Data management and Analysis

Coding and categorizing the first phases of interviews

Theparents’responseswerebroken down to identify thekey phrasesfrom each answer and these phrases were grouped to form the codes. Thus the codes emerged

Table 3.5 An example of coding interviews

Interview question

Parent’srespond Key

phases

Code

Sending her to a school in order to let her have opportunities to meet other people and children; therefore, she

won’tbeafraid ofunfamiliarpeople.

Shedoesn’teven know how to play

with a new friend. She only wants to play with the child whom she is very familiar with. Some children can easily play and work with the others, but she cannot. She always plays alone (Ling)

Work with others Personal social development

My mother broke her arm and her health is not well. She cannot look

after my daughter now so my mother

in law is looking after her. However, my mother in law cannot look after her every day, only Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. The other days, I have

to send mydaughterto myparents’

house and my father looks after her. It is not convenient for me and my parents so I want to send her to a school (Ping). No one can look after my child Child care Why did you

send your child to a preschool?

My son watched TV for whole day at home when he stayed with his grandparents. They cannot sit

alongside him to do some reading or teach him something (Hsieh)

Reading Teaching something

Education

The first main question was “Why do you send your child to a preschool?” An individual parent may have more than one reason. Twelve phrases from this question

divided into three groups; personal social development, child care and Education.

 Personal social development: To have a collective life

To meet other children

To play with other children

To enhance interpersonal relationships

To know how to share with others

To become independent and confident

 Child care:

Nobody looking after him/her

 Education: Learning something

Having different experience and resources

Nobody teaching him / her reading

Only watching TV at home

Feeling bored at home and no progress

The second question was “What do you think your child needs to learn in a preschool?”Theresponsesinvolved thirteen phrases which were divided into two groups; social personal development and academic skills:

 Social personal development: To learn to cooperate with other children

To learn to share interests with others

To learn to protect oneself

To develop self-confidence

To learn good manners

To learn good behaviour (polite or well manner)

To learn good living habits (eating habits, personal hygiene habits or following the

timetable for sleeping)

To learn a collective life (work and play with others)

To learn to interact with peers

 Academic skills:

To learn reading, writing and calculating

To learn English and Mathematics

To learn Chinese phonetic symbols

To prepare for the primary curriculum

Theparents’aimsforsending theirchild to a preschoolcan bedefined assocializing, caring and educating. In addition, their expectation of preschool education is to

prepare the children for primary school, including the development of their social and

Research question: What are the parents’expectations

of preschool education?

Interview question: What

do you think your child needs to learn in a preschool setting?

Interview question: Why

did you send your child to a preschool setting? Code: Child care Code: Personal social development Code: personal and social development Code: Education Code: Academic skills

The second research question is“whatareparents’criteriaforchoosing apreschool?’. To answerthisquestion two otherswereasked “when you chose apreschoolwhat wereyourconcernsforagood preschool?”and “why did you choosetheparticular preschool for your child?”Following asimilaranalyticalprocesstheparticipants’ preferences for preschools were found to be diverse and complicated and reflected

their specific concerns. Wikeley (1998) also found that individual parents had a

complex mixture of reasons forchoice.Thephrasesfrom theparents’answersand the codes were:

 Distance Near my house

Nearmy parents’house No need to take a school bus

 Physical environment Teacher-child ratios

Clean environment

Adequate and nice facilities

Environmental safety

Ample space

 Teachers

Qualified in early childhood care and education

Qualified in nursery nursing

Completed training course

Experienced teachers

Teacher’scharacters(lively,sensitiveorkind) Discipline skills

 Curriculum

Chinese phonetic symbols

Literacy and numeracy

Strict plan for curriculum and using textbooks

English language teaching

Teaching by foreign teachers

Similarto primary school’scurriculum Diverse area for curriculum

 School meals Providing breakfast

Adequate nutrition

In answer to the question “why did you choose the particular preschool for your child?”,eightdifferentcodeswereused which weredistanceand convenience,natural and ample space, good teacher-child ratios, having foreign teachers, familiar with the

schools, school reputation, the head-teacher’s values and good teacher-child interaction.In addition,probing therelationshipsbetween parents’criteriaforagood preschool and their choice was important in the analysis, and will be discussed in

Chapter Five.

