Semi-structured interviews

Whilst the focus group approach was used with the young participants, data from the adult participants were collected through interviews. The participants who were interviewed were the class teacher Ms.Debono and the school literacy teacher Ms.Vella. The teachers were chosen to be interviewed since they both worked with Grade 3 students and their input contributed towards understanding the phenomenon through different methods and points of view. This contributed to triangulation within the research.

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Initially the interview approach was chosen since the teachers interviewed are my colleagues and I chose a method which has features similar to a conversation. Denscombe (2010) is critical of this and argues that the similarities between conversations and interviews are only ‘superficial’ and an interview is more than just a simple conversation. Denscombe (2010) continues by arguing that this ‘superficial similarity’ might encourage the researcher to have a ‘relaxed attitude to planning’ and preparation and thus it might fail unless there is good planning and ‘a sensitivity to the complex nature of interaction during the interview itself’ (Denscombe, 2010, p.173). Kvale (2007) does not support Dencombe’s (2010) idea and relates interviewing to conversation explaining that:

If you want to know how people understand their world and their lives, why not talk with them? Conversation

is a basic mode of human interaction. Human beings talk with each other, they interact, pose questions and answer questions. Through conversations we get to know other people, get to learn about their experiences, feelings and hopes and the world they live in. In an interview conversation, the researcher asks about, and listens to, what people themselves tell about their lived world… and learns about their school and work situation, their family and social life (p.1)

Similar to the views of Kvale (2007), Cohen et al. (2010) also relate and combine conversations and interviews together to the extent that they refer to ‘informal conversational interviews’ in their list of interview types. Cohen et al. (2010) in fact outline four main types of interviews; structured interviews, unstructured interviews, non-directive interviews and focused interviews. To this, Denscombe (2010) adds semi-structured interview. For the purpose of this research I used a semi-structured interview guide approach which provided the participants as well as the researcher with more flexibility and freedom. Through this method as an interviewer I had a list of questions to be answered. As an interviewer I was also prepared to be flexible in terms of the order of the topics being discussed. Furthermore I could elaborate on aspects of interest which were related to the topic concerned. Since I knew the interviewees very well, the pace of the interviews

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flowed well and although the questions were planned in a structured manner the interviews themselves had conversational elements.

This type of interviewing method was chosen because in this way the main questions were planned but others emerged from the immediate context and were asked in ‘the natural course of things’ (Denscombe, 2010, p.175). Although the classroom observations provided me with a clear vision about how students read and write in the digital age and how the classroom teacher and students relate to digital technology I felt the need to gain more insights and explore the participant’s opinions, feelings and experiences. A structured type of interview was not chosen since I did not want the interview to resemble questionnaire methods. Furthermore with the semi-structured interview, I had a list of clear questions which were planned to be addressed and answered.

Figure 3.6 shows a few of the questions which were planned to be asked. As one can note the questions are open-ended since emphasis was made on the interviewee’s points of interest. The full list of questions is presented in Appendix C.

 How would you define ‘literacy’ in the 21st _{Century? Do you feel that}

definitions of reading and writing have changed along the years?  In your opinion do schools make the most of the technological advances

of the 21st _Century?

 Do you feel you use digital technology integrally in your everyday teaching?

 Do you believe that students are reading and writing differently now that they use digital technology in class?

 Which reading and writing methods do you believe students prefer to use in class?

 How is digital technology having an impact upon children’s reading and writing of text?

 Do you believe that students are different learners due to technological advancement?

Figure 3.6: A selection of the questions asked during the semi-structured interviews

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Denscombe (2010) argues that generally speaking the aim of a semi-structured interview is that of ‘discovery’ rather than ‘checking’. The semi-structured interviews conducted in this study served as a method where teachers’ thoughts and insights were ‘discovered’. At the same time however a few questions were asked to clarify some of the observations which were conducted in the classroom context.

