CHAPTER THREE: METHOD OF INQUIRY
In this chapter, I will explain the research methodology for my study.
Rationale for the Methodology
Studies on teachers’ professional growth fit into Marton’s (1981) description of
“second-order” research which aims to examine participants’ interpretations of the phenomena in the world (also see Freeman, 1996). To understand teacher learning, qualitative research methods need to be utilized because they will allow for a deeper understanding of the phenomena and participant’s lived experiences (Velez-Rendon, 2002). Compared with quantitative research whose goal is often to narrow reality by isolating and controlling variables, the aim of qualitative research is to “describe the complexity of reality in as much detail as possible and to focus on the perceptions of the participants themselves” (Anstrom, 2002, p. 115). Because of the great complexity involved in teachers’ daily teaching, qualitative design is a better candidate for the current study.
To address my research questions, I used an in-depth qualitative case study design. Merriam (1988) defines qualitative case study as “an intensive, holistic description and analysis of a single entity, phenomenon, or social unit,” and case studies are “particularistic, descriptive, and heuristic and rely heavily on inductive reasoning in handling multiple data sources” (p. 16). As Yin (2003) further elaborates, case studies are the preferred research strategy “when ‘how’ or ‘why’
questions are being posed, when the investigator has little control over events, and when the focus is on a contemporary phenomenon within some real-life context” (p.
1). The current study fits all the three conditions outlined by Yin (2003): It seeks to explain how engaging in team teaching influences teachers’ professional growth (i.e., a “how” question), I have no control over the events taking place in the research
sites, and the research focus is on team teaching in classrooms (i.e., “real-life context”). To gain a holistic picture of teachers’ professional growth, this research was designed to be a one-school-year longitudinal study.13
The advantages of adopting the case study approach are many. As it is
“anchored in real-life situations” (Merriam, 1988, p. 32), case study offers a rich and holistic account of a particular entity or phenomenon. Because of the high quantity of data it is capable of providing (Yin, 2003), case study is a good tool for learning about a complicated phenomenon (e.g., team teaching). Another advantage is that because it is “strong in reality” (Nunan, 1992, p. 78), case study has more appeal to practitioners, “who will be able to identify with the issues and concerns raised” (p.
78).
Although case studies are capable of providing a rich description of the researched contexts and individuals, the results cannot usually be generalized or applied to other contexts (Merriam, 1988). Also, like any qualitative method, the success of case study will depend on many factors. For example, researchers must refrain themselves from imposing their own values onto the participants’ stories and lives. This is often difficult to do and requires conscious attention from the researcher. Also, researchers must be keen observers to notice both the commonality and the peculiar of participants’ lives while trying not to exaggerate a situation or an event. A serious ethical problem may also occur if the researcher decides only to select the data he/she wishes to illustrate.
Being aware of the weaknesses of a case study design, I do not intend to generalize my findings to other contexts or situations. As Merriam (1988) comments, “One selects a case study approach because one wishes to understand the
13 For the school year of 2006-2007, class began on August 30, 2006, and ended on June 29, 2007 for elementary schools in Taiwan.
particular in depth, not because one wants to know what is generally true of the many” (p. 173). My goal is to provide rich descriptions of the participants’ lived experiences and the research contexts to my readers, whom then can determine whether the findings of my study are transferable to their settings.
Participant Selection
Before explaining the criteria and procedures of recruiting participants for the current study, I will first briefly discuss the background of foreign teacher recruitment in Hsinchu City.
Background of foreign teacher recruitment in Hsinchu
According to the official announcement made by the Hsinchu City Government in late August of 2006 (Hsinchu City Government, 2006, para. 3), 58 foreign teachers were recruited in the 2006-2007 school year. Among them, 39 were returning teachers. Thirty-three of the 58 teachers came from South Africa, 11 from the U.S., 9 from Canada, 2 from Australia, 2 from New Zealand, and 1 from Ireland.14 According to the announcement of vacancies distributed by the foreign-teacher company (see Appendix A), the applicants need to meet the following three criteria: (1) holding a degree in Education or a transcript with credits from courses related to the field of Education; (2) holding a teacher’s license; and (3) being native speakers of English from the United States, United Kingdom, South Africa, New Zealand, Canada, or Australia.
The applicants are usually interviewed face-to-face by the consultant15 of the
14 These numbers submitted to the city government by the foreign-teacher company are highly questionable because when classes began on August 30, 2006, some schools were still waiting for the company to confirm who their foreign teachers were.
15 Dr. Lee (pseudonym) served as the foreign-teacher consultant for the 2005 and 2006 school years.
She holds a Ph.D. degree in TESOL and is a full-time professor at a university in northern Taiwan.
