Qualitative Methods

3.4.2.1 Written student self-reflections

Reflection facilitates learning through experience and development of higher order thinking skills (Coulson & Harvey, 2012). Therefore, this study implemented written self- reflections for students to share how they made sense and meaning of their participation and navigation throughout the tasks and the inherent complexities of the experience (Coulson & Harvey, 2012). The written reflections were delivered alongside the Flipgrid tasks, one per chapter, to capture students’ students’ thoughts and feelings (inward and outward looking) as well as in their actions (backward and forward looking). Each reflection was individual and the questions related to aspects of the experience that could not be easily observed such as students’ reactions, feelings, confidence level, and challenges (Maxwell, 2013; Patton, 2002). For

example, the reflection questions included the speaking tasks, students’ self-perceived

confidence in Spanish, and personal agency. In order to elicit students’ understandings of their learning processes, personal responsibility, and adaptability as they move throughout the planned technology-mediated tasks, the written self-reflections were structured in dyads; this means that some of the questions in the self-reflections changed every two chapters. Variation in the

questions was dependent upon the answers provided by students in the previous self-reflections. The self-reflections were created in an open-ended style survey and delivered through the Qualtrics online survey platform. For students in the Flipgrid group (FG) the links to each of the written self-reflection surveys were sent to students in an announcement in the Canvas learning management and also posted within the instructions for the speaking tasks in the Flipgrid tool. For students in the Comparison group (CG), the links to the surveys were posted as non-graded assignments in the Canvas learning management system. To ensure clarity of the questions, the questions in these reflections were proofread by an English native speaker, who was not part of this research study. Table 3.9 provides an overview of the structure for reflections. (See appendix F for detailed questions in the self-reflections).

Table 3.9 Overview of written self-reflections

Chapter Overview FG Overview CG

Thoughts, feelings, and actions about:

7 & 8 student participation in the

tech-mediated speaking tasks

opportunities to use Spanish in communicative situations

Thoughts, feelings, and actions about:

9 & 10 their perceived communicative

confidence, complexity of the tasks, strategies used in completing the tasks, ways to improve

their perceived communicative confidence, other strategies and activities used to practice speaking, ways to improve

Thoughts, feelings, and actions about:

11 & 12 their perceived improvement in

speaking, complexity of the tasks, language areas still in need of improvement, suggestions for improving Flipgrid tasks

their perceived improvement in speaking, language areas still in need of improvement,

suggestions for activities to be implemented inside or outside the class

63

3.4.2.2 Focus-group interviews with students

As this study also sought to investigate Spanish learners’ overall perceptions and experiences in relation to their participation in the technology-mediated speaking tasks, the focus-group interviews were identified as the best way to gather high-quality data within the socially-constructed context of students’ interactions (Merriam, 2009; Patton, 2002) and the possibility to provide a broader scope and insights of the experience (Lazar et al, 2010). Within these interactions, students shared their perceptions and experiences in relation to the similarities and differences in peers’ viewpoints (Lazar et al., 2010; Merriam, 2009; Patton, 2002).

Specifically, in this study, the focus-group interviews intended to gather students’ learning experiences and perceptions of their willingness to communicate and communicative performance in the intermediate Spanish course. A semi-structured interview protocol was created for each group, the FG and CG groups based on questions that elicited reflection and consideration of issues in the experience (Lazar et al., 2010; Creswell, 2012). For the FG group, the protocol related to communicating and participating in language tasks within CALL

(Gleason, 2013; Sarfraz, Mansoor & Tariq, 2015), whereas the protocol for the CG group related to students’ self-driven opportunities and experiences to communicate in Spanish outside the classroom. Additional questions were added to the FG group’s interview protocol to gather specific data on students’ perceptions and experiences in the Flipgrid tasks, and their suggestions to improve the Flipgrid experience. These semi-structured interviews offered flexibility to the researcher to respond to the situation and emerging ideas of the respondents (Merriam, 2009). The semi-structured interview protocols had three main overarching areas of inquiry, (1) overall understanding of the course goals, (2) perceived speaking skills, and (3) experience with

3.4.2.3 Midterm open ended survey

In order to gather students’ insights into their participation in the technology-mediated tasks, a four-question midterm open-ended survey was administered after the midterm exam week. This survey allowed the researcher and course instructor identify areas that needed to be re-adjust or improved without impacting the outcomes of the study. For example, aspects related to clarifying instructions and deadlines for completion of the tasks were more explicitly added to the course schedule (See appendix H for details).

3.4.2.4 Semi-structured interviews with the instructors

The instructor’s insights into the communicative performance of their students helped the researcher entered into their perspectives (Patton, 2002) and construct a better understanding of how they perceived their students’ navigation throughout the opportunities given to enhance their oral communication. Therefore, the interviews with the instructors facilitated gathering

unobservable data such as their perceptions, feelings, intentions, and behaviors in the activities (Merriam, 2009; Patton, 2002). Specifically, the interviews focused on instructors’ perceptions and roles in the different speaking opportunities presented to students.

Two semi-structured interviews were designed based on previous research in technology- mediated environments (Chapelle & Jamieson, 2010; Gleason, 2013; Sarfraz et al., 2015). The first semi-structured interview protocol (midterm interview) for the FG instructor included four overarching topics including (1) overall perceptions of students’ confidence to speak, (2) effective strategies to promote speaking, and (3) perceived students’ challenges, and (4) actions taken to improve students’ learning. Additional topics were included which related to the Flipgrid tasks and their implementation. The second semi-structured interview protocol (final interview) had three main topics related to (1) overall perceptions of students’ communicative

65

challenges of speaking opportunities, (3) and reflections on implementation of speaking strategies. An additional topic related to the evaluation of the technology-mediated tasks in Flipgrid was added to gather the instructor’s insights into the affordances of the technology (See appendix I for details).