Data collection

In this section some of the difficulties of implementing the data collection plan will be described and the decisions that were made in response to these problems. This serves to

equired in the process to accommodate the challenges presented. A summary of the questionnaire responses can be found in Appendix 3.1 (page 286) and the student responses to the card-sorting activities are summarised in Appendix 3.2 (page 288). A time plan showing the actual implementation is included in Appendix 2.3 (page 284).

Interviews with managers

It was important to interview the functional skills managers in June or early July so that plans were in place for the following academic year but arranging these meetings proved difficult in two of the colleges due limited availability and work pressures. As a result, the functional skills manager interview at College A took place in early July as planned, the interview at College B was postponed until later in July and an initial meeting finally took place for College C in mid-September, with the actual interview following in October.

Functional mathematics staff questionnaires

In the proposed timescale an opportunity had been identified for functional mathematics staff to complete the questionnaires in July when teachers were mainly occupied with planning and professional development rather than teaching. With delays to the manager interviews this opportunity was lost at Colleges B and C so only College A was able to deal with the questionnaires in the summer period. The preferred method for completion, during

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a staff team meeting, was not feasible since cross college functional mathematics meetings were infrequent and attendance was usually poor. After some discussion of alternative methods the questionnaires were distributed in envelopes through the college internal mail with a return label and the manager used emails to personally encourage staff to complete these. Although 46 questionnaires were sent out there was some doubt about how many of these staff had been actually teaching functional mathematics in the relevant year

(2011/12). Despite further questions at a later date there was no clearer indication of the exact number so a figure of 40 was estimated. Subsequent visits to college departments would suggest that this was probably an over-estimate.

In College B teachers were already on their summer break by the time the manager interview took place but an offer was made to complete the questionnaires at a meeting during the first week in September. Whether this was overlooked or whether the meeting did not take place was unclear but the questionnaires were not completed and, after some email reminders, they were distributed via the internal mail in late September.

At College C, following the initial meeting in mid-September, a date for the manager interview and a staff meeting for completion of the questionnaires were promptly arranged for late September. These meetings were later postponed to October for practical reasons

. Several staff attended the rearranged meeting, completed questionnaires, showed interest in the research and volunteered to be involved. Those not able to attend were contacted directly by the functional skills manager and asked to complete questionnaires.

In each college, further returns were obtained as the research progressed and the overall return rate for the questionnaires was eventually 51 % (39 out of 77 possible returns) but this was unequal across the colleges (College A: 17 out of an estimated 40; College B: 13 out of 27; College C: 9 out of 10).

Interviews with functional mathematics teachers

Functional mathematics teachers were asked to indicate at the end of the questionnaire if they would be willing to take part in an interview and on the basis of these responses it was hoped to identify a sample of staff to interview, some of whom would be invited to take part in the rest of the research. The vocational areas for the research would remain flexible until all the questionnaire responses had been received and interviews had commenced so possible areas could be identified in all three colleges. The initial intention was to recruit

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teachers and their groups from similar areas in two of the colleges for the case studies. This was not a simple process and was further complicated by all three colleges being at different stages with the questionnaires. College A had completed these but there were delays with Colleges B and C. Although College B was still the preferred choice for the research there was some uncertainty whether this college would actually proceed any further and, therefore, whether College C would be a better choice.

To avoid further delays, interviews commenced at College A before questionnaires had been completed at Colleges B and C. Some provisional vocational areas had been identified from the returns and the functional skills manager checked timetables to identify additional teachers who may not have completed questionnaires but might participate if approached directly. The experience, gender and college roles of staff (specialist or vocational, central team or dispersed) were monitored as the interviews progressed to ensure there was representation from each of these categories. As this process continued at College A, it was eventually possible to see whether the other colleges could provide groups for the same vocational areas or not.

The delay with questionnaires at College B, and indications from the manager that some vocational areas would not be willing to participate, meant that College C was asked to participate fully in the research. In this college there were policy decisions that directed certain student groups to take a particular functional skill and this meant that in some vocational areas there were no Level 2 students taking functional mathematics that year. In addition, there were missing questionnaires from staff with key roles since they were the only functional mathematics teachers in vocational areas of potential interest for the

research. With the assistance of the functional skills manager, progress was eventually made and interviews commenced. At the same time questionnaires were forthcoming from College B and a decision was made to include all three colleges since it now seemed likely that three suitable vocational areas (Hair and Beauty, Public Services and Construction) could each be represented at two different colleges but not at all three. The likelihood of one of the colleges withdrawing from the research also remained high.