She was directly hired by the foreign-teacher company and played a key role in recruiting and managing the foreign teachers. One of her duties was to observe each foreign teacher’s class at least once a semester. She was also the main organizer of the 2006 and 2007 co-teaching conferences in Hsinchu City.
foreign-teacher company.16 For those who still live overseas at the time of application, they will be interviewed by phone. The foreign teacher company relies on the help of human resource companies to find potential teachers. The teachers recruited from this source are usually foreigners who are already teaching (typically in the cram school system) in Taiwan. The foreign teacher company also posts the recruitment notice on the Internet. Some teachers who already work in the program also introduce their friends to join the program.
Two weeks before the first semester begins, the newly recruited teachers need to participate in a two-week orientation (a total of 60 hours) which introduces them to the program as well as issues related to teaching and living in Taiwan (e.g., teaching large classes, working with local teachers, and the learning styles of Taiwanese children; Appendix C outlines the content of the training program for the 2006 school year). On-going in-service training for all the foreign teachers also takes place regularly during the school year.
An important event which was organized by the foreign-teacher company was a conference on team teaching (refer to Appendix D for the 2007 conference program). In April, 2006, the foreign-teacher company hosted the first conference on team teaching for the first time which successfully generated much publicity on the Hsinchu Program. In the next year (i.e., 2007), the company decided to host the conference again and expanded the scope by inviting international scholars to participate in the event.
Criteria and procedures of participant recruitment in this study
My criteria for recruiting the participants are as follows: Taiwanese co-teachers
16 The information outlined in this section explains the recruitment and training procedures of foreign teachers when there was a single foreign-teacher company in charge of the program (from the 2001 to 2006 school years). However, as mentioned in Chapter 1, for the 2007 school year, there is no one private institute to manage the program. Therefore, no training was provided for foreign teachers in the new school year.
must (a) be novice in team teaching (in their first or second year); (b) be permanent teachers (i.e., non-substitute teachers) in the public elementary school system in Taiwan;17 (c) be English-subject teachers; and (d) express a genuine interest in participating in my research project for an entire school year; the foreign teachers must (a) also be novice in team teaching (in their first or second year); (b) novice in living and teaching in Taiwan at the time when they joined the Hsinchu Program;18 (c) show a stable personality to ensure that they would not decide to leave the program for whatever reasons during the school year;19 and (d) express a genuine interest in participating in my research project for an entire school year.
To look for foreign teachers who could participate in my study, I got the permission from the foreign-teacher company and joined their two-week workshop between August 19 to 28, 2006. On August 24, I also attended the workshop for Chinese co-teachers which was hosted by the Education Bureau of Hsinchu City and the foreign-teacher company. Meanwhile, I also contacted the elementary schools in Hsinchu City to inquire about the status of their local and foreign English teachers to look for potential participants.
I spent a lot of time during the summer vacation of 2006 to look for the potential participants. It was not easy to find novice Taiwanese teachers in Hsinchu City. Because of the low birth rate and anticipated low student enrollment
17 This criterion was set to ensure that the Taiwanese teachers recruited for my study represent the stable teaching force in the elementary school system in Taiwan.
18 Those foreign teachers who had been living and teaching in Taiwan for an extensive period of time before joining the Hsinchu Program were not suitable for the current project because I wanted to probe into how teaching and living in a new country affected foreign teachers’ professional
development. Many of the novice foreign teachers in the Hsinchu Program could not be considered as potential participants because they had worked in the cram school system before they signed the contract with the foreign-teacher company.
19 For this, I needed to rely mainly on my own instinct and judgment when I approached and talked to the individual foreign teacher. One of the foreign teachers (May) was a returning teacher, so I could ask her head teacher for more information. A relatively stable personality was an important recruitment criterion for my longitudinal study because it has been reported (e.g., Lin, 2002) that some foreign teachers in the Hsinchu Program simply quit their jobs (usually for personal reasons) in the middle of the school year.
rate in the future, most schools in Hsinchu City (and probably in many parts of Taiwan) now only offer temporary teaching positions (i.e., positions for substitute teachers) even if they are short of teaching staff.
With regard to foreign teachers, the beginning months of the 2006 school year were a period of difficult time for the foreign teacher company. It was not announced that they won the contract until the last day of June, 2006—45 days later than the previous year. In other words, they could not begin recruiting teachers until July. By that time, some foreign teachers who could not risk the chance of not having a job (if the company did not get the contract) had left the program to secure teaching jobs elsewhere. Before the new school year began, the company needed about 28 new foreign teachers to fill all the vacancies, but as of August 29, 2006, they had only about 15 on board. When the semester began, some schools still did not know who their formal foreign teachers were; substitute foreign teachers (these are usually foreigners who come from an English-speaking country and do not have a formal teacher’s license from their home country) were sent to these schools as the schools waited for further notification from the company.
