Research Design

Cohen, Manion and Morrison (2007) indicate that research design is governed by the notion of ‘fitness for purpose’. The purpose of the study should determine the research methodology and orientation. For the purpose of this study, photographs were taken at the early childhood centre to illustrate sustainability activities that I had been told the student participants had been involved with over the past two- three years. These photographs were enlarged and laminated then used as prompts with small focus groups. This was used as a method to collect data.

The focus group questions for the student participants were piloted with a pupil of similar age of the student participants who also attended one of the primary schools engaged in the study. This was to ensure the children would understand the language used and the responses she shared indicated that this was so. From the pilot, I was able to revise the questions and formulate possible probes to these questions. The focus group questions are in Appendix 1.

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The interview process required the student participants to view photographs of an education for sustainability nature from their early childhood centre. These would allow them to recall spaces and events from the early childhood centre. The photographs were of spaces only and did not include photographs of teachers or children. A digital Dictaphone was used to record the interviews. The semi- structured questions initiated dialogue, with occasional probes, however, on several occasions in the group interviews, participants conversed with their peers and the interviewer observed.

At the conclusion of the student focus group interviews, the student participants were given the option to take me on a tour of their school with a view to them taking photographs of environmental activities around their school. The use of cameras and other digital technologies is increasingly prevalent in educational settings. In a study conducted by Einarsdottir (2005), which focussed on children’s photographs as a research method in a playschool in Iceland, Einarsdottir (2005) stated, “Using cameras was one of the methods used in the present study, and combined with other methods it proved to give valuable information on children’s views on their life in an early childhood setting” (p. 539). In this study, there were no restrictions on the use of the camera or limit to the number of photographs taken. There was a brief discussion on care of the camera and its operation. My role throughout the tour was passive, responding to technical support as appropriate. I engaged in light conversation but remained aware not to influence the student photographer and the other student participants who accompanied the tour. The tour was optional. However, all participants choose to accompany me on the school tour. Without direction, the student participant photographers quickly identified areas in their school that had an environmental connection for them and these were photographed accordingly.

Unfortunately, due to the time restrictions during the school visits, I was unable to upload and discuss the photographs with the students to ascertain their thinking behind taking the photographs that they did. This could be perceived as a weakness of the study, as a follow up discussion would have provided me with

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further insights into the students’ thinking about sustainability and therefore giving a more robust nature to the data.

Semi-structured, individual interviews were employed as data collection tools with the early childhood and primary school teachers. Both early childhood teachers at the centre, Kyla and Cara, were interviewed together and were also shown the photographs of the areas that they had identified as areas of environmental interest. Several of their responses linked to environmental activities and objects or resources which enabled these activities within the early childhood context. Prompts and probes were used in all interviews where appropriate to gain further information, clarification or meaning from participants. Interview questions were peer reviewed before use. The interview guideline questions for both the early childhood and primary teachers are in Appendix 3. The semi-structured interviews were scaffolded by a question guide. Questions were thoughtfully designed with the research question and purpose in mind. Some of the question guides included prompts. However, often the prompts and probes used during the interviews were impromptu and emerged from the participant’s responses. The ability of allowing the interviewer to deviate reflects the flexible nature of the semi-structured interview method. The question guides were emailed to the early childhood teachers and the primary school teachers prior to the interviews. This allowed time for the participants to reflect and consider their possible responses.

Finally, written questionnaires were used as a method to collect data from parents/whanau. All six sets of parents/whanau were sent a written two page questionnaire. Parents/whanau were able to communicate with the researcher by email with any questions they had. The parents/whanau questionnaire was designed to be A4 double sided. These questionnaires were delivered by post and a self-address envelope was provided for the return of the completed questionnaire. Only 2/6 of the surveys were returned. The questionnaire is in Appendix 2.

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The early childhood teachers identified possible student participants. The criteria considered attendance at the centre, an interest in the environmental programme and consequent enrolment at the local schools. The centre teachers distributed the consent forms and information to the parents/whanau as many have siblings at the centre. Eight consents were received and the schools were approached to participate. One school did not respond, leaving six participants. The research commenced with these six student participants from two local, rural schools in Canterbury.

All teacher interviews were transcribed, and the transcriptions were emailed to each participant to verify accuracy. The teachers responded either verbally or by email that checking was complete. All teachers responded that the transcripts were accurate accounts and they were happy for the research to proceed.

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3.6 Analysis

The interview transcriptions were coded using a colour coding system. The coding was directly related to the themes that had emerged from both the literature review and the collated data. These themes are shown in Table 1.

TABLE 3.1. Coding for analysis

Theme Sub-themes Origin of code

Theme 1 : EfS and