Piloting

I had a variety of participants to interview, whose contribution would build different moments of the textbook biography. These were KIE officials, editors, authors and teachers. Although I had practised interviewing fellow colleagues, and received supervisor feedback on interviewing senior officials, it was important to refine the instruments by piloting them in the actual context. I piloted the instruments between January 18 and February 4, 2010.

The participants were a convenience sample, to whom I had access. They were people I knew, and with whom I had made prior arrangements by e-mail or

telephone for this purpose. However, with hindsight, in the absence of constraints of distance, it is preferable to obtain a random sample for piloting that is not facilitated by a friend in order to obtain as authentic and preparatory an experience as possible. I interviewed an editor, two authors, and a teacher whose class I also observed among whose students I distributed the learners’ questionnaire.

Regulator Piloting

Preparation for regulator interviews involved mock interviews with staff in my department prior to departure for fieldwork. This alerted me on the need to improve my interview technique, particularly in terms of making follow-ups based on what participants say, and maintaining a flexible approach rather than being bound to the interview guide in order to pursue interesting developments. Kvale (2009, p.85) conceptualizes research interviews as semi-skilled labour, a skilled craft, an art and an activity that requires professional expertise. These characteristics require alertness to the development of personal judgement and qualities such as intuition and creativity. Interviews require practice, feedback and introspection. In actual practice, I found the demands of each interview as diverse as the participants, and therefore maintaining alertness and flexibility was important advice.

Producer Piloting

The process of piloting my editor interview helped me clarify the key areas and develop tentative categories of issues that I would raise. The main areas were editors’ experiences and background; KIE role, controversial issues; syllabus and textbooks; teacher’s guide; feedback; way forward/recommendations. This subsequently enabled me to reorder my questions for better logical flow by putting issues that appeared closely related together and adding, deleting, rewording and

reordering questions for greater efficiency. Through piloting, I gained sensitization on the need to obtain sufficient detail about the publishing company concerned since they have missions and visions (which determine how they operate), the role of the Kenya Publishers Association (KPA), and the emphasis on having a background as a practicing teacher, or including a teacher in the production moment.

Consumer Piloting

Consumer piloting involved three processes. I interviewed a teacher within her school setting, observed one of her lessons, and distributed a questionnaires to her learners. Through this process, I became sensitized on various issues that I had to take into consideration in the consumption moment.

First, I had to reschedule consumer piloting in school due to a parents’ meeting and Continuous Assessment Tests (CATs). From this, I learnt important lessons. Although 1st Term is not as busy as 2nd Term with co-curricular and other school activities, I realised that several schools had adopted a system of beginning the term with CATs. Dates for mid-term, end of term examinations and any other activities were therefore issues that I not only needed to establish, but to keep confirming in the process of scheduling and meeting participants. I also developed a more realistic picture of the time required in schools, and an appropriate sequencing of activities for improved efficiency. This arose out of my recognition of the need to get a feel of the relationship between the cooperating teacher and the administration, and thus to establish the best way to approach the administration for permission. I subsequently allowed for about three visits to schools, in which I would use the first to seek permission from the administration and agree on appropriate times for the interview and classroom observation. Following a successful introductory visit, I would leave

the learner questionnaires with the cooperating teacher for collection during follow- up visits.

After the piloting of the teacher interview, I went through a similar exercise, as explained with the other interview guides. This mainly involved deletion of repetitive questions, and reordering or rephrasing. Following return of the student questionnaire, I adjusted the items to distinguish activities from content areas more clearly. A key question requiring learners to create images of their textbooks through similes and metaphors as a means of interpreting their response to their materials elicited few responses. Although literature and English are integrated, it was likely that students at upper secondary level would respond more appropriately to this question than those in lower secondary. However, those who responded provided comparisons that I found illuminating, and even in cases where they simply used adjectives for description, I felt that this would still fit in the discussion of learner perceptions about their coursebook and retained the question.

As with the interviews, I audio recorded the pilot lesson, and this exercise gave me an opportunity to confirm that my two recorders captured sound well enough in a classroom. From classroom observation, I gained heightened awareness of the need to explicate a materials-in-action perspective, and relate it to other components within the consumption moment as well as to other moments in the wider circuit.