This chapter introduced the research approach and procedure, data collection, and data analyses; these would be described separately as below.
Research Approach Reasons for Doing Qualitative Approach
The purpose of this study is to explore the challenges that teachers from Taiwan to Kinmen face and how they adjust themselves. The phenomena studied in this research cannot be deduced but require empirical observation or interaction. The researcher wishes to capture the lived experience from the perspectives of those who live it and create meaning from it.
Generating big narratives and theories does not go with this study. What this study desires to understand is the milieus, subcultures, lifestyles, and ways of thoughts of the teachers from Taiwan and all of that requires situational narratives. As recommended by Brinkmann and Kvale (2009), the ways in which participants view their worlds and create meaning from diverse life experience are myriad and can be best be explored by qualitative approach.
Qualitative research seeks to understand the world as seen by those who live in it (Hatch, 2002). It produces knowledge that is contextual, linguistic, narrative, and pragmatic (Brinkmann & Kvale, 2009). This study adopts qualitative approach enables the researcher share in the understandings and perceptions of the participants and to explore how they structure and give meaning to their daily lives.
Phenomenological Qualitative Approach
One major genre of qualitative research is phenomenological approach. It seeks to explore, describe, and analyze the meaning of individuals’ lived experience (Marshall &
Rossman, 2010). This study applies a phenomenological qualitative approach, in which the
researcher attempts to explore the lived experiences in terms of challenges and adjustments of teachers from Taiwan to Kinmen in the context of cross cultural setting.
According to Lichtman (2009) the focus of phenomenological approach is on the rich description of the essential structures of the experience. In phenomenology approach, conducting in-depth interviews is a common method for gaining access to individuals' worlds.
As a scientific undertaking, phenomenological researchers often search for commonalities across individuals, meaning to seek general knowledge on the basis of evidence (Anderson et al., 2011). So in this study, the researcher tries to search for the commonalities of participants’
experiences rather than only focusing on what is unique to a single participant.
Data Collection
Methods
Since there are strengths and weakness to any single data collection strategy, using more than one data collection method can allow the researcher to combine strengths and also correct deficiencies of any source of data. This study thus has the methodological triangulation, which is the use of multiple methods to study a single problem (Anderson, Lofland, Lofland, & Snow, 2005).
For this study adopts qualitative approach, the instrument of data collection method includes observation, interviewing, and document analysis. These are used for exploratory purposes as the researcher take interest in; they are for generating new information, not for testing hypotheses.
Observation
According to Gold (1958), Lofland & Lofland (1994), & Mulhall (2003), there are four types of participant observer roles.
1. The complete participant:
The researcher becomes member of group being studied but does not tell members
they are studied. Since the group members do not know they are involved in a research, some people may question the use of this approach on ethical grounds.
2. The participant as observer:
The researcher spends long time with the group as an insider and lets members know they are studied. Similar to the complete observer, the participant is also an insider of the group, however, tells other people he or she is conducting a research.
In this study, the researcher takes on this kind of role for the participants who are teachers of Jincheng School, as the researcher is also a Jincheng School teacher.
Although the participants are aware that they are being observed, they still can behave naturally as they trust the researcher and as they feel easy about the researcher’s presence (Lofland et al., 2005). That is what the researcher expects during the observation on the Jincheng teachers from Taiwan.
3. The observer as participant:
The researcher spends only a limited amount of time observing group members and informs them they are being studied.
In this study, the researcher takes on this kind of role concerning the group members are not teachers of Jincheng School. Because the researcher in this study is a teacher of Jincheng School, the chance she interacts with teachers from other schools is during time of after-work and weekends. She is more like an observer than participant toward teachers in others schools.
4. The complete observer:
The researcher takes on the roll of a totally outside observer. And people being studied do not know they are being observed.
As DeJong, Monette, & Sullivan (2010) pointed out, the most commonly and also the most useful styles are the participant as observer and the observer of participant because the participants are voluntarily involved in the study. Besides, the researcher can
take both insider’s and outsider’s role, which avoids the risks of losing objectivity or not understanding the participants. The researcher in this study thus took these two kinds of roles as stated above.
