Ethnographic methods Phase Two

The focus of this phase aimed to explore the activities that constitute student learning in a number of settings and from the learner's perspective. As learning occurs in a number of learning communities and sites (Lave, 1 996; Resnick, 1 987; Rogoff, 1 995; Sutton & Tomley, 1 980), and as assessment procedures within a school setting impact on approaches to learning (Crooks, 1 988; Gipps, 1 994; Nicholls & Hazzard, 1 993; Pollard et aI., 1 994), the approaches to exploring student learning needed to encapsulate both the activity in a number of settings (through observations), and the meaning the students gave to the activity (through interviews and informal ongoing conversations). To appreciate fully the diverse range of learning experiences and to identify how these learning contexts influence students' conceptions of learning and self-assessment, the techniques employed for Phase Two of the study involved observations and informal ongoing conversations, as well as semi-structured interviews in both school and out-of­ school learning environments.

4.2.1 The setting

The second phase of the research took place in the same school where the phenomenographic interviews took place during Phase One, as the researcher wanted to follow up a small cohort of students who held representative views of student learning and self-assessment. Other observations took place in a number of settings including out-of-school learning situations that were school based (e.g., museum visit, school camp, abseilling, sports), and out-of-school learning situations that were not school based (e.g., Saturday morning netball, judo, dancing, trampolining).

4.2.2 The participants

As the researcher had already completed Phase One of the research in the school the previous year, it was a smooth transition for Phase Two. Permission from the school had already been granted for the whole research proj ect (Phases One and Two), but nonetheless, toward the end of Phase One, the principal and deputy principal were approached about the continuation of the research the following year. The school remained happy for this to occur, and so the three teachers were consulted about approaching students to take part in Phase Two.

The sampling for Phase Two was deliberate and directed. C onscious choices were made about the participants in order to choose a cohort of students who could inform the second set of research questions. Strauss and Corbin ( 1 990) stated that in discriminate sampling, "a researcher chooses the sites, persons and documents that will maximise opportunities for verifying the story line, relationships between the categories, and for filling in poorly developed categories" (p. 1 8 7). In this research study, the participants were chosen on the basis of their being able to inform the researcher how students approach learning and self-assessment tasks in different contexts. The students in all three classes held representative views of learning in Phase One and were involved in a number of out-of-school learning experiences. As only six to eight students were required for the second phase of the research, and given that this phase involved intensive weekly observations, it was expedient that all students be selected from one classroom. At one level this was a pragmatic choice in that the weekly visits could take place within one classroom. More importantly, at another level, the decision was made because it would allow the researcher an overview of one system within a syndicate of teachers. The school was organised around clusters of four classrooms called "syndicates", and a group of teachers worked within one syndicate involving four classes. Conducting the research within one classroom also provided a variety of learning settings and teachers, because the students in one classroom went to classes within the syndicate for different subjects. The criteria for selection included:

• The students identified a number of learning environments both within and outside the classroom setting;

• a variation of conceptions of learning and self-assessment was evident across the

selected students;

• the students were in the same classroom; • the students wanted to take part; and

• . a representative range of academic abilities was evident across the selected

students.

The researcher initially chose to approach eight students (four male and four female), but one of the male students had subsequently been withdrawn from the class and had been moved to another syndicate within the school. This student was not included because of the logistics of involving a different syndicate and group of classes than the other seven students and their teachers. It was considered that the remaining seven students (three male and four female) would provide the researcher with insight into

learning and self-assessment in a range of contexts. These students were now year 8 students, and their classroom teacher was the same teacher who had taught them the previous year. The teacher was a male with 3 years teaching experience.

Letters, information sheets and informed consent sheets were given to the seven target students, their teacher and parents (see Appendices H, I, J, K and L). All agreed to continue working with the research, and the researcher explained to students and the teacher how it might impact on their lives. It was explained that weekly visits to the school by the researcher would occur and that interviews with the students and their teacher would take place. In addition to this, students and parents were informed that parents would be interviewed and observations would take place in learning situations outside school. All students and their parents agreed to take part and signed the consent forms.

The students in the classroom who were not taking part were given a letter to give to their parents informing them the research was taking place, but that the researcher would neither interview nor collect work samples from their child (see Appendix M). During the first observation, the researcher spent time explaining to the class how her role would differ from other adults they had experienced in the c lassroom, such as teacher, teacher-aide, student teacher and parent help.

Limitations in the second phase of the study centred around the selection of the school and the sampling of students. The school had a decile ranking of 9 and therefore the results may not be representative of low socio-economic schools with a low decile ranking. Further research would need to identify whether the results are representative for this group of students.

