Hammersley critiques an article by Atkinson et al back in 1981 - he is probably writing a decade later, still before the DDA 1995. He uses methodological analysis.
He analyses the article's focus, case studied, descriptive claims, evaluative claims and its conclusions drawn. I wrote about the same article in a previous blog. There is not much daylight between my views and his.
He finds much to fault, including that the article is probably not generalisable; that it lacks sources; that it has parts that are questionable. He thinks the article offers valid and useful information. He finds the conclusions are of general interest but not generalisable.
Critique
I think that Hammersley is too generous in his appraisal.
Right at the start, Hammersley declares the 1981 article
"...retains relevance given the persistence of high levels of unemployment and the continued existence of government-sponsored training initiatives of this kind."I doubt that was so in 1993. Did either of those conditions pertain then? Perhaps that is why the article was never published as a paper - it lacked generalisability by failing to have transferability or pertinence. Perhaps the paper was written much closer to the 1980s and was simply published in the reader much later.
Hammersley is unsure absence of evidence to support the authors' conclusion learners did not improve machine-competence fatally undermined the article's generalisability. I am certain it did. The authors opined in the way Her Majesties Inspectorate does when evaluating a teaching institution - subjectively, but they lacked such authority. Before-and-After testing of students' abilities and personalities would have made the paper much more useful and generalisable.
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