Interview
In-depth interviewing
According to Bogdan and Biklen (2006), interviews may be the dominant strategy for data collection. Interviews are used to collect descriptive data in the other person’s own words in order for the researcher to develop insights on how subjects interpret some piece of the world. Hesse-Biber and Leavy (2010) offered the advice that participants or interviewees must be selected for conducting an in-depth interview. Selecting the pool of informants, or sample, is a matter of figuring out what portion of the population the researcher seek to study and then locating individuals who are members of the group.
In this study, data are gathered involving face-to-face in-depth interviews and the participants were specifically chosen to be teachers (administrative staff in schools is not included). Teachers deal with matters such as student behaviors, communication with parents, and collaborative working with other teachers, but administrative staff do not need to bother.
Thus it is more appropriate to specify only teachers to be the participants for this study.
This reflects a purposeful sample based on the teachers from Taiwan to Kinmen who are available and willing to be interviewed in person. The researcher asks several open-ended questions to each participant during the in-depth interviews. The open-ended interview style enables the interviewees to express their attitudes and feelings. The interviews are also shaped by probing questions the researcher raises seeking further details and actual examples.
Semi-structured interview
The open-ended interview style stated above is different from structured interview which stresses the uniformity of questions and responses. A semi-structured interview is
based on open questions and has much flexibility in responding. Open-ended questions as compared to close-ended questions help the researcher better probe into the issues he or she is interested in (Hesse-Biber & Leavy, 2010).
Active listening
An important tip for conducting in-depth interviews successfully is for the researcher/
interviewer to be an active listener helping respondents feel free to share their story, pass on their knowledge, and provide their own perspective (Wengraf, 2001). Active listening is the interviewer’s willingness and ability to hear and understand. The interviewer must listen with a completion and attentiveness that is not rigorous and in tune with nuance (Hoppe, 2007).
The researcher practices active listening during interviews aims at motivating the interviewees to provide more descriptions and explanations concerning their process of cultural adjustment.
Singh (2009) pointed out some techniques remark active listening such as being interviewee focused, non-interruptive, non-judgmental, and acceptive of difference. So during the interviews for this study, the researcher needs to give the participants enough time to think out their responses and reserve judgment about the attitudes, values, or lifestyle of the respondents.
Document Analysis
Rapley (2007) reported that qualitative document analysis emphasizes on uncovering the richness of meanings and interpretation embedded within the text of some personal documents. Those documents are not prepared specifically for a request from the researcher.
The researcher for this study carries out an examination of texts or daily posts on the participants’ blogs or their social network profiles like Facebook. The texts can provide insights into the participants’ beliefs, identities and relationships that help the research have more authentic sources of information. In addition, some schools’ regulations about students’
proper behavior on time of reading in the early morning, sweeping work, and noon time should be useful for this study.
Sample
Selection of schools in Kinmen
There are a lot of elementary schools in Kinmen. Some has less than 100 students. In high school stage, there are four junior high schools in Greater Kinmen, and one in Lesser Kinmen. Each township owns a junior high school. After graduating from a junior high school, a student goes to either National Kinmen Senior High or National Kinmen Agricultural & Industrial Vocational Senior High School. Higher level of educational system includes National Kinmen University whose former name was Kinmen Technology Institute.
Kinmen also has branch campuses of Ming-Chuan University and National University of Kaohsiung.
The reason why the researcher explored experiences of only teachers in high school stage is as follows. The mentality and status of maturation differ a lot for students in different ages, so the researcher chose participants teaching in only high school stage in order to avoid the possibility that the challenges coming from handling nursing work as elementary school teachers may do, or pressure from writing or directing papers of university professors.
Students’ behaviors and things which have to be taken care of have more in common in high schools, so the difficulties teachers may face do not vary due to highly different job content.
