Phase 2 of Data Collection

Step 1: Reading Diaries and Submission

The participants started to record their reading diaries after the completion of interviews in Phase 1. Two weeks were allocated to record any academic reading activities in their reading diaries. They submitted their diaries on Sunday every fortnight. They emailed me the diaries, since all of them recorded their reading diaries as Word documents. The pages of their reading diaries were between four to ten pages depending on the font size and type, content and layout (portrait and landscape). All of the participants recorded their reading diaries in table format.

The participants wrote in Malay with some code-switching to English in their reading diaries. However, the participants’ code-switching did not influence my understanding of what they intended to express in their writing. Perhaps, coming from the same language background with the participants was an added advantage for me. I had not experienced any problems while analysing the contents. Besides, all doubts regarding what were written in the diaries were clarified as further questions. These were then addressed during the follow-up interview sessions. Similar techniques, as described in Section 3.9.2.1, were sustained throughout diary analysis to construct the questions for

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the follow-up interview sessions. The following table indicates the learner diary entries collected during this period.

Table 3.8: The participants’ diary entries

Reading Diary Analysis and Storage

I spent one week analysing each entry, and concurrently constructed the questions for the follow-up interview sessions. The number of questions written for the follow-up interview sessions was based on the reading diaries. The greatest number of interview questions was 15 and the lowest number was 8. However, there was a key theme in the reading diary, whereby the participants had to write about how they read for their final examination, which was consistently asked about throughout the follow-up interview sessions. I re-read the entries better to understand and familiarise myself with the participants’ actual academic reading experiences.

For diary analysis, Bailey (1990) recommends a five-stage procedure requiring reading the diary repeatedly and then looking for recurring patterns and significant events. However, this procedure did not seem appropriate in this study, since the diaries were only primarily a stimulus for follow-up interviews. Thus, I analysed the diaries based on their manifest content as proposed by Sarantakos (2005, p.300), referring ‘to the visible,

Participants 2014 2015 Total

Feb March Apr May Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb

AF 1 2 1 1 2 2 1 2 2 14 AY 1 2 1 1 2 2 1 2 2 14 DY 1 2 1 1 2 2 1 2 2 14 HZ 1 1 1 1 2 2 1 2 2 13 KY 1 2 1 1 2 2 1 2 2 14 KZ 1 2 1 1 2 2 1 2 2 14 RG 1 2 1 1 2 2 1 2 2 14 RH 1 2 1 1 2 2 1 2 2 14 RS 1 2 1 1 2 2 1 1 2 13 SL 1 2 1 1 1 2 1 2 2 13 SR 1 2 1 1 2 2 1 2 2 14

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surface text, the actual parts of the text manifested in the document [in this case, the diaries]: the words, sentences, paragraphs’.

I finalised the pre-determined categories after several readings. Then, I checked the criteria for categories with my PhD colleague from the Centre for Education Studies, University of Warwick. We established the criteria for categories by comparing our lists and looked for similarities and differences. The final categories were established based on their frequency and intensity, consisting of:

1) problems while reading L2 academic texts 2) strategies used to solve the problems

3) reasons for such problems to occur during academic reading activities

A week later, I arranged the time slots for the first follow-up interview sessions. The participants selected the day and time for interviews. Again, I reminded them that the follow-up interview session would be conducted as a follow-up to their reading diary submission. Hence, the questions asked were based on what was written in their diaries. I needed to remind my participants continually of the activities for each procedure, so the participants were aware of the data collection progress. This step was taken because I wished to re-establish the rapport, as they were involved in this study for 9 months.

The reading diaries were stored in both my external and internal hard-disks, Dropbox folder and personal emails for data back-up. Each reading diary was labelled using the participants’ initials (e.g. RD1_RH, RD2_RH, RD3_RH). The label indicated the method of data collection, which was “Reading Diary” (RD) followed by the number of diary submitted and the participant’s initial. Each diary submission was stored in different folders (e.g.RD1, RD2, RD3).

