sample of individuals who will participate (be observed or questioned). Sampling refers to the process of selecting these individuals.” Fraenkel and Wallen (2003). For our study facilitator of course chose population (Schools) each one from public and private, and Samples (7th Class Students), however I and my study partner administrated our tool (questionnaire) in those selected schools. Number of participants from public school was 32 female students of higher secondary girl’s school out of total 59.
The selection of sample comes under purposive sampling method in which “researcher assume they can use their knowledge of the population to judge whether or not a particular sample will be representative.” Fraenkel and Wallen (2003).

MEASUREMENT TOOLS
For data collection facilitator provided me one demographic paper under title “Information About You” which was developed to seek basic required information of sample, and other was the survey questionnaire In demographic paper name of sample, grade, name of school, school shift, age, gender, residential area, father’s and mother’s occupation, mother tongue and other tongue columns were included. Demographical information provides us samples average age, language they use in school and at home, their parents occupation. From study of demographic data, we can infer sample’s socio economical conditions. Most of participant’s male parents engaged in average business and lower jobs in public and private sector, which unfolding that most of students belonged lower middle class, where ever majority of their mothers were house wives, which was revealing the psyche of lower middle class about working women issue. Provided Second form was questionnaire/survey tool for collection of data. The title of questionnaire was “how much sensitive is your school on student’s rights?” Questionnaire employed a 4-point Likert scale 1stands for Never, 2 stands for rarely, 3 stands for often, and 4 stands for always. The tool composed in Urdu. The questionnaire consists of thirteen questions regarding child right friendly environment in school. “A survey is the system for collecting information to describe, compare, or explain knowledge, attitudes, and practices or behavior” Fink A, (1995). In fact success of field study depends upon the successful administration of survey tools. More the questions be simple, readable, understandable, more reliable data would be collected.
Kolmogorov-Smirnov (K-S) test is applied for confirmation of normality is used for K-S test. The table 1 shows that frequency on SPSS for private school, D (69) = .086, p >.05. It means distribution is not normal. On the contrary, frequency on SPSS for public school is D (69) = .184, p < .o5 (p = .007). It means distribution for public school is normal.

Table 1
School Kolmogorov- Smirnov
Total-mean
Private School
Public School Statistics df. Sig.
.086 27 .200
.184 32 .007


PROCEDURE FOR COLLECTING DATA FROM FIELD
Before school visits for administration of research tool for collecting data, facilitator send written application to the concerned principles for formal permission for field study. On the fixed time and date our team reached at school, as it was girls higher secondary school and researchers team was comprising majority of males, to avoid from any misunderstanding facilitator along with one female researcher went to principal office to inform her for arrival of our team. At the gate of principal’s office facilitator was stopped by principal as she was busy in telephonic conversation. After completion of her talk facilitator told her about our team, and she allowed us to visit different classes. This is very important for researchers to respect the values of the institutions, because those are allowing us for our own study. Some times it would be hard to control ourselves for rude behavior school authorities but we must keep complete control ourselves. In our case, as principal asked our facilitator to wait at gate until she finishes her telephonic conversation was seemingly not fair treatment. However our facilitator nodded her head and said ok, no problem, and she waited unto end of conversation. After formal permission I approached seventh class which was already allocated me to collect the data. At moment class was free and no teacher was in room. As I entered in class, all students glaze towards me with wonder. For creation of friendly environment I spoke some humors words. When I realized that they accepted me, I introduce myself and got there introduction. After that I told them my aim of visit. First I distributed the demographic paper. Demographic paper was composed in English; hence school was Urdu medium, so students faced difficulty to under stand the meaning of some words and sentences. To overcome the difficulty I read each question and narrate meaning in Urdu and make sure that, they all understood clearly. After satisfaction about their understanding, I requested them to fill the columns. Then I administrated the survey questionnaire. First I explain the rating scale and then demonstrated on black board how to tick the right response. Survey questionnaire was composed in Urdu. However, It was seems to be translated from English. When first I read the questionnaire for my understanding, I feel like I am reading English in form of Urdu. Translation was not standardized. It was translated direct word by word, which made difficulties to understand the real and actual meaning. Learning lessons from previous demographic questionnaire now I slightly changed my strategy. Now one by one I read the every question and after necessary explanation, asked students to tick on the right options from 1 to 4. After collecting the data we went office of principal and appreciated her for allowing us for study.

LIMITATIONS OF STUDY
The study was carried out in single attempt, from seventh class students. Number of sample was 32+27=59 by public and private school respectively. So due to limited time and low size of sample which taken from only 2 different schools, it can not be generalize able in other contexts.

