In-Depth, Semi-Structured Interviews

The second data collection tool in this study was the interview. The reason for choosing it was that this study sought to examine the integration of the self and professional development of the 'Lovecircles' trainees as expressed in their own words, combined with their interpretation of the visual data (photographs and videos). The purpose of the interview was to understand the perceptions of personal and professional changes the participants had undergone as an outcome of their participation in the 'Lovecircles' education programme and its impact on their educational approach to working with children with SEN. Woods (1996) adds another value to the interview, saying that it is not only an information-gathering tool but also a joint process of constructing meaning

of the occurrence in question, where participants both contribute to and are influenced by it.

The type of interview used in this study was an in-depth semi-structured interview (Fontana & Frey, 2000). It is more like a conversation than a formal, structured interview (Shkedi, 2003, 2012) and therefore offers more flexibility to be responsive to the interviewee. It is an open interview, allowing interviewees to speak freely without interruption, showing respect for everything they say. Moreover, the interview focused on a number of aspects of the occurrence through several questions initiated in advance, helping the interviewees to open up and express their attitudes and opinions. Furthermore, it facilitated receiving their input regarding the aspects that I deemed especially important and interesting (Dey, 1993).

I interviewed all 11 original participants after their graduation from the 'Lovecircles' education programme in order to understand their personal and professional development throughout the whole process. At the start of the interview, the aims of the interview and the research in general were explained without too many details, so as not to give them too much direction about what to say (Shkedi, 2003) to minimize social desirability. I conducted in-depth interviews with each of the 11 original participants. Each interview lasted between one and two hours. The length of each interview was spontaneously decided by the interviewee according to the information he or she could or wanted to give to the interviewer. Naturally enough, participants who gave more and richer information about their educational experiences tended to make their interviews longer. The length of the interviews is in line with studies that maintain that 90 minutes is the optimal period of time for an interview (Shkedi, 2003).

To avoid researcher bias, I tried to prevent 'social desirability' effects, which occur when participants want to portray themselves to the researcher in a favourable way. Hence, they try to guess the 'correct' answer or interpret the facial expressions of the researcher (Robson, 1993; Bryman, 2001). The way to resolve this, as Robson (1993) suggested, was to adopt a neutral position and not welcome or reinforce the interviewees by not being seen to be agreeing with them, or sharing similar views to them.

I tried to avoid social desirability effects by not being overtly friendly with the respondents and by not being judgmental about their responses (Bryman, 2004). When people know that they are being studied and observed, their natural reactions change.

Additionally, to reduce the amount of reactivity, I used my professional skills as an educator and art therapist and adopted the 'fly on the wall' strategy, according to which researchers position themselves and behave in such a way that their presence is gradually unnoticed.

Secondly, as the research used semi-structured interviews, this questioned the level of truthfulness of the responses, because of the social desirability effect. To avoid bias, I addressed this point at the outset of each interview, assuring the respondents that the data would be used for research purposes only. Moreover, I highlighted the significance of genuine data, to make the respondents aware of the importance of 'real' reactions and responses.

The participants were asked to reflect on their general experience as learners in the 'Lovecircles' education programme. Meaningful incidents and episodes concerning personal and professional changes that they have undergone were discussed and they were given the opportunity to share their thoughts, feelings, and dilemmas associated with these changes. The first two interviews (with Shanny and Eve) were conducted as a pilot and questions were amended for the remaining nine according to the research aims and questions leading towards enhancement of the comparability of the data.

The first questions were more specific with regard to the details of the programme such as encounters dedicated to specific issues/topics, to relax the participants by requiring a factual answer. The following questions were broader, thus providing more space for personal narrative that could generate information and allow for conceptualization. Questions were revised after I had studied the issue of the structure of questions in educational research interviews, in contrast to therapy interviews. Ultimately, I developed interview questions that integrated the spirit of interviews in both fields of education and therapy (Appendix 17).

Contrary to closed questions that call for short, even single-word answers, open-ended questions that guided the interviews are designed to elicit full answers based on the participants' knowledge and feelings. Open-ended questions also tend to be more objective and less leading than closed-ended questions. Data derived from open-ended questions come in the form of words, phrases, and sentences that have to be combined and simplified into a limited number of categories, to enable data analysis. This process unavoidably entails some loss of information, in addition to the bias of interpretation of

responses (Robson, 1993). To prevent loss of information and distortion of the data, the responses were copied into one computer file and the coding of the total responses was done by the text of the question. This procedure ensured reduced loss and distortion of the data.

The open-ended questions used in this study allowed participants to talk about their perceptions related to their development in their own words, free of constraints imposed by fixed-response questions that are generally seen in quantitative studies. Moreover, the phenomenology approach used in this study generates narratives from more than one source (interviews, diaries) to elicit truth from participant's perceptions.

