Data collection

To collect evidence of Thai teachers’ understanding of their questioning practices, three main instruments were employed: namely, visually-mediated interviews, non-participant observations, and documents (more details shown in Table 3.3). Their rationales are discussed in Sections 3.6.1, 3.6.2, and 3.6.3, respectively, and the procedure of data collection is explained in Section 3.6.4.

Visually mediated interviews

Visually mediated interviews are a creative way to enhance a traditional interview. The focus of this is to aid participation, resulting in rich and in-depth information based on discussion. Using visual items in the interview is associated with visual methods, which were originally developed in disciplines associated with the social sciences (Prosser, 1998; Banks, 2001). In the twenties, a large number of research studies in education were conducted using a variety of visual items or activities to mediate interviews. This research employed the visual method to enhance traditional interviews.

Visual items are very powerful in inclusive participations and in empowering participants in research. This is because, during the interviews, both participants and researchers look at the same visual items being discussed; in this project, the items were videos of the questioning practices. Woolner et al. (2009) reviewed the methodological assumptions and implications of visually-mediated methods of interviewing and how these can enhance the traditional interview. Two distinct advantages of visually mediated interviews are: 1) visual items “have the potential to empower participants and allow them to drive the encounter, but also facilitate

understanding between researcher and participant” (p. 3); 2) in some situations, “information produced by such methods is different” (p. 3).

Visual items play a role in ‘the immediacy’ (Woolner et al., 2009) between participants and researchers. In education settings, based on the Research Centre for Learning and Teaching at Newcastle University, a variety of visual-mediated activities including diamond ranking, photo elicitation, and the ‘toolbox’ approach are developed creatively (Clark et al., 2013). The researchers (Woolner et al., 2009, p. 5) stated that using these activities “the visual provided an immediate way into discussions about their experiences”. In the case of photo elicitation activity, Harper (2002, p. 20) notes that the photos could help in “bridging the gap between the worlds of the researcher and the researched” because the photos help both the participant and the researcher understand, at least in part. In this research, videos of the teachers’ questioning practices were used to mediate an interview in a similar way to other visual items, which had the purpose of ‘participative modalities’ (Hadfield and Haw, 2012). At the end, information collected may contain different information from a traditional interview. Thereafter I will use this term of video-mediated interviews in the remainder of my thesis.

Interviews with pre-school teachers provided an opportunity for them to give an account of their purposes in asking a question, questioning strategies, and two others features of wait time and selection of respondents. Interviews are a very useful tool for research because of the “rich, and detailed answers” (Bryman, 2008, p. 437) which are given as a result. The interview process is flexible. Although an interview guide, in the form of a set of questions, can be prepared, to some extent the interviewee is encouraged to talk and lead the interview. For example, the sequence of questions can be adapted to suit each interviewee. Following the issues that are important to the interviewee leads to the interviewee’s view of their questioning practice. In contrast, there are some disadvantages of interviews. “The transcription of interviews, and the analysis of transcripts are all very time-consuming” (Bryman, 2008, p. 436). The success of doing interviews mostly depends on the interviewer’s skills and their experience in interviewing.

Themes for the interview guide (see Appendix E) were designed to scope this research based on the research questions and the literature review. In order to ascertain the context of their lesson, the pre-lesson interview theme was the teaching of science in early primary education, particularly in the lesson. In order to ascertain teachers’ understanding of their questioning practice, the interview guide for post-lesson interview covered the following themes:

2) Questioning strategies

3) Additional features related to questioning: wait time, and selection of respondents.

Non-participant observations

Non-participant observation was employed in this study to explore how teachers use different types of questions over time in a science classroom. I was in the natural setting – the school – from which a direct experience could be gained. In observation, “the research can look directly at what is taking place in situ rather than relying on second-hand accounts” (Cohen et al., 2011, p. 456). Observation data is objective. Although the presence of the researcher may be intrusive (Cohen et al., 2011, p. 456), establishing relationships with teachers may overcome this problem.

In this research, non-participant observation was adopted in this research with the intent to was to collect video recordings which were used as part of video-mediated interviews and as data for this study. Participant observation means being embraced by a situation, “to gain access to insiders’ behaviours and activities” (Cohen et al., 2011, p. 465). In contrast, the distinct feature of non-participant observation is not getting involved in activities which may impact upon the behaviour of the research subjects. Accordingly, sitting at the back of the room (and video recording) would avoid interruptions as much as possible.

Documentary data

Document versions of lesson plans were collected, alongside assessments (if available), teachers’ handbooks, Thai early childhood curriculum, early childhood school curriculums relevant to science teaching, and an observed lesson. Documentary data better enabled me to understand the context of the observed lesson, such as the lesson objectives and the preparation of any questions.

Data collection procedures

The main stages of data collection for this study are illustrated in Figure 3.3 and the data collected are detailed in Table 3.3. The main research activities in a rough chronological order will be described as follows.