DATA ANALYSIS
Data collected from field was entered into SPSS 16 (statistical package for social sciences) for further statistical analysis. After uploading the data provided the necessary codes, labels, and values and scales every variable in data view and variable view. Once the data is entered, it is much necessary to clean the data to proof-read text for errors (Robson, 2002). In data cleanup process missing data coded 99. Through Cronbach’s Alpha test reliability of data was checked. For checking the normality of data Kolmogorov- Smirnov test utilized to know the normality at looking to Mean (M), Number of participants (N) and Standard Deviation (SD) in the tables. In this process I converted data into tables and histogram formats. This process helped me to understand differences in maintaining child rights friendly environment between public and private sector schools. For correlation of age and students understanding on issue applied Pearson Correlation test. Through process differences among public and private sector on CRFS and correlation of age and understanding of students checked that those were significant or not. Then save important data on MS Word format for further analysis of results.

RESULTS
Table 2 shows that data of public school is distributed in the form of bell-shaped curve. That means data is normal.
Table 2





Similarly, Table 3 shows that data of private school is distributed in the form of bell-shaped curve. That means data of private school is also normal.
Table 3



Kolmogorov-Smirnov (K-S) test is applied for confirmation of normality is used for K-S test. The table 4 shows that frequency on SPSS for private school, D (69) = .086, p >.05. It means distribution is not normal. On the contrary, frequency on SPSS for public school is D (69) = .184, p < .o5 (p = .007). It means distribution for public school is normal.


Table 4
School Kolmogorov- Smirnov
Total-mean
Private School
Public School Statistics df. Sig.
.086 27 .200
.184 32 .007


The table 5 shows that child rights friendly environment in private school is slightly high (M =2.79) than public school (M = 2.73), and dispersion of public school is also slightly high (SD =.399) than private school (SD = .332). It means dispersion of public school is more as compared to private school from the mean. However, the difference is not significant, [t (57) = .623, p > .05].

Table 5
Group Statistics
School N Mean Std. Deviation
Total_mean Private School
Public School 27
32 2.7949
2.7346 .33257
.39979


Independent Samples Test
Levene’s Test for Equality of Variance t-test for Equality of Means
Total_mean






F Sig. t df. Sig. (two-
tailed
Equal Variance Assumed
.24
.878 .623
57
.536




Equal Variance not
Assumed .632 56.993 530


Moreover, due to interval scale of data, Pearson correlation test was applied for association between age of students of private and public school and their understanding about child rights environment variables. The table 6 shows that student’s age and their perception of child rights have positive relationship (r =.060).It means those students who have high age they have also more knowledge about child rights environment. However, the association is not significant (p =.650)











Table 6: Relationship between age and the perception of child rights-friendly School


Conclusion
The results show that there is no significant difference between private and public school in maintaining child right-friendly environment however private schools is a bit more child rights-friendly than the public schools. It means the students of the private schools have more rights than the students of public schools. This may be due to the instructional and parental care for their children’s education. As our demographic results revealed that parents of public school are from lower middle class and middle class parents prefer to put their children in private schools. Due to certain reasons parents whom children enrolled in public schools are caring less than the parents of students admitted in private schools. Due to understanding the sensitivity of quality of education the middle class parents whom children are getting education in private schools showing significant concerned for the rights of their children. They always try to remain in close association with the school regarding the implementation of child rights. Maintaining child rights friendly environment in school is very essential for holistic growth of children. Children can not develop mentally and physically until they are provided those rights. As it is very clear from the previous research that the children in private schools perform better academically than the children in the public schools, because private schools are more child rights friendly than the public schools.
So far as the results for the association of age and the perceptions of the students about child rights friendly school concerned, they are not satisfactory. The results reveal that there is no association between the age and the perception of child rights friendly school. It means with the increasing age, the understandings of the students regarding child rights friendly school will remain the same. This is not favorable, because it manifests the lack of negligence from the private and the public school in creating awareness among the children about child rights.
To sum up, the government should take some strict measure in order to help the schools to become more child rights friendly. The private and the public schools should work shoulder to shoulder for the promotion of children rights in their school so that the children have more and more rights.





REFERENCES

2004, October 8). Basic education and gender equality, Child-friendly schools Message posted to http://www.unicef.org/girlseducation/index_focus_schoo...
unicef for children

Fraenkel and Wallen (2003). How to design and evaluate research in education (6th ed.). New York:McGraw Hill. (Chapter 6).


Fink, A. (1995). How to Ask Survey Questions. Thousand Oaks, L: SAGE Publications

Gorard, S. (2003). Quantitative methods in educational research: the role of numbers made easy. London continuum (chapter 5).


Robson, C. (2002). Real World Reasearch. A Resource for Social Scientists and Practitioner- Researchers. Malden: Blackwell publishers.