Profiles of Research Sites and Participants
The three elementary schools where I conducted my research will be referred to as School A, School B and School C in the remaining paper. School A and B are located in the North District of Hsinchu City while School C is located in the East District.20 School A and B are about one kilometer away from each other. All three schools participated in the pilot team-teaching project in 2000 (see Chapter 1 for more details). Table 2 presents the basic statistics of the schools; more detailed descriptions of them will be provided in the following chapters.
20 There are three school districts in Hsinchu City—East, North, and Hsiang-shan.
Table 2
Basic Statistics of Schools A, B, and C
District School historya Approximate student countb
School A North 60 years 1600
School B North 108 years 1200
School C East 50 years 1300
aas of 2006. bin the 2006 school year.
With regard to the participating teachers, pseudonyms were assigned to them to maintain anonymity. Pseudonyms will also be used when referring to the other teaching staff and administrators in the three schools. All the participating teachers are female. The four foreign teachers are May, Amy, Ivy, and Rachel while the three local teachers are Angie, Nancy, and Joyce. All the foreign teachers come from South Africa. Among all teachers, May was the only teacher who had been involved in team teaching in Hsinchu City in the previous school year. Rachel replaced Ivy at School C after the latter did not come back from her vacation in South Africa in February, 2007. Table 3 and Table 4 present the basic information of the local and foreign teachers respectively; more descriptions will be provided in the following chapters.
Table 3
Basic Personal Information of the Local Teachers
Age Years of general teaching experiencea
Years of team teaching experienceb
Angie (School A) early 30s 6 0
Nancy (School B) late 20s 5 0
Joyce (School C) early 30s 5 0
Note. aas of September, 2006. brefers to the number of years the participant has worked as an English-subject team teacher in the Hsinchu Program
Table 4
Basic Personal Information of the Foreign Teachers
Age Years of general teaching experiencea
Years of team teaching experienceb
May (School A) early 50s 26 1
Amy (School B) mid 20s 1 0
Ivy (School C) early 40s 4 0
Rachel (School C) mid 20s 2 0
Note. aas of September, 2006. brefers to the number of years the participant has worked as an English-subject team teacher in the Hsinchu Program
My Role as a Researcher
According to Merriam (2001), an important characteristic of all types of qualitative research is that “the researcher is the primary instrument for data collection and analysis” (p. 7). This view is shared by Marshall and Rossman (1995) who suggest that “in qualitative studies, the researcher is the ‘instrument’:
Her presence in the lives of the participants invited to be part of the study is fundamental to the paradigm” (p. 59). As Merriam (2001) further delineates, certain features distinguish the human researcher from other inanimate data collection instruments (such as computer or questionnaire): “[T]he researcher is responsive to the context; he or she can adapt techniques to the circumstances; the total context can be considered; what is known about the situation can be expanded through sensitivity to nonverbal aspects; the researcher can process data immediately, can clarify and summarize as the study evolves, and can explore anomalous responses” (p. 7; also see Guba & Lincoln, 1981). It is through the human instrument (i.e., the researcher) that all the rich qualitative data are mediated through and presented.
Toma (2000) states that one way to ensure rich descriptions of experiences and contexts in qualitative studies is to establish close connections with the participants.
These connections need to be built on a solid foundation of trust. Before my fieldwork officially began, I explained my research project to each participant and answered any concerns they might have.21 During the fieldwork (especially at the beginning phase), I worked on building personal relationships with my participants so that they could feel comfortable with me. I also tried to offer help whenever possible, although on no occasion did I help them to teach. In the case of foreign teachers, most of them were completely new to Taiwan and often needed assistance to settle down in the new country. In my 10-month-long fieldwork, I had provided them with assistance and information which ranged from driving a teacher to a hospital to get a physical check so that her working permit could be issued to finding
21 One concern that was raised by a Taiwanese teacher was whether she needed to keep a journal for my research project. I explained to her that although the journal would be a great source of data for me, I understand that keeping it will add too much burden to teachers’ already busy schedules.
Therefore, I did not ask my participants to keep a journal.
out where the fabric shops are in Taipei for another teacher who wanted to buy fabric to make dresses. Likewise, I tried to be helpful to the Taiwanese teachers who participated in my study. I also maintained a good relationship with the Taiwanese and foreign colleagues of my participants.