Among the five junior high schools, Jincheng has the most students, about 1,400 students and with 33 classes for this school year. Kinmen Senior High School has more students than Kinmen Vocational High School, because lots of students in the vocational high school drop school themselves or being flunked out of the school for their constant bad behaviors or grades. Therefore, teachers have more number in Jincheng junior high school and National Kinmen Senior High School than other high schools in Kinmen. So a large
proportion of participants are chosen from these two schools in this study to fit the principal of proportionality.
Selection of participants
The sample size is set for 13 teachers. Basic criteria for selecting interview participants would be two in this study. First, the teachers’ hometowns have to be places in Taiwan, not Kinmen. Second, the participants need to have spent more than two years in schools in Kinmen, and the longer the better.
Criterion based on the length of time working in Kinmen is helpful for the participants to recall the various challenges they have ever dealt with. New comers from Taiwan may not face as many events as those who have stayed at least two years and 10 months in Kinmen.
Teachers start working on August from the year they obtain the job position. So teachers who start working in August, 2010 and 2011 are excluded from selection criterion for this study.
Another reason for putting the length of time as a criterion is that it is more favorable for the researcher to understand the mental changes the participants have been through in all their years in Kinmen.
Information of the research participants
Through observation, interviewing, and document analysis, the researcher studied teaching and living experience experienced by 13 teachers from Taiwan currently working in Kinmen (11female / 2 male). The participants work in Jincheng, Jinning, Jinhu, and Jinsha junior high schools, and some work in National Kinmen Senior High School and one in Kinmen Vocational High School. As mentioned before that the participants were sampling is supported by Merriam (1998) that it based on the assumption that the investigator wants to discover, understand, and gain insight and therefore select a sample from which most can be learned.
Since gaining rapport with the interviewee is important for doing qualitative interviews
making the respondents feel safe, comfortable, and valued so that they can generate meaningful and useful data (Lichtman, 2006), all the participants in this study are personally acquainted with the researcher. The small sample size of this study generated perspectives aimed at stimulating thinking and identifying useful avenues for new research and not findings for generalization.
Table 3.1
Profile of Participants
Name Current position School Place of
origin
Duration of stay in Kinmen
Lily director/ teacher Jincheng junior high school Taipei 4 years and 10 months Claudia homeroom teacher Jincheng junior high school Taipei 2 years and 10 months Francis homeroom teacher Jincheng junior high school Taichung 3 years and 10 months Yvonne homeroom teacher Jincheng junior high school Tainan 6 years and 10 months Lydia homeroom teacher Jinning junior high school Kaohsiung 2 years and 10 months Henry homeroom teacher Jinning junior high school Tainan 3 years and 10 months Gina homeroom teacher Jinhu junior high school Tainan 3 years and 10 months Amy homeroom teacher Jingsha junior high school New
Taipei City
2 years and 10 months
Jenny director/ teacher Kinmen Senior High School Tainan 3 years and 10 months Sunny director/ teacher Kinmen Senior High School Kaohsiung 4 years and 10 months Peggy homeroom teacher Kinmen Senior High School Taipei 4 years and 10 months Alice homeroom teacher Kinmen Senior High School Taoyuan 2 years and 10 months Brian homeroom teacher Kinmen Vocational High
School
Taipei 2 years and 10 months
Credibility of the Study
The multiple methods of data collection are to enhance the internal validity (credibility) of the qualitative research. The model of determinants of adjustment proposed by Black et al.
(1991) as written in the section of literature review help with the designing of the interview questions in this study. After interviewing the first two participants, the researcher added the final question to have further understanding of the participants’ desire in staying in Kinmen.
The willingness of staying in Kinmen is also one of the indicators of their adjustment status.
Since the researcher is took the role of “participant as observer” in Jincheng School, the researcher could easily observe some participants’ work condition for a long time thus helped identify the real work situation of these participants. In this study, triangulation method also includes reviewing existing document of schools and remarks made by participants on line to make sure the credibility of this research.
Data Analysis
Each interview was digital audio recorded and transcribed by the researcher. After the interview had been conducted and observation had begun, data analysis involving coding field was carried out. The researcher listened to the interviews repeatedly and read the transcripts many times until themes or categories emerged. The researcher identifies them in the data and reinforced them with actual instances from the transcripts. Interpretations related to cross-cultural challenges and adjustments were made based on the emerged themes.
