d Classroom Observation Protocols Procedure

Another data-gathering technique used in the first stage was classroom observation. It was used to provide detailed evidence of the current practices on the reading activities conducted, presented and modeled in the two types of the classes. The teaching and learning of reading strategies both for comprehension and learning on how students tackled their academic reading tasks were hoped to be observed and captured using this technique.

The observation protocol (Appendix xiii) used as a guideline for this study was adapted from Garrett County Public Schools: Skills for success 1998’s observation schedule. The schedule consists of a section on the lesson’s background information such as the name of the school; the teacher’s name; subject taught; class observed; and the topic taught. The schedule has three sections: (A) Teacher Emphasis; (B) Students responses /

emphasis and (C) others reading behaviours or activities.

Section A tries to record instances or activities the teachers used related to reading instruction. This include (a) teachers referring to text structure, (b) modeling their ‘inner thoughts’ while reading or talking to students, (c) planning specific pre-reading

questions, (d) using specific techniques to elicit students’ prior knowledge, (e) initiating, building or referring to a certain strategy for assimilating information from text, (f)

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information and meaning across to students.

Section B focuses on students’ reaction and responses in relation to processing meaning or information from the reading text used in the lesson. It includes (a)

students asking questions about the text used in the lesson, (b) students elaborating on their own or other students’ responses, (c) using processes/strategies in some visible way when engaged in reading, (d) referring to part of the text to prove a point, (e) students using various reading strategies, (f) students revisiting/ rereading the passage to extract information, and (g) students using and/or adjusting prior knowledge to predict a point or elaborate an idea.

Section C is for other observable reading instruction activities. These include (a) how vocabulary has been captured, (b) actual reading activities occurred, (c) ways to

enhance students’ motivation to read, (d) teachers’ feedback to students’ responses, (e) students’ production of past topic visible in the class, (f) encouragement of intellectual risk taking, and (g) teachers openly share what they learned from the current topic or theme.

However, the data gathered in this procedure was not used in the analysis and in

presenting the data. In-depth analysis for the classroom data was not carried out due to factors such as time constraints in transcribing all the qualitative data from the teachers and students interviews, think aloud and the observation data. Specific problems were stated in Sections 4.5.2, 4.5.4 and in 4.7.1. Moreover, this procedure was not carried out in the second stage of data collection in 2010, because majority of the teachers

observed in were not available in the second stage because most of the teachers no longer taught the same classes and also most of the lessons were focusing on doing revision for the upcoming BGCE ‘O’ Level examination in October/November 2010. 4.7.2. Second stage of data collection

A preliminary analysis of data gathered from the first stage showed that more

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more on the learning process than the teaching process, particularly in reading in the English medium subjects across the curriculum.

When reviewing the data collected in the first stage, it was found that not enough data was collected that could answer the questions exhaustively especially in the area of the strategy use. Listening to the interviews recordings led to several other questions that could be asked to elicit much more relevant information and responses from the

students. Moreover, the interview questions in the first stage were mainly formulated to elicit information on the reading instruction in the classroom rather than on students’ reading strategies. Therefore there were still gaps in the data gathered from the students which led to a decision to conduct a second stage of data collection. The second stage of data collection was conducted to bridge the gap in the students’ data. This second stage of data collection focused on the sixty students from the first stage to add to the existing data. The second stage of the data collection was

conducted from July to September 2010 in the same three schools. The three principals were again contacted and explained the purpose of this second stage of data collection was a follow up of the previous data collection. Since only twenty students from each school were involved in this stage, the schools had no objection to the interviews and think aloud sessions to be conducted.

The first meetings with the principals were carried out in early July. During this meeting, the school’s examination timetable was obtained to enable the researcher to prepare a schedule for the interview and think-aloud sessions with the students. A follow-up meeting was then arranged with the school to distribute the schedule for the interview and think-aloud activity with the selected students in their respective schools.

The procedures for the interview and think-aloud in this second stage were similar to those in the first stage but with revised interview instrumentation (see section 4.4.3 for the revisions made to the interview questions). The interview questions were revised by focusing on students’ usage of reading strategies in their study as in Appendix xvi. The

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In the first stage, the text was taken from an English textbook whereas the texts used in this second stage were taken from a Combined Science textbook (see Appendix xviii and xix). The first passage was on ‘Platelets’ containing technical/scientific words while the second passage on ‘Tissue Rejection’ was a mixture of narrative and descriptive. The students read these two passages for about fifteen minutes following the same

procedure as in the first stage of data collection (see section 4.7.1.c).

The next sections focus on the data analysis and include initial steps in the construction of a database for managing the data and a description of the approaches taken in analyzing the numerical data from the questionnaires and the qualitative from the interviews and think aloud protocols.