As the interviews progressed, some functional mathematics teachers identified other staff that were teaching in the chosen areas and might be willing to participate. These

suggestions were followed up and in this way it was eventually possible to find groups for each vocational area at all three colleges. Despite the increase in the number of research groups, (from 12 to 17), it was decided to include all these at this stage since this served to

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enrich the study. It was also anticipated that the number would reduce during the year since changes to timetables, staffing and student attendance were common occurrences in colleges that could result in some groups no longer being able to take part.

Due to the extended period of uncertainty about which vocational areas would be participating in the research, more interviews were carried out than originally planned, firstly to explore different possibilities and then to complete interviews for all the teachers of the selected case study groups. All the functional mathematics teachers except one were eventually interviewed by the end of the first term. Most of the focus groups and planned lesson observations were also completed at this stage but, for groups who were late additions from College B, it was not possible to complete the lesson observations and focus groups until early January. At this point lesson observations also commenced for two groups from College A whose functional mathematics courses did not actually start until January.

Student groups selected for the research

The original intention of selecting three vocational areas in each college for the study was achieved by using the Public Services, Hair and Beauty and Construction areas but these included some variations that were included for particular reasons:

 A Public Services course with an emphasis on preparing students for employment in Emergency Care was used in preference to a second general Public Services course with the same tutor.

 A Level 1 Beauty Therapy course was included since there was only one Level 2 Hair or Beauty group taking functional mathematics in this college.

 A Forensic Science course was used as an alternative to Public Services in one college rather another Public Services course with the same tutor.

When identifying student groups to participate in the research, requests were made to teachers to offer some of their more challenging groups rather than just the ones that worked well. Some teachers responded to this and offered groups that they found difficult in some way. Also, three teachers who were the sole functional mathematics teachers for their areas offered two groups each and these were included in the research since they were able to identify distinct differences between the groups. The final selection of case study groups and their distinctive features is shown in Appendix 2.4 (page 285).

Lesson observations

Although lesson observation dates were arranged directly with teachers there were frequent disruptions and changes to arrangements. Rooms were sometimes changed at short notice

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and on two occasions it was necessary to search around the college for the class since they were not in their timetabled room. Several times functional mathematics teachers had to change rooms because the ones scheduled were occupied when they arrived. Public Services students, in particular, had frequent timetable changes, sometimes to a different site. One course was moved to the local Territorial Army Centre and my visits were postponed since access to the site was denied for civilians and it was uncertain whether special arrangements could be made. There were also cancellations of scheduled observations due to staff illness, a college strike, bad weather, student trips, expeditions or examinations. Since functional mathematics lessons for each group were only held once a week this meant a delay of at least a week for every cancellation.

The schedule for the lesson observations in the first term was complicated by the staggered start and therefore opportunities were taken to observe lessons at the first possible

availability. This involved working in all three colleges concurrently, with extensive travelling between sites. Where possible, classes at exactly the same time of the week in the same college were avoided so that in the following term the college visits could be planned into neat blocks involving one college at a time. In the second term, apart from some delayed observations due to cancellations, it was possible to concentrate largely on one college at a time for a two-week period with a one-week break between these blocks of visits to accommodate delays. This provided a more manageable schedule with valuable space for completing transcripts and interim analysis.

Third term observations were finally removed from the plan for two reasons. Most lessons in the third term were focussed on revision and in some groups students were no longer required to attend since they had already taken and passed their functional mathematics examination. For the purposes of this research, it was felt that a

had been reached and that further observations of lessons, which were mainly revision sessions and often sparsely attended, would not add significantly to the findings.

Student focus groups

The main challenges of implementing the plan for the focus groups were the practical arrangements for the meetings and the recruiting of students. Practical arrangements varied between colleges and groups. Some functional mathematics teachers offered part of their own teaching session for the first focus group and assisted in finding a suitable room nearby for the discussion. For other groups, where teachers were less keen to sacrifice teaching time, then the vocational personal tutor was approached to see if time could be found

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during tutorials or practical sessions. The vocational tutors were supportive in identifying suitable times when students could be released but in most cases it was expected that the researcher would take responsibility for finding a suitable room for the focus group. Systems for room bookings varied widely between college sites and were generally inaccessible for anyone except staff members. It took a considerable amount of time and effort to navigate these systems and i ather more effective than the official booking system. Teachers often seemed unaware of bookings and on several occasions focus group meetings were interrupted by staff entering rooms to collect materials or to prepare the room for a following lesson, even when a booking had been made. Sometimes there seemed to be no better alternative to walking the corridors just prior to the focus group meeting in order to find a vacant space.

