Phase three was driven by three questions; who was to be included in the research; what are the ethical considerations for this research? What sources were to be included in the research and how would data emerging from identified research participants and research sources be collected; and would the method, design and development answer the research questions? The following subsections answer these questions.
Identifying sources of data
The data gathering and literature review were intentionally iterative. That is, the research process involved going into the field, collecting information, reflecting on it, subjecting it to an initial analysis to determine ‘what’s going on’, then using the information to guide the next step of the research (Yanow 1999).
Stake (1995) and Yin (2009) identify six primary sources of evidence available to case studies: documents, archival records, interviews, direct observation, participant observation and physical
Yin (2009) Stake (2000)
Single case X Descriptive X Intrinsic X Multiple case Exploratory Instrumental
137 artefacts. While it is not essential to have each type of source material in every case study, multiple sources of data corroborate findings and can add to the reliability of the study (Stake 2000; Yin 2009). As indicated in Table 5.4 below this research utilised four of Yin’s six sources of evidence.
Table 5.4: Types of evidence used based onYin (2009 p. 102)
Appendix 6 summarises the archival and primary data sources used during the research. What follows is an explanation of each source of evidence used in this research.
Documentation. Yin (2009) writes that documents, used purposefully and with reason, are useful in corroborating and augmenting evidence in other sources and when drawing inferences and setting up signposts for further investigation. For example, the newsletters accessed for this research were written for a particular audience; that is, the St Paul’s School community, and for a particular purpose; to communicate information about school matters. These newsletters could lead to inferences or corroborate and provide evidence of the formal and professional HPS structures in St Paul’s School and the St Paul’s Model. In doing so, such documentation answered RQ; ‘Are the formal and collaborative professional arrangements employed in the St Paul’s Model (a) congruent with national and global student wellbeing policies as articulated by the HPS discourse?; (b) effective in addressing and promoting student wellbeing? and (c) can the St Paul’s Model be an exemplar for other collaborations between teachers and social workers?’
Thus, the documentation for answering RQ was gathered from the literature review and the school site, the CEOM and the DEET. It included St Paul’s School records, policies and Source of evidence: what was collected Strengths
Documentation
Letters, memorandums, agendas, study reports, policy documents, school reviews
Stable, unobtrusive, exact, broad coverage Past association with school allowed it to be easily collected
Researcher had permission to access documentation Archival records
Charts, lists, survey data, personal records
Stable, unobtrusive, exact, broad coverage, precise Extensive source of quantitative documentation Access to archives via school and personal sources available Physical artefacts
Photos, art works, notebooks, webpage data, diaries, St Paul’s School production
publications, school choir CD-ROMs, newsletters, letters to principal and students, parent and carers
Insight into cultural features, insight into technical operations
Access to artefacts via school and personal sources
Surveys, focus groups Targeted, focused on case study topic, insightful Provided for perceived causal influences to be analysed Used focus group facilitator other than myself
138 procedures manuals, school reviews, and reports. The CEOM and DEET publications and reports located St Paul’s student wellbeing policy and practice within the wider schooling system; that is, in global, national, state and Catholic policies and practices. These documents contributed key evidence about St Paul’s School’s organisation, ethos and environment, partnerships and services, also serving as a form of triangulation technique and validity test.
Archival records. Yin (2009), although cautioning on the need to check the accuracy of archival documents, alerts the researcher to the richness that archival records contribute to data collection. Used in conjunction with documents, archival records provided data on the profile of the school community, the programs associated with the St Paul’s Model and its historical development. Data of this kind provided an insight into the organisation, ethos and environment, partnerships and services and the curriculum teaching and learning of the St Paul’s Model thus addressing RQ,(a) ‘Are the formal and collaborative professional arrangements employed in the St Paul’s Model (a) congruent with national and global student wellbeing policies as articulated by the HPS discourse?’. The archival records included staff and student demographic profiles, school newsletters, personal communications between stakeholders and professional journal entries.
Physical artefacts. Another source of data used in this research was physical artefacts. Artefacts were central to revealing how student wellbeing programs actually looked on the ground and allowed for insight into the cultural operations of St Paul’s School. Such artefacts were easily accessible and were used to verify the practical application or lack of application of student wellbeing policies and practices. They also gave insight into the ethos and organisation of the school. More importantly, from a critical inquiry perspective, by making or using these artefacts the research participants contributed items that were important to them at a particular time, in a particular context and using their own voice. Added to the other sources of evidence, they offered a chain of evidence and a vehicle for multiple sources of evidence to converge (Yin 2009).
The artefacts gathered during this research, with the permission of the principal, were photos, art works, audio productions, St Paul’s School electronic web pages, St Paul’s School production publications, the school choir and letters to and from St Paul’s community members. I accessed these artefacts by field trips to the school site (after hours) and via school personnel. The personal resources and data collected during the years 1993 to 2005 added to my collection of physical artefacts. These included personal diaries, letters received from families, students, staff and social work students, as well as photos, artworks and publications.
