This study adopted a qualitative-interpretive research approach. It also considered a socio-cultural perspective as a framework for viewing how people make meaning and make sense of their social world based on their interactions and experiences of the environment in which they work and live. The aim of this section is to explain the basis for choosing the research approach. Section 4.3.1examines the key properties of qualitative research. Section 4.3.2 outlines the interpretative research approaches and Section 4.3.3 looks at the sociocultural views.
4.3.1 Qualitative research approach
There are fundamental properties of qualitative research which make it a very useful research approach to gain insights and understanding of a social or human problem (Creswell, 2007). It is regarded as naturalistic inquiry, meaning that it is generally suitable for studying specific phenomena that occur in real-life settings (Guba & Lincoln, 2005). It is most suitable for exploring the “meanings people have constructed about their world, and their experiences; that is how people make sense of their experiences” (Merriam, 2002, pp. 4-5). Denzin and Lincoln
(2005) refer to qualitative research as a “situated activity that locates the observer in the natural setting, and comprises of a set of interpretive, material practices that make the phenomenon studied visible” (p. 3). Qualitative research focuses on patterns and themes, rather than the testing of hypotheses – it is an inductive approach, which is open to new ideas and theories. According to Creswell (2007), the qualitative research approach allows researchers to use their own ‘words or narratives’ to describe and interpret a phenomenon from participants’ perspectives, as opposed to the mathematical treatment of data practised in a quantitative approach.
The qualitative research approach is a helpful inquiry process for exploring a complex research area about which little is known (Denzin & Lincoln, 2005). Interpretation is the core of qualitative research and focuses on the meaning of human experience. The focus of qualitative-interpretive research is on understanding human experiences and individuals’ social interactions, and discourses are taken into account as the basis for understanding how individuals construct knowledge in their specific settings and contexts, rather than explaining and predicting behaviour. It recognises that meaning and behaviour occur within particular social, cultural, and historic contexts (Denzin & Lincoln, 2005). Qualitative research is most appropriate when variables cannot be quantified or when they are best understood in their natural settings. It is a useful research approach for studying roles, processes, and groups and when the paramount objective is to understand people’s live experiences (Denzin & Lincoln, 2005). The qualitative approach is concerned with participants’ opinions, behaviours, and experiences of phenomena from their point of view. It focuses on how individuals and groups view and understand the world and construct meaning out of their lived experiences. It often involves a small number of people, sites or situations, and the researcher might interview participants more than once (T. W. Lee, Mitchell, & Sablynski, 1999; Merriam, 1998). The mode of reporting used in qualitative research is characteristic; it is narrative, inductive, holistic, subjective and process-orientated (Creswell, 2007; Denzin & Lincoln, 2005). Merriam, (2002) contends that the product of qualitative-interpretive research is “richly descriptive” (p.5), where words and pictures are used instead of numbers to depict what the researchers have learned about a phenomenon.
4.3.2 An interpretive approach
It is recognised that an interpretive approach is not a separate mode of research from qualitative. In fact, interpretive research comes under the “umbrella of the qualitative research approach” (Merriam, 2009, p. 22). It is therefore a category of qualitative research. Interpretive research is about making meaning - it attempts to explain and describe, in order to make sense of what one studies. It is committed to understanding situations in specific contexts and the social interactions and discourses that are taken into account to explain how individuals create knowledge (P. C. Taylor, 2008). It is an inquiry that seeks to “understand a community in terms of the actions and interactions of the participants from their own perspectives” (Tobin, 2000, p. 487). The interpretive approach can enable researchers to explore, describe and interpret “…socially meaningful action through direct detailed observations of people in natural settings in order to arrive at understandings and interpretations of how people create and maintain their social world” (Neuman, 1997, p. 68). It emphasises the understanding of social reality that can be achieved through rich contextual description of the people and events that occur. Hence, interpretive research recognises the subjective nature of interpretation as an important tool. This is also one of the limitations of interpretive research as the researcher has substantial control over both the design and the analysis of data which is influenced by the researcher’s perceptions. Interpretive research is a flexible research approach which can incorporate emergent designs – meaning the researcher is able to accommodate changes when circumstances prevent the implementation of the planned activities (Tobin, 2000).
According to Taylor, (2008) interpretive researchers “embrace an open-ended research design process that allows emergent research questions, emergent modes of inquiry and emergent reporting structure” (p. 487). The emerging nature of an interpretive research process implies that it is not rigid; rather it is adaptable and provides researchers with sufficient time to rethink and strategise ways to conduct the investigation (Tobin, 2000). Interpretive researchers have been described as meaning-makers who draw on their own experiences, knowledge, and theoretical orientations to conduct inquiries in order to obtain empirical evidence of the phenomena they study and to present their understanding (Schwandt, 1994).
An interpretive research approach was selected for this study because of all the characteristics listed above. From the researcher’s point of view, it is an ideal approach for researching aspects of education such as teachers’ summative assessment practices in the school setting. It seemed possible that the Solomon Islands science teachers in this study developed their individual perceptions of the nature of summative assessment through teacher education programs and their teaching experiences and may place a certain amount of value on them. Supporting and improving teachers’ expertise and skills in assessment, and thus the school-based assessment system, are reported to be influenced by political, social and cultural contexts (Bell, 2007; Gipps, 1999; Willis, 2009). For this and other reasons, it seemed appropriate to adopt an interpretive research approach for this study because it accommodated the political, social, and cultural contexts of the teacher participants in their schools. This study’s interpretive approach was also guided by socio-cultural perspectives of studying how teachers go about their practice of summative assessment in science.