Figure 3.3: Data collection procedures Table 3.3: Overview of data collected

Data collection

methods Data collected Description

Pre-lesson interviews

-About 3 hours of audio recordings - Participant demographics

15 interviews Video

observations

- About 7 hours of video-recorded lessons 15 science lessons observed

Post-lesson interviews

- About 34 hours of audio recording 15 interviews using videos

Documents - School profiles

- Early childhood school curriculums - Teachers’ handbooks

- Lesson plans

- Lesson assessment (if available)

The data collection in Thailand took place between May and September 2013. During the process of data collection, I visited each teacher for three days, building the relationship in order to make the research more natural. Creswell (2009) suggested that “The more experience that a researcher has with participants in their actual setting, the more accurate or valid will be the findings” (p. 192).

A pilot study

A pilot study with one Thai teacher was conducted to test the research instruments and reorganise the data collection schedule. This happened before the main data collections of this study. The permission from the school principle and informed consent was obtained before the pilot study. After piloting, the three-day plan for data collection as designed seemed to be suitable to obtain data relating to teachers’ questioning. Some interview questions were modified to make them more easily understood.

Introduction to the study

I visited each teacher for about half a day to introduce the study to them, observe their daily activities, and take notes. This helped me to become familiar with the teacher and children and how teaching and learning took place within experience enhancing activities. During the day when a teacher had time, we started talking about my study. The research project was explained to the teacher in detail. The aim of the study was emphasised, specifically that the research intended to explore the teacher’s questioning practices rather than evaluate them. Topics such as the aim and the benefit of the research, as well as participants’ involvement and their rights, were discussed. Any questions needed to clarify the research were taken. This was to help avoid stress and to make the next video observation as natural as possible.

Two documents were provided to the teacher to give them information about the study. These were the Participant Information Sheet (see Appendix B), and informed consent (see Appendix C) as explained previously in Section 3.5.2. Informed consent forms were given to teachers during the day. Information about my visit was passed to parents. In terms of teachers’ professional background such as their educational backgrounds and teaching experience, each teacher was given and completed the form, Demographic Information of the Participants (see Appendix F).

Pre-lesson interview

Interviews were structured in two stages: a pre-lesson interview and a post-lesson interview. In this research, the purpose of the pre-lesson interview was to collect information about the upcoming lesson. The lesson plan was discussed in terms of topics and objectives, approaches, and teaching materials. This information enabled me to understand the context of the lesson. In the post-lesson interviews, the vast majority of my data were gathered. The post-lesson interviews were thus much more important for my study than the pre-lesson ones.

Video observations

The main purpose for observing these lessons was to collect video recordings as data for this study. Video data were used as part of video-mediated interviews and as data in the additional analysis by me of Research Question 2. Before I started to observe the lesson, a pre-lesson interview was conducted for the purpose of lesson context.

I observed a science lesson, with a focus on their use of questioning in teaching and learning situations. One observed lesson lasted about 30 minutes on average. This classroom

observation employed the principles of non-participant observation mentioned in Section 3.6.2. During observation, I was then not involved in teaching. I sat at the back of the room, filmed the lesson and took field notes. The observed lesson was recorded, with the camera panned in the direction of the teacher. The field notes about teaching lessons covered: the date and time, the topic and material used, the classroom organization, and the five features of the questioning practices.

Selection of five-minute extracts

I carried out a preliminary analysis of the video data and selected a five-minute extract from each lesson to be used in the post-lesson interview. These extracts were used in video-mediated interviews to gather information with regard to the teachers’ questioning practices. The video extract was selected by myself, and I combined two short extracts from each lesson so that the video extract lasted approximately five minutes. The two extracts were from either the beginning, the middle, or the end of the lesson. The criteria for selecting the two video extracts were based on the appearance of rich data in the questioning in which there were signs of interaction between the teacher and the children. At this stage, the videos were watched several times to make sure they were a good selection.

Post-lesson interview

After observing teaching, the post-lesson interview was aimed at giving the teacher an opportunity for a detailed description of teachers’ questioning in teaching and learning science. The focus of the interview was centred on the purposes in asking questions, the questioning strategies and two additional features of wait time and respondent selection. The teachers’ questions were found to vary according to the context of the learning of the child and the teachers’ pedagogical goals. Additional information on their thoughts and feelings about the interview were collected during the post-lesson interview.

In order to gather in-depth data relevant to classroom practices, the visually mediated-interview method was used. Teachers were invited to identify specific questions they had asked and then explain why they had used these questions. During this interview, a five-minute extract of the observed lesson was used to mediate the interview between the teacher and myself. By watching the video extracts, the teachers’ questioning practices were made explicit to them. Teachers selected a number of questions to focus on. As a result, the number of questions identified by teachers varied, with a mode of three questions. In fact, a higher number of questions were discussed with Teachers 10 to 15 (see Table 4.2) because I maximized the

effectiveness of the interview process as an interviewer. Probes and prompts were used to elaborate on an initial response and clarify information relating to the interview question asked (King and Horrocks, 2010). An example of probes was “Why did you ask that question?”, and prompts included: “Can you tell me more about other questions you asked?” More detailed of this study’s interview guide is shown in Appendix E.