A total of 76 individual interviews and three focus group interviews were conducted over the course of the study.
Parent interviews
The first set of interviews with parents, conducted for selection purposes, lasted between 45 minutes and an hour in duration. A digital voice recorder was used to tape each interview, with permission for this being sought from the participant at the beginning of the interview. A set of focus questions (see Appendix 4) was prepared for the semi-structured interviews but participants were reminded that they were welcome to contribute further points that might help with clarification at any time in the interview.
The second round of interviews with the parents of the 11 selected student participants was carried out in October and November of 2008, when the student participants had almost completed their first year of high school. Interviews were conducted mostly in participants’ homes with one being held at my place of work and three at the parent’s place of work. A different interview schedule was prepared, with a focus on how parents saw their child’s high school experiences to date. The first questions about their understandings of the concepts of achievement and underachievement were introduced.
A final interview with each of the parent participants was conducted during June and July of 2009. The students were mid-way through their Year 10 year at this stage. Questions for this last interview were influenced by the data from earlier interviews. These explored understandings about what being gifted and talented means, about the parents’ views on the various schools’ practices in relation to gifted and talented education and a follow up to questions on understandings about the phenomena of interest. A question about the impact the study may have had on them was included. As this was the last time I would see them as participants, I thought it would be interesting to encourage some kind of reflection from them about the study that could contribute to analysis.
Interviews were again held at parents’ homes, except for two which were at the parent’s place of work and one was held at my office. I did not interview one of the parents for this round as she had been involved in a marriage break up and after a couple of attempts to contact her at her new address, with no success, I felt it would be intrusive to continue to chase her when she was going through a difficult personal time. One of the other parents had also experienced a relationship break up at the end of 2008 but she indicated strongly that she and her child were both willing to continue with the study.
All interviews were recorded and then transcribed. At the end of each interview completed transcripts were offered to the parents for verification checks but at no stage did any of the parent participants request to see the transcripts.
Student interviews
The process for the interviews with the students followed that of the parent interviews. Students were asked to give their permission for the interview to be recorded, interviews followed a semi-structured format using a prepared interview schedule, but allowing for flexibility along the way, and students were asked if they wanted to view the interview transcript to check for authenticity.
I wanted to try and develop a positive long-term relationship with these students so I decided to hold an initial get-together with all the students so that they could meet me, the researcher. I met the students in two groups (because of their availability issues) on two separate Friday afternoons in May 2008, at a lounge area in my work place. I talked to them about the study and answered any questions they had so that they could be sure about their commitment to the project. The students knew each other from Skye Intermediate but confidentiality issues were explained to them so that they were assured that their confidentiality outside of this study was protected. No recorded notes were taken from this meeting.
The first individual student interviews were then held from May to July in 2008 when the students were in Year 9. I visited the students’ homes for nine of the interviews and the other two were held in my office as both these students lived out of town and elected to come to me after school for the interview. Questions in this first interview were structured to elicit information about their own views on their personalities, on
their schooling history, and a first exploration of their understandings about the phenomena of interest. Interviews lasted for between 35 and 50 minutes. In December of 2008 I offered the students a ‘pizza tea’ get-together to thank them for their
contributions to the study in 2008 and for agreeing to continue. Only seven of the group were able to attend.
A second round of interviews was held with the student participants during April and May of 2009. The students were just completing the end of Term 1 in Year 10. I interviewed eight students in their homes and two at my work place. I was unable to arrange an interview with Mr Bubbles despite several attempts and because it was his parents who were going through a marriage break up at this time, I decided it would not be appropriate to continue to approach him. I did not see Mr Bubbles again in the course of the study. Interview questions for this round aimed to explore the students’ thoughts on the first year of high school, on their experiences of high school so far, on what night motivate them to do well or not, and I revisited their understandings about being ‘smart’ and about what achievement and underachievement meant to them (Appendix 4). Interviews lasted between 50 minutes and one hour.
The third round of student interviews took the form of three semi-structured focus group interviews. These took place in July 2009. I had originally planned to conduct two focus group interviews but because of the difficulties of getting the students together at the same time, I needed to hold three. One was conducted with four
members, the second with three members and the third with two. Lewis was unable to attend a focus group interview. All were held in a room at my work place, with food and drink provided by me, on a Friday afternoon after school. The schedule of
questions prepared for focus group interviews can also be seen in Appendix 4. During the interview I disclosed the focus of the study as being about gifted and talented students. Focus group interviews lasted between 45 minutes and one hour. Although offered the chance to view the transcripts of individual and group
interviews, none of the students expressed a desire to look at any of the transcripts.
Teacher interviews
Interviewing the teachers was carried out using the same process that was described for the parents and the students. The first teacher interviews were with the two Skye
Intermediate teachers in March of 2008. Interviews were held in the teachers’ classrooms after school. One interview lasted for 50 minutes and the other for 40 minutes. Teachers were asked open-ended questions about how they saw the
personalities, the special abilities and the achievement history of each of the student participants who had been in their class for the previous two years. During my first reading of the transcripts from these interviews I realised I had been remiss in not specifically asking the two teachers about their understandings of the two phenomena of interest, achievement and underachievement. I felt that since I would not be seeing these teachers again, I should ask them if they would agree to a second brief interview about two important themes that had come from the data so far. Both teachers agreed that I could speak to them again. Two short interviews were held in May 2008 in the teachers’ classrooms after school, exploring their perceptions on what achievement and underachievement for gifted and talented learners meant to them.
The second round of teacher interviews was conducted with a Year 9 teacher for each of the student participants, except one, for whom permission was not granted by the school. These took place in December of 2008 and February of 2009. Interviews were held with seven teachers at their own school while two of the teachers preferred to come to my office for the interview. Interview time was between 35 and 55 minutes. Questions for these interviews were focused around the teachers’ views on the specific student’s personality; on what they saw as a student’s special abilities; on a student’s school performance; on communication methods between home and school; and on understandings about the phenomena of interest. Teachers were also asked their personal views on gifted and talented education (Appendix 4).
One of the teachers wanted to read the transcript of the interview and minor changes to the transcript were made at her request. None of the other teachers asked to view the interview transcript.