Data Collection Procedure

Dialogue occurs every day between the teacher and the students in a classroom, though many researchers ignore this occurrence. This research focused on the teacher-student rapport in a middle school classroom by observing and describing their dialogic behaviors and exploring significant factors that affect the teacher-student rapport, as well as finding out strategies for building rapport between teachers and students.

There are many means of obtaining data for a basic qualitative study such as observation, interviews, documents, and so on. For the purpose of this research, both the observation and interview technique were utilized.

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Observation data

Observation is a source of data in qualitative research. In this study, observations were made when teacher was dialoguing with the student or students. This technique gave me the firsthand encounter with the phenomenon of interest (Merriam, 1998, p. 94). The present study employed the researcher as non-participant observer. My role was remaining in the background as a non-participatory part of the classroom environment. This allowed for the teachers‘ and students‘ dialogic behavior to be observed in detail, without disturbing the normal classroom activity and routine. While observing, I made notes of any interesting observation in my field notes. I also consistently analyzed the observation for meaning (e.g., what was going on here?) (Glesne & Peshkin, 1992), also tried to avoid any personal bias (e.g., was I seeing what I hoped to observe?) (Glesne & Peshkin, 1992). The core content of the observations and recordings were what the teacher said to whom, the tone of speech (diction), and actions going along with the dictation; what the students (mainly ones who were interacting with teacher) said, and actions going along with the dictation, and the situation related to the dialogue.

Besides direct observations, a voice recorder was used at the same time in order to help verify the notes recorded. Video recording was also employed in providing me with the opportunity to review, as many times as needed, the details of what took place during the observation.

I planned a minimal of three months observation, and finished data collection in this time period. During the observation procedure, I coded the transcription of collected data as well. After two months of data collection, as no more new codes emerged from

106 collected data, and the collected data were already enough to be able to answer research question 1 and research question 2 which are based on the observation of classroom dialogue, I terminated the observation procedure. During the observation period, I transcribed 7 classes of each subject, namely a total 21 classes of classroom

observations. Each class lasted 40 minutes, thus this research recorded a total of 840 minutes of audio data from observations. The third month of data collection was utilized to conduct interview with three teachers and 15 students who participated in this study.

Interview data

Interview is a common approach of collecting qualitative data (Merriam, 1998), which is any interaction in which two or more people are brought into direct contact in order for at least one party to learn something from the other (Brenner, Brown, & Canter, 1985; Kvale, 1996). I wanted to find out what is ―in and on someone else‘s mind‖ (Patton, 2002, p. 278). Thus the purpose of interviewing is to allow the researcher to enter into the participant‘s perspective (Patton, 2002, p. 196), namely, through

interviewing, the researcher tries to understand how the participant perceives things and sees the world. Merriam (1998) believes interviewing is necessary when the researcher cannot observe behavior, feelings or how people interpret the world around them.

The key to getting good data from interviewing is to ask good questions

(Merriam, 1998), and follow-up questions are often asked, as probes depend on answers given by participants. Thus, as the interview is going on, the prepared interview

107 needs. Appendix I lists interview question version I – previous version and interview question version II – modified version.

During interviews, the researcher must develop a positive interaction and be respectful with the participants, and should portray neutrality on the matter being

discussed (Merriam, 1998). Since the participants have been selected by me, thus I have to ensure that participants were comfortable and forthcoming with what they have to offer. Some ethical issues should also be addressed in conducting interviews. These include obtaining the participants‘ informed consent (see Appendix K) and

confidentiality of the participants (Kvale, 1996).

In this research study, the main purpose of the interviews was to explore the factors that might affect teacher-student rapport in the classroom, and vice principal‘s and teachers‘ perceptions on teacher-student rapport. Furthermore, strategies for building teacher-student rapport were provided and proposed by the vice principal and teachers for discussion and reference.

After observation, I interviewed three participant teachers – teacher A, teacher B and teacher C (who was also the vice-principal of sample school); The interview with teacher C took more than two hours (two hours 13 minutes); the interview with teacher B and with teacher A took one hour each. Fifteen (15) students among 69 students in the sample class were purposively chosen for interview; based on previous observation and the understanding on students during the observation period, I assumed these 15 student participants had something to contribute. Appendix I lists out the questions asked in the interviews.

108 The present study involved teenagers who were under 18 years old and this required me to obtain informed consent (see Appendix K) from their parents rather than the participants themselves. The interviews were carried out after classroom

observations, during the third month of the data collection period. Interviews with teachers were carried out in the teacher‘s office and empty classroom in order to protect teachers‘ confidentiality. Interviews with students were carried out at the playground and the corner of the classroom. All interviews conducted in this study were audio- recorded in order to avoid missing any useful information. In total, 703 minutes of audio data were recorded from the interviews. The audio data were transcribed for later analysis.

Field notes

According to Merriam (1998), field notes could allow the researcher to find desired information easily (p. 105). Field notes usually consist of observations and the researcher‘s interpretations. Bogdan and Biklen (1998) call these two types of field notes contents the descriptive part (p. 108) and the reflective part (p. 121). They state that the descriptive part consists of detailed descriptions of the subjects and settings, the actual dialogue of participants, descriptions of events and activities, as well as

descriptions of the observer‘s behavior, to enable determining how this may have influenced participants‘ behaviors. The reflective part of field notes, they add, consists of the observer‘s or researcher‘s analysis. The researcher records speculations about patterns and how data can be analyzed, thoughts about methods and ethical concerns,

109 and even ideas about his or her own state of mind at the time. In this study, the field notes were more for reflective purpose. When I was sitting in the classroom, observing the classroom dialogue between teacher and student(s), at the same time, I took field notes about some phenomenon which could not be recorded by voice recorder, and my thoughts on certain phenomena. Those thoughts, such as class size, class activity and so on, may help me to reflect on the data I collected, and plan the next step of data

collection, also to come out with questions for interviews. For some examples of field notes which I wrote during observation, please see Appendix H.

110 Table 3.3

Total Amount of Time for Recording Audio Data Audio Data of Observation

Subject Class time Number of classes

Data collection period

Duration

Chinese 40 minutes 7 2 months 280 minutes

History 40 minutes 7 2 months 280 minutes

Biology 40 minutes 7 2 months 280 minutes

Total amount of time for recording observation data 840 minutes Audio Data of Interview

Teacher Subject Duration

Teacher C Biology 133 minutes

Teacher B History 60 minutes

Teacher A Chinese 60 minutes

number of student interviewed time for each student total amount of time

15 30 minutes 450 minutes

Total amount of time for recording interview data 703 minutes Total amount of time for recording audio data 1543 minutes

111 I collected data in the sample class for a period three months, utilizing the first week as a period for desensitization when no data was collected for use in this research, because my presence in class could affect the teacher‘s and students‘ behavior to some extent. Audio data – observations and interviews were collected over a period of three months; I collected in total 1543 minutes of audio data. Part of the observation was captured by video for recalling the real situation of classroom dialogue.

Table 3.4

Summary of Types of Data Data Gathering

Techniques

Summary of Data

Observations Dialogic segments

Interviews Verbal data of participants related to their perceptions of teacher- student rapport.