Five of the seven students were EuropeanlNew Zealand, one student was Maori, one student was South African, and one student was from a European country. While these students were not representative of all ethnic groups within New Zealand schools, they did represent a typical mix of the ethnic background of students across schools. I n relation to the sample, only a limited range of settings were visited, based o n the interests and activities of the selected participants. Some culturally specific contexts and settings such as kapa haka (Maori cultural club incorporating traditional song and

dance activities) were not represented, nor were unstructured informal activities that students take part in such as fishing, cycling or roller blading.

4.2.3 Procedures

The researcher visited the school on a weekly basis during the school terms (from February through to December, 1 997), and iricluded visits to out-of-school learning activities that resulted in a total of 30 formal observations and 3 1 formal semi­ structured interviews (teachers, parents and students), as well as countless informal discussions.

Parents of all seven students were interviewed during the year when some observations of their child had taken place, and with further observations to be completed with their child. A formal, semi-structured interview about their child's learning experiences took place at a time and place convenient to them (see Appendix N). One parent chose a school setting and a time scheduled 1 hour before the school fmished for the day so that she could pick up her child after school, and in all other cases the parents opted for their home. The interviews took place mainly during the evenings when parents were freed from work duties. A total of nine (9) parents were interviewed formally. Five of the interviews involved only one parent (four mothers and one father) and two interviews involved both parents. All except one parent allowed the interview to be audiotaped. The students were not involved in the parent interviews. However, in one interview the child was present at his request, and with his parents' approval. During some observations, particularly in out-of­ school settings, parents were met again for informal discussions that were not audiotaped. The other parent of two of the seven students (a mother and father) who had not been interviewed formally were met at this time, and informal conversations were held with them. Eleven ( 1 1 ) parents of the seven students were therefore interviewed, either formally or informally, about their child's learning experiences during the course of the research process.

On three occasions during the school year (March, June, December), the class teacher was interviewed about the learning and self-assessment activities that were being used in the class. These interviews were unstructured, and the December interview was audiotaped and transcribed (see Appendix 0 for an extract from the interview). On

many other occasions, informal discussions took place with the teacher, and with other teachers within the school, including the other three teachers in the syndicate team. Notes were taken during these informal discussions and typed up on the computer later that day.

The students were interviewed twice during the year on an individual basis about their own learning and self-assessment experiences in the school and out-of-school contexts, and on a further occasion during a focus group interview w ith all target students present. The individual interviews were semi-structured and the questions were based on seeking clarification and meaning from observations that had taken place in the classroom. All these interviews were taped and later transcribed. On numerous other occasions during the observations, both at school and out-of-school, conversations were held with the students about the activity they were undertaking. During these times, notes were either taken at the time, or were made straight after the conversation for later reference.

Photographs were taken of students participating in learning activities, and samples of written work, selected to illustrate aspects of the current observation, were collected during the year with parent and student permission. These were generally taken when further illustrations of student work or products were required, and these photographs or samples of work were used in two ways: first, they were used as data to record events and activities in which the students were involved; and second, the photographs helped the student recall leaming events during the interviews held with them at the end of the year.

The teachers were obliging and helpful throughout the research process, and in return, the researcher was flexible with times, and interview places, and was able to change plans quickly and with minimal fuss when teacher plans changed or when school events prevented planned observations. The central location of the school allowed the researcher to visit at a moment's notice and neither the administration not the teacher wanted to have organised times and dates for the researcher's visits. Therefore, while the researcher randomly selected the days and times for the observations, they occurred on a weekly basis. The times and days varied from week to week, and the teachers wanted a "come as you find us" approach. However, when there were planned interviews with the teacher, the researcher always prebooked these with the teacher at a

time convenient to him, so that they could be fitted around playground duties, bus duties and other functions performed by teachers.

The length of time in the field was one school year ( 1 1 months). This was considered most useful, because it enabled the researcher to spend time with the learners from their first term in the school year (February) through to the end of the school year (December).

4.2.4 The observation schedule

Within the present study while non-participant observations were primarily employed, minimal involvement by the researcher in some activities was required. Decisions about the level of involvement occurred in relation to the actual learning tasks. A greater degree of involvement occurred at the level of engaging students in discussion about what they were doing. Therefore, on a continuum, the level of participation within the current study ranged from minimal (when observing students sitting tests or performing in a dance class) to a degree of involvement (when engaging with students during their learning activities when appropriate). Throughout the year in the classroom and in out­ of-school learning activities, students and teachers alike knew the researcher.