Parentswere asked “How did you getthe information aboutthosepreschoolsyou werevisiting orconsidering choosing?”and “Can you talk aboutpreschoolpolicies such as the educational voucher scheme, registered regulation for preschools and

national evaluation of preschools, and the influences of these policies on your

choices”.Theresponsesto thequestion aboutgetting information on preschoolswere grouped into external or internal social networks. The responses that included the

words‘neighbours’,‘colleagues’or‘friends’weregrouped togetherin theexternal category. On the other hand, the responses with the words ‘parents’ or ‘parents-in-law’,‘sisters’or‘sister-in-law’or‘husband’werecategorized in “family” group. In addition, preschool policies involved three categories, the early childhood

educational voucher scheme, national evaluation of preschools and preschool

registration. These were used to investigate the participants’ knowledge about the preschool policies and the influences on their choice.

Coding and categorizing the second phase of interviews

The second phase of interviews was conducted after nine months to explore the

participants’satisfaction with their choice in order to elucidate the changes in their criteria of quality for a preschool. This was to explore the fourth research question

“Are they satisfied with their choice and have their expectations been met?”The interview questions included children’sexperiencein theschools,children’schanges, parents’opinionsaboutthepreschoolprovision,theirthoughtsaboutmoving their children to other preschools and their advice to others about choosing preschools.

The strategies used in analyzing the second phase of interviews were similar to the

identified for each answer. However, this was not as easy as in the first interviews as

the relationships between the two interviews had to be considered. For children’s experience in the preschool, the answers from parents were coded as: happy, getting

used to the school life, recently not happy. When talking about the changes in their

children the codes were;

 Social development Cooperating with other peers

Better interaction with others

Better relationship with other children

Talking and playing with peers

Nice interaction with peers

Not afraid of strangers

Improving interpersonal relationships

Polite

Independent

Lively and gregarious

Getting used to collective life

 Physical and functional independence

Good habits in sleeping, eating and brushing teeth regularly

Washing dishes and brushing teeth

Sleeping regularly

Tiding up toys

Eating properly

Better in taking medicines

Naughty

Responding to parents loudly

Notobeying parents’orders

 Self-expression skills Speaking clearly

Improving expression

Knowing how to express feelings

 Academic skills Knowing many words

Able to read books

Singing English songs and speaking English

Recognizing English letters

Recognizing some Chinese vocabulary

The third main interview question was “Can you tell me about the physical environment/teachers/curriculain thepreschool?”When parentstalked aboutthe physical environment, teachers or curricula of the preschool, they expressed their

opinions about what the school had offered. I broke down answers to into

“satisfaction”and “dissatisfaction”categories.

 Satisfaction with the physical environment Big classroom

Big space

New and safe facilities

Big outdoor playground

Facilities designed for children

One toilet between two classrooms

Good facilities and library

Many trees

Big and natural environment

 Dissatisfaction with the physical environment Small space

No outdoor playground

Old and inadequate facilities

No window and using central air conditioner

Inadequate opportunities for facility use

 Satisfaction with teachers Good patience and manner

My child likes her

Good discipline skills

Friendly and kind

Cheerful

Lively

My daughter trusts her

Good communicating skills

 Dissatisfaction with teachers Poor communicating skills

Children had poor English performance

Lack patience

Inappropriate disciplining strategy

 Satisfaction with curriculum Diversity

Appropriate activities

Doing lots of arts and crafts

Children enjoyed activities

Well designed activities

 Dissatisfaction with curriculum Not following the timetable

Asking children to recite“Syiau Jieng19_” Inadequate Chinese literacy lessons

Teaching approach was not suitable for the child

However, as well as the physical environment, teachers and curriculum, parents also

talked about their dissatisfaction with school meals, timing issues and teacher-child

ratios.Parents’satisfaction with theschool provision reflected their criteria for choice. Some parents’ dissatisfaction correlated with whether they considered changing preschool.

The last main interview question was about their advice to others when choosing

preschools. These were coded as testing the water, visiting schools and asking for

advice:

 Testing the water

Let children adapt themselves to schools

Sending children to the school directly

Children need to try a school out

 Visiting preschools

Comparing the differences between schools

Observing children using facilities

Talking to head-teachers

Visiting schools to observe teacher-child interaction

Visiting schoolsto observeteachers’teaching Observing the environment

Observing teachers’attitudes

 Asking for advice

Discussing information about schools with relatives

Collecting information from colleagues

Asking friends about their experiences

However, the relationships between children’s experiences in preschools, parents’ criteria for choosing preschools, parents’ expectations of preschool education and

their satisfaction with their choices had to be identified in order to understand

individualparents’satisfaction with theirchoicesand build up alogicalchain for individual cases. By comparing the data (Rubin and Rubin, 1995), common and

contrasting themes were generated, which allowed a deeper understanding of the

parental choices for preschools to be achieved..

In document Parental choice of preschool in Taiwan (Page 90-103)