As I tried hard to establish a close relationship with each of the participants, I was fully aware of the need to maintain “a balance being an insider and an outsider, between participation and observation” (Spradley, 1980, p. 60). I often cautioned myself not to cross the boundary as a researcher when I interacted with the teachers.
For example, in my background interview with a foreign teacher, I was asked if there were other places in Taiwan where she could find a similar teaching position, i.e., teaching English in the public elementary school system. I was careful with my answer (I told her I had to check) because I felt that volunteering such information would probably disrupt the relationship between this particular teacher, her school, and the foreign-teacher company. I did find the relevant information afterwards, but I did not offer it to this teacher. Another incident took place near the end of the first semester. I received an email from the foreign-teacher consultant, asking me if I could go to her office to offer my views on the performance of a particular foreign teacher who was participating in my study. I had to explain to her that it is inappropriate for me to talk about issues of this nature.
I declined the invitation.
When I was at the research sites, I presented myself as an observer and information solicitor. I wanted to be as attentive as possible to all the actions that unfolded at the three schools, but at the same time, I reminded myself not to be too intrusive. Trying to maintain this delicate balance is as challenging as it is rewarding, as I was often told by my participants that they saw me as a friend and felt very comfortable when having me in their classrooms.
Data Collection Methods
Data collection began in late August of 2006 and ended in late June of 2007.
Data were collected via different qualitative methods as a way to ensure trustworthiness. The following section delineates the methods I used to collect data.
Semi-structured background interviews with teachers
A semi-structured interview with each of the participants was conducted at the beginning of the first semester (September, 2006). One exception was Rachel who replaced Ivy at School C at the beginning of the second semester. I conducted the background interview with her in mid-March of 2007. The purpose of this interview was to obtain basic background information about the participants and to understand their initial views on team teaching; see Appendix E for the interview protocol. All the three local teachers answered the questions in Chinese, so I translated the data into English during the transcription process.
Open-ended questionnaire
In the last month of the first semester, I asked the participants to complete an open-ended questionnaire (see Appendix F); the questionnaire was designed as open-ended so that the participants could express their views more freely.
Following Anstrom (2002), participants were asked to define in their own words what team teaching is, to describe what they like and do not like about team teaching, and their strengths and weaknesses as a team teacher. In addition, each teacher was asked to provide a metaphor for team teaching. According to Shannon and Meath-Lange (1992), metaphors provide rich information about teachers’
perceptions of team teaching (also see Dooley, 1998; Farrell, 2006; Greves, 2005;
Knowles, 1994; Martinez et al., 2001; Oxford et al., 1998 for the use of metaphor in teacher education). A metaphor can be defined as “the characterization of a
phenomenon in familiar terms” (Dickmeyer, 1989, p. 151, as cited in Farrell, 2006).
As Oxford et al. note (1998), metaphor “involves employing a familiar object or event as a conceptual tool to elucidate features of a more complex subject or situation” (p. 4). In their book titled Metaphors we live by, George Lakoff and Mark Johnson (1980) discuss examples of metaphor in our daily life and how they affect our ways of thinking, perceiving, and acting. For them, metaphors “provide ways of comprehending experience; they give order to our lives…[and] are necessary for making sense of what goes on around us” (pp. 185-186). When discussing the importance of metaphor in social science writing, Richardson (1998) compares metaphor to the spine of human body—“Like the spine, it bears weight, permits movement, is buried beneath the surface, and links parts together into a functional, coherent whole” (p. 351). According to her, the essence of metaphor lies in “the experiencing and understanding of one thing in terms of another” (p. 351;
also see Koro-Ljungberg, 2001).
In the realm of education research, metaphors have proven to be a powerful means for making explicit and exploring teacher knowledge and beliefs (Bullough, Jr. & Baughman, 1997; Farrell, 2006; Oxford et al., 1998; Tsui, 2003). Changes in metaphors could signal changes of teachers’ conceptions of teaching (Bullough, Jr.
& Baughman, 1997; Farrell, 2006; Villamil & de Guerrero, 2005); these changes provide a way to probe into teacher’s development. To take advantage of the rich amount of data which metaphors are capable of providing, I asked the participating teachers to write (at the end of the first semester) and talk about (at the end of the second semester) their own metaphors for team teaching.
Teacher narrative
Along with the open-ended questionnaire, each participant was also given a written prompt for the teacher narrative in which they needed to write about their
most memorable incident in team teaching in the first semester and what they have learned from this incident (see Appendix G). According to Johnson and Golombek (2002), teachers’ narratives often provide much valuable information to their inner world.
