Phase 2: Data collection process continues

In this phase, I continued with the data collection process and asked the students to write a second reflective piece in which they reflected on their learning experiences of the first semester of 2009 (Written Reflection no. 2, Data set 3) in the second week of Term 3, July, second semester 2009.I did not ask them to do so during a lecture period again, but e-mailed them and asked them come to see me in my office during lunchtime or when it was convenient for them to do so, which they did. I had no problems with the students in Case 1, who all responded and wrote their second reflective piece. Again, I attribute it to my relationship with the students, which I explained earlier. In addition, I think it also had to do with the fact they were still in the ALC course and with me in lectures, during which I continually made mention of the research project and the fact that there were students in the class who were willing to assist me. I think they felt proud to be part of the project and that motivated them to be cooperative. However, I had difficulties with the students in Case 2.I had to remind them a few times and five students did not come back to me (as mentioned in Section 4.5.3 above). I think that there were two possible reasons why the students in this group were not so eager to respond. One reason was that they were very busy and could not find the time to respond to me (this was mostly the response from the ones that I had to remind), while another reason could be that they were not doing my course any more (they passed at the end of the first semester and exited the course) and we no longer had close contact.

88 The students arrived individually at my office and I explained to them what I wanted them to do for me. For the group who passed and failed modules, I asked them to reflect on and explain the following (in writing):

1. Which modules did I pass and why? 2. Which modules did I fail and why?

3. Will I do things differently now [in the second semester] and why?

For the group who passed all four of their first-semester modules, I asked them only two questions:

1. Which modules did I pass?

2. What did I do that enabled me to pass all my modules?

I asked them these questions because it was in line with the type of questions (the first three) that we ask students who failed the module (ALC 131) when we meet them again in ALC 132 in the second semester. For the purpose of my study, asking these questions assisted me to find answers to sub-questions 2, 3 and 4. The timing was also right in that it was still early in the second semester, which meant that their experiences would still have been fresh in their memories. A copy of these written reflections is included as Addendums 7a and 7b.

Data set 4 draws on the questionnaire that the students completed in Term 4, second semester 2009. Questions 1 to 7 focus on their biographical and geographical information and were originally included in the questionnaire. Because I had already retrieved their biographical and geographical information from the University‘s database (Data set 2 in May 2009), I used the students‘ answers to questions 1 to 7 in the questionnaire to verify the information retrieved from the database. However, I added questions to the questionnaire in order to also obtain information regarding their financial situation, if they received support at home and if they were boarding on campus or off campus (questions 8 to 11). Questions 12 and 13 focused on their challenges and on solutions to their challenges and were also part of the original questionnaire that I had to submit. These two questions were also asked in Written Reflection no. 1 in April. I asked these two questions again in the questionnaire, not only to strengthen reliability and validity, but also to compare their responses given in Written Reflection no. 1 to what was given in the questionnaire (which was answered in October) and to establish whether or not their challenges remained the same, if they increased or decreased, or if there were new challenges that came after they responded in April.

89 I e-mailed the questionnaire to all the students and asked them to complete it and return it to me. Five students sat in my office and completed the questionnaire there. I left my office while they were doing so in order to give the students some privacy to reflect on and respond to the questions in their own time. The students came individually at a time that suited them best. Both groups completed the same questionnaire, and I again numbered it according to the numerical system that I used in order to ensure that I could identify each student, and to keep each student‘s data together. At this stage of the investigation, I had four sets of data for each student and I started with the analysis of the qualitative data (this process is explained in Section 4.5.6 below). As mentioned earlier, the students who did not do so well (failed some or all modules) were more eager to respond and complete the questionnaire than the students who had passed everything. In fact, one of the students who failed everything in the first semester (Student 1, Case 1) was one of the five who completed the questionnaire in my office, and he said that he wanted to do this because he wanted to let other students know that if they do not take their studies seriously from the beginning, they are setting themselves up for failure (Student no 1, Personal communication, 7 October, 2009). I found this very unusual — I would have thought that the students who passed everything would be the eager ones, since they felt proud (ought to be) of their achievements, and that the students who failed some or all of their modules would have been shy and not so willing to complete the questionnaire and to return it to me. A copy of the questionnaire is included as Addendum 8.