This study was undertaken within an interpretivist paradigm (Lather, 1992). Within the interpretivist paradigm, researchers seek to understand behaviors from the teachers‟ own frame of reference and explore the meanings constructed by the teachers in the sociocultural contexts of their teaching (Lather, 1992). There were three main reasons for the researcher selecting the interpretivist paradigm and generating qualitative data, including the focus on in-depth and holistic interpretation of social phenomena, dynamic and flexible exploration of social phenomena, and the development of educational theorising. Each of these is discussed in turn.
4.2.1 In-depth and holistic interpretation of social phenomena
Qualitative research within an interpretivist paradigm focuses on in-depth and holistic meaning, interpretation and description of social phenomena (Bogdan & Biklen, 1992; Bryman, 1988). It is based on the assumption that “humans are conscious of their own behavior”, therefore, “the thoughts, feelings and perceptions of their informants are vital” (Burns, 2000, p.388). As such, the main purpose of research in the interpretivist paradigm is to provide an in-depth descriptive study of human experiences and phenomena as understood by the
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participants themselves (Lichtman, 2006). To achieve that goal, the data generated in research in this paradigm are in the form of words or pictures rather than numbers (Bogdan & Biklen, 1992; Hittleman & Simon, 2006), which enables researchers to describe, illustrate and present the social phenomena. Furthermore, interpretivist research requires that the description or interpretation should be consistent with the constructed reality of the participants in the social contexts to “understand what is going on in a particular context and provide clues and pointers to other layers of reality” (Bryman, 1988, p.63). Accordingly, researchers working within interpretivist paradigm, use interviews, observations, and documents, enabling researchers to generate a broad range and a variety of types of data as well as to study the interrelationships among data (Stainback & Stainback, 1988), so as to present the complexity and holistic meanings constructed by the participants.
4.2.2 Dynamic and flexible exploration of social phenomena
A second reason for undertaking research in the interpretivist paradigm for this study is that it is dynamic and flexible since it allows for the examination of the process of social phenomena rather than simply focusing on the outcomes. Bryman (1988) argues that the emphasis on process is a response to the qualitative researchers‟ concern to reflect the reality of everyday life in educational contexts, and as such, qualitative research does not follow one particular way of doing things and the specific procedures may emerge during the research (Lichtman, 2006, McMillan & Schumacher, 1993). Each step in qualitative research depends
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on the data or information generated from previous steps during the study, and this allows researchers to “investigate and gain an understanding not only of the product but also of how a program or situation operates, how it developed, and why a program did or did not work” (Stainback & Stainback, 1988, p.12).
As mentioned previously, this study was divided into three phases. In the first and second phases, data generated was through interviews, questionnaires and classroom observations, and in the third, the action research employed interviews and classroom observations as the data collection strategies. Therefore, this study was dynamic in that each step depended on the data generated previously. In the action research, interviews (both individual and group interviews) were conducted in which participants told their own stories and experience. The researcher did not need to follow a predetermined set of questions in order to generate data on „multiple realities‟ (Burns, 2000) of the research questions from the perspectives of participants. In each cycle of the action research, the changes that the teacher participants effected in their teaching were determined by themselves, based on their previous teaching. The flexible and ever-changing generation of qualitative research data enabled the researcher to make this study “more responsive to the needs of respondents and to the nature of the subject matter” (Walker, 1993, p.3). In addition, classroom observation was used as another data generation technique to capture the complexity of teaching activities. In this way, the researcher was able to maintain close association with both participants and their activities, within the participants‟ teaching settings, and gain an insider's view of their
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teaching.
4.2.3 Developing educational theory and benefiting teaching and learning practices
The third reason for the researcher's decision to research within the interpretivist paradigm was that of developing educational theorising as qualitative research is seen as helpful to bridge the gap between theory and practice in educational settings. According to Stainback and Stainback (1988), qualitative researchers gather diverse and natural data occurring in educational settings and through analyzing the interrelationships among the data about educational concerns, qualitative research enables researchers to access to the “consistencies or inconsistencies in the data in order to determine theories, ideas, or hypotheses” (p.14). In other words, theories are formulated during the process of analyzing particular data generated. From this point of view, qualitative research is potentially useful in the development of theory in specific educational contexts.
In addition, as qualitative data is not presented as a statistical summation, but rather is reported in a descriptive and narrative style, this form of presentation “might be of particular benefit to the practitioner” (Burns, 1990, p.12). According to him, qualitative reports close the gap between ordinary teachers and research, as teachers without knowledge of sophisticated measurement techniques could go into qualitative reports and acquire new insights about educational concerns to improve their teaching; on the other hand, they might become interested and
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involved in educational research themselves, which tallies closely with the purpose of this research, that is, to help English language teachers in China to improve their teaching practices and their students‟ learning outcomes. It was also the intention of this study to make the educational research beneficial to the participant teachers and their teaching practices.