I condensed and synthesized my data through iterative processes of review, reflection, theme generation, and the interrelation of themes (Miles, Huberman, & Saldaña, 2014), recording major or unforeseen analytic decisions in a data analysis log.
I reviewed data segments with reference to my research questions in procedures drawn from analytic induction (Belcher, 2009; Katz, 2001) and directed content analysis
(cf. Hsieh & Shannon, 2005). That is, I conducted a partly inductive analysis that began from my research questions to construct an account of the factors contributing to my focal phenomena—genred task methodology and teacher support. I continuously revised
my account to accommodate additional data, until I determined that the account was acceptably explanatory and complete (Katz, 2001).
A tool in this analytic process was the software package NVivo (Version 10.2.2). Using this tool, I reviewed and labeled segments of data with thematic codes. As coding progressed, I condensed the codes, eliminating overlapping codes and nesting related codes under broader codes. The figure below displays a sample of the interface
containing my data records. I describe this sample to offer a sense of the ways in which the software interacted with (but did not replace) my own analytic processes.
Near the top left portion of the figure, a partial list of codes is visible, including the parent node T-G [TASK/GENRE] FEASIBILITY, corresponding to my first research question, and the child nodes CONTEXT, CR [CLASSROOM] AND CAMPUS, and finally TEACHER MORALE. In the bottom portion of the figure, results are visible of a query displaying all data segments labeled for the child node TEACHER MORALE. The query returned 22 segments, including the following two interview excerpts, the first from a teacher, and the second from an administrator:
If I do it [task-based teaching] and then I get very good result, maybe the dean will say, “Oh you did a good job”and he will give me some prize or something like that—and then, I will [implement TBLT]. But so far, the common atmosphere is, "just do it." (flatly) "just finish it [the textbook]” (Emma,
Interview on 7.27.2015).
I just want to ... make the responsibility clear. Right? That’s your responsibility .... Please do not [blame] the others (Jun Xiu, Interview on 5.26.2015).
In the first segment, Emma is explaining why she feels she has no incentive to implement the task-based teaching methodology that she learned during a recent
semester-long professional development session in eastern China. In the second segment, the English department head (the dean Emma refers to) is justifying his recent curricular decision that had proved unpopular with teachers. By juxtaposing these two segments, an insight that I had developed over time through participation in the research site became clear to me: an administrative discourse that laid all responsibility for students’ (test) performance on teachers, while ignoring actual classroom practice, undercut the
resources (including skills gained via an expensive professional development experience in eastern China) Emma and her colleagues brought into their classrooms. This process of data juxtaposition both crystallized my existing understandings of contextual dynamics, and yielded new insights, which I report on below.
Concurrently with transcription and coding, I composed memos to flesh out, synthesize, and interrelate themes I observed in the data, in all generating more than 30,000 words in memos. Below is a sample excerpt of a longer memo composed 1.2.2016 that synthesizes and expands themes from my interview with Emma on 7.27.2015:
Although Emma was one of the privileged few (the only one in the department, the entire year) who had been approved for a semester’s leave of teacher training in Eastern City, she was unable to implement what she had learned due to institutional realities: her teaching schedule, and the lack of
recognition from the department. [She said,] “…I should say that I've learned a lot [in Eastern City]. If you give me enough time, ... then (with a confident, matter- of-fact tone) I can do it. I can set up activities just like what you saw last time. I can do it. I can [make] my normal teaching like this. But (1.2) it's too much work. ... If it is too much work, it's unfair. This teacher is just reading PPTs, and I do so many activities, I did so many preparations for ev:ery lesson. That is unfair. But we are treated the same.” In this excerpt Emma reflects on the complex way she engages with her training: She has gained knowledge about teaching standards, and the skills to realize them, which she would be willing to implement only under other circumstances than she finds herself in at the college. The existing system trains her [to use TBLT] but does not make it feasible—or even, in her view,
ethical—for her to implement her training.
As I began the process of writing up my findings and revising this write up, analysis continued. I ran queries within NVivo and reviewed query results, repeatedly revisited full transcripts, and (most importantly) continued to abstract from and interrelate my raw data through writing memos.
2.3.1 Document analysis. I reviewed the textbooks and other materials used in the courses I observed in light of my focal constructs, genre and task. Also, I arranged to have key excerpts of China’s Ministry of Education curricular documents, relevant to the teaching of English, translated. I then identified references in these documents to task- or genre-informed approaches to determine the extent of official promotion of these
methods. Finally, I used materials provided by one of my participating instructors, and online listening materials, to take a practice College English Test Band 4 under the test’s timing conditions. Following this, I wrote up a memo on each section of the test (writing, listening, and reading).
2.3.2 Interview and observation analysis. Data analysis began during my data collection period. In line with my ethnographic stance, I allowed questions related to my broad research questions to refine my use of my interview protocol, for instance
questioning teacher participants on their choices in classes I observed, bringing an interviewee’s comments into later interviews, and checking emerging understandings in informal conversations which I later recorded in my researcher’s journal (cf. Miles, Huberman, & Saldaña, 2014).
As a first step in formal analysis, I selected, reviewed, and transcribed portions of the interview data (Gibbs, 2007; Silverman, 2006). As transcription proceeded, I settled
on a level of detail that captured participants’ words and eliminated most fillers. When pauses seemed to indicate hesitation or otherwise contribute to meaning, I recorded the length of the pause. I saw the transcription process as an opportunity to reflect on my participants’ thoughts and begin to relate them into a meaningful whole through
memoing. I composed narrative partial transcriptions of classroom observations based on video data and field notes, describing classroom activity and supplementing the narrative with video screenshots.
I aimed to examine individual teacher participants’ classrooms in succession in order to gain a sense of each teacher’s overall approach. In general, I transcribed and coded one focal teacher’s interviews, composing memos along the way to synthesize his or her interview data, and then constructed a narrative report of the classroom
observations for that teacher, before proceeding to the next focal participant.
2.3.4 Performance data. I selected 3 genred tasks for analysis: a cooking demonstration, a picture narration task, and a news report. For each task, I reviewed video and audio data of the class periods in which the task was embedded, and wrote up a narrative and partial transcription of the classes. I transcribed students’ genred task performances and iteratively reviewed both these and the class narratives in terms of my focal construct, genred task instruction.
2.3.5 Focus group data. I returned to the focus group data at the end of the data analysis period to supplement my understanding of my second main research question on teacher development. I used audio records, along with handwritten notes taken during the session, to compose a summary and partial transcription of the two-hour session.