For the questionnaire and teacher narrative, teachers were told in the first semester that they could type their answers in a Word document or write their answers by hand. The local teachers were also told that they could choose to answer in Chinese, but all of them decided to answer in English.
Near the end of the second semester, I used the prompts in the open-ended questionnaire (Appendix F) and teacher narrative (Appendix G) to interview teachers (see Appendix H for the complete interview protocol). This was done to see if teachers’ perceptions had changed over time.
Semi-structured follow-up interviews with teachers at the end of the first and second semester
After the open-ended questionnaire and teacher narrative were collected in the first semester, a semi-structured follow-up interview was conducted with each individual teacher to help clarify the points made in the two written documents as well as to further probe into the participating teachers’ experience in team teaching in the past semester; see Appendix I for the interview protocol of each teacher (partly adopted from Anstrom, 2002). As can be seen in Appendix I, there were some common questions that I asked all the teachers (e.g., “What are the challenges you face in team teaching?”). Other questions were designed based on their answers to prompts in the questionnaire and narrative (e.g., “On the questionnaire, you mentioned that May and you seemed to set different standards for students to follow. Can you please give me an example?”) or the issues I had noticed during my fieldwork (e.g., “I noticed that you seemed to stress the pronunciation of certain
words [e.g., ‘name’ & ‘thank you’] when you taught the 3rd graders. What are the things you emphasize when you teach and why do you emphasize those?”).
Near the end of the second semester, I first used the prompts in Appendix H to interview each teacher. After carefully reading teachers’ responses on these questions, I conducted a follow-up interview with every teacher to clarify the points made in the previous interview and to further probe into their team teaching experience in the second semester (see Appendix J for the interview protocol for each teacher). In other words, two separate interviews—one for understanding their general perceptions of team teaching (Appendix H), and the other for further clarifications and probing into teachers’ learning (Appendix J)—were conducted with each of the participants at the end of the second semester. Again, an exception was Rachel. After giving her the two questionnaires (Appendix F & G) to complete for more than two weeks, Rachel still could not give me her written answers. It was only a few days before the school year would end, so an agreement was reached between us that I would use the questions on the two questionnaires as the prompts for the first part of the final interview before I did the second part (Appendix J) on the same day.
Semi-structured interviews with teachers at the beginning of the second semester At the beginning of the second semester (March, 2007), a brief interview was conducted to obtain information about whether the teachers engaged in any professional development activities (e.g., workshops, personal reading) during the winter break. They were also asked about their new semester’s resolutions for team teaching and teaching in general. See Appendix K for the interview protocol.
Because Ivy already left the program, and Rachel was not a returning teacher from the first semester, I did not conduct this interview with them.
Classroom observation and participation in meetings and school events
In order to get to know the school culture and teachers better, I conducted intensive observation (by observing each pair of teachers in two to four classes per week) in the first month of my fieldwork. After the first month, each pair of teachers was observed at least once a week during the rest of the school year except during the winter vacation. Sometimes I had to cancel my visits due to changes of school schedules or requests by my participants.
Because some teachers requested that I made a rough observation schedule for them so that they knew when to expect me, I made an observation schedule for each pair of teachers at the beginning of each semester (see Appendix L for a sample of tentative observation schedule I sent to May and Angie for the first semester). I was given the flexibility to change my observation schedule if needed (e.g., to attend a special school event or observe extra classes as follow-up). Especially at School A and School B where my participants had their own English classrooms, I would often stay there for extra lessons (with teachers’ permission) and conversations. As a result, I sometimes spent an entire morning or afternoon at my research sites.
Besides observing teachers’ teaching in the classroom, I also attended their meetings and other events, such as English club activities and lunch gatherings (see the following chapters for more details), whenever possible. Appendix M outlines the actual dates and time I visited the three schools throughout the school year.22
For the classroom observation, I always arrived at the classroom at least a few minutes before the class began to allow myself enough time to greet the teachers and listen to their talks before the class began. While I was in the classroom, I played the role of a complete observer (Alder & Alder, 1998). After the class was finished,
22 Please note that Appendix M only specifies the formal observation I conducted at the three schools (including classroom observation and participation in school meetings and other events). It does not include the extra time I informally interacted with the participants.
I always had at least a brief conversation with the teachers. The topics ranged from what they had just taught to personal issues, such as the fight they had with the school administrator the day before. I also used this opportunity to ask them questions if I noticed something worth exploring from the previous lesson. Some of these conversations lasted for more than an hour when the teacher(s) did not have to teach in the next period. As Stake (2005) comments, “For almost any audience, optimizing understanding of the case requires meticulous attention to its activities”
(p. 444). I seized every opportunity I had to observe and interact with the teachers, hoping to provide a thick description as well as thick interpretation of their lived experiences (Janesick, 2000).