All the interviews were recorded on videotape and then I transcribed them verbatim to written protocols. The transcription included listening to and recording non-verbal signals such as laughter, pauses, and filler noises (Shkedi, 2003). The recording and exact transcription of the interviews are based on the assumption that every word and even partial word uttered by the interviewees reflects their individual perspectives and feelings, so that converting them to other words might distort their original intent. I transcribed the interviews myself in order to become very thoroughly familiar with the data collected from the interviews. I was also aware of the nonverbal body language signified by a pause in the recording, which would not have been available to a transcriber.

Repeatedly listening to the recordings during the transcription of 'what' was said and noting the comments about 'how' it was said enabled me to get to know the data well enough for precise analysis later on. Noting the 'how' included marginalia about intonation, the 'music' of the words, the level of determination or hesitation, enthusiasm or lack thereof, and so forth. During the interviews, I also took field notes, which constituted part of the context of the interview and were later incorporated into the analysis thereof.

The questions for the interview were aimed at different aspects of the 'Lovecircles' education programme. An example of an interview schedule is included in Appendix 17. The questions in the interview followed quite naturally from the research objectives. The questions' objectives were drawn from the underlying assumptions about the important facts concerning the development the participants underwent and their interpretation of those developments via their educational approach to working within

inclusive contexts (Hannan, 2007). The research aims, the research questions and the conceptual framework informed the formulation of the questions for the interview. For example, Question 1 pertained to personal development, asking whether the participant could identify any meaningful experiences during the 'Lovecircles' education programme. I claim that this is potentially a leading question. Therefore a thorough process took place to pilot the most relevant way to frame questions relating to the research aims and focus.

The questions were tested on two of the 11 original participants for both clarity and validity. They were refined and changed to ensure collection of real data that would promote the aims of the study. (For example, the question 'can you tell me about your emotions you have encountered during the session on the inhibition theme?’ was later refined to 'can you tell me about your experiences you have encountered during the session on the inhibition theme?'). It is worth noting that during the interviews, when the participants were presented with visual arts (photographs), this evoked associations that caused them to expand and even drift away. On these occasions, I had to re-focus them on the questions asked to ensure collection of data that could illuminate my study. The questions in the interview consisted of nine open-ended questions. The questions were constructed as a multi-stage process (Shkedi, 2003) so as to allow participants a respectful enabling space so they could recall their experiences and share them. As emphasized by Shkedi (2003), the first part of the questions was more open, allowing the participants to structure their answers in a way that would be meaningful to them, and the second part presented more focused questions, meaning each stage in the interview had its own style.

The first part included different types of descriptive questions:

o Comprehensive description questions: Describe to me… Tell me about (Questions 4 and 5);

o Descriptive questions focused on more limited aspects of the experiences and positions: What happened in relation to a specific issue (Questions 2 and 3); o Questions asking for examples: can you give me an example of the occurrence?

o Experiential questions: Please describe experiences you had in this context? What happened to you? How did you feel during the occurrence? (Questions 6 and 7).

The second part comprised meaning-related questions, based on participants' experiences, where they had to clarify the meanings and logic underpinning their descriptions. This allowed for learning about the way in which the interviewees perceived and understood their experiences in the programme and how they served as grounds for their personal and professional development, later applying these experiences in the field. For example: Why? For what purpose? What was the intention? What was the reason? (Question 8). The third part consisted of a complementary question (Question 9). This question enabled the participants to relate to issues that they had not discussed during the interview to make them feel that their words are significant and interesting (Spradley, 1979; Shkedi, 2003) and to raise issues and themes that had not been covered during the rest of the interview.

Interviews are considered methods by which learners retrospectively conceptualise learning occurrences and episodes. They actually reflect on their experience as learners, while adopting a 'second order' report (Marton, 1978). When learners retain an accurate record of their relevant mental activity, their accounts are likely to depend, at least in part, on inferences and re-constructions derived from their own participative and implicit theories of the process involved (Nisbett & Wilson, 1977; Ericsson & Simon, 1984; White, 1989; Zeichner & Noffke, 2001).

Another part of the interview was connected to the method of visual analysis for the meaning of the photographs expressed by participants (Chiozzi, 1989; Harper, 2001). Therefore, this data collection was done by discussing the meaning of the chosen photographs with the participants, attempting to decipher their meaning according to the research questions (Harper, 2002).

Quail and Peavy (1994) advocate that participants' verbal descriptions of their experience through photographs of expressive art products concerning an event (for example their personal and professional development), can serve as a significant source of data for later systematic analysis. This enables the researcher to stay close to the lived experience by the participants for the purpose of them revealing its meaning. Hence, research questions referring to art activities done throughout the programme via their

photographs, along with verbal descriptions of the experience, contribute to the understanding of the participants' meaning of their experience. In this light the questions in the semi-structured interview do not focus on cause and effect but rather on personal dimension aspects.

4.5.3. Diaries

The third data collection tool in this study consisted of the participants' diaries, used as a method for developing their own self-expression skills. This was part of their assignments throughout the education programme. In this study, diaries facilitated an understanding of the nature of the self and professional identity development process of participants in the 'Lovecircles' education programme. Diaries are frequently used in qualitative research (Toms & Duff, 2002). They are 'natural', they contain personal meanings and understandings, and they are process-oriented. In a sense, they enable observing and interviewing by proxy.