The interviews were conducted on a one-to-one basis. Both interviewees were asked to choose a location and time where they would feel comfortable to sit for the interview. The first interview was conducted with Ms.Debono who invited me to her home. Ms.Vella’s interview on the other hand was conducted in her classroom (the literacy room) and this was conducted within school hours. Ms.Vella had an afternoon off from school every week and during the same time the students of Grade 3.2 used to have peripatetic lessons. This gave me the perfect opportunity to conduct the interview, in a time which was convenient for Ms.Vella without interrupting her from her daily schedule.

The semi-structured interviews conducted took approximately 40 minutes each. Prior to the interview both participants granted me permission to record the interviews. Both interviews were recorded through Audacity software on my personal tablet. I ensured that another tablet was available as a backup. I transcribed the interviews word by word so that I use direct quotations from the participants in my findings. Audio-recording the interviews was very helpful. However, the transcription of the interview itself was very time-consuming, which Opdenakker (2006) regards as a major disadvantage for as Bryman (2001) confirms an hour of audio-recording can take about six hours to transcribe. A further disadvantage is that audio-recording captures speech but misses non-verbal communication (Denscombe, 2010). In order to make up for this I took very short field notes during the interviews then wrote more detailed field notes after each interview.

Since our mother tongue is Maltese, I was aware that the teachers might show concern and ask whether they will be interviewed in English or Maltese, so both interviews were conducted in Maltese and then these were translated directly from

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the recording and transcribed in English. I felt it important to pay careful attention to the translation of the interviews in order to ensure correctness of the interpretation by ensuring linguistic flexibility and that the actual language spoken was not a limitation.

Denscombe (2010) argued that recording the interview might inhibit participants, whilst Gajendra and Kanka (1999) found that participants soon got used to being recorded. Keeping Dencombe’s (2010) belief in mind both participants in this study were informed about the recording of the interview prior to the interview and gave their consent orally and in a signed consent form. The participants were also invited to go through the transcription of the interview and change any wording as they wished.

As Gajendra and Kanka (1999) suggest these processes were not taken ‘lightly and never omitted’ since they are ‘for the benefit and protection of both the subject and the researcher’ (p.127). Gajendra and Kanka (1999) further suggest that interview recordings must be kept in a secure and safe place and the transcriber must be ‘trustworthy’ and aware of the status of the materials which are being worked with. For this reason I did the transcriptions of the interviews myself, kept the recordings in a safe place and secured with a password. These will be destroyed and deleted once the thesis is published and work disseminated. An additional benefit to transcribing myself is that this is a good way to get to know the data.

Semi-structured interviews provided a number of advantages; they were quite flexible to organise and they also enabled me as the researcher to delve into the topics in more detail. A disadvantage which Denscombe (2010) mentions is what he regards as the ‘interviewer effect’. There are various factors which might affect how the participants respond to the questions asked. Denscombe (2010) argues that one needs to consider factors such as the social status, educational qualifications and the professional expertise of the people interviewed. Interviewees might respond differently during interviews depending on how they perceive the interviewer (Denscombe, 2010). Gajendra and Kanka (1999) support Denscombe’s (2010) argument and argue that during any type of interview much depends on the personality of the interviewer and the circumstances of the

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interview to the extent that social relationships can ‘contaminate the final product’ (p.128)

The fact that I interviewed teachers who teach at the same level as myself might have also minimised the ‘interviewer effect’ as they felt that I could relate to their arguments and to some extent we work within the same level. Furthermore the fact that I interviewed two of my colleagues whom I know on a personal and professional basis might have also minimised the effect.

In order to ensure that the data collected were valid, data were checked with other sources. The interview data were not taken at ‘face value’ but as the following section shows, triangulation of data was used. Having mentioned the criticism of the interview approach one cannot ignore the fact that in their nature interviews are however ‘wonderfully adaptable and flexible’ (Gajendra and Kanka, 1999). In qualitative research interviews can also be considered as a practical way to understand the world from the participants’ point of view (Kvale, 2007).