Figure 3.1 presents the example of coding process. The recurring similar concepts of data provided by different interviewees were captured and coded. Any particular comment of a single interviewee was eliminated according to the phenomenological approach this study refers to.
Q7: Have you ever met any difficulties in facing Kinmen natives? Please provide some practical examples.
Code of the interviewee
Original Data Coding
B Every time I attended social occasions, the natives especially the elderly always used ways from persuasion, urging, to forcing us to drink kaoliang liquor and I really don’t like it at all. Kaoliang liquor tastes good but it is too strong for me. The meals for socializing are a lot here. Those natives did the same thing to guests as well. But guests only have to stand it once, and we need to drink the alcohol more than we can bear many times.
Drinking kaoliang liquor is a must
High frequency of meals for socializing
Figure 3.1.The first example of the coding process
Q10: How long do you desire to stay in Kinmen? In your opinion, will there any factors that can prolong or shorten the time you just mentioned?
Code of the interviewee
Original Data Coding
D I still take teachers’ joint entrance exams in Taiwan every year. So once I am admitted to a school in there, I will leave here. Actually it really depends on whether my boyfriend can come to work in Kinmen or not. If he can come here to stay with me, I don’t think it’s necessary to leave here in the near future, but if he cannot, I think I will continue
Figure 3.2.The second example of the coding process
The following Table 3.2 presents the categorizing result of the study Table 3.2. Data Analysis Structure of Adjustment
NO. CODE NO. CATEGORY NO. THEME
1.1.1 Leadership in school 1.1 Organizational behavior 1 Working
adjustment
3.1.1 Good landlord and safety 3.1 Living 3 General
adjustment 3.1.2 High price and not much furniture
3.2.1 Price of goods is higher than Taiwan 3.2 Shopping 3.2.2 Doing shopping on-line
3.3.1 Couples are geographically separated 3.3 Relational issue 3.3.2 The outer pressure of getting married
3.4.1 High frequency of meals for socializing 3.4 Meals for socializing 3.4.1 Drinking Kinmen kaoliang liquor is a
must
3.5.1 Tight relations among natives 3.5 Relation overrides rules 3.5.2 The elder teachers can have more rights
3.5.3 Planning is not favored
Framework of Research Findings
The resulting structure of categories and themes was then used to for the framework of the study. It is too arbitrary to judge whether a person adapts well to the culture in Kinmen.
However, it is reasonable to say if a participant is personally willing to continually stay in Kinmen, not forced by any pressure, then the participant enjoys working and living in Kinmen and adapts well to the life there. People do not desire for staying in one place unless they like there or have practical reasons for staying there, and that is the reason why the researcher removes the latter factor to understand if participants are fond of Kinmen itself.
As mentioned in chapter two in this study, Black et al. (1991) proposed a theoretical framework of dimensions of adjustment which are adjustment to the job, adjustment to interacting with host country nationals, and adjustment to the non-work environment.
From coding some interview data, the researcher found some participants also formed a new problem of interaction with people from or in Taiwan. Taking dimensions proposed by Black et al. (1991) as reference, the researcher adapted the framework for the study including three kinds of adjustment: working, psychological, and general adjustment as figure 3.2. in the next page.
Figure 3.3. Research findings framework. Adapted from “The influence of the Spouse on American Expatriate Adjustment and Intent to Stay in Pacific Rim Overseas Assignments,” by J. S. Black, ＆ G. K. Stephens, 1989, Journal of Management, 15(4), p538. Copyright 1989 by the Journal of Management Issues.
Psychological Adjustment
●Interaction with Kinmen natives
●Interaction with people from/ in Taiwan
●Social support
Adjustment Working Adjustment
●Organizational behavior
●Organizational management
General Adjustment
●Living
●Shopping
●Relational issue
●Meals for socializing
●Relation overrides rules
●Relation overrides rules