Semi structured interviews

The use of interviews in social research allows the researcher to ask questions of participants in order to gain insight into their experiences, opinions, aspirations and feelings. Different forms of interviews may be used for different research purposes. Structured interviews are often most closely associated with positivist research methods as they tend to emulate the structure of a survey in an oral form (May, 1997: 110-13, Robson, 2007: 270). In contrast, the unstructured interview is open- ended. The interviewer may provide a general area of interest, but beyond this, they allow participants to develop the content and direction of the interview, thereby enabling them to shape the agenda of research and, it is suggested, reveal to the researcher their personal understandings (May, 1997: 112). While it was felt that the capacity of the interviewee to inform the agenda of research afforded by this method was useful, it was necessary to focus the interviews in this study on a number of key areas in order to inform the research questions.

The semi-structured interview allows the researcher to approach the task with a set of pre-defined questions and to probe responses to gain clarification or elaboration. This allows the interviewee to shape the interview in a particular topic area. Semi- structured interviews were undertaken with managers, academics and students. Through the pilot work, interview questions were developed and refined in order to ensure that the data collected would pertain to the research questions (APPENDIX E: PILOT AND MAIN STUDY INTERVIEW QUESTIONS). The use of open

questions allowed participants the space and encouragement to share their experiences and perspectives on student voice.

On a practical level, the semi-structured interviews were a combination of

standalone interviews with key individuals, who were not observed as part of the study, and interviews that took place following an observation. Typically the standalone interviews were with senior managers, students and academics who were not directly involved in the student representation committees that were observed.

Interviews were audio recorded and transcribed in order to ensure minimal intrusion and to free the researcher to engage fully in the interviewer role. Practical

considerations such as maintaining the depth of the study, along with the breadth within a limited time frame, limited the size of the selected sample.

In order to gain a range of responses the following interviews took place at the two institutions. The students who participated in the pilot were not from the identified sample departments as these proved difficult to recruit:

Table 5: Analysis of the structural interview sample characteristics

Post-92 Pilot (include dates)

Participant Date Status

Final year student, Business - male July 2011 Student representative, BME, had assisted on university open days, showing students around the department

Final year student, Education - female July 2011 Student representative, who lived locally to the university, BME

Students’ Union Officer - male July 2011 President, coming to the end of his term of office Students’ Union Manager – female July 2011 Member of Students’ Union staff with responsibility for

student representation

Pro-Vice-Chancellor - female July 2011 Education focused role, responsible for overseeing the NSS and student representation

Academic Registrar - female July 2011 Worked closely with the students’ union to develop policy associated with student representation

Director of Education - male July 2011 Senior manager with oversight for learning and teaching at the institution

Head of English Department - male June 2011 Oversaw all English courses, line manager for academics in the department

Academic with teaching management responsibility, Engineering 1 - male

July 2011 Oversaw management of a degree, regularly attended student representation committees

Academic with teaching management responsibility, Engineering 2 – male

July 2011 Oversaw management of a degree, regularly attended student representation committees

Main Study - Russell Group

Participant Date Reflections

First year student, Engineering - male June 2012 Student representative, international student Final Year student, Engineering - male June 2012 Student representative and Chair of the student

representative committee, undertook casual work in the students’ union

Final Year student, English - female June 2012 Student representative

Final year student, English - male June 2012 Involved in protest on campus

Students’ Union Officer - male February 2012 Education focused, member of university governance committees relating to education

Pro-Vice-Chancellor - female February 2012 Education focused role, responsible for overseeing the NSS and student representation

Academic Registrar - male February 2012

Head of English Department - female May 2012 Head of Department, line manager for academics in the department and attended student representation meetings Academic, English - female May 2012 Had participated in committees in the institution

Academic English - male June 2012 No direct involvement in student representation Academic with teaching management

responsibility, Engineering - male

March 2012 Oversaw teaching management in the department

Senior managers interpret government policy in order to develop policies and mechanisms in institutions. Semi-structured interviews with these members of staff sought to explore student voice mechanisms at the university and to establish the purpose of student voice mechanisms from their perspective. Access to senior managers at institutions can be difficult to arrange and time limited. An initial

documentary analysis informed some of the interview questions. By conducting the documentary analysis, it was possible to discuss the historical development of some student voice mechanisms. Students’ union managers and officers also play a part in the strategic direction of student voice mechanisms and so where possible, these individuals were also approached to participate in the research.

