Moving on Up: Using Q-Methodology to Explore What is Important to Young People with Special Educational Needs and Disability in their Transition to Post-16 Education.

Previous research has suggested a number of factors are important to young people with Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND) in their transition to post-16 education. However, such research has been limited by focusing on participants with specific types of SEND, using methodologies that limited the exploration of the detail and richness of the young person’s experiences, or being conducted at a time which pre-dates legislative changes to the SEND Code of Practice and compulsory post-16 education. Of the research that has been conducted since the change in socio-political context, this has focused on the transition experiences of young people with Education Health Care Plans (EHCPs) and so the experiences of young people with SEND, more broadly, and especially those young people transitioning from a mainstream school to college, have not been explored.

Consequently, the aim of the research was to explore what young people identified as having a range of SEND have found to be important in their transition from a mainstream school setting to a mainstream post-16 educational setting, within this new socio-political context, with a view to this helping inform the support received. As a result of the desire to access the voices of young people as to what has been important to them in their transition and look at the commonalities and differences between their viewpoints, Q-methodology was chosen as the most appropriate methodology to achieve this.

31 participants from two mainstream post-16 colleges (one in the East Midlands and one in Yorkshire) took part in the study; sorting 50 statements into a forced choice distribution grid. By-person factor analysis was used to analyse the completed Q-sorts to identify shared viewpoints. This resulted in a five factor solution.

The research findings are discussed in relation to emergent themes, the existing literature and the nature of the participant group, followed by consideration of the implications for schools, colleges and Educational Psychologists (EPs). Reflections on the limitations of the study and areas of possible future research are presented.