It is assumed that there can be potential bias in investigating site that researchers are familiar with in the sense that the researcher’s own perceptions or knowledge of the site may possibly influence their judgment or ability to reflect appropriately on their experience (Edwards and Furlong, 1985). However, others have contested this. Marcus (1998) argues that a researcher who investigates a familiar site can fully use their assets, such as their life experience, knowledge, resources and language to achieve the depth of understanding that is necessary to interpret the phenomenon, something that can be difficult, if not impossible, for the ‘outsider’ to achieve. Following this point, another important factor is how individual define themselves when conducting their research? Who is he or she in the research? How researchers locate themselves within the context of their research is an important consideration that requires a certain level of awareness in order that this does not unduly influence the research outcome (Emerson, 2001; Kusenbach, 2003). But how do we locate ourselves in research and prepare ourselves effectively to negotiate between ourselves and participants, and between subject and object relationships in research?
The researcher should realize that research is an interactive and socially constructed process shaped by, for example, culture, social class, personal and regional history, the environment of the setting and the people within it. In the context of the kind of study presented in this thesis, a researcher may have multiple identities during the project including a researcher, practitioner and theorist. Consequently, there is a need to work between and within those different and overlapping paradigms and perspectives (Denzin, 2012). It has been suggested that to be a good researcher, we should be aware that our personal stakes and investments do exist in research relationships; personal emotions, for example, anxieties, frustrations, happiness, disappointments even depression cannot be avoided totally, and these personal emotions and experiences are part of any relationship either as a researcher or a participant (Luttrell, 2000). It is therefore important to seek to appreciate and understand the difference between ourselves and other people, and try not to mix up our theories, fantasies, ideas and perceptions with those of the participant subjects of the research. Respecting the voice of the research participants is essential; it fosters understanding of their own position and perceptions towards the research questions in the research.
It should also be acknowledged that even an experienced researcher would be possible to make mistakes whilst conducting research due to the various psycho- and socio-emotional issues discussed above. Errors that occur due to, for example, a researcher’s social and/ or emotional involvement in the research and/ or with their participants can be compensated provided that the researcher is capable of reflecting on the potential influence of these factors on the research and on the research outcomes (Luttrell, 2000). Marcus (1998) stated that being reflective allows the researcher to utilize much of the resources they have obtained through their research. In this vein, to be a good researcher, he or she ‘is more or less reflexive, not either-or’ (Luttrell, 2000, p.516). And being reflexive during conducting the research indicates expanding the cultural, psychological and social including political fields of analysis rather than narrowing down them. Thus, given positionality the strength in the present study, it is important to ensure that no bias exists, so that reflexivity will be discussed in the following section.
It is unlikely when conducting research that there is no contact between the researcher and the researched; the researcher is rarely isolated completely. This is particularly the case in relation to qualitative lines of enquiry. All the researchers, to some degree, have some connections with or part of the subjects and topics of what they have researched (Davies, 2008). And depending on the extent of the connections between the researcher and the researched and the various position the researcher holds, the researcher’s presence in the research process will inevitably influence the results or outcome to some extent. For these reasons, considerations of reflexivity are essential for all forms of research.
Reflexivity is of central importance for social and educational research, where there are often unavoidable connections between the researcher and the research setting (Davies, 2008), as is the core in the present study. Reflexivity is often stated as ‘a methodological virtue and source of superior insight, perspicacity or awareness’ (Lynch, 2000, p26), however, “what reflexivity does, what it threatens to expose, what it reveals and who it empowers depends upon who does it and how they go about it”, as argued by Lynch (2000, p36).
Reflexivity can be categorized into several groups: mechanical reflexivity, substantive reflexivity, methodological reflexivity, meta-theoretical reflexivity, interpretative reflexivity and ethno-methodological reflexivity (Lynch, 2000). Although this list is not in a strict hierarchical order and overlap, it demonstrates the diverse meanings and functions of this term from both methodological and theoretical perspectives. One common point across these kinds of in those categories is that each type of reflexivity involves recursive turning back to some extent (Lynch, 2000). But it differs from category to category, even from case to case within one category for how it turns, what causes the turning, and with what implications.
In sum, for the two important elements discussed above, positionality and reflexivity have the potential to influence the research outcomes and therefore the researcher need to be aware of these. One (positionality) addresses power and trust relationships between participants and researchers and the other (reflexivity) addresses the influence of researcher-participant interactions during conducting the research. They also have the potential to increase the validity of the results in a social research (Hall and Callery, 2001).
As Larsen-Freeman and Long (1991) address what researchers should be not only concerned with the choice of a single ‘best’ research methodology, but also to consider the fitness of the research and the methodology. It means considering the purpose of the research and to match its research questions with the properties of the methodologies which would be adopted in research. The study conducted in this thesis investigated not only the learner but also the trainers, the programs and the school. The study is therefore a complex and dynamic entity in this regard. A mixed-methods approach is the most suitable and effective method to illuminate how the research entity, such as the trainers and the learners, interact with each element of teaching and learning in a particular real-life context. In a mixed-methods research, the quantitative method, such as questionnaire survey, helped identify the themes and trends that emerged in this research; and the qualitative method, such as the interviews, gives voices to participants and provides a detailed and intricate understanding of actions, both observable and non-observable phenomena, intentions and behaviours; and because people, objects, events and situations ‘have meaning conferred upon them rather than
possessing their own intrinsic meaning’ (Cohen et al., 2011, p.220), the observation allows researchers to examine learners’ linguistic development, learning outcome, attitude and communicative interactions in the real daily life settings and probes issues that lie beneath the surface of presenting behaviours and actions. In this way, it would facilitate researchers to learn more about the entity from the investigation, and to gain insights into issues which are relevant to the research questions and the mixed-methods is considered to be appropriate as it well-serves the research in examining the research questions. In using the mixed methods approach to investigating the complex and dynamic TTT programme in the XUAR context, the researcher must possess strong awareness of positionality and reflexivity as discussed above so as to maximize validity and reliability of the findings.