4.3.3 Sociocultural perspectives
A key assumption of this study, adopted early in the planning stages, was that cultural and social issues including school culture (Flores & Day, 2006; Gipps, 2002; Sarason, 1996) need to be considered in understanding teachers’ assessment practices. Instruction and assessment need to be understood and thought about within the cultural context in which they occur (Sternberg, 2007). A socio-cultural perspective which perceive assessment as a social practice consider the “social, cultural, economic and political contexts in which it operates” (Gipps, 2002, p. 355). Several authors embrace the notion that assessment should be viewed as a social activity because it is an activity that is done with and for the students in a social context (Bell & Cowie, 2001; Davis, 2002). There is overwhelming consensus that “the cultural or social content in which assessment takes place has a great influence on both the process and product of a student’s work (Aikenhead, 1997).
Black (1997) alluded to this issue of context when he discussed the reliability of performance assessments, as did Elwood (2006), who described assessment as a social activity because of the social interaction that occurs between students and
teachers when students receive feedback from the teachers, peers and themselves and because the social context influences what is assessed. Therefore, by examining and interpreting the six science teachers’ summative assessment practices from a socio-cultural perspective, the social and cultural contexts that influenced their classroom assessment could be better understood (Goos, 2008; Willis, 2009).
Social and cultural contexts are powerful domains that can influence and shape how teachers go about their classroom assessment practices (Bell, 2007; Bell & Cowie, 2001; Gipps, 2002; Pryor & Crossouard, 2005; Shepard, 2001; Willis, 2009). Assessment roles and responsibilities of teachers and the activities they are involved in are often carried out under societal expectations, policies, standards, and accountability demands imposed on them (J. O. Anderson, 2005). These and other social and cultural processes such as social norms (Cobb & Yackel, 1996), institutional pressures and personal orientations in regards to their work and well- being are issues that teachers face and that may constrain their outlook and work output (Muralidhar, 1993a). Examining teachers’ assessment practices based on socio-cultural perspectives can reveal how and why teachers adopt certain approaches in teaching and assessment (Atkin, et al., 2001; Atkin & Coffey, 2003; Bell, 2007; Bell & Cowie, 2001; Gipps, 2002; Willis, 2009).
Additionally, understanding the professional development needs of science teachers means that action can be taken to adopt assessment reform initiatives that are geared towards informing and improving policy on classroom assessment and practice in view of the “complexities of the social, cultural and policy contexts of schooling” (Willis, 2009, p. 1). According to Usher (1997), individuals in particular socio-cultural environments “... cannot be separated from their subjectivity, history, and socio-cultural location” (p. 32). Therefore, the goal of interpretive research should be to make sense of meanings across a range of socio- cultural contexts in which individuals in a community live and work (McIntyre, 1998). The interpretive approach with a socio-cultural sense also allows researchers to theorise assessment as a socio-cultural practice, although Bell (2007) alerts the researcher to the need to be mindful of “who is theorising and for what purpose” (p.994).
One of the aims of this study was to investigate how socio-cultural factors influence the assessment-related decisions teachers make in the classroom. It is important to gain improved understanding of how teachers in the Solomon Islands socio-cultural context both inform and are informed by their experience of assessment practices. An interpretive-qualitative research approach allows researchers and teachers to theorise together to develop “classroom practice models using their shared vocabulary” (Bell, 2007, p. 994). In addition, Bell theorises that assessment should be developed in context in order to consider what is socially and culturally valued in particular settings. Adoption of a socio-cultural perspective in this study has a number of advantages. It allows the research to explore how the school culture and society and contextual influences, for example, shape the individual teacher’s mind and thinking (Solano-Flores & Nelson-Barber, 2001). The socio-cultural influences that are likely to affect the manner in which teachers conduct their assessment practices include the “sets of values, beliefs, experiences, communication patterns, teaching and learning styles, and epistemologies inherent in the [teacher’s] cultural backgrounds, and the conditions prevailing in their cultural groups” (Solano-Flores & Nelson-Barber, 2001, p. 555).
Interpretive research is concerned and deals with issues that human beings face in life (for example, in education), which can lead to improvements of policy and practice. Hence, investigating teacher assessment practices being a human-related activity can be better understood from a socio-cultural perspective and then manipulated to inform policy and practice to improve students’ achievements in the future (Erickson, 1986). As Hull (1997) explains, it is vital to understand “human experience to reveal both the process by which people construct meaning about their worlds and to report what those meanings are” (p. 14). From a methodological perspective and when studying social and cultural factors that influence certain behaviours, it is vital to use data collection techniques that are not only culturally appropriate but also sensitive to the cultural protocols of the participants (McIntyre, 1998). Like other members of a community in any society, teachers work and live in a variety of conditions and circumstances and therefore researchers need to be sensitive to the challenges and issues that teachers face in their social world (Waldrip & Taylor, 1999).
On the basis of the frameworks described above, the research design for this study adopted strategies and specific data collection methods that were developed from the reports of previous interpretive studies that focused on classroom assessment, which will be discussed in the next section.