Developing and Piloting Research Instruments:

I have outlined earlier that observation and interview methods were main approaches in this study; four instruments for data collection were developed and piloted: observation instrument, student’s interview instrument, teacher’s interview instrument and curriculum professional’s interview instrument.

The four instruments relied on five main aspects related to the teaching and learning of Arabic writing, that were derived from reviewing the literature, as I mentioned in chapter three and earlier in this chapter. These main aspects are: writing pedagogy, teacher’s roles in the writing classroom, knowledge for writing (transcription and compositional aspects, writing process (e.g. planning, discussing, drafting and revising) and writing forms. All the four instruments were written in English language and discussed with the supervisor then translated to the Arabic language to be implemented in the Omani context. In this section each instrument will be discussed.

Developing and piloting the observation instrument:

The original observation schedule was designed to cover the following aspects:

Classroom setting and materials. Teaching writing methods. Teacher’s roles in the classroom. Writing processes students go through.

Knowledge that is emphasised in the classroom (i.e. transcriptional and

The observation instrument started with a section about general information about the observed lesson (see Appendix 4.4).

The pilot study has some reflections on the observation instrument content and shape. For example, the original observation instrument included the previous aspects that I aimed to observe. Yet, the pilot study indicated a need to include another free section about other observed aspects related to practices in the classroom. This section was included to provide me with a space to take notes of any important aspects related to the teaching and learning of Arabic writing that appears during the observation and not related to any of the last items.

In addition, one plan of this study was to discuss some of students’ practices, during the classroom observation, with both the student himself and his/her teacher when interviewing them. This was to gain wide information about the students. However, the original observation instrument did not include a space to take notes about each student which was a problematic issue during the observation and when analysing observation notes. Excluding a space for each student in the original observation instrument led to miss some important information about each student. This obviously required changing the observation instrument to include a separate section about each student to enable me to take detailed notes about each student and his/her behaviour.

Developing and piloting the student’s interview instrument:

The student’s interview instrument was designed to cover the following aspects: Information about the student.

Arabic writing forms and important aspects in writing.

Teaching strategies and teacher’s roles in the Arabic writing lesson. Writing processes and activities in the classroom.

There are also some questions about some observed practices of each student in the writing lesson. These questions helped me understand why each student behaves in a particular way, especially in the aspects related to the writing processes. In addition, there are some questions about student’s written text; the form he/she produced, the aspects he/she emphasised in his/her writing (see Appendix 4.5).

The only thing that emerged during interviewing the students in the pilot study was the need to probe some questions to gain clear and enough information about discussed issues.

Developing and piloting the teacher’s interview instrument:

The teacher’s interview instrument was designed to cover the following aspects:

Information about the teacher.

Knowledge for writing and writing forms. Preparations for a writing classroom.

Writing strategies and teacher’s role in the writing classroom. Writing processes.

Teacher’s perspectives about the observed lesson.

Some aspects that were mentioned by students in their interviews or recorded during the observation (i.e. about each student individually or all students in general) were also included to be discussed with their teachers in order to gain clear information about the students and deep understanding about the phenomena.

Moreover, the original instrument was designed into two separated interview instruments. The first interview instrument was proposed to focus on teachers’ perspectives about teaching and learning writing in general, and it was planned to be conducted a day prior to the classroom observation. The second interview instrument was planned to focus on teachers’ perspectives about their practices in the writing classroom and was planned to be conducted on the following day of the classroom observation. However, according to the piloting reflections the two teachers’ interview instruments were combined in one instrument in a manner that includes questions about both teachers’ perspectives, how writing should be taught and about their real practices in the writing classroom. This was for two reasons. First, to ensure that teachers’ practice will not be affected by an outsider’s influence. I found in the pilot study that teachers tried to emphasise, aspects that were discussed in the first interview. Second, ensuring the availability and cooperation of the teachers was important. I found that they have only one or two free hours in a school day, and they were involved in different activities in those two hours which meant that they did not have time for any additional work. Setting the teachers two times for two different interviews put more pressure on them. Therefore, the final version of the teacher’s interview instrument was modified to be one instrument that involves two parts. The first part explores the teachers’ perspectives about theoretical aspects in teaching and learning writing. The second part involved questions about teachers’ practices in the observed lesson. At the end of the first part the teacher was given some time to watch the recorded lesson. In addition, they were given freedom to pick the points that they wanted to talk about otherwise I followed the questions which were included in the interview schedule.

Furthermore, during the interview in the pilot study teachers mentioned some aspects related to the writing curriculum success and limitations and the in-service training programmes. This led me to include a section about general comments about curriculum and any other aspects that the teachers liked to talk or comment about (see Appendix 4.6).

Developing the curriculum professional’s interview instrument:

The pilot study turned up the study focus from a ‘partial picture’ to a ‘fuller picture’ (Bogdan & Biklen, 1992). In other words, the original focus of the study was on examining writing classroom practices and teachers’ and students’ perspectives about teaching and learning Arabic writing. However, considering the analysis of the pilot study data, which indicated that both teachers and students stated a significant influence of the Arabic writing curriculum on their practices. Thus, it was vital to involve Arabic curriculum professionals as a part of this study. This was to gain a fuller picture about teaching and learning Arabic writing in the BE schools. The curriculum professionals’ interview instrument was developed for this purpose and it covered the following aspects:

Writing curriculum aims and foundations. Knowledge for writing.

Writing forms. Writing processes.

Teaching writing strategies.

Teacher’s roles in the writing classroom.

Some concepts of teaching and learning writing (e.g. giving the students freedom to

choose their topics, writing for various purposes, and awareness of audiences) (see Appendix4.7).

Unlike students’ and teachers interview schedules, curriculum professionals’ interview schedule was not piloted because it was decided to be included according to the pilot study reflections. However, this instrument was given for one of the Arabic language curriculum professional (not one of the four professionals involved in this study) to comment on it and minor corrections were made according to his comments.

Research instrument is usually associated with validity and reliability issues; therefore, the next section will examine the validity and reliability or replicability issue.