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Surveys and focus groups. During this research three focus groups were held. One for each of the school based groups: primary school students, teachers and Parent Partnership Team members. As will described in a later section, participation in the focus groups was open to those who fulfilled the time, place and experience criteria. These criteria eventuated in the participation of twenty primary school students, eighteen staff and ten Parent Partnership Team participants across the respective focus groups. This research departed from Yin’s (2009) schema of case study data in one respect. The research combined the facilitation of focus groups with the distribution of a single survey to the focus group participants. The surveys were distributed to each of the research participants prior to the focus group, the questionnaire complemented the focus group sessions. Therefore, the survey was a current rather than an archival record. It was the main quantitative source used in the research and was used to support the descriptive and explanatory character of the case study (Yin, 2009).
Designing the survey. The design and preparation of the survey took account of the instructions of Neuman (2006) and Schram (2006). Consistent with the social constructivism and critical inquiry principles underpinning the research, it was anticipated that the survey design would offer participants an understanding of the current socio political context underpinning students’ achievements, wellbeing and self-determination, and give them an opportunity to contribute to the future shape and sustainability of the St Paul’s Model (Foster-Fishman, Perkins & Davidson 1997; Glaser 1998, 2002, 2004; Karadimos 2005).
The questions posed in the design fitted the criteria set by Neuman and Schram that is, How well did they document real events, asking, for example, ‘what do you see as the strengths of the [St Paul’s Model]? How successful were they in understanding how participants make sense of and give meaning to their lives and experiences; for example, ‘Did the Playground Program make your time at school easier’? Could the questions identify unanticipated or taken for granted influences and phenomena, for example, ‘Are there other comments that you would like to make?’ Were they oriented to learning whether the participants could understand the processes by which events and actions take place, for example, ‘Thinking about the program, what factor or condition facilitated its implementation’? Finally, did the questions discover whether the participants understood the relationship between a particular context and the wider environment, for example, ‘What do you see are the main stressors in school/family life?’’ Importantly, the questionnaires had also to address RQ: Are the formal and collaborative professional arrangements employed in the St Paul’s Model (a) congruent with national and global student wellbeing policies; (b) effective in addressing and promoting student wellbeing?
140 Three teachers and two social workers who had firsthand knowledge of the St Paul’s Model were asked to test whether the questionnaire did, in fact, concern themselves with the St Paul’s Model and whether the survey covered the research dimensions of student wellbeing, student achievement and cross-disciplinary collaboration (Burns 1997; Neuman 2006). Both groups gave their feedback on the formulation of the questions and added suggestions on how best to present the information to primary school-aged students, the Parent Partnership Team, staff, social work students and field education coordinators (Burns 1997; Yin 2009).
The surveys for each cohort group had some commonalties but also some questions specific to them. As shown in Appendices 7 to 11, the surveys had the following sections:
1. Information about participants and their involvement in the St Paul’s Model.
2. Using a five-point Likert scale with responses ranging from ‘strongly disagree’ to ‘strongly agree’, or a child friendly Likert scale format representing the same. 3. Ranking the program components for importance in the St Paul’s Model.
4. opportunity to express their personal views on factors that they perceived to have enabled or constrained the St Paul’s Model HPS structures and/or other comments. 5. Opportunity to comment rate the effectiveness of the St Paul’s Model as a field
education program.23
As indicated abovesome sections of the survey were specific to the cohort group, for example, the section on Field Education theory and practice, was specific to the social work students and field education coordinators. Table 5.5 over the page illustrates the points of similarities and differences.
23
As indicated in the introduction this data was omitted from the final data set following a refocussing of the research direction.
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Table 5.5: Survey design by cohort – differnces and similarities
Mirror questions, that is, the same questions asked of each participant group was consistent regarding participation in, satisfaction with and effectiveness of the St Paul’s Model were asked of teachers, Parent Partnership Team, social work students and field education coordinators. Ranking of the Model components was indicated either in a child-friendly Likert Scale response for the St Paul’s students or a one to twelve ranking by the teachers.
Mirror questions were designed to provide data needed to answer RQ (b): Are the formal and collaborative professional arrangements employed within the St Paul’s Model effective in addressing and promoting student wellbeing? These mirror questions, and a question inviting participants to add other thoughts and ideas about the St Paul’s Model, in line with the social constructivism paradigm, were designed specifically to collect data from each participant’s perspective and each participant’s position within the partnership between St Paul’s School, staff, students, Parent Partnership Team, social work students and field education coordinators. The mirror questions also served as a triangulation technique, providing construct validity and reliability by gathering accounts from different points of view (Burns 1997; Stake 2000; Yin 2009). St Paul’s Students St Paul’s Staff St Paul’s Parent Partnership Team Social Work Students Field Ed. Coordinators Background Information Program Participation/knowledge
Likert Scale: satisfaction with program components Social work student
contribution Comments re effectiveness/constraints of Model Program Ranking
Field Education – theory
to practice
Comment on the enabling/facilitating and hindering/ frustrating aspects of the Model
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Focus groups. Consistent with the use of the critical inquiry, focus groups were seen as providing opportunity for participant to voice their views and experiences (Appendix 12). Further, the data gathered from the focus groups addressed RQ (a), (b) and (c), and supplemented the findings in the survey and documentary data. Thus this research had three focus groups, one each for primary school students, teachers and Parent Partnership Team. Each focus group was facilitated by the St Paul’s student wellbeing coordinator (SWC) and each was conducted for forty five minutes to sixty minutes.