Room availability was a major problem in colleges and sometimes it was difficult to locate a suitable room at all at the time the students could meet without a long walk to the opposite side of a college site. Some rooms had insufficient chairs or no tables (which were needed for the individual activities) but the students adapted to conditions that were not ideal but sometimes unavoidable. One focus group meeting took place in a small vestibule adjacent to the hairdressing training salon whilst another took place in a tiny office because there were no other rooms available on the site at the time. One of the final focus groups for a Public Services group took place during a practical session held in a public park whilst sitting on the grass at a distance from the other students. Several discussions took place within

hairdressing training salons because this was the only available space that could be found. Fortunately these salons were large enough to conduct a discussion at one end of the salon without being overheard by the teacher or other students above the noise of the hair-driers and salon music.

Recruitment into the first few focus groups took place initially by asking for volunteers in the classroom situation but this proved unreliable. Students were, understandably, wary of an unknown activity and generally unwilling to use t O the pattern was established of using a timetabled college session for the meetings then the students were less reluctant. Both functional mathematics teachers and vocational tutors were supportive in encouraging students to join the focus group and a few actually selected the participants, although these students were still required to provide individual consent before being included.

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The focus of the research was on students aged 16-19 but some mixed-age vocational groups were unavoidable due to college policy and so some mature students were present in a few classes. It was decided not to include mature students in the focus groups unless insufficient younger students were available.

In their discussions some groups proved to be more responsive and talkative than others. Prompts and additional questions from the researcher were sometimes required to sustain any discussion whilst other groups talked freely, occasionally deviating from the topic but requiring less intervention. The Construction groups were often less forthcoming in discussion than the Hairdressing and Public Services students but this tended to be consistent with their behaviour in lessons and with comments from teachers about their general reticence.

In the second term student absences affected the size of some focus groups and a few of the original students had actually changed course or left the college. In these situations other

at least four students in each discussion. In view of the quietness of some groups it was decided that this was an appropriate minimum number to facilitate a discussion and it was better to have a viable session with some new students present than to preserve consistency.

In the final focus group discussions, however, it was important to have as many of the original students present so that comparisons could be made between the attitudes shown in first term activity and those indicated by a repetition of the same activity. Student absences meant this was not completely achieved although 73 of the original 103 students were involved in the third term discussions.

Vocational interviews and questionnaires

In the original time scale, the vocational staff questionnaires and interviews were due to commence in December but delays with other parts of the fieldwork meant that completing these at the time proposed was impractical and these were postponed to later in the second term. The grounded theory approach led to a research design that had an emerging shape rather than a set plan for the second and third terms so this was not a problem. Reflections on the first term suggested that the initial comparative study between colleges was

revealing more similarities between vocational areas in different colleges than between departments in the same college. This seemed to be due to the devolved responsibilities and

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policies of colleges but shifted the research focus towards the case studies of student groups rather than college cases.

The new emphasis on the student group as the main unit of analysis influenced the choice of vocational staff for completing questionnaires and interviews, since a college-wide approach was no longer necessary. It was decided that one member of staff would be interviewed for each separate vocational area or team in which there was a case study group. A teaching member of staff who was familiar with the student group, such as the personal tutor, would be preferred so that reference could be made to the specific group rather than simply generalisations about students.

The order of data collection in vocational areas varied at this point. During the second term, the relevant vocational team leader or head of department, depending on the structure in the college, was approached for permission to distribute the questionnaires to staff. Practical arrangements were made with these managers who sometimes also suggested vocational teachers who would be appropriate to be interviewed. In other cases, the personal tutor was already a familiar figure to the researcher and a direct approach was made, with the questionnaires by the team following later. This stage of data collection was particularly messy since college structures and practices varied. In some departments, responsibilities were devolved and team leaders or individual teachers would take personal decisions regarding their involvement in interviews but in other cases they would be expected to consult with the head of department prior to taking part. There seemed to be