Dynamics of focus groups: Pupils

The growing impetus for a shift from teacher-centred to learner-centred pedagogic practices entails giving an important place to the perspectives of learners in educational

research (Scott 2008; Pinter 2011; Kuchah & Pinter 2012). This means that in conducting research with children, it is important that they are seen as ‘strong, resourceful’ individuals who can work with adults towards solving problems and generating new ideas (Alderson, 2005) that can help us better understand the relationship between teaching processes and input on the one hand and the learning processes involving intake and output on the other hand. Because there are important ethical issues involved in adult encounters with children (Lewis, 1992; Pinter 2011), I considered and was guided by, amongst other things, the following questions, the answers to which explain the organisation and conduct of data collection with children:

a) How will I present myself to the children? Before I arrived, pupils had already been informed that I was an inspector, so I could not conceal this. My initial introduction, interaction and relationship development with the children as whole classes has already been discussed in 3.1.1 above. However, with regard to the research participants, I needed to explain that I was also a teacher trainer and that my research was to find out what children thought were good or bad ways of teaching so that I could use their ideas to train other teachers in the future. I would think that the fact that children saw me as a friend who had some authority over their teachers coupled with the fact that I spent the recreational periods playing or just chatting with them, was important in establishing confidence and a favourable interview atmosphere. Yet, in the course of the interview, my purpose and the confidentiality of their responses were reiterated in different ways, to sustain their confidence.

b) When will the interviews take place? All the interviews took place either late in the afternoon after classes or on Saturday mornings after remedial lessons. The decision was arrived at after discussion with pupils and subsequently with their

teacher and depended on the approval of parents through the consent forms sent to them.

c) Where will the research data be collected? Dockrell, Lewis & Lindsay (2000) identify two types of settings – natural and formal/artificial – for conducting interviews with children each of which has its advantages and disadvantages. In the context of this study, I opted for a natural setting but considering the fact that children may be concerned that information revealed in a natural setting may be fed back to teachers or peers (Dockrell, et al., 2000) I encouraged each group of pupils to decide within one to two days where they wanted our ‘conversation’ to take place (Irwin & Johnson 2005). In Yaounde, all the groups agreed to have the interviews in a different classroom from their regular classroom. One reason for this choice could be the fact that schools in Yaounde have space restrictions so that one playground, for example is often used by a group of schools. As for their choice of other classrooms, it was neither possible nor necessary for me to obtain any other information. In Buea, on the other hand, 5 of the 6 groups of children chose to be interviewed on the playground (football field) while one group of girls preferred their classroom.

d) How many children will I interview at a time? Two considerations guided my decision of how many pupils were to constitute a group: previous research and my trial group interviews. The diverse numbers of group members in previous research (e.g. Breakwell, 1990, maximum of 6-7 participants; Denscombe, 2003, 6-9 participants; Morgan & Spanish, 1985, 4-5 participants; Livingstone & Lunt, 1994, 4-8 participants; Kitzinger, 1995, 3-10 participants) all suggest that large groups are difficult to manage. In my first trialling in two separate classes, I worked with a mixed group of 10 pupils and the experiences (see appendix 8)

influenced my decision to conduct the group interviews with two groups of 5 boys and 5 girls in each class.

e) How long will the interview last? It was not possible to determine beforehand the length of each interview session as this depended more on the responses of the children. However, considering that most of the interviews were done after school when children could be tired, I tried to limit the interview duration to between 30 and 60 minutes albeit allowing for possibilities of extension as the enthusiasm of the children dictated.

f) What language are we going to use? The need to use a language familiar to participants, especially children participants in research has been variously discussed by researchers (e.g. Lewis, 1992; Pinter, 2011). However, in the context of this study, other factors including what Esch (2010) refers to as ‘epistemic injustices’ in the language situation in Cameroon impose French and English on teachers and consequently on learners, as the only ‘educated’ languages. Consequently, in spite of my encouragement for learners to use one of the three languages we were mutually familiar with – French, English or Pidgin – they mostly insisted in using English. Because of my encouragement, however, some of the children in Yaounde occasionally shifted from English to French. g) How will I ensure that data collected is subject (English language) specific?

One difficulty with conducting interviews about teachers’ practices in a context where primary school teachers are general subject teachers is the fact that children tend to focus either on the teaching of their best subjects or on overall practice of the teacher. To minimise such a possibility and to ensure that the information they provided was, as much as possible, related to English language teaching, I did two things. First was that as much as possible, I visited each class

only during the English language lessons and second, I asked each of them before the interview to select their best English lesson and talk to us about why they enjoyed the lesson during the interview (See appendix 3). In this way, I used their selected English lessons, amongst other things presented in chapter four, as a starting point for the interviews.

h) What activities will I use to facilitate the discussions? Child researchers (e.g. Alderson, 2005; Pinter, 2011) have recommended participatory approaches to facilitating group interviews with children. Participatory methods may include the use of drawings, maps, flow diagrams, play, drama, stories or songs. Participatory research gives children agency and some control over the research agenda, and it emphasises the importance of understanding issues from the children’s point of view (O’Kane, 2008). For this study, data was collected through:

• Asking students to draw their English teacher and write something he/she

always says as a basis for further discussion (see appendix 2);

• Asking about students’ best lessons and how they were taught;

• Talking about what they like/dislike about the practices of their current

teacher;

• Talking about their best ever teacher in primary school;

• Asking them for advice on what a good English teacher should/should not

do;

• Asking them to say what they will do if they were teaching an English

lesson;

• Writing a ‘private’ letter to me saying what they like or dislike about their

English teacher (see appendix 2).

The private letters were written at home and handed to me the next day; they enabled me look for information that might not have emerged from the group discussion.

i) What aspects of children’s opinions will be taken into consideration in shaping the rest of the research process? As these interviews were conducted prior to formal observation and Stimulated recalls, I was open to the possibility that children’s agendas could be different from those of the adults I had contacted. For this reason, I had made up my mind to focus on the positives of their teachers, but not to do anything that would inhibit the interviews. It is this flexibility on my part and the confidence hitherto established between us that encouraged the children to talk about even the negatives of their teachers. In one of the schools in Yaoundé, the children unanimously challenged my perceptions of their teacher and proved to me beyond doubt that the teacher selected for my study was not a good teacher by their judgement. Following recommendations in the literature that an effective strategy for building good rapport with children is to react to the children and follow their guidelines (Cosaro 1997; Punch 2002a; 2002b), I therefore agreed to include this teacher’s colleague, recommended by the children and as such brought my total number of cases to 7 teachers. In Buea, the same situation occurred in one school, but this was due to the fact that the teacher selected for the study (Grace) was found by the children to be better in

teaching mathematics than English. Unfortunately despite all my efforts Grace’s colleague was unwilling to take part.