Qualitative data

There are two types of qualitative data in this study. The first type of qualitative data is written data from questionnaires. The final question in the questionnaires, “how has your attitude toward multicultural group work changed since in the beginning of the course”, is an open-ended question concluding the entire questionnaire. It was asked both times, in Questionnaire Term 1 and Questionnaire Term 3, and it was strategically placed at the end of the questionnaires to provide a space for students to reflect on and revaluate their own experience. Also, more importantly, this data relates to how the participants perceived their experience, reported in their own writing in their own comfortable way of phrasing.

As some of the participants provided answers once, either in the first time or the second time, and some others provided answers twice, their quotes are differentiated using a suffix, such as Q1001.1 meaning the respondent Q1001’s answer in the first questionnaire, Questionnaire Term 1, and Q1001.2 meaning the respondent Q1001’s answer in the second questionnaire, Questionnaire Term 3. Another type of qualitative data is spoken interview data. In order to show connections between the data from the same respondent, the questionnaire respondent IDs are attached to the examples presented from the interviews. A suffix “.INT” was added to differentiate the interview spoken data from the written ones. For example, Q1001.INT means the questionnaire respondent Q1001’s interview data.

The interviews were transcribed because the transcription of spoken data is essential to conduct thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006). In this way, all the data is text-based, so that a thematic analysis could be performed to analyse the qualitative data all together.

According to Kuckartz (2014), there are eight stages of performing a thematic qualitative text analysis:

1. Research questions

2. Initial work with text: highlight important passages, compose memos 3. Develop main topic categories

4. First coding process: code the available data using the main categories 5. Compile all of the passages assigned to each of the main categories

70 6. Determine sub-categories

7. Second coding process: code all of the data using the elaborated category system

8. Category-based analysis and presentation of result

(Kuckartz, 2014, p. 70) The qualitative data analysis conducted in this study followed these procedures above. As the written data was collected before the interviews, it was analysed first as well, using MAXQDA software.

The constructs in the questionnaires (see Table 3-08) were established to help answering my research questions. Students’ written data from the questionnaire was also prompted by evaluating statements and many of them replied using the language used in the questionnaire statements, so my initial categories for analysing the written data were the constructs of my questionnaire: benefits of working in groups, benefits of multicultural group work, assessment preference, challenges mentioned in managing the group work process, and challenges they faced regarding working in multicultural groups. I started the first round of the deductive coding process using the above five categories. However, I was not using these categories as the only possible themes. I coded the relevant data into smaller themes that fitted into the five categories, and also developed new themes that did not belong to the original categories by a process of inductive coding. For example, the theme patience (see chapter 5, section 5.2.3) was not one of the initial categories. So, in other words, what I did in the first round of coding was to code inductively using the categories, but also develop new themes based on the inductive coding.

71 Figure 3-01 is a screenshot of the coding process that I completed in MAXQDA. On the right is the original data from participants’ written answers. In the middle section, the table shows the original codes I developed in the first round of coding. And the left section is the code systems, showing the frequencies of different codes I generated.

When the first round of coding was finished, I examined the codes that were already coded according to the original categories and also the ones that I developed when I coded inductively. After comparing the codes and the smaller themes I created, I combined, merged and synthesised results from both coding procedures.

Figure 3-02 below is the flow chart of my coding process.

Figure 3-02: Flow chart of coding process

Initial categories are based on the constructs from the questionnaires, which was how the statements were grouped in quantitative data analysis:

Initial categories

Deductive coding _{Inductive coding}

Combining, merging and synthesing results from both coding procedures

72 Table 3-11: Initial categories and deductive codes

Initial categories Deductive codes

Students’ recognition of values of working in groups (Benefits of group work)

 beneficial to work in groups  share ideas and knowledge

 group work - in class discussion

 group work is informative  learn different ideas/perspectives Preference of being assessed

individually  lack of efficiency for assessed work

Students’ recognition of values of multicultural group work (Benefits of multicultural group work)

 learn about other cultures

 meet people from other cultures and learn about them

 multicultural group work is enjoyable

Challenges for multicultural group work  language barrier

 increase amount of conflict  different culture-different

communication styles

 difficulties in interacting effectively

Challenges in managing group work  different working styles

 group work is difficult

 communication issues

 personality difference

 group work is stressful  workload divided uneven

 group work- fairness and participation

After the first round of coding, smaller themes were developed. Table 3-12 provided some examples of the themes that were coded in this part of analysis. Table 3-12: Examples of themes produced by inductive coding

Inductive codes

 personal growth

 more open to listen and understand

 patience

 be more open minded

 understanding others more

 understand the challenges in group work better

 difficult at beginning

73 Based on the themes created, parent codes were generated from grouping the small themes. Here is an example:

Table 3-13 Initial parent codes

Parent code Codes

Benefits of multicultural group work

 learn different ideas/perspectives

 meet people from other cultures and learn about them

 beneficial to work in groups

 learn about other cultures

 multicultural group work is enjoyable

 share ideas and knowledge

 group work in-class discussion

 group work is informative

 cultural experts helping academic study

Table 3-14 is the list of the final parent codes that were generated from the small themes, and they will be used in reporting the qualitative analysis in chapter 5. Table 3-14: Final parent codes generated from small themes

Final parent codes

 Benefits of multicultural group work

 Skills development

 Positive attitudes

 Difficulties in multicultural group work

 No change in attitudes

 Improved attitudes

 Personal development

 Group dynamic and relationships

 Group work design

These new categories were applied to code the documents again, to make sure that they represented the data well.

74 Figure 3-03: Categories derived from smaller themes

Figure 3-03 is an example of new categories that were created based on the smaller themes. This concludes the reporting of the procedure for analysing the written data from questionnaires.