While the observations were unstructured, a consistent format was used throughout the year. As the focus was on student approaches to learning and self-assessment in different contexts, the focus was not on whether the learning was formal or informal, but rather on the context of learning. Initially, the distinction was not made in the observations as to whether it was "school based" or "out-of-school based" because this was determined through the meaning the student attributed to the learning activity. Initially, the researcher had a clear view that out-of-school learning was differentiated by whether it was informal and community based, but it became obvious through the observations that some students identified with activities such as visits to the museum, and archery at school camp in the same way that they approached learning while learning to, dance or learning judo. It would, therefore, not have represented the learner's experiences to identify arbitrarily which settings were school based before an

observation took place. By the end of Phase Two, it became clear that out-of-school learning activities involved those that were under the jurisdiction of the school but distinct from the usual school settings (such as a museum visit, swimming, activities at

school camp) as well as learning experiences within the community (such as dancing, trampolining, and judo). Activities that were largely classroom based and were clearly part of the school curriculum, such as mathematics, technology, science, reading, were identified as school-based learning settings.

Each observation took on average 3 hours, with some ranging between 1 and 5 hours. The researcher used an A4 spiral bound notebook throughout the year, detailing notes, events, conversations and questions during each observation. The observations went from the general to the specific. The first priority involved understanding the context of the school-based learning. This required a general understanding of what the students were involved in at school and the types of learning activities that made up a school day. This included school rules and systems, as well as classroom rules, routines and teacher expectations. As part of this, student expectations and peer expectations were observed, as were assessment systems and the target student' s role in these activities. This was followed by more specific data collection on actual learning and self-assessment activities in a more in-depth way. When asking students questions, collecting pieces of work, and observing the approaches students took to these activities, a different l ens or plane of analysis was used. Finally, there were observations where the changes in students' learning as a result of their participation in the learning or self-assessment activity were examined through interviews and observations. The observations included an examination of the community of learning in which these learners took part; the interpersonal participation between learners and others in these communities; and the influence this participation had on learners. Within each different setting, it was important to identify each aspect so that learning and self-assessment could be explored within Rogoff s ( 1 995, 1 996, 1 998) three planes of analysis.

At the end of each observation, the notes were typed on a computer before the next observation. All observations were numbered, and dated, and specific information was recorded at the start of each observation. This included the day and time, weather conditions, l ocation of the observation, the student focus, the purpose of the observation, and the activity in which the student was involved. See Appendix P for an example of one of the typed observations.

Within the present study, while the research aims were to examine years 7 and 8 students' conceptions of learning and self-assessment in different contexts, the actual themes were not predetermined before the fieldwork (Bogdan & Biklen, 1 998; Taylor

& Bogdan, 1 998). These emerged through the research process, and through the analysis of the data collected (Delamont, 1 992).

4.2.5 Exit from the field

Just as the entry into the field is an important phase of the research, so too is the way the researcher exits. The exit point may be determined by the saturation of information gained, or by more pragmatic reasons such as depletion of research resources. It has been suggested that when the exit point does come, the researcher takes time to break attachments and begins a slow withdrawal from the field (Merriam, 1 998). This leaving time may be difficult because of the rapport developed with the participants (Bogdan & Biklen, 1 998). There may also be researcher anxieties that perhaps something was missed or that new data may provide further insight (Bogdan & Biklen, 1 998). At the end of Phase Two of the present study, after all the observations had been completed, the researcher visited the teachers and students and thanked them for their participation. A summary of the procedures used during Phase Two is outlined in Figure 4. 1 .

Outline of procedure (Phase Two) Rationale

Participants 7 (year 8) students Held representative views on

(3 male, 4 female) learning.

Class teacher (male) In same classroom

Teachers in school Took part in Phase One

Parents (n=l l ) Teacher happy for researcher to be

Tutors in classroom

Interviews One formal semi-structured interview Parents interviewed to provide with each child's parents. background on child's learning

Informal conversations with parents. When meeting parents in out-of- school learning contexts, informal

conversations important to gain rich data.

Three formal semi-structured interviews Formal interviews with the class with teacher. teacher important to clarify issues

and gain an understanding of the

environment.

Informal conversations throughout the Infonnal conversations essential to

year with class teacher and the seven check continually for understanding

students. and

Formal semi-structured interviews with Fonnal interviews employed with

the seven students. all students to follow up questions

One formal unstructured focus group arising through the fieldwork in a

interview with the students. systematic manner.

One formal unstructured focus group Syndicate teachers work as a group

interview with syndicate teachers. and provide theme work throughout the year. An overview of their

philosophy useful to place learning

in context.

One formal semi-structured interview Individual interviews with the with each of the three syndicate teachers teachers to gain an insight into the