From Field Texts to Research Texts

There is no clear path to follow that works for every inquiry… The doubt and uncertainty are lived out in endless false starts. As we begin to write interim and final research texts, we may try out one kind of research text and find it does not capture the meanings we had in mind, find it lifeless and lacking in the spirit we wish to portray, find that research participants do not feel the text captures their experience, or find the research text to be inappropriate to our intended audience. We try out other kinds and continually compose texts until we find ones that work for us and for our purposes (Clandinin & Connolly, 2000, pp. 134-135).

After the interviews were completed came the difficult task of moving towards a research text. Clandinin and Connolly (2000) write that the transition from field texts to research texts is always challenging and time-consuming. In any narrative inquiry of reasonable scope, the volume of field texts that are produced can be overwhelming, but before coming to the question of what to do with all these field texts, one needs to know what there is. I re-read all of the field texts we had written, reviewed the course notes, looked at student submissions to the forum and their assignments, and re-visited my notes and comments on the interviews I had conducted.

I had some idea that I wanted to write short stories, possibly small vignettes organized around particular aspects of mathematical behaviour. My first attempt was to write stories about particular days. I tried writing narrative accounts of the class time, what problems we

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worked on and what students said and did, followed by a fictionalized conversation between the three members of the research group discussing the behaviours we had seen that day. I wanted to be able to present the lived experience of class time alongside some texts which would expand on the meaning and significance we saw in those experiences and situate them within the model of mathematical behaviour.

But these texts did not feel quite right as final research texts. The texts were too scattered, and moved from one idea to another without any smooth, unifying theme or transition. They were very similar in their format and style to our field notes, and I found that they were too descriptive, that there were too many distracting details which acted like noise, obscuring instead of clarifying the moments I wanted to focus on and discuss. Clandinin and Connolly (2000) write that it is normal to have ‘false starts’ when writing research texts, that it may take a few attempts in order to arrive at a research text that hopefully allows/enables the reader to find in the stories of these experiences the same meaning that I have found.

At our weekly research meetings, our conversations invariably centered on individual students. We would discuss what they had done or said, how they interacted with others in their groups, what we knew about their background and how this could be shaping their experience. As I was reviewing all the field texts we had written, I realized I had already constructed interim research texts in the form of writing about these discussions, and in my reflections about the student interviews. Since so much of the reflection we had done during the semester seemed to be organized around individual students, I decided to try writing stories in this way. I focused on each of the students I had interviewed and wrote short

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vignettes about them, trying to capture moments when they did or said something that struck me (or another member of the research group) as being mathematical.

This approach fit better. By focusing on the individual students - who are they, why are they doing what they are doing - I was able to give meaning and social significance to their actions and to the stories about them. I knew from the outset of this project that my model was only a general description of mathematical behaviours and that the particular ways these behaviours were enacted and lived out by students were always unique, individual. This format seemed better suited to highlighting these individual differences.

In composing my final research text, I wrote stories about 10 students, 9 of whom I had interviewed, and one who I had not. I added stories about Donnie, who I had not interviewed, because we spent so much time talking about him and because he represents one of the biggest problems/difficulties in this course. We felt there was something about his case that was worth considering more deeply. I chose not to interview Donnie because he is an example of a lack of mathematical behaviour (or, at least, he seems to lack the right kind of mathematical behaviour - more on this in chapter 8). At the time when I was setting up my interviews, we chose students based on who we felt exhibited mathematical behaviours, so Donnie was not chosen. Reflecting on it now, I feel it was right not to interview him, since it might have stressed him out or made him uncomfortable. It is one thing to ask students about how they think and behave when they are having success, but I could not imagine having a conversation with Donnie where I asked him, “Why do you think you did not succeed in this course?” It is important to note that my stories about Donnie are positioned differently than my stories about other students, since I did not have the opportunity to discuss his behaviour

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with him in an interview. My stories about Donnie are constructed exclusively from our interpretations of his behaviour.

I also decided not to include stories about one of the students who I did interview, Jessica. It is harder to articulate my reasoning for this decision; I think I felt like there was something missing there, in terms of individual mathematical behaviour. For whatever reason it was not as interesting to me, I did not feel that her story added anything to my understanding of student behaviour. We had chosen to interview her because Genevieve grew close with her and often sat with their group, and so she was someone who regularly appeared as a character in our stories. But when we met for an interview, I could not seem to reflect with her on her own behaviour in quite the same way as I had with the other students.

After writing this set of short vignettes that featured the different students behaving mathematically in their particular ways, there still seemed to be a piece of the puzzle missing. I felt these stories had accurately captured the behaviours I wanted to portray, but still needed some vulgarization of what I felt these stories represented. I needed to convey to the reader why these stories were chosen, what I saw in them, before I could embark on any discussions or conclusions.

One of my reasons for using narrative inquiry in this research was to foreground the lived immediacy of experiences. In traditional research formats, data is often presented separately from data analysis. When reading data analysis, the reader often finds they must flip back to a previous section to recall the facts or events that are being referred to. I wanted to present my results in a way that would make it possible for the reader to follow my thinking, and experience the connections I was making right alongside me.

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I tried several formats, each with its own benefits and limitations, before eventually deciding to present the stories as they appear in the following chapter, with comments embedded throughout to highlight the mathematical behaviour I observed in students.

Summary

In this chapter, I have provided a description of the design and implementation of this narrative inquiry. The two main goals of this thesis were to construct a characterization of mathematical behaviours and to explore a methodological approach that allows us to create accounts of these behaviours as they emerge in the classroom. To address these goals I, along with my research group, designed and carried out a narrative inquiry in the undergraduate course Introduction to Mathematical Thinking.

Each member of the research group attended every class and wrote narrative reflections (field texts) about their experience in class that day. We met once a week to discuss the themes and questions that came up in these field texts and reflect on how they were connected to our larger research questions. As the semester progressed, we continued to refine our characterizations of mathematical behaviours through our writing and reflection. In addition to discussing theoretical questions, we also spoke in our meetings about individual students. We would discuss our interactions with them, who we felt was strong or weak and why, who seemed well-suited to the course and who did not. This interest in understanding individual students led to interviews, the purpose of which were to inquire into “the continuity and wholeness” of each student’s experiences in the classroom” (Clandinin and Connolly, 2000, p. 17).

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The final products of this inquiry are the stories presented in the next chapter. Each set of stories focuses on a particular student from the course and tries to capture their experiences with behaving (and learning to behave) mathematically. The purpose of these stories is to invite the reader to share in the experiences we reflected on as a research group, and to perhaps rethink and reimagine their own experiences as a result.