This method of conducting research has gained currency over the past twenty years. Yin refers to focus groups as ‘guided conversation’ (2009, p. 106). Neuman (2006) describes them as a ‘loosely constructed discussion with a group of people brought together for the purposes of the study, guided by the researcher and addressed as a group’ (p. 194). There are four ways of using focus groups (Neuman 2006). The first two are for preliminary (pre-research) studies to collect information about the object of study and which lead to quantitative research; and as a principal and self-contained research tool, providing insights into the group processes and feelings, and the reasons and explanations for their attitudes and behaviour. They are also used as supplementary ways of explaining trends and variances, reasons and causes, attitudes and opinions; and as part of a multi-method study, in which case they can contribute information to other data collected in the course of the research. Typically, the focus group facilitator gathers a selection of people in the venue introduces them to the research and encourages discussion among and between the focus group members. The facilitator observes and records the essence of their discussions (Sarantakos 2005; Yin 2009).
How voices are heard in the focus groups raises questions of the weaknesses and limitations inherent in the use of focus groups. Both Sarantakos (2005) and Neuman (2006) note that the success of focus groups relies both on the group and the facilitator. The facilitators’ knowledge of the research method, their ability to create an encouraging and warm environment and facilitate open and free discussion among the participants and their ability to guide the discussion may either limit or work to the advantage of the focus group processes and outcomes (Yin 2009). As far as the group members participating in the focus group are concerned, strongly held opinions may polarise the views expressed by participants, reduce the possibility of their sharing opinions and ideas and limit the group contributions to notions that are less likely to affect personal or professional careers.
Notwithstanding these criticisms, given the time restraints and the desire to collect quality unstructured data, focus groups were nonetheless included in research design. The focus group
143 facilitator was known to the focus group participants and, as part of her role description, had facilitated student, parent and staff other group sessions. The venue for each focus group was the school and thus both the environment and the facilitator was familiar to the primary school students, teachers and Parent Partnership Team members. The teachers and Parent Partnership focus groups were co led with another St Paul’s school teacher. This second experienced teacher assisted the main facilitator in ensuring that all participants had opportunity to contribute to their focus group session. To address the facilitator’s clarity around the purpose and procedural steps of facilitating the focus groups, the researcher met with the focus groups facilitator prior to and following each session. Reviewing the tape recording of each of the focus groups sessions, the researcher and facilitator reviewed the focus group process, clarified any concerns that the facilitator may have had and discussed the procedure for other focus group sessions.
Identifying the research participants
The question, ‘who is best placed to give me the data I require?’ would determine who would comprise the research participants. Bronson (1995), Corbin and Strauss (1990) and Kushner and Morrow (2003) write that research participants need to be bound by place, time and experience. While many participants may have been identified as relevant to the research, for example, all St Paul’s students, all parents and carers, all staff, social work students from every partner university or all field educators, pragmatically the participant group needed to be contained and manageable and bounded by place, time and experience. Thus, the participants in this research fulfilled these criteria:
• The place: research participants had attended St Paul’s School as either student, staff member, Parent Partnership Team member, social work student or field education coordinator.
• The time: the St Paul’s Model 1994 to 2005.
• Experience: research participants had participated in or had knowledge of the St Paul’s Model from 1994 to 2005, from its infancy to a more advanced stage of development. This participation needed to include any or all of the following: the Breakfast Club, the Homework Club and the SEASONS program, the Social Skills (Classroom) Program, the Playground Program, the Lunch Program, the Transition Program, the Swimming Program, Policy Writing audits and/or program development (Bullying Audit, Out of Hours School Care Program), the Welfare Program, the Special Events and other programs. Such data would provide information about the organic development of the St
144 Paul’s Model and yield information about the success or otherwise of the way in which the St Paul’s Model.
The numbers to be included in the research were not predetermined. Participation was open to any person who fulfilled the place, time and experience criteria. Thus using the abovecriteria and using St Paul’s School and Victoria University data bases to identify the possible participants the following steps were taken to invite participation in the research:
1. General invitation to school population issued through the school Newsletter explaining the research.
2. The St Paul’s School student wellbeing coordinator visited grades three to six, explaining the research, identifying any students who had participated in any of the student wellbeing programs (1994 to 2005) and gave them an Information Pack to seek parental permission for their participation in the research. Twenty Information Packs were distributed.
3. Thirty-five Information Packs were distributed to current school staff, 1994 to 2005, explaining research and inviting participation in a focus group.
4. Twenty-five Information Packs were distributed to Partnership Team Members, 1994 to 2005, identified via the use of school data base , explaining research and inviting participation in a group.
5. Forty-one Information Pack were mailed to all social work students, 1994 to 2005, identified via Victoria University base, explaining research and inviting