The starting point for me to consider is to decide what my philosophical standpoint is about my approach to the research topic and how I view the way knowledge will be viewed and how it will be produced. The technical terms for these is Ontology for my views and epistomology  for views about knowledge.

I’m fairly clear that my approach is one of attempting to “UNDERSTAND” the difficulties pupils with FASD experience in their approach to learning maths.

Secondly, my approach is an “EXPLORATORY” one in that I will be attempting to explore what pupils are feeling towards their learning and how the professionals support and guide them in the classroom.

These are encapsulated in an overarching paradigm defining the approach above. Traditionally, this falls between the definite positivistic view, where everything can be measured, and where questionnaires and tick boxes are repeatable and used to gain answers. The results can then be calculated or entered into a spreadsheet, and various statistical calculations can be done.  The interpretivistic approach is at the other end of the scale, with no definite answers. This approach is more suitable for social approaches where everything is different and likely not repeatable.

This led me to conclude that my approach is more towards "Social Constructivism", where the interaction of pupils and teachers generates the meanings.  it may be necessary ot move to a “Pragmatic” paradigm to enable the study to adapt and respond to any difficulties and problems that may occut.

The title of my research approach includes the words “case study”, so this will be one aspect of my methodology. Similarly, I will want to understand how much serving teachers know about teaching pupils with FASD. A survey and interview approach may be needed. 

So, this will fall into the category of mixed methods.

Due to the varied nature of expected responses, I anticipate using a thematic analysis approach to try to pick out emerging themes from the responses of pupilsl, teachers and parents