Analysis of the focus group interviews

Analysis of the one-to-one interviews generated themes that participants of the interview perceived to affect their learning of mathematics. Following the in-depth interviews and noting the emerging views, I then carried out semi-structured focus group interviews, to focus on and investigate the views on those emerging themes. As pointed out earlier two different focus groups, one at each campus, were formed and discussions on the various themes that had been established by the one-to-one interviews were carried out. I transcribed the discussions and noted/marked texts, views and responses that fit the broader themes similar to those generated by the one-to-one interviews or new themes that reflect the views of the focus group participants on the issue under investigation.

Table 4.1. Descriptive codes to summarise the excerpted interview

Data extracted from Carole’s interview Assigned code

It was big, big shock with the system; haven’t been at education. Any way regarding maths: walked the door as a mature student.

Consequence of her identity

I enjoyed maths first three weeks but after 3rd week; I absolutely hated it. That made my first experience bad; quiet miserable. Because it reminded me everything all I went through when I was doing my GCSEs and I failed it and all came pulling back.

Past experience in mathematics

I could remember how poor I was on that subject I haven’t done it for so long and it did come back that I realised actually I did not have academic background you should have; but I haven’t drown a graph for so since I was 16; so that was 14 years ago for me really; and 12 years later, here we are again in the same situation.

Perception about herself

I have to say I found the whole set of modules quiet difficult because the teaching is for 4 hours, for anybody, mathematics, if you are bright or not or if you have done maths or not , it is just 4 hours statistics.

Reason for the taught modules to be difficult

To do those and go to work, after that only very small learning takes place and it is very condensed learning. It should have been broken up. I think a lot of students complained about that. For it to work, it should’ve been broken a little bit more; or may be doing the dry part of the class first and then doing the easiest subject straight away or tutorial.

I have chosen the discussions held by the two focus groups on the theme of 'mathematics is gendered' to illustrate how I used the information from the focus groups. The participants of the one-to-one interviews had differing views on the question of whether or not mathematics is gendered. The sample responses from some members (non/specialists; all names are pseudonyms) of the focus groups on the question ‘is mathematics gendered?’ is given below:

No, nothing is just for men or just for women. Historically, it is a male- dominated subject. And for me personally, it was the media or films regarding this subject… because of the society…but at the base of it I do not think that men are particularly better in maths than women or women are better in maths than men; it does not exist (Liz, Group A).

… I mean on equal grounds, it is the girls who are doing much better in maths than us, the boys (Gamal, Group A).

‘…in my school where I studied primary and secondary education, the best marks in the school for maths were scored by female students’ (Vladimir, Group B).

I think, from what I know, girls are slightly better in maths at school age because they do slightly better than boys in lots of subjects, only be by a small percentage, just because, may be they are more dedicated at certain ages than boys (Donald, Group A).

It all depends on one’s ability, and it is just ability. Whether someone is good at it or not, you can’t break it down in terms of gender. It is all about your hard work and how good you are with maths. …. you can’t say one gender is better than the other… So I don’t think there is a gender issue, it just is all ability (Andrew, Group B).

These responses show that views on the issue are as varied as in the one-to-one interviews. For example, Liz referred to historical facts and pointed out that mathematics is a male dominated subject and the media also plays a role in making it appear so but to her ‘…at the base of it I do not think that men are particularly better in maths than women or women are better in maths than men; it does not exist’. A similar view is expressed by Andrew

who makes reference to hard work and ability rather than gender to be good at mathematics. On the other hand, Gamal and Vladimir, referring to their own past school experiences, expressed the view that the girls in their classes were better in mathematics than the boys; and Donald also shares a similar view claiming that the dedication of the girls making them to be slightly better than the boys.

The descriptive codes given to the above interviews are: the impact of gender in learning mathematics; mathematics a male dominated subject; the role of ability in learning mathematics; the role of hard work in learning mathematics. These codes were put together with the codes from the one-to-one interviews to create themes related to Gender and Attitude (see the Data Analysis chapters for details). The analyses from the one-to-one and the focus groups’ interviews were put together at the interpretation stage to further strengthen the themes on the issues of mathematics learning.

The analysis in the first phase of the research led to further exploration of the themes constructed from the interviews and a questionnaire with 33 statements was constructed to help study and further examine the themes. For example, the gender issue presented above shows differing views of the participants. In order to get the views from a bigger number of first year students doing the MA and QM modules I asked respondents ‘Does the learner’s gender affect the successful learning of mathematics’. The quantitative analysis shows that only 7% of the respondents agreed/believed that the gender of the learner affects the learning (Table 4.3, p.80) implying that it is a view held by minority of the students. The methods of analyses carried out on the quantitative data made available from the survey are described below.