Debriefing and semi-structured interviews

As already noted, the context for this study was the lived-in reality of a teacher-education classroom and the processes involved in helping STs to see into practice. In Robson and McCartan’s (2016) terms, this represented ‘real-world research’ because it entailed endeavouring to understand the participants’ ‘lived-in reality’ (ibid, p.3). In the light of the research focus, it thus made sense to spend as much time as possible in the field to gain insights into how classroom life was structured and exploited. In determining the frequency and type of session to be observed, ethics in practice played an important role. Firstly, I did not want to become perceived as a burden. Secondly, I did not want to impose a schedule that might have been inappropriate. Guided by her knowledge of the purpose of the research, the TE was the one who determined the schedule in accordance with what she deemed relevant regarding the content and frequency of observed teaching. Serendipitously, it transpired that these sessions were positioned proportionately over the teaching year, the structure of which involved the STs being in university for two four-week blocks in the period from mid- September until early October, and then again throughout January, concluding with a one- week block in June. STs also returned for individual days at various points when on placement. When discussing my work in the hyphenated space of the insider-outsider continuum (3.6), I outlined the potential pitfalls of assumptions. Fortunately, the opportunity to conduct an

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interview with the TE immediately after a session meant that my field notes could become an active ingredient in the subsequent meaning-making process (see appendix one), which included the important task of ‘assumption hunting’ (Brookfield, 2017) ─ both mine and the TE’s. Each debriefing interview started in an open-ended way with the TE explaining the what, why and how of her just-completed session. My role at this stage was to listen carefully and make notes, including recording supplementary questions. After the TE’s exposition, any remaining questions from my field notes that had not been covered by her explanations, together with any supplementary questions I might now have had, were melded into the interview process. Here it is important to note that, in collaboration with the TE, it was decided to adopt an action-orientated stance (Holstein and Gubrium, 2011), both to the debriefing sessions and the semi-structured interviews (3.8.3).

This decision was fully congruent with the constructivist assumptions underpinning the study and drew inspiration from Knight and Saunders’ (1999) dialogic concept of interviewing, namely the construction of an interview as a ‘collaborative enterprise of exploration’ (p.148). This arrangement impinged in several ways on the generation of data. For example, it opened up the potential for increasing ‘self-reflexivity’ (Miller and Glassner, 2011, p.137) by providing a space for the mutual challenging of assumptions. The paradoxes and ambiguities I personally experienced in the hyphenated space of the insider-outsider continuum bear witness to this observation (3.6). The same obtained for the TE, who would frequently comment, ‘I hadn’t thought of it that way’. Second, this increased reflexivity could be construed as a useful heuristic, as ‘a tool to understand better’ (Finlay, 2012, p.318), thereby ‘producing new perspectives’ on the ‘life situation’ (Nielsen, 2007, p.219) of both the TE and me as researcher. Third, both interviewer and interviewee had the opportunity to act as co-researchers at key moments in the interview, as well as beyond, by continuing the debate through an extensive memoing process (3.8.4) and four semi-structured interviews.

The semi-structured interviews provided a reflective opportunity to look back at sequences of completed teaching. In essence, they were a continuation of the ‘interaction and interthinking’ (Littleton and Mercer, 2013) that characterised the debriefing sessions. Prior to the interviews, I would send the TE a list of open-ended questions for her consideration (see appendix two). Predominantly, these questions related to the generation of ideas from the empirical material. At the start of each interview there was an expatiation process whereby the TE would respond extensively to the questions. Following the TE’s response to each individual question, I would probe certain points for clarification and continued development. When, early in the research process, I expressed an ethical concern that my incessant

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questions in the post-session interview were perhaps a bit of a burden, the TE’s response reassured me in this respect, and also provided a reflective insight into the construction of meaning:

You help me understand my own practice by putting up a mirror (camera / presence / note-taking / post-session discussion) so, even if the mirror is threatening to some extent, I still value the exercise. Here’s a wonderful opportunity to really get to grips with and think hard about what I’m doing with my students – I might otherwise fall into a routine. (Personal communication, 30 September, 2016)

Within both the debriefing and the semi-structured interviews, my role would shift between being ‘passive,’ in the sense of active listening and note-taking, to becoming ‘constructively active' (Gubrium and Holstein, 2012, p.33). I was not, therefore, a ‘neutral’ interviewer setting about mining uncontaminated nuggets of knowledge (Brinkmann and Kvale, 2015, p.57). Instead, it was a joint prospecting venture in which knowledge was co-constructed through a process of ‘experiential animation’ (Holstein and Gubrium, 2011, p.151), in which my experience, knowledge, and beliefs regarding the pedagogy of teacher education, became heuristic tools in the co-creation of a narrative. Admittedly, there may be those who might consider such involvement as a ‘virus which contaminates the research’ (Cousin, 2010, p.10). However, for reasons that I now outline, I prefer to regard my involvement as a positive bacterium in the culture medium of the epistemological petri dish of research. Here the key culture medium was an extensive memoing process that served to cultivate ─ and also challenge ─ ideas arising from the debriefings and semi-structured interviews, in what was arguably a very slow fermentation process spanning two years.