The overall approach used in this project was mainly a qualitative content analysis of the comments that teachers made in their feedback about their trialling of Primary Connections units. Here ‘meaning’ will be derived from what is explicit in the words used or ‘what can be implied from their use from the range of alternatives that may have been employed’ (Miller & Brewer, 2003, p. 43). Where feasible, and appropriate, frequency counts or estimates of frequency related to various ‘meanings’ have been included. The researcher used a knowledge of the Primary Connections project and its units and related research (see Chapter 2) to ‘read into’ the teachers’ responses and likely interpretations of what teachers may be suggesting about their understanding and implementation of various pedagogies which are the focus of this project13 (see ‘research questions’ [section 3.12] and ‘conceptual framework’
[section 3.2]).
13
In this sense, this project is qualitative interpretive research in that the researcher is making a personal assessment of what the teachers’ comments are suggesting (Creswell, 2008).
23
Research methods3.31
Sample
The sample was predetermined by the availability of written teacher feedback about the implementation of trial PC units. This feedback was provided to the Primary Connections team over the six years and three months of the trials (2005–2012). A selection of teacher feedback from sixteen units was selected. Four units were selected from each of the four content strands of ‘Life and living’, ‘Energy and change’, ‘Natural and processed materials’ and ‘Earth and beyond’. Within each strand, a unit was selected from each stage (Early Stage 1 [ES1], Stage 1 [S1], Stage 2 [S2] and Stage 3 [S3]) and, where possible, units that were linked, for example, On the move ES1 and Smooth moves S1 (see Table 3.1).
Stage Trial Unit Title (Final Title)
Strand Natural and Processed Materials ES1 What’s it made of? (What’s it made of?) S1 Material matters (Spot the difference) S2 All sorts of stuff (Material world) S3 Change detectives (Change detectives) Strand Life and Living
ES1 Staying alive (Staying alive) S1 Schoolyard zoo (Schoolyard safari) S2 Plants in action (Plants in action)
S3 Marvellous micro-organisms (Marvellous micro-organisms) Strand Energy and Change
ES1 On the move (On the move) S1 Push-pull (Push-pull)
S2 Smooth moves (Smooth moves) S3 Electric circuits (It’s electrifying) Strand Earth and Beyond
ES1 Weather in my world (Weather in my world) S1 Water works (Water works)
S2 Spinning in space (Spinning in space)
S3 Earth’s place in space (Earth’s place in space)
3.32
Data
Documents are the main (qualitative and unobtrusive) data source. These were the detailed written teacher feedback notes (based on a supplied pro forma14) from the
implementation of numerous Primary Connections trial units. Further feedback
Table 3.1 Primary Connections units analysed in this report
14
Teachers who trial Primary Connections units are asked to provide feedback about the strengths and weaknesses of the overall unit, its various components (e.g., resource sheets, word walls, investigation planners), each of the lessons in the various 5E phases, together with any other comments to improve future implementation of the units.
from selected teachers was obtained from a two-tier multiple-choice test that determined teachers’ understanding of the purposes of the Explore, Explain and Elaborate phases of the 5E learning cycle (Odom & Settlage, 1996). Approximately 60 tests were distributed by email and 11 returned (response rate about 20%.
The summaries of teachers’ feedback responses for each of the 16 units comprised approximately 10–20 pages of typed notes. This feedback documented teachers’ views about the strengths and weaknesses of the overall unit, each of the lessons in the various 5E phases, its various components (e.g., resource sheets, word walls, investigation planners), together with any other comments to improve future implementation of the units. Individual teacher feedback about any one of these areas ranged from a few words to many sentences. For the Engage15,
Explain and Evaluate phases there was always one lesson, while the Explore phase had between two and four lessons (mean of 2.8 lessons/unit across the 16 units) while the Elaborate phase had between one and three lessons (mean of 1.6 lessons). Each unit had feedback on between five (Weather in my world) and 11 (Water works) lessons (mean 7.6 lessons). Table 3.2 shows that the total number of teacher responses for each of the 5E phases varied between 101 (Evaluate) and 196 (Engage). Using School Zoo as an example, it can be seen from Table 3.3 that teachers made 169 comments. On this basis, the estimate of the number of responses (for 16 units) that were analysed was between 2500–3000.
3.33
Data analysis
The teacher feedback data were manually analysed. This process enabled the researcher to have a hands-on feel for the data and close inspection of it to ensure that nuances within the teachers’ responses were not overlooked. Both deductive and inductive analytical processes were used.