Consequently, diaries are a purposeful tool for recording experiences and enhancing insights concerning the occurrences studied. Diaries, also called journals, logs (Day, 1993; McDonough and McDonough, 1997), or field notes (Diaz-Maggioli, 2004) are a personal account of events, usually written in a narrative manner. There is extensive literature on diary writing and diaries as a research tool. Jones, S. (2008b) assessed the significant value of diary writing as a research tool and indicated the limitations. She claims issues of objectivity and validity could be resolved by combining diary writing with other research methods.

Diaries have long been a source of data for biographers and literary scholars. More recently, the diary as a source of data has been adapted for use by psychologists, sociologists, health care researchers, market researchers, and information scientists (Toms & Duff, 2002). What differentiates the two user groups is the approach taken with regard to the use of diaries as a data collection method. While the former (biographers) rely on the diary as a personal journal that is independently composed, the latter (psychologists) have come to use diaries as a structured means of prompting individuals to record details of everyday life events as a research diary (Toms & Duff, 2002).

Use of diaries as a research tool is now well established (Schumann, 1980; Bailey, 1990; Jarvis, 1992; Jones S., 2008b). In any type of research where a person is trying to make sense of an experience, and where the personal of view is a variable in the research, diaries are called for (Somekh & Lewin, 2005). Diaries are a means to better understanding of practices. They allow the user to perform the reflection needed to reach personal insight, to learn from experience (Jones S., 2008b). The unstructured nature of the data collection via diaries might illustrate wide aspects of the experience perceived by participants, for example, cognitive, social, and emotional processes, allowing capture of further information than what is included as questions in a questionnaire. They are sometimes able to provide insight into phenomena that were not obvious nor predicted initially (Somekh & Lewin, 2005).

Hence, the diary as a tool of data collection cannot be seen as something new. However, interest in its usage in a research context has steadily increased throughout the 20th century and specific categories of research diaries have emerged (Johnson & Bytheway, 2001). The different types reflect the fact that diaries can contain different information, take different forms, and are used for different purposes (Toms & Duff, 2002).

The diaries in this research were part of the learning process – these were personal journey diaries where participants were asked to document the learnt contents and the processes they experienced afterwards. Participants knew the diaries were personal and would serve them as a tool for self-attuning through the programme, and they would be able to choose independently what they wanted to share with the group or not.

As for this research, the participants were given explanations regarding the meaning of a journey-diary as auxiliary means for understanding the process they have undergone in the course of their development. Those who wished could share the diary or parts of it. They cooperated willingly, as they had come to the programme seeking to find a different solution for their professional development and realized the significance and potential contribution of their participation in the current research.

The type of data that diarists are required to record can be as varied as the types of diaries themselves. What is typically common to the information that is sought is that it is of the kind that usually would not be recalled accurately, unless it is recorded immediately after the activity had taken place. For that reason, diaries can be used to encourage an immediacy of data recording that prevents inaccuracy and enables the

collection of a 'complete' picture. As such, those kinds of diary are typically very structured and cover a specific time period (Dillman, 2000). What has increasingly come to be acknowledged is that diaries can be put to a use beyond the collection of 'micro' data and can equally be applied to the collection of data about a process. As Toms and Duff (2002) note, "the diary can encapsulate a lengthy, mostly non- observable process" (p. 1236), i.e. diaries can go beyond 'counting' and 'collecting' to 'describing' and 'reflecting'.

The approach to the diaries was open, so that each participant was invited to find the way that was best for him or her to document the process and manage the diary verbally or visually. The goal of writing a diary was clarified with emphasis on the significance of the diary such as the importance of the characteristics of the contents, including processes they document for themselves and contribute to their development.

This method can be used with other more interactive methods, such as interviews that allow clarification and verification of patterns emerging from the diaries. The advantages of using diaries for data collection may help researchers as well as participants to understand their own learning processes. On the other hand, the limitation of using diaries for data collection is that the time that elapses between observations, behaviour, reflection, and completion of the diary may mean that participants cannot remember much about an experience or their reaction to it. The goal of writing the diary was the documentation of contents and processes. Writing was done during and between sessions, as reflection, a sort of "a personal encounter with self". The diaries were thus an integral part of the studies in this programme. The participants had to fulfil the following instructions: (1) Document the processes that transpired during the sessions; (2) Write down their personal impression of the processes during the sessions, including emotions, feelings, thoughts, and insights; (3) Both documentation and impressions could be verbal or non-verbal, according to the participants' choice. The diaries were designed to document the participants' personal and professional voyage during the programme, express and create a personal space and a reflective tool of self-attention as well as serve as a basis for the end-of-programme assignment in addition to keeping a reflective dairy through the ‘Lovecircles’ programme.

The 'Lovecircles' tutor is not perceived as a teacher figure who assesses learning via