Preparing for the interviews, VSRD sessions and focus groups

In each of the interviews I aimed to start initially broad and general to allow interviewees to ease themselves in and feel comfortable with the topics under discussion (see interview templates in appendices 8-11). Through such an approach I hoped to put the content and weight of the discussion more in the hands of the interviewee, giving them the opportunity throughout the interview to raise any points and issues they considered relevant, whilst being guided also by the main areas of interest I wished to cover. This was intended to reduce any feelings of power differential between interviewer and interviewee, and reinforce a sense that their views were both appropriate and valid, rather than the interview being seen as a search for the ‘right’ answers. Thus in preparing for the interviews I aimed to lay out a number of areas for discussion, rather than devise the ‘right’ questions (Westcott & Littleton, 2005). In addition, prior to the pre- interviews I had met and observed lessons with four of the six interviewees, and so they were aware of my role with regard to the programme and to my own study.

Drawing on Bruner’s (1984) distinction of life as lived, experienced, and told, the interviews could be framed as providing a window of reflection and interpretation from teachers, dance specialists and pupils through the notion of life as told – how events are re-presented to purpose. In essence this version of life as told was situated relative to, and also constructed with, the interviewer, as well as the pupils amongst themselves in the focus group context, and so subject to variation. It is important therefore to emphasise the subjective and contextualised nature of data from this research method. This complements a glimpse of life as experienced, gathered from the observations and video-recordings of the lessons as they occurred, though filtered through my interpretive gaze. There are therefore interesting points of note for the analysis, in viewing how records of life as experienced, from video footage, combined with and became re-worked in a life as told version within the VSRD sessions after the series of lessons. Westcott and Littleton’s (2005) comment regarding use of objects or artefacts in interviews is relevant here, stating that ‘the introduction of an object or artefact into an interview context can dramatically impact on the

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process of joint meaning-making, serving as an effective joint referent’ (p. 148). The introduction of video stimulus from the interviewees’ lessons was employed as such an artefact for joint meaning making in the VSRD sessions.

On the basis of this therefore, in my approach to the interviews and use of identified issues for discussion (see section 3.3.3, and appendices 8-11), I viewed the interviews as:

 informal discussions;

 within the general parameters of, but not restricted to, my identified issues;

 for the pre-interviews, having the purpose of gaining broad contextualisation,

familiarisation with the practitioners and their expectations, perceptions and anxieties;

 for the post-interviews and focus groups, having the purpose of gaining reflections and feedback on experiences;

 for the VSRD sessions, having the purpose of gaining focused reflections and interpretations of events;

 leaving space for answers;

 where questions were contingent on previous answers;

 where follow up questions were used to gather more detail where appropriate.

The broad structure of issues that I wished to cover related to my research questions, to enable me to use the case study data to provide perspectives and interpretations around my particular issues of interest (as identified in section 3.3.3).

3.7 Chapter summary

Within the context of the sociocultural framework of my research, in this chapter I outlined the methods used to collect my data, and the context within which data was collected. I described how I collected data on an innovative teaching-and-learning programme, which promoted use of dance/movement activity together with exploration of potentially interactive technologies in conjunction with more traditional educational practices and tools in subject learning. I explained

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that I video-recorded lessons from three classes involved in this programme over an eight week period, conducted teacher and dance specialist interviews and VSRD sessions, and pupil focus groups.

I documented how I utilised a combination of data collection methods within a case study method, to offer understandings from a sociocultural perspective on teaching-and-learning as a dialogic and mediated process, constructed through interaction. I adopted a descriptive case study method, observing teaching-and-learning practices within the context of the environment and activities in which they occurred, to address issues of interest within my own research agenda. This allowed me to consider what I thought might occur, but also to be open to the potential value of analysing unexpected events. This enabled me to combine my own video- recorded view and interpretation as an outsider, with interview material to gather expectations, insights and reflections from practitioners and pupils as insider members of the observed community. Thus I was able to address various units of analysis (such as use of talk, movement, objects and technologies) as they co-occured in the unfolding flow of real-life events. The aim in collecting multiple sources of data (lesson observations, interviews, focus groups and VSRD sessions) was not to suggest that all sources would offer an ‘agreed’ or converging view, but to identify points of similarity and difference in interpretation and perspective, of ‘life as told’ and through a lens of interpreted experience.

I described that in the course of preparing for the data collection phase of the research, the gaining of informed consent necessarily influenced a number of decisions, such as video-recording lessons mindful of which pupils gave consent to be video-recorded. This therefore influenced my choice of using just one video camera, which I moved in parallel with lesson activity while also taking into account which pupils I could and could not record. Thus what was recorded on video was necessarily filtered through my directing of the camera, and whose activity I could record. I aimed where possible not to disrupt the natural flow of lesson interactions, which was facilitated

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by having a wireless microphone that enabled me to video-record a group working a short distance away, whilst the microphone was situated on their table.

Despite collecting data from a number of cases, in my thesis I present a detailed analysis of one case, in order to more fully analyse the events and activities that occurred, and expectations and reflections around them. This is particularly pertinent with regard to my use and analysis of multiple sources of data, whereby the expectations and reflections offered by teachers, dance specialists and pupils were all contextualised with regard to the specific topic/s of lessons they experienced. Whilst many issues may have been shared across cases, and there is scope for investigating these points of agreement and contention across cases elsewhere, it was more appropriate for the work presented here to employ this focus on one case as one of the ‘boundaries’ of my approach. The use of quantitative Sociocultural Discourse Analysis, in

presenting concordance analysis of lesson transcripts, was also more appropriately applied to one topic’s lessons, whereby the analysis was focused on the use of talk as it occurred in one class and in the curricular context of one topic. (All methods of analysis are explained in chapter 4.) My aim therefore was not to over-generalise from my findings (presented in chapters 5, 6 and 7), but to make the case accessible to readers so that they may take from it what they consider pertinent to their own concerns.

Through my case study approach utilising a number of data collection sources, I aimed to offer sociocultural understandings of the temporal and cumulative nature of real-life events in the context of a new teaching-and-learning programme. My intention was to highlight how pedagogic challenges were addressed and how meaning making can be considered as a co-constructive process where meaning is built, de-constructed, negotiated and re-built over time and across use of different modes and resources. I therefore used the descriptive case study to allow the

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understandings and misunderstandings, that could hold wider significance for educational research and practice.

3.7.1 Key points

 In this chapter I outlined the context of my data collection: an innovative teaching-and- learning programme which promoted use of movement activity and potentially interactive technologies alongside more traditional educational practices and tools in subject learning.

 I identified the descriptive case study method I adopted to data collection, in observing lessons from three classes over an eight week period, conducting teacher and dance specialist interviews and VSRD sessions, as well as pupil focus groups. Through this I was able to observe educational practices within the context of the environment and activities in which they occurred, to consider what I thought might occur, but also to be open to the potential value of analysing unexpected events.

 I adopted a single-case (embedded) method in reporting analysis for this thesis. This enabled me to offer an in-depth analysis of one case, rather than adopting a relatively surface level approach across different cases.

 I identified some challenges levelled at the case study method, and how I addressed them in my work.

 By gathering data from a number of sources, and by aiming to address multiple units of analysis, my intention was not to offer an ‘agreed’ version of events. I aimed instead to identify points of similarity and difference that may in themselves provide valuable insights into practice as experienced, and to offer sociocultural understandings of naturally-occurring teaching-and-learning practice from which readers can draw on what they find relevant to their own concerns.

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Chapter 4