Data Collection for Research Sub-Question 1

In order to gain the professor participants’ experiences about the development of their identity as academic authors to answer the first research sub-question, I chose to collect the data by interviewing them because the professor participants as the research respondents are ‘gatekeeper[s] to lived experience’ (Sullivan, 2012). Therefore, interviews can be a short cut to get direct access to the respondent’s experience and perception of the situation (Robson, 2002). Moreover, interviews can be understood as ‘inter-views’, as Kvale (1996) puts it, in the sense that an ‘interview is literally an inter view, an inter change of views between two persons conversing about a theme of mutual interest’ (p. 2, his emphasis). Therefore, interviews are co-constructed between researchers and respondents through participation in a mutual conversation so that knowledge of the situation can emerge. In this research, I decided to use a semi-structured interview schedule because of its flexibility. Although there are many approaches to interview schedule as in fully structured (fixed wordings in a pre- set order), semi-structured (flexible wordings and sequences) and unstructured (informal conversation), Robson (2002) suggests that fully-structured interviews are like surveys and questionnaires whereas unstructured interviews might lead nowhere. With semi-structured interviews, therefore, researchers can explain the questions when the respondents do not understand them and, vice versa, researchers can ask for further information which is related to the topic.

Specific issues related to the research question were derived from the literature review as shown in Table 3.5.

Table 3.5 Specific issues from the literature review and possible interview questions

Literature Review Specific Issue Possible Interview Questions Ways of

Understanding Identity as an Academic Author

Self-identification - What do you think about yourself as an academic author?

(a) Author as part of authority

Authority through academic discourse

- Could you tell me about the work which gives you a sense of

authority? (b) Death of author and

birth of institution

Alignment and

resistance to academic discourse

- Do you find the language required in academic publication

comfortable to write? (c) Rebirth of authors

and readers

Textual voice through academic discourse

- What kind of voice do you express in your writing?

- What do other scholars in the research community tell you about your writing? Ways of Understanding Authorial Development Self-perception of development

- Could you share how you develop your writing for publication? - When you look at your earlier writing, what do you think? (a) Individual Maturity Progression from

novice to expert

- When did you first feel that you have become an established figure in the field?

- What do you think makes it difficult for younger academics to publish?

(b) Collective Transformation

Participation in research community

- How are you initiated into the world of scholarly publication? - Do you think your experience with publication in the research

community over the years affects your writing?

(d) Multivoiced Negotiation

Struggle for meanings and voices

- Is there any area of writing that gives you concerns?

- How do you negotiate feedback you received?

- Is writing for publication easier over time?

These possible questions were useful but asking all of them in an interview session without modification in succession would render such interview as a verbal questionnaire instead. In order to make the interview schedule an initial foray into the professor participants’ experiences rather than imposing these theoretical ideas on the professor participants, some questions were omitted, merged, modified and rearranged in the final version of the interview schedule as shown in Table 3.6. However, the nature of a semi-structured interview schedule means that these questions may be modified and other questions may be asked over the course of the interview as deemed necessary.

Table 3.6 The interview schedule for this research

Topic Subtopic Main Interview Question

Identity as an author

Self-identification 1. Which paper are you most proud of? Why?

Sense of authority/ Turning point in identity work

2. When did you first feel that you have become an established figure in the field? Self-perception

of development

Changes in their writing to better fit their current text work

3. When you look at your earlier writing, what do you think? Is there any area of writing that gives you concerns? Publication in

research community

Participation, Feedback, Revision

4. Do you think your experience with publication in the research community over the years affects your writing? How? Academic discourse 5a. Do you find the language required in

academic publication comfortable to write?

5b. Has it become easier over time? How? Novice-expert

difference/continuum

6. What do you think makes it difficult for younger academics to publish?

Before I began the interview with the professor participants, I introduced myself and discussed my research study with them. I also asked them whether they allowed the interview session to be recorded and they all agreed. I also informed them that if they wished me to stop recording the interview session for any reason, I would be happy to do so. However, this did not arise.

After each interview session, I transcribed each interview and sent it back to each professor participant for their verification and clarification in some parts. During the transcription process, I followed Jones’ (2011) guideline that the aim of transcription is to ‘re-present’ social interaction so that researchers can use it to answer the research questions. To illustrate, some researchers might transcribe all the hesitation words such as ‘mm’ and ‘hh’ in the transcript because they want to examine the power of discourse and point out the frequency of reluctant answers to explore the uncomfortable feelings whereas other researchers might omit such hesitations during the transcription process because they look for the contents. In this study, I omitted the hesitation words from the interview transcript because my focus was mainly on the themes and the experiences of the professor participants. Moreover, I took great care that I did not change what was said during the interview and each professor participant had an opportunity to verify and clarify the transcript. An example of one interview transcript can be seen in Appendix C: An Example of Interview Transcript.