Fieldnotes and researcher journal
I took fieldnotes whenever possible. When I came home from the research sites, I recorded what happened during the day (based on my fieldnotes and memory) and my own comments in my researcher journal (see Appendix N for an example of an entry in the researcher journal). In the journal, I also recorded the content of my casual conversations with teachers, which Wolcott (1995) refers to as “informal interviews” (p. 106). The journal was more than an additional source of data. It served as an instrument to document the entire research process. Moreover, it contained my preliminary interpretations of the events which took place in the research sites.
Document inspection
Throughout the school year, I also collected documents which were related to English teaching from teachers, the school websites, and the official website of the Education Bureau of Hsinchu City. The documents I collected are of many types, including teachers’ teaching schedules, lesson plans, worksheets, test papers, announcements made by the schools and city officials, etc. These documents serve
as an “unobtrusive method” of data collection (Marshall & Rossman, 1995, p. 95) and provide an additional dimension to my research.
Semi-structured interviews with English head teachers and school principals In the middle of the first semester, semi-structured interviews with the English head teachers in two schools (School A & C; Nancy also worked as the head teacher of School B, so I did not conduct a separate interview with her) and all the principals in the three schools23 were conducted; the purpose was to understand their perception of team teaching. With School A and B, there was a change of principal in the second semester, so in the middle of the second semester, another interview was conducted with each of these two new principals (referred to as Mr. Lee and Ms.
Chen whereas the two principals which worked at School A and B in the first semester of 2006 will be referred as Mr. Huang and Mr. Wang). These interview data helped to triangulate other sources of data as they offered multiple perspectives on the team-teaching situation. Appendix O is the interview protocol for the English head teachers. Upon the request of Mr. Wang when I approached him to schedule an appointment in the first semester, I translated the interview protocol into Chinese (Appendix P). All the head teachers and principals answered the questions in Chinese, so I translated the data into English during the transcription process.
In summary, multiple procedures were used to collect data for the current study.
Appendix Q summarizes the databank for the current study.
Data Analysis
I transcribed all the interview audio files within hours after the interviews took place; the transcripts were then stored as Word documents in my computer. If the interview was conducted in Chinese, I also translated the data into English during
23 Mr. Huang of School A asked the Director of Academic Affairs to accompany him during the interview in November, 2006, so I interviewed both of them at the same time.
the transcription process. Each interview transcript represents a single file, and when the data in an interview were cited in my study, they were referred to by the date the interview was conducted (e.g., interview, 2007/01/04). My researcher journal and hand-written fieldnotes were also indexed in the same manner, i.e., they were noted in the dissertation by the date that a specific event took place.
The interview transcripts consisted of a total of 129 typed pages and there were 178 pages of researcher journal (all in single-space). As discussed in the previous section, other data sources for my study include fieldnotes, teachers’ written answers for the questionnaire and teacher narrative, and documents collected during the year (see Appendix Q).
Throughout the process of data collection, I constantly immersed myself in the data I had collected by repeatedly reading them. My first formal data analysis took place before the end of the first semester. To get the questions ready for the end-of-semester interview, I first printed out the interview transcripts and the researcher journal I had access to so far. Then I read all the data in a line-by-line fashion for three times. During the reading process, I wrote the emerging themes on the margin of the hard copy and highlighted the parts which I evaluated as important or intriguing. While I was reading, I also constantly checked all the other data I had collected. The result was a set of questions for each teacher (Appendix I). Each set consisted of some common questions for each teacher, issues I had noted during my fieldwork and the initial data analysis process, and further comments I hoped teachers could make to clarify or elaborate their responses on the questionnaire (Appendix F) and teacher narrative (Appendix G).
During the two months between mid-January and mid-March, 2007, I also worked on composing a draft of my dissertation as a way of organizing the data I collected in the first semester. In the writing, I also supplied my preliminary
interpretations of the data I had collected so far. To complete this task, I first read my researcher journal and all the interview transcripts in a meticulous manner for two times. Again, during the reading process, I checked for any emerging themes and analyzed the important issues. Then I began to write the draft by using my three major research questions to guide my writing process:
1. How do foreign and local English teachers that are novices in team teaching describe and perceive their experience in team teaching? How and why do their description and perception change over time?
2. What skills and knowledge do foreign and local English teachers learn from team teaching? How do they contribute to each other’s learning?
3. What are the facilitating and debilitating factors for professional growth in a team-teaching relationship and in the larger teaching context?
