As the research is comprised of several studies the individual methods that were followed for each study will be described in the applicable Sections. While there may be some element of the process included, the sections are mainly to describe the philosophical basis for the methods followed.
There were three primary methodologies employed to develop the contextual analysis of Irish primary science education. These methodologies included semi-structured interviews, observations of practice and a content analysis. Each of these methodologies will now be discussed.
3.4.1: Semi-Structured Interviews
In order to fully understand the context of primary school science education it was decided that a set of interviews would be carried out with teacher educators from the various colleges of education in Ireland. The interview structure that was taken as part of this analysis was a semi-structured interview (Flick, 2002, Silverman, 2006). Semi-structured interviews allow the researchers to probe beyond the structure of the interview in order to develop a deeper understanding of the context of what the interviewee is discussing or can enable a researcher to gather extra data to qualify statements made (ibid). This technique also allowed the researcher to be ‘flexible, objective, empathic, persuasive [and] a good listener’ (Fontanna and Frey, 2000, p. 652 cited in Flick, 2002). Other interview techniques were determined not
to be suitable for the collection of this data. These methods included structured/ focussed interviews, open-ended interviews, group discussions, joint narratives and focus groups (Flick, 2002, Silverman, 2006). A structured/focussed interview is quantitative in nature requires the interviewer to ask each question as it is planned (Flick, 2002, Silverman, 2006). This limits the responses that can be provided by the interviewee. An open-ended interview allows a researcher to develop expansive knowledge about the subject matter to which is being discussed (Silverman, 2006) and is traditionally used to develop the researcher’s knowledge from a subject matter expert. An open-ended interview does not suit the needs of a researcher who is has an in-depth knowledge of the field but is identifying personal opinions and issues (ibid). Finally a focus group is an interview technique used to create a ‘quasi-naturalistic method’ for the generation of discussion (Flick, 2002). As it can be seen the semi-structured interview aimed to capture the required qualitative responses of the interviewees while still allowing for a discussion of topics that may have emerged in the interview.
3.4.2: Observations of Teacher Education
Insights into the practice of primary science teacher education were gained through observations of teacher education lectures. Due to time constraints and issues with access only one of the institutions described in Section 1.1 were observed.
[Observational] approaches stress that practices are only accessible through observation and that interviews and narratives merely make the accounts of practices accessible instead of the practices themselves.
(Flick, 2002, p. 134)
Here Flick is describing the limitations of a discussion of practice versus the observation of practice, maintaining that the observation of practice allows a researcher to identify more subtle elements of the practice than a discussion would allow. This also describes the motivation behind the observation of practical teacher education lectures, which would aid the development of the contextual factors of the research. The observations were overt, non- participant observations for all of the lectures (Friedrichs, 1973 Cited in Flick, 2002). This meant that the participants that were observed were briefed about the observation and that the researcher played no part in the progression of the lecture. Non-participant observation was
chosen to allow the researcher to observe the students carrying out the activities and the environment rather than concentrating on the activity itself. The observation was also carried out in a natural situation (ibid), meaning that no detail such as the classroom or the content of the lecture was changed to accommodate the lecture.
3.4.3: Contextual Analysis
The final element of the contextual analysis involved a content analysis of current primary school science textbooks to identify their ability to encourage IBSE in the classroom. This study emerged from the Waldron’s publication which found that Irish primary school teachers were still relying heavily on the use of textbooks in their teaching of science (Waldron et al. 2009).
A ‘structuring content analysis’ was chosen as it identifies the structures present in texts and can identify patterns (Flick, 2002). It also allows for the quantity of data to be condensed so that features can be described easier (Mayring, 1983, cited in Flick, 2002). According to Mayring (ibid) the stages of a content analysis are: Defining the material, analyse the situation, characterize the material and define the direction for the analysis (Mayring, 1983, cited in Flick, 2002). Selecting this method the first stage was to define the material that was to be analysed. In order to carry out this study a selection of primary school textbooks were obtained. The textbooks were from three series which covered science across all of the eight years of primary school. Analysing the situation describes the current state of the primary school texts and their aims and objectives. For the purposes of this research the situation for the texts chosen is consistent across the textbooks. This is also true for the characterisation of the textbooks which are all created to meet the goals of the Irish primary school science curriculum. The direction of analysis was defined as the content analysis of textbooks to assess their suitability in supporting IBSE. This method was chosen in order to assign meaning to the various methods employed in textbooks and to make inference about this meaning (Krippendorff, 2004). As teachers are using textbooks as primary resources in their teaching, the activities presented in the textbooks are crucial to understanding how teachers are currently teaching science. In order to analyse the textbooks use within an inquiry context an analytical framework had to be created and applied to the textbooks (Wang, 1998, Wilkinson, 1999). For the purposes of this work a framework was developed based on the 5E
model of inquiry. The development of the framework is described in Section 5.1 which occurred alongside the textbook analysis in Section 4.3.