4.8

Data Analysis

Two types of data gathering procedure was used in this study: quantitative and qualitative. The former was used to provide the general findings on the perceived reading strategies used by the students and taught (the use of) by the teachers across the two types of classes in the two types of schools. It was the qualitative data that was mainly used for the findings in this study. Two data analysis programme were used in this study: the SPSS for the quantitative data and the NVIVO for the qualitative data and are further described in the following sections.

4.8.1 Quantitative data analysis: Questionnaires.

The data from the questionnaires were used to create an SPSS database by entering all the responses from the questionnaires. This was necessary to help in managing,

codifying and collating large quantities of data from the questionnaires. However, SPSS was only used to generate the frequency of each item in the questionnaire being

referred to. This study did not utilize the whole range of statistical functions in the SPSS (such as means, median, mode, regression, correlation) because I only used data from the questionnaires in presenting the general reading strategies used in the classes across the curriculum.

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From the students’ questionnaire, the twenty two items elicited the types of strategies which students utilized in the following circumstances:

(a) during their reading process,

(b) when they encounter unfamiliar vocabulary, and (c) to access meaning from their reading.

Some of the strategies from the above include activating previous knowledge and

associating them with the new one, making predictions, guessing, making inferences, using translation, rereading, skimming, asking questions, relating to personal

experiences, summarizing, using visualization, monitoring strategies and using fix-up strategies. Both top down and bottom up reading strategies were included in the

questionnaires.

The above reading strategies provide guidelines in the categorization of codes for the interview and think aloud data, especially in the type of strategies being used. Both data obtained from the questionnaires of the students for both years (2009 & 2010) were compared in terms of the most and least frequently employed strategies. In terms of reading strategies, both groups of students in both years used almost similar

strategies. A summary of the results is provided in Appendix xxvi. The same group of students also did the interviews and the think-aloud procedures (in both stages) and therefore, the results were from the same cases (students) and this was a way to provide consistency in students strategy use.

The items in the questionnaire for teachers were designed to elicit the different skills or strategies they usually teach in their classes. These items focused on two broad areas. Firstly to identify the main emphasis teachers place in their teaching – vocabulary, grammar or comprehension. Secondly, to identify the different reading skills or

strategies the teachers used or taught (the use of) to their students in their classes

reading aloud, translation, guessing, scanning, skimming, summarizing, checking comprehension, prediction, using dictionary, finding main ideas, retelling, activating

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of the text and teaching the different types of text structure.

Data collected from the questionnaires (teachers and students), are presented at the beginning of Chapter 5 in the form of descriptive statistics (i.e. percentages). Test for statistical significance have not been carried out. The purpose of the questionnaire data has been to contribute to an understanding of the types of reading strategies least and most frequently used by the students. It also enabled comparisons to be made between schools, classes and the students. It has been supplemented by the detailed qualitative data.

4.8.2 Qualitative data analysis: Interviews and think aloud protocols The raw data from the students’ interviews and think-aloud protocols were first

transcribed at verbatim level. Transcriptions and translations occurred concurrently with the data analysis. Thirty interviews and fifteen think-aloud sessions carried out in 2010 were the main source for analysis. The process of transcribing these data took longer than anticipated mainly due to the fact that I had to carry out a ‘two in one’ task, transcribing and translating at the same time. Added to this was the limited time I had in the completion for my thesis. For the qualitative data, I used NVIVO to help me with the analysis but again I did not utilize most of the functions in the software.

Once the transcriptions were completed, they were imported into NVIVO. The next stage involved assigning responses from the transcriptions according to codes. Units of analysis were formed by coding the students’ data entries (Cohen, Manion & Morrison, 2000). Coding is the central process to qualitative data analysis as gathered from the Grounded Theory (Glaser and Strauss 1967) and that content analysis approach was mainly used in this stage.

Coding was approached in two ways. Although many of the reading strategies were pre-obtained from the questionnaires, for the most part codes were allowed to emerge

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Table 4.5):

 difficulties and problems students said they have with reading in English (PROB);

 reading across the curriculum (RAC);

 strategies employed when reading in English in general (RS).

Students’ phrases and comments from the interview data from the first stage of the study were placed under one of the four categories as shown in Table 4.4. It illustrates the initial stage of my coding. Further classification of strategy use made during this stage is provided in Appendix xxvii.

In the middle of the coding procedure, nine main categories were further identified replacing the initial four categories. This was made because it was felt that some of the categories in Table 4.4 were too broad and for comparison to be made, these

categories were further separated. A new category relating to vocabulary (Vcb) was also added because it was found in most of the qualitative data (especially the interviews and the think aloud protocols. Table 4.5 summarizes the process in these changes.

Table 4.4 The brainstorming stage: Categorization of strategy use

Difficulties and problems

(PROB)

Attitudes (RA)

Reading across the curriculum (RAC) Reading strategies / monitoring / regulation (RS)

Because i have a few miss