The deductive analyses used three checklists. These were the purposes of each phase as described by Primary Connections (AAS, 2008a); the 5E SiS components which were found to support the effective learning of science (Tytler, 2003), and Harlen’s (2009) descriptors of teacher and student roles associated with science teaching from a constructivist, inquiry, language/talk and formative assessment perspective. These are in appendices 2.1, 2.3 and 2.5. If teacher feedback comments explicitly referred to items on these checklists, they were coded accordingly; where appropriate, it was noted if other teacher comments implied the presence of these checklist items. Teacher comments that appeared to disconfirm the purposes, components or roles in these checklists were also coded. Frequency counts were made of the comments associated with the 5E purposes, while ‘estimates of probability/possibility’ were determined for the components and roles on the other two checklists.
If, when reading the teachers’ comments using the above deductive coding, other teacher remarks suggested emerging issues of interest related to the research questions, then they were categorised under a range of headings, depending on the content of the teachers’ comments as in inductive analysis of qualitative data (Creswell, 2008). As the data were analysed, if particular teachers’ responses suggested an exemplary or an explicit disconfirming instance of addressing the purposes,
components and roles, then they were highlighted. ‘Track change comments’ were
15
Weather in my world was an exception in that the Engage phase comprised two lessons.
25
Research methodsused to code all relevant teacher comments and, hence, isolate feedback segments that related to a deductive code or an inductive issue or category; this process addressed the confirmability of the findings, as an audit trail could be followed.
Unit Engage Expl
or e Explain Elabor at e Ev aluat e
Weather in my world ES1 12 11 8 7 3
Water works S1 13 16 10 11 11
Spinning in space S2 16 19 14 14 6
Earth’s place in space S3 14 13 11 14 13
What’s it made of ES1 12 9 7 12 4
Material matters S1 12 7 8 8 5
All sorts of stuff S2 18 19 12 10 8
Change detectives S3 9 9 6 8 4
On the move ES1 9 9 7 8 6
Push-pull S1 8 7 7 6 7 Smooth moves S2 9 9 7 8 6 Electric circuits S3 16 16 14 11 9 Staying alive 8 9 5 8 3 Schoolyard zoo 12 12 9 5 5 Plants in action 10 12 8 9 7 Marvellous micro-organisms 18 15 10 16 4 Total 196 192 143 155 101
Unit Component Number of
comments
General comments 14
Specific strategies and focuses 27
Engage Lesson 1 24 Explore Lesson 2 25 Explore Lesson 3 16 Explore Lesson 4 19 Explain Lesson 5 13 Elaborate Lesson 7 6 Evaluate Lesson 8 5 Resource sheets 20 Total 169 Table 3.2: Number* of teachers who commented on each phase in the 5E model**
*
The variation in totals is because some phases have more lessons than others.
**
Many of these teachers also made comments about the overall unit and specific strategies, such as use of Resource sheets (see example in Table 3.3). These were also used to ascertain teacher input about each of the 5E phases.
Table 3.3: Number of teacher comments within a typical unit (Schoolyard zoo S1)
As each unit’s analysis was completed an interpretive report was prepared that drew inferences as to whether, how and to what extent the purposes, conditions and roles had been identified16. Any emerging issues were listed separately. This process
meant that the feedback comments were read on more than one occasion, and at times searched for particular terms/ideas. Extracts from the teachers’ comments were added to support the naming of emerging categories. Relevant findings from the literature were integrated into the analyses.
In the reporting of the analyses, a series of codes were used to identify the location of teachers’ extracts and other data. These are outlined in Table 3.4 with explanatory comments.
Code Meaning
TXX (e.g., T1) Teacher number as itemised in teacher feedback summaries (e.g., T1 = Teacher 1; TUK = teacher number not identified); Ts = Teachers)
TG Comment made by a teacher as
‘General’ feedback about the unit LXX (e.g., L2) Lesson number within a unit (e.g., L2 +
Lesson 2)
Eng Engage phase
Elab Elaborate phase
Eval Evaluate phase
ES1, S1, S2, S3 Stage (e.g., ES1 = Early Stage 1) CD etc. Change detectives; each unit will be
referred to by its initials, except for the units listed below.
WM What’s it made of?
MMat Material matters
ASS All sorts of stuff
PA Plants in action
OTM On the move
WW Weather in my world
Ww Water works
SS Spinning in space
EP Earth’s place in space