Stage two: the qualitative research method

The conceptual framework also has highlighted the importance of exploring university students’ various representations of their civic experience under the influence of mass media and the university citizenship curriculum. As qualitative research is “fundamentally interpretative” (Marshall & Rossman, 1999), it is used in stage two with the intention to reveal the depth and the breadth of students’ citizenship experience, explain the patterns of civic participation found in the quantitative phase and investigate how civic perceptions are shaped by