The data collection began from September 2015 to January 2016. To gauge experienced EFL teachers’ experiences, attitudes, and influences of seeking social support, data collection instruments included interviews, participants’ journals, researcher’s reflective journals, and school documentation. Before the data collection proceeded, a
meeting with individual participants was held to prepare for the succeeding procedures. For the duration of the data collection, both semi-structured and informal interviews were conducted to collect the participants’ life stories to answer the research questions. Journals were kept by both the researcher and the participants in order to record experiences and thoughts (Goods and Sikes, 2001). The researcher kept journals of her thoughts and reflection after each data collection and daily encounters with the participants. The participants were suggested to keep monthly journals to reflect on the incidents that occurred every month. All the collected data were further reviewed, coded, and analyzed comparatively.
Meeting before interviews.
The purpose of having a meeting with each participant before the data collection was to collect their background information, familiarize them with the data collection procedures, and identify possible problems beforehand, such as the problems with the recording facilities or the questions discussed. The meeting (see Table 2) began with an introduction to the research purpose and methodology. Following this, the participants were asked to describe themselves and briefly identify their difficulties and source of support before teaching in Star School. It was important that the researcher observed the participants’ ways of thinking and speaking so as to adjust her ways of inquiry. Finally, the researcher arranged the place and date for the following interviews.
Table 2
Meeting Schedule
Name Date Length Place Focus
Jessica 2015/04/17 40mins. School Family background and experiences at school Lisa 2015/07/15 1hr. and 10mins. Restaurant Family background and
experiences at school
Interviews.
According to the life history approach, interviews were the main data collection instrument to elicit rich descriptions of participants’ lives. Two types of interviews, semi-structured interviews and informal interviews, were included. Three semi-structured interviews were conducted with each participant to gauge participants’ experiences of teaching as an EFL teacher. An interview guide (see Appendix B) was developed based on Seidman (2006)’s three interviewing stages, Goodson and Sikes (2001)’s data collection strategy of time-line, research questions of the study, and the researcher’s work experience and prior encounters with the participants. Informal interviews were conducted monthly and the discussion topics covered the current events of the month in order to explore possible issues and to supplement with other data (such as interview data and the participants’ journals). All the interviews were conducted in Chinese. After being transcribed verbatim into interview note (see Appendix C) and returned to the participants to check its accuracy, the transcriptions were translated into English.
Semi-structured interviews.
Three semi-structured interviews were conducted during the school semester in 2015 with the goal to have an overall understanding of the participants’ experience and to respond to the research questions. Following Seidman (2006)’s structure for interviewing in a qualitative research, the semi-structured interviews in this study included three stages, participants’ past experiences, present experiences, and reflections on those experiences for changes and growth (see Table 3) in order to explore the essence of lived experience. An interview guide (see Appendix B) was provided prior to the interviews for both the researcher and the participants, but the length and width of each interview varied by the participants’ responses to the interview questions. It was likely but acceptable to “digress or probe for more information” with the natural flow of conversations (Mackey & Grass, 2005, p. 173).
Table 3
Semi-structured Interviews Schedule
Name Date Length Place Focus
Jessica 2015/07/24 1hr. 9mins. Café Past experience as a beginning teacher 2015/11/26 1hr. Jessica’s home Present experience as an
experienced teacher 2015/12/17 1hr. 30 mins. Jessica’s home Changes and sources of
support Lisa 2015/09/26 1hr. 5mins. Café Past experience as a
beginning teacher 2015/11/07 1hr. 30mins. Restaurant Present experience as an
experienced teacher 2015/12/26 1hr. 40mins. Restaurant Changes and sources of
support Informal interviews.
The purpose of conducting informal interviews was to develop possible issues, confirm the researcher’s understanding about the participants’ journals, and add more descriptions to their informal lives. Conducted approximately once a month, the informal interviews encouraged the participants to talk about their daily lives and to elaborate what they wrote in their participant journals. Similar to natural conversations (Mackey & Gass, 2005), the informal talks occurred during class breaks, daily encounters, or a lunch meeting with the researcher. If the interview setting permitted, the interviews would also be recorded and transcribed for further analysis (See the transcription conventions in Table 4).
Table 4
Transcription Conventions
Symbol Meaning
J Jessica, one of the teacher participants L Lisa, one of the teacher participants R The researcher
( ) Used to indicate overlapping speech; it begins at the point which the overlap occurs
[ ] Used to indicate non-verbal utterances, such as expressions, actions, tone of voice, or sounds
< > Used to add words omitted by the speakers in natural conversations, to make the sentences easier to read
/?/ Unidentified wording due to the problems of the facility or difficult to understand
Note. Adapted from A qualitative research of counselor’s career transition of life’s corner (p. 47), by K. H. Wang, 2004, Taiwan. Unpublished master’s thesis.
Participants’ Journals.
The participants’ journals (see Appendix D) were employed monthly and the participants were asked to write a short paragraph about the difficulties encountered. This encouraged the participants to have a reflective overview of what had happened and allowed the researcher a deeper understanding of the participants’ present experiences of being an experienced EFL teacher (Lewis, Sligo, & Massey, 2005). The content could offer data which might not be observed and discussed during the interviews or daily encounters, thus initiate the discussion questions for the following informal meetings or interviews with the researcher. To cope with its limitations of time-consuming and extra burden for the participants (Goodson & Sikes, 2001; Mackey & Gass, 2005), the participants could use e-mails, Line, or short talks to record their feelings.
Researcher’s Reflective Journals.
The researcher’s reflective journals were conducted to enhance the reconstruction of the collected data and to identify important themes which might not be addressed in other
data collection instruments. The researcher recorded her thoughts, insights, or reflections after conducting each interview, collecting participants’ journals, interacting with the teacher participants at schools, and observing some issues. For instance, after interviews, the researcher wrote down the key points of the interviews, her observations of the participants’ non-verbal signs (such as voices, facial expressions, gestures, or other descriptions of the participants), and her comments or personal experiences in response to the content of the interview (see Appendix E).
School Documentation.
Documents, including school calendar, students’ contact books, and school magazines, were utilized to provide valuable information of the participants’ lives at Star School. For instance, the researcher received both participants’ permission to read the students’ contact books of their class to see how they maintained the relationships with their students and students’ parents. The school calendar and school magazines assisted the researcher in understanding what school activities the participants might be preparing for and arranging the appropriate dates to collect relevant data.