Departmental managers, such as heads of department and academics with responsibilities for managing courses, usually have a role in operationalising university mechanisms. In order to understand the ways in which policies were interpreted and implemented, it was important to talk to a range of academic staff representing the selected departments at each institution. For the purposes of the study, semi-structured interviews took place with members of academic staff representing each course, including both academics who saw themselves as directly engaged with student voice activity, and those who did not. It was

recognised that the perceptions of student voice mechanisms and the perceived underlying imperative, was likely to influence how staff engaged. In order to enable some comparison of staff perceptions of mechanisms and the ways that they

academics operating within student representative committees (Argyris and Schon, 1996).

Interviews took place with students who engage with student voice mechanisms to different extents. Where possible, these interviews supplemented observations in order to develop an understanding of how students behave in, and interpret, a variety of official and unofficial mechanisms. Semi-structured interviews

supplemented observations of student representation committees (students and academics engaging in the committee were interviewed following the event).

The focus of the study meant that all participants had some experience of student voice in higher education. This ranged from those who had minimal involvement, for example, students who had completed an institutional survey, to those with more significant roles. The sample was identified in two different ways. Senior managers and academics with teaching management responsibility were specifically targeted due to their role. In turn, these managers suggested other academics, who were not as directly involved in student voice mechanisms, to involve in the study. The

student sample was self-selecting. Invitations were sent out in departments and followed up with targeted requests where participants had not been identified. However, because I was present in student representative committees, and so students could respond to my requests directly, this resulted in some bias amongst the student participants. Similarly, only 2 of the academics interviewed had not at any point been members of the student representation committee in their

It was difficult to recruit those students and academics that did not see themselves as having a formal role in student voice mechanisms. Of course all students and most academics are likely to be involved in completing or responding to surveys or course evaluations at some point during their time at an institution, but many did not see engagement with a study of student voice as relevant to them. This perhaps suggested that these participants derived little meaning from this activity or did not define these mechanisms as student voice. For this reason the responses of those individuals who saw themselves as less involved in formal mechanisms, have been included in the analysis as a counter-balance, and areas for further research to explore the experiences of those who do not self-define as being involved in student voice, are discussed in Chapter 7 of the thesis.

3.4.2.1 Developing the interview questions: an exploration of students’ approaches to course evaluation

As part of the pilot, an additional approach to the collection of data from students engaging in course evaluations was developed and some exploratory work conducted. Some initial pilot work using a self-guided semi-structured interview format with students was carried out in order to trial an approach to gathering data from students undertaking course evaluations. The approach was designed to gather data around the knowledge and understandings that students draw upon when engaging in existing evaluation activity. Six undergraduate students from an education course and six from an English course at a Russell group institution took part in December 2010.

Students were asked to engage in a paired discussion while completing module evaluation forms. In order to replicate the normal course evaluation process, the course lecturers had not briefed the students involved about what would take place. Participants completed consent forms and were assured that their paper

evaluations would be well shuffled into the pile of course evaluations from the rest of the group, and that the audio recordings would not be shared, enabling their identity to remain anonymous when considered by university staff. This worked well in the group of students from the education student group, as those involved were part of a much larger group present on the day. However, the English student group evaluation took place after lunch and only 6 students attended the session. This meant that it was not possible to shuffle the 6 participant evaluations into a larger pile. In this instance the students were consulted and gave their consent for the research to take place. The class lecturer was not present for the completion of the forms.

