Data Collection Procedure: Stage One

to my own scheduled preparation blocks, of about sixty-five minutes in length;

social contexts are limited to lunch and student break times; extra-curricular activities are limited to availability after school or during student committee in-school meetings (these issues are further considered in the limitations section of the conclusion, chapter 6, of this research). The time frame for data collection was eight weeks, and during this time, I observed and interviewed the participants.

During the eight-week time frame, clear communication with classroom teachers established that my position was not evaluative of teaching methods, as it is important that educators, as stakeholders in this research, know that I am

observing the participants and not judging classroom teaching practices. Before beginning each observation, I announced to the class or club why I was present, and that I was not collecting data on their teacher, or on any student who did not sign the letter of consent to participate in the research (appendix G). Where appropriate, boundary spanning informally occurred as I asked classroom teachers to elaborate on classroom context important to my interpretation of participant observation. Teacher responses were not included in the official data, but, in addition to participants adjusting data, classroom teacher perspectives were helpful to ensure I was interpreting the classroom context validly.

3.2.4 Data Collection Procedure: Stage One

For the observation stage of the data collection I used “passive

observation” (p. 51) and thick description during the first stage of the research so that I impose myself upon the site as little as possible (Carspecken, 1996). Using McKernan’s (1996) concept of a shadow study, I followed participants to key

locations at the school, such as the classroom, cafeteria, and/or extra-curricular activities in order to observe intersection of home and school cultures and how participants behave in relation to their negotiation of cultural norms. Field journals record thick description of participant behaviour and speech juxtaposed with the cultural environment at school. Primary locations for observation are classrooms, where participants learn to adapt to the Western cultural norms of school, and where the language of instruction (English) may metonymically represent Anglo-Western culture. Additional observation locations were for courses where the language of instruction matches the language of the national host country. Secondary, overt observation locations include: offices, student lounges, cafeterias, school libraries, sports complexes, assemblies, and student activities. As mentioned in the last section, the official time frame for data collection outline on the letter of consent was eight weeks, however, I have been present at the school for seven years.

As Marshall and Rossman (2006) suggest, I used a structured observation frame in order to ensure that observation data is explicitly recorded. For

participant observations, I used LeCompte and Preissle’s (1993) guide for stream-of-behaviour chronicles to format my field journals using stream-stream-of-behaviour chronicles: with field notes on the left side of the page and researcher comments and analyses on the right. Observation and thick description first prioritize everything the participant says or does, second, anything anyone else says or does, and third, elements of setting important to the research. The primary record and field journals recorded observational data on: speech, body movements, body

postures, frequent record of time, context information, speech, and diagrams of research areas. Twenty-six observations occurred, and very thick descriptive primary notes were taken for sixteen of these times. I did not use covert observations because of ethical boundaries observing minors.

Field journals use Carspecken’s (1996) procedures for recording thick description in field journals, in order to “ground inferences made on less thickly compiled notes, for these often display the same patterns of behaviour captured thickly” (Carspecken, 1996, p. 48). Carspecken (1996) discusses how participants within ethnography are observed in a primary location, such as the classroom, but that interactions and social behaviours within the classroom are subtle and must be understood through the combined observation of secondary locations (offices, teacher and student lounges, cafeterias, school libraries, homes, neighbourhoods, etcetera). Notes recorded in the primary research location are called “the primary record” and notes recorded in the secondary locations are called field journals (p.

45). Carspecken (1996) indicates that the notes are titled as such because the primary record is where thick and focused notes will be taken as a “data anchor”, sections of the primary notes were, in a later stage of the research, entered into “a series of word processor files, and copies of these same notes to which codes, commentary, and sections of expanded analysis” were added after the

observations are complete (p. 45). In order to do this process, and to later code the data, I used a password protected computer programme, called Dedoose, which also made available qualitative data charts and coding fields. Codes are further discussed in the coding section of the findings, in chapter 4. Field notes of

secondary sites were less thick, and were taken after the observation has taken place – these field notes were used to better understand the primary research location within the research site, and to assist in constructing meaning fields during the reconstructive analysis (discussed in the data analysis section of this chapter, chapter 3).

The classroom served as the primary location for this research, because it is in the classroom that TCK students must negotiate their identities to the expectations of the learning environment and to the cultural expectations of the classroom. It is also within the classroom that some of the tools acquired by students to negotiate of primary and secondary cultures occurs. Experiences in the classroom, however, are influenced by the ‘whole package’ of the school

environment, thus, the secondary field notes are needed to deepen the thick description of the overall research site experience.

The thick description of passive observations during this stage of the research helped “reduce analytic complications brought about by any Hawthorn effects” (Carspecken, 1996, p. 52). The “Hawthorn Effect”, named after a 1920s research study on the Hawthorn plant, was coined due to how great the presence of research observers had on the variables of the research. Within an ethnography, however, the focus is not on determining a relationship between dependent and independent variables, but rather on “one category of action conditions: cultural milieu or the norms, values, and beliefs of the people being studied” (Carspecken, 1996, p. 52). Any changes in participant behaviour due to the presence of the research observer, therefore, do not “correspond to alterations in cultural milieu”

(p. 52). Thick description is essential so that the cultural milieu of participants is passively observed during the first stage of the research so that during

reconstructive analysis (Carspecken identifies this as the second stage) any

changed behaviours over the course of the data collection process can be observed and analyzed according to the cultural norms of the participant group studied. In this way, Hawthorn effects created by the research observer are not suffered.

Contrasts of participant behaviour between stage one (passive observation) and stage three (researcher as facilitator of talk and discussion during interviews) is essential to the understanding of the beliefs and practices shared by the TCK participant group (Carspecken, 1996).