What do students know and understand about the Holocaust?

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Methodology
How were the focus-group data
analysed?
Knowledge and understanding of the
Holocaust
For the focus groups concerned with knowledge,
the four key questions were used as a framework
for analysis, and the transcripts were read to identify
all instances of the students discussing each of the
questions. Across all transcripts (and, thus, across all
year groups), sections of relevant text were extracted
and organised into four groups that corresponded
with each question.
For each question, the content of the collated text
was looked at to examine the different responses
given by students. This included making notes on
how students’ discussions were related to the survey
data and creating a question-specific framework to
attach the content of responses to the relevant key
questions. Each transcript was coded according to
this question-specific framework. For example, for
the key question ‘Where did the Holocaust happen?’
transcripts were coded for students’ references to:
■■
where the Jews came from
■■
where they were killed
■■
Germany, Poland and other countries
■■
the camp system
■■
the ghettos
■■
Einsatzgruppen
A narrative on each of these ‘codes’ was then
produced which included discussion of any patterns
in students’ responses, for instance recurring
misconceptions, as well as exploring any trends
in their answers (for example, how students’
understanding developed with age).
Overall, this enabled us to map what students
said in response to each key question and thus
give an account of students’ knowledge of what
the Holocaust was, who was responsible, who the
victims were, and when and where the Holocaust
happened. Finally, students’ accounts were explored
for their explanations of what happened during
the Holocaust, and what appeared to shape and
influence these explanations.
Survivor testimony; The Boy in the Striped
Pyjamas; attitudes towards learning about
the Holocaust
A slightly different approach was taken to the
analysis of the focus groups conducted on survivor
testimony, The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, and
attitudes towards learning about the Holocaust. For
each of these topics, the transcripts were read and
reread closely for themes that emerged in students’
discussions. This included recurring themes across
the transcripts (within each focus-group topic)
as well as any atypical comments that students
made. Emergent themes were then compared and
contrasted with the findings from the survey, as well
as with relevant literature.