In preparation for the activity, a brief introduction outlined the research to the students. Each paired discussion was recorded using a digital audio recorder placed between them. Students were asked to articulate the individual decisions taken, and the basis on which these decisions were made. The pairs worked independently and were observed from a distance by the researcher so as not to interfere with discussion.

Each pair was given a piece of paper with several questions designed to prompt student discussion:

1. Talk about what you are thinking about as you read the questions and the decisions that you make when you score each question.

2. What (if any) evidence or examples do you think about when you answer each question?

3. How do you feel about the process?

Once a pair signalled that they had completed the questionnaire by raising their hand, an additional question was asked with the intention of gaining some understanding of students’ perceptions of the purpose of course evaluation:

4. What is course evaluation for?

The students responded to the task well and rich discussion was recorded. Most pairs worked through the questions together, completing the form and discussing each question as they went along, often reading an individual question out loud and then articulating the reason for a particular response. Once each pair had finished their discussion, the supplementary question was posed in order to gain some data around the perceived purpose of evaluation. I was concerned that had this question been included as part of the prompt questions at the start this may have influenced some students’ responses.

Overall the technique proved useful as an approach to gaining data from students around an activity that is usually conducted by students individually. The data gathered through the exercise was analysed and elements are included in the data analysis chapters. Most interesting, in the context of this research, was the range of responses given to question 4, which suggested a number of different perceptions

about the purpose of course evaluation. The data collected in response to this question informed the questions for the semi-structured interviews, which asked respondents to identify the purpose of different mechanisms for voice.

3.4.2.2 Refining the interview questions following the pilot

The pilot work took place with students, academics and senior managers in the Post-92 institution during June and July 2011. The semi-structured interview

questions provided in Appendix E were piloted. On the whole the questions worked effectively, produced data that informed the research questions, and the

participants were able to give full responses to the questions asked. A couple of minor amendments were made to the questions where respondents were unsure about the meaning behind a particular question. For example:

What internal mechanisms exist to allow students to evaluate their experience of learning at university?

Was amended to become:

What are the ways in which students are able to evaluate their experience of learning at university and what is your role in these mechanisms?

This was amended as a number of respondents responded to the first question by listing several different mechanisms without explaining their role in them. Some respondents naturally identified their role in different processes as they listed the different mechanism and this felt like a more natural start to the interview. An additional question was also added:

This felt like a natural point at which to gather their assessment of each of the activities in turn. Other minor amendments added additional descriptive detail to the questions in order to aid clarity where individuals asked for further clarification. An additional question was added at the end of the interview in order to enable some exploration of the imperatives that informed student voice structures. This question was designed to provide respondents with the opportunity to engage with some of the imperatives for voice that were identified through the literature review. This was in part as a checking mechanism, to see whether these imperatives were seen as bearing any relation to their experiences of student voice in practice but also served to identify whether there were any additional perspectives that had not been reflected in the literature. This question was the last question asked in the interview as I did not wish to influence the way in which the respondents answered the previous questions by discussing the related literature. The question developed was:

As part of my research I have been looking at some of the different purposes for student voice that appear in the literature. If I run through these purposes I wonder if you would reflect on them individually and provide examples of how they have any resonance in your context:

• Student voice for consumer choice

• Student voice for accountability

• Student voice for democracy and power sharing

• Student voice for the development of student identity

Through the pilot interviews two additional purposes were identified by respondents that were integrated into the literature review.

• Student voice for ownership of learning (buy in)

• Student voice for academic professional development

Through the participants’ responses to this question some of the coherences and contradictions were explored which revealed the complexity of their experiences as espoused earlier in the interview. This enabled the interviews to move beyond descriptive accounts of what they did, to reflect on how they understood their role and those of others.

The data collected from the interviews formed a substantial component of this study. The interviews provided an opportunity to understand, from the perspective of those involved, the experiences, identities and subjectivities that were associated with student voice. Data from the interviews provided the basis of the analysis that demonstrated the distinct, and at times contradictory, concerns of students,

academics and managers, and highlighted the incoherence of the concerns of the different groups.