Planning Your Citizenship Action - Research and Viewpoints
Before you can change anything, you have to plan. Learn how to research a citizenship issue, tell primary evidence from secondary, and weigh up competing points of view.
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Planning a citizenship action
A citizenship action is when you take practical steps, usually as a team, to make a difference on an issue you care about. Getting it right starts with good planning and research. This module covers the first stages: identifying an issue, doing research, and weighing up different points of view.
Key terms
Four ideas run through the planning stages:
What is secondary research?
What do we mean by secondary research?
- Information that has already been collected by other people
- A survey you carry out yourself
- Interviews you conduct in person
- Guessing the answer without any evidence
Match each term
- Secondary research
- Primary research
- Viewpoint
- Team
- Information already collected by other people
- Evidence you collect yourself, such as a survey
- A particular point of view on the issue
- Two or more people working together on the action
Primary or secondary?
Both kinds of research help, but they are different.
Spot the primary research
Select the TWO examples of primary research.
- Running a survey of local residents
- Interviewing people affected by the issue
- Reading a book written about the issue
- Looking up official government statistics
Weigh the viewpoints
A strong citizenship action does not just collect research; it weighs it. Look at different points of view, then judge which evidence is most compelling. Ask: is the source reliable? Is the sample big enough? Is it up to date? Is it biased? The best plans consider more than one viewpoint and explain which evidence they trust most, and why.
Complete the picture
A citizenship action is usually carried out by a _____ of two or more people. Evidence you collect yourself, such as a survey, is _____ research, while information already gathered by others is _____ research. A good plan looks at different points of _____ and weighs which _____ is most compelling.
The planning stages
Put the planning stages of a citizenship action in order.
- Identify an issue you care about and form a team
- Carry out initial secondary research from existing sources
- Undertake your own primary research, such as a survey
- Analyse the findings from your research
- Represent different viewpoints and weigh the evidence
Tap the primary methods
A team is gathering evidence for their action. Tap the TWO examples of primary research.
- Handing out a questionnaire to shoppers in the town centre.
- Reading a newspaper article about the issue.
- Interviewing the local council about their plans.
- Looking up population figures on a government website.
- Quoting statistics from a published report.
Make the call
Help a team plan their citizenship action.
- The team has just chosen its issue. What should they do first?
- They want their own fresh evidence about local opinion. Which method fits?
- Two sources disagree: a small, biased blog and a large official survey. Which is more compelling?
Plan the research
A team wants to take action on litter in their local park. Explain how they would research and plan their citizenship action.
- Explain how they would form a team and identify the issue
- Give one example of secondary research they could do
- Give one example of primary research they could carry out
- Explain how they would weigh up different viewpoints and evidence