The decision to present the findings according to the research questions was inspired by my reading of Lu’s (2005) dissertation on narrative inquiry of Asian ESL teachers’ lives. Following her, I presented the stories of each pair of teachers in a chapter24 (from Chapters 4 to 7) and used the research questions as the major themes for each chapter. The appropriateness of organizing and presenting data in this manner was later confirmed by my reading of Duff’s (2003) article on the guidelines for case study research, in which she comments that one way to report findings is to provide “an in-depth discussion of each case in relation to the research questions” (p. 167).
To prepare for the last interview of the school year, in mid-May, I started the process of meticulously going over all the information I had collected so far.
During my reading process, I looked for emerging themes and important events and noted them on the margins of my hard copy. Before drafting the interview protocol, I also consulted my advisor, who suggested that I should focus more on the
24 In Lu’s (2005) case, each chapter in the discussion section consisted of the stories of a teacher.
professional development of the teachers for this last formal interview. The finishing product was Appendix J.
Establishing Trustworthiness of Research
To ensure the rigor of qualitative research, Creswell and Miller (2000) outline nine what they call “validity procedures” and suggest that qualitative researchers adopt several of them in their studies.25 They contend that some procedures are easier to adopt than others, especially those inherent in the research design, such as triangulation of data collection methods, the use of thick descriptions, and prolonged observation in the field. Other strategies, such as the use of a peer debriefer or a formal audit, are not always readily applicable as researchers need to consider “their audiences, the availability of such individuals, and the expense of using them” (p.
129). Each of the nine procedures outlined by Creswell and Miller (2000) will be introduced in the following section, and I will also discuss how I used or did not use the procedure in my study.
Triangulation
In trying to establish triangulation, researchers “search for convergence among multiple and different sources of information to form themes or categories in a study” (Creswell & Miller, 2000, p. 126). In the current study, multiple theories (e.g., COP, distributed expertise, etc.), data sources (e.g., classroom observation, interviews, document analysis, etc.), and perspectives (e.g., interviews with head teachers and principals, conversations with participants’ Taiwanese and foreign colleagues, etc.) were employed to solidify evidence and provide multiple viewpoints on issues related to teachers’ daily practices.
25 In an earlier writing, Creswell (1998) suggests that researchers follow at least two of the following eight procedures to ensure rigor of qualitative research: (1) prolonged engagement and persistent observation; (2) triangulation; (3) peer review or debriefing; (4) negative case analysis; (5) clarifying research biases; (6) member checks; (7) rich and thick descriptions; and (8) external audits. The current study adopts the more recent discussion of trustworthiness by Creswell and Miller (2000).
Disconfirming evidence
Creswell and Miller (2000) state that a procedure closely related to triangulation is the search for disconfirming or negative evidence after some preliminary categories or themes in a study have been established. This search
“provides further support of the account’s credibility” because reality is “multiple and complex” (p. 127). Throughout the research process and the writing of the dissertation, I constantly looked for both confirming and disconfirming evidence for the themes or issues that emerged in the data. In my data presentation, I tried to present a holistic account of these themes or issues.
Researcher reflexivity
Creswell and Miller (2000) advise qualitative researchers to disclose their beliefs and biases early in the research process so that readers are informed about their positions; the readers can then use such information to “bracket or suspend those researcher biases as the study proceeds” (p. 127). I decided to investigate teachers’ professional development for my dissertation research because I value the importance of constantly improving myself on the personal as well as professional level. Therefore, I believe in the important role which professional development plays in teachers’ careers. This belief can be a potential bias for my study because I may set my criteria too high when looking into teachers’ professional growth in the research sites.
Another potential bias is that I share the same language and cultural background with the Taiwanese participants in my study. I also have worked in the local school environment, so I have an adequate understanding of the constraints that teachers have to work with in the Taiwanese school system. Therefore, when conflicts occur between team teachers, I may be inclined to have more empathy for the Taiwanese teachers. On the other hand, my cross-cultural background of
having lived overseas for almost a decade allows me to better understand what it is like for the foreign teachers to live in a foreign land.
To remind myself of these potential biases, I kept a researcher journal throughout the entire data collection process, which contained a detailed record of what went on in a lesson, meeting, or school activity, as well as my preliminary interpretations of the event. During the process of data collection and analysis, I re-read the researcher journal for many times. I was always wary of any interpretations I might have due to my potential biases. As I acknowledge my beliefs and background as sources of potential biases for my study, I also recognize that these personal inclinations are part of the study. As stated in the section “My Role as Researcher,” I inevitably became one of the important research instruments for my study.
Member checking
Member checking involves taking data and interpretations back to the participants and asking them to confirm the credibility. During my daily talk and interviews with teachers, I often asked my participants questions to clarify some phenomena I have observed or words they had said to me earlier (e.g., “When you said, do you mean that…?” “Are you saying…”). These talks allowed me to ensure that my interpretation accurately reflected what my participants wanted to convey. In addition, after all the interviews were conducted at the end of the second semester, I asked each of the participants (except Ivy who was out of reach) if they would like to read the interview transcripts. All but Joyce told me they would like to read through the transcripts, so I sent them to the respective individual.
Those who read the transcripts did not offer further comments.
Prolonged engagement in the field
Fetterman (1989) maintains that “working with people day in and day out for
long periods of time is what gives ethnographic research its validity and vitality” (p.
46, as cited in Creswell, 1998). Creswell and Miller (2000) concur with this view, as they state that the longer researchers stay in the field, “the more the pluralistic perspectives will be heard from participants and the better the understanding of the context of participant views” (p. 128). My fieldwork lasted for an entire school year, and during this period of time, I interacted with my participants extensively.
The prolonged engagement and persistent observation allowed me to provide a detailed account of my participants’ lived experiences.
Collaboration
By collaboration, Creswell and Miller (2000) refer to having the participants as co-researchers in the study. In practice, they suggest that such collaboration can take different forms, such as having the participants to help form the research questions, assisting with data collection and analysis, and involving them in the writing process. Because my research is a dissertation study, which is under the supervision of a doctoral dissertation committee, I could not involve my participants as the co-researchers. Instead, with the guidance of my advisor and committee members, I was the sole researcher.
The audit trail
The audit trail refers to bringing in individuals external to the research project (i.e., external auditors) to examine “both the process and product of the inquiry, and determine the trustworthiness of the findings” (Creswell & Miller, 2000, p. 128). I did not bring in any external auditors to my study, mainly because I already had a doctoral dissertation committee to ensure the quality of my study. In her study, Lo (2003) discussed how the conference audiences and various book editors served as her external auditors before her dissertation was approved. In March, 2007, the foreign-teacher company invited me to give a presentation about my preliminary
findings at a conference they hosted. However, after a thorough discussion with my advisor, I decided not to do such a presentation. My advisor’s major concern was that the study was being supervised by a committee; therefore, the findings and interpretations need to be approved by the committee before making them public.
Also, at the time of the invitation, my fieldwork was still ongoing. Fearing that a conference presentation about my premature findings may unintentionally disrupt my relationship with the participants, my advisor suggested I should not make a conference presentation about my study at that point in time. Instead of making such a presentation, I proposed to talk about Japan’s JET Program and the lessons we can learn in Taiwan. The foreign-teacher company accepted my proposal, and I made the presentation at the conference on April 27, 2007 (Chen, 2007).
Thick, rich description
According to Creswell and Miller (2000), an important procedure to establish credibility in a study is to provide a detailed portrayal of the context, the participants, and the themes. As they further elaborate, “With this vivid detail, the researchers help readers understand that the account is credible” (p. 129). Rich description also helps readers to determine whether the findings are applicable to their settings.
To provide my readers with a holistic and credible account which is built upon thick, rich description, I brought in data from various sources and perspectives from different individuals.
Peer debriefing
Creswell and Miller (2000) define this procedure as “the review of the data and research process by someone who is familiar with the research or the phenomenon being explored” (p. 129). The duties of a peer reviewer include providing support, playing devil’s advocate, challenging the assumptions made by the researcher, pushing the researcher to the next methodological step, and asking hard questions
about methodology and interpretations (Lincoln & Guba, 1985). My peer at the Ph.D. program, Beryl (I was permitted to use her real name), served as the major peer reviewer from the inception to the end of the study. As a fine qualitative researcher and someone whom I am comfortable to talk with, Beryl often asked me critical questions about my study (e.g., “Why did you choose novice teachers as your participants? Why not one expert teacher and one novice teacher in a pair?”
“How do you define growth?” “When you analyze your data, on what basis do you claim participants' growth or non-growth?”). These critical questions made me think harder about the design of my study and interpretations of the data. She also served as a sounding board for ideas. As Creswell and Miller summarize (2000),
“By seeking the assistance of peer debriefers, researchers add credibility to a study”
(p. 129).
Summary
In this chapter, I outlined the rationale for my research design and discussed the processes of participation selection, data collection, and data analysis. I also explained the measures I took to ensure the trustworthiness of my study. Next, data for each pair of team teachers will be presented in the following four chapters.