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Step 2: Sequence of Follow-up Interviews

During the follow-up interviews, I asked all the prepared questions but not precisely in the same words or the same order. This step was suggested by Akerlind (2005, p. 113) ‘to keep the interview as comfortable and conversation-like as possible, in order to facilitate a frank exploration’ of their actual academic reading activities. Since the questions were based on their actual reading activities, I further encouraged the participants to talk explicitly about their reading activities that were not recorded in the reading diaries.

A more positive outcome of conducting a series of follow-up interviews was that I was able to probe for more clarification based on what they had written in their reading diaries. For example, if they mentioned that they needed to highlight certain words while reading, I asked them to further justify this. In doing so, the participants were able to explain their reasons for choosing certain strategies. Obviously, although some participants were using slightly similar strategies, there was variation in their justification which I found very appealing for further analysis.

Another interesting situation during the follow-up interview sessions was when 2 participants (AF and RS) brought along their academic reading texts and pointed out the paragraphs/sentence structures which were difficult for them to read and comprehend. Another 3 participants (RG, KT and DY) emailed me the texts, which were difficult for them to read. Thus, during the follow-up interviews I was able to probe for more responses based on what written in their reading diaries, as well as get some samples of authentic academic texts. The questions that were posed during the follow-up interviews were more personal, as they were based on how they experienced academic reading at their own pace and in their own time.

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This session somehow provided me with access to the participants’ minds as they recounted their academic reading experiences, re-stated the problems and solutions taken to survive in an academic world as well as showing me the actual texts they struggled with while participating in my study. Thus, the follow-up interview sessions provided me with a surplus of data that could lead to an in-depth understanding of academic reading from the participants’ inside perspectives. The sequence of follow-up interviews was completed in February 2015. Similar steps were taken throughout the follow-up interview sessions, where the questions were constructed based on the participants’ entries. All interviews were conducted in both Malay and English. There was a large amount of code-switching between these two languages during the interview sessions. Table 3.9 and 3.10 summarise the details of the follow-up interviews.

Table 3.9: Details about the follow-up interviews

Participants 2014 2015 Total

Feb March Apr May Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb

AF 1 2 1 1 2 2 1 2 2 14 AY 1 2 1 1 2 2 1 2 2 14 DY 1 2 1 1 2 2 1 2 2 14 HZ 1 1 1 1 2 2 1 2 2 13 KY 1 2 1 1 2 2 1 2 2 14 KZ 1 2 1 1 2 2 1 2 2 14 RG 1 2 1 1 2 2 1 2 2 14 RH 1 2 1 1 2 2 1 2 2 14 RS 1 2 1 1 2 2 1 1 2 13 SL 1 2 1 1 1 2 1 2 2 13 SR 1 2 1 1 2 2 1 2 2 14

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Table 3.10: Summary of follow-up interviews data

Participants Total duration of interview

AF 8:27:06 AY 7:51:00 DY 7:08:33 HZ 7:10:00 KT 9:06:16 KZ 7:12:30 RG 8:33:03 RH 7:20:16 RS 7:25:10 SL 7:58:22 SR 9:31:00

Recording, Transcriptions Procedure and Storage

Similar recording systems were used, and the outcomes were transferred to my Dropbox folder after the interview sessions via Wi-Fi connection. All interview recordings proceeded without technical difficulties. The recordings were then transferred to the hard disks of my two notebooks and transcribed by me. Malay was used throughout the follow- up interview sessions with some code-switching to English. The interview recordings were transcribed from beginning to end. The transcription process was facilitated by Nvivo10 software. Each interview was labelled using the participants’ initials. However, all transcripts were stored in different folders, to avoid confusion in data storage for all interview sessions.

All transcriptions for each of the follow-up interview sessions were collected in a labelled folder (e.g. FIV1, FIV2, FIV3 and so on). In each folder, there were different labels for the participants. For example: (1) FIV1_RH for participant RH in the folder for follow-up interview 1 (FIV1), and (2) FIV2_RH for participants RH in the folder for follow-up interview 2 (FIV2). For further analysis and checking purposes, all transcriptions were saved in my internal and external hard disks, Dropbox folder and personal email for backup.

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