My adoption of the case study method

I used the term ‘case study’ as applied in previous work I was involved in, such as referred to by Gillen, et al. (2008). In illustrating their research design, Gillen, et al. outlined the video-recording of sequences of lessons from four teachers, conducting teacher interviews, and presenting data based on analysis that spanned the recorded lessons. Within my work presented here, three teachers and three dance specialists working together in pairs, along with the three classes of pupils, were video-recorded during a sequence of topic lessons over an eight week period (covering a maximum of three topics, and a minimum of one topic), conducted in two learning environments. Each teacher and dance specialist was interviewed before and after the series of lessons, to address their expectations and reflections (respectively) of the topic and use of resources to support teaching-and-learning activities (see figure 3.2 below for outline of data collection).

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A pupil focus group was conducted with some pupils from each of the three classes after the series of lessons, to discuss their reflections and experiences from topic lessons. Teachers and dance specialists also took part in a VSRD session, viewing and reflecting on some video footage of their topic lessons, after the post-interviews and focus groups had been conducted. I outline the nature of these methods and my rationale for their use in more detail in section 3.6. Such a combination of data collection techniques and modes of collected data for analysis was also proposed by Flewitt, et al. (2011), in their statement: ‘Visual data are just one methodological tool among many, and researchers remain reliant on supplementary methods, such as interviews, documentation and field notes, that give insights beyond the limited focal range of a video lens’ (p. 44). Therefore by aligning these data collection techniques I was able to gather different perspectives from the participants, from which to form a comprehensive interpretation of the teaching-and-learning experiences, whilst also gathering data that could be analysed in different ways and for different purposes in response to my research questions (for more detail on methods of analysis see chapter 4).

Given the vast amount of data collected, for the purposes of this thesis I present a detailed case study from one topic covered by one of the class groups: of a four week, eight lesson history topic on the Great Fire of London with a Year 2 class. Focusing in this way enables me to do more justice to the complexities of the teaching-and-learning activities, and participants’ views and experiences of these activities, than if I were to present data from all topics and classes. This single case included video- and audio-recordings of all eight topic lessons, two pre-interviews, two post-interviews, two VSRD sessions, and one focus group (see figure 3.2 below). All of these data sources for this topic were transcribed (see chapter 4).

94 Figure 3.2: Data collection outline

In justifying my use of lesson observations, and the various interviews, I draw on Yin’s (2003) claim that ‘the case study’s unique strength is its ability to deal with a full variety of evidence – documents, artifacts, interviews, and observations’ (p. 8) whereby using multiple sources of evidence is usually preferable, in supporting the external validity of findings. This is not, however, to suggest that the different sources of evidence will support the ‘same’ interpretation, as

identified earlier, but they may offer useful insights into difference of interpretation, or of how understanding was constructed in interaction from different starting points of the different participants.

Referring to the same research project as Gillen, et al., above, I draw on the application of the case study method as contrasted with experimental comparison by Mercer (2007):

The opportunities and limitations of the small-scale, intensive, case study approach were incompatible with making pre/post comparisons of learning or other quantitative assessments. Rather, we examined the process of teaching-and-learning with

June 2009: Initial visits to schools, including some lesson observation

August-September 2009: Pre-interviews with teachers and dance specialists

September-November 2009: Main period of lesson observations

November 2009 and January 2010: Post-interviews with teachers and dance specialists

January 2010: Focus groups with pupils

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whiteboards over time, identifying pedagogic strategies employed by teachers and the responses these engendered in students. (p. 23)

I adopted a similar approach to tool use, which also included use of the IWB technology, to focus on any patterns of tool use or development of meaning making as they evolved and were co- constructed across the series of lessons. Thus my use of pre- and post-interviews was not intended to produce comparative assessment, but to allow observation of and insight into perspectives and interpretations as they unfolded over time.

I also adopted the case study method in exploring the development of contextualised tool use, in a similar frame to that described by Hennessy (2011) again in the context of classroom IWB use:

The case study serves to demonstrate how the teacher mediated the cumulative interaction with the IWB to support progressive discourse. The piecemeal, graphical construction of the joint artefact illustrates learner agency in the process of constructing and modifying meaning (Gee & Green 1998). We can see how this process... encompasses an ongoing interaction between individual expertise and common knowledge. (p. 476) The above approaches to research as cited by Gillen, et al., Mercer, and Hennessy relate to and influenced how I employed the case study method. In this way I offered an approach to the data which can accommodate the temporal and cumulative nature of real-life events, together with how pedagogic challenges are addressed and meaning making is viewed as a co-constructive process where meaning is built, de-constructed, negotiated and re-built over time and across use of different modes and resources. Detailed case study analysis allows the intricacies of such interactions to be addressed, to identify the progression and use of understandings and

misunderstandings, that could hold wider significance for educational practices. I now outline the methods of data collection I used in forming my case study, starting with the lesson observations.