Interpreting the Free Response Narratives

A semi-structured, free-response format, similar to that used in studies by Summers (1988, 1990) was used to elicit responses on six areas:

1. What have been the most positive and negative outcomes of using IT for you? 2. How has your use of IT and computers changed?

3. What major problems had you encountered and how were they handled?

4. What recommendations would you make about introducing laptops for staff use into schools? 5. What are your plans for future use of your laptops and software?

6. Please feel free to comment on any aspect of IT you consider important.

Although a suggestion was offered to use the back of the response sheet should it be required (and two of the teachers generally stayed within the guideline response boxes), one elected to take up the offer. Unfortunately that teacher did not specifically complete any of the above guiding questions.

The teachers' free-response messages‘ were coded using an 'open coding' method (Strauss and

Corbin, 1990) in a similar method as used for the mindmap section. The responses were grouped into five main categories: equipment, organisation, classroom practice, self-worth and training. Sub

categories of ―positive‖ and ―negative‖ were applied within each category. The categories used in

this analysis which arose from the 'open coding' method have similarities with analytical categories used in the studies of Blackmore et al (1992), Summers (1988, 1990), and Woodrow (1991).

4.4.3 Questionnaire

All the respondents completed the questionnaire. There were 201 closed questions in ten sections: School ICT environment (n= 1); Ease of ICT implementation (n= 1); Confidence and competence (n=2); Usage content (n= 17); Internet subscriptions (n= 4); Software usage (n= 71); Patterns of usage (n= 28); Internet usage (n= 14); Support (n= 22) and Personal perceptions (n=39). All the items were presented with either 4 or 5 Likert-type response options for ease of coding. These categories are now briefly outlined, with additional reasons for their pertinence and thus inclusion.

School ICT Environment

In order to determine the level of effort the teachers felt the school was providing in integrating ICT, the responses were categorised within the range of 'in some subjects'.

Ease of implementation of ICT

As with any new initiative, how well it is implemented and how well it is accepted will depend upon the resources being given to support its introduction.

Confidence and Competence levels

Much of the literature discussing integration of ICT refers to reasons why the integration has not been successful (Pelgrum, 2001). The amount of confidence a teacher has with regards to the technology may greatly influence how effectively ICT is integrated (Christensen, 2002) and the results in this study are similar to research by Becker (1998) who found that, at any level, the number of teachers strong in most aspects of computer use is small (5% of elementary school teachers). With the comment made during the interviews about still needing more training, the link between

competence and confidence is crucial for successful implementation of ICT (Kirkwood et al, 2000), as will be seen in greater detail later in this chapter.

Software Usage

Findings from research (Niederhauserand Stoddart, 2001) indicate that views about effective computer-based pedagogy are related to the types of software teachers report using with their students. The list of software included in this survey was for those currently available in the sample school. The titles were then categorised according to the genre, in order to give feedback on the areas of the curriculum that were most actively supported. The genre was used in order to acknowledge the findings of other research (Becker, 1998 and 2000), where it has been found that teachers who use ICT effectively tend to have students use computers in varied and complicated ways.

Personal perceptions

The processing of emotional information, according to Mayer (2001) begins with its accurate perception. With this perception comes 'emotional integration' (Mayer, 2001), contributing to

awareness of how one's emotions are affecting these perceptions. Because it is difficult to determine the accuracy of a person's perceptions, the issue becomes less dependent on whether such

perceptions were correct, but rather how they were shaped through the teacher's experiences. Indeed, perception, according to Lowe:

includes the subject as the perceiver, the act of perceiving, and the content of the perceived….The act of perceiving unites the subject with the perceived. And the content of the perceived, which results from that act, affect the subject's bearing in the world (Mayers,1982, p1).

Furthermore, this definition has proved most crucial to this research and is being used here to consider the 39 constructs of this section of the questionnaire. These constructs were divided into 5 sub-categories T+ teacher positive outcome; T- teacher negative outcome; S - effects on school; O- effects on others; L - effects on pupils' learning.

Software integration

There were 28 constructs under the heading 'Patterns of Usage". Of these, four dealt specifically about how much the teachers felt that ICT was being integrated into various areas of school life.

Collaboration

Collaboration was viewed as vital for inclusion as it is a major part of any teacher's box of tools for self-development. (Mortimore, et al, 1994, Hopkins, 1996).

4.4.4 Interviews

Interview studies are often used to elicit participant‘s perceptions, but to what extent can it be

appropriately presumed that people attach a single meaning to their experiences? Holstein and

Gubrium (1995) raise the issue of whether to treat interview responses as constructed ‗narratives‘ or as giving direct access to ‗experiences‘. In this study, the approach for the interview analysis

incorporates a descriptive study based upon one aspect of the infusion of ICT into the curriculum.

The questions were the same for each respondent; though some areas were explored further to elicit more detailed responses. The responses were recorded, transcribed, and analysed for recurring thoughts or emergent themes (Kvale, 1996, chapter 11).

4.4.4.1 Coding the transcripts

Although the transcripts look fairly detailed, the importance in their interpretation is not linked to the exact wording but more to the meaning of what was said (Huberman and Miles, 2002). During the process of analysing, then, similar ideas, feelings, and experiences were noted.

Now the structure of the analysis has been presented and explicated, I will explore each case study separately: first the data will be recorded, with subsequent analysis. Finally, I will return to a comprehensive comparative analysis of all three in order to compound my findings.

4.5 Analysis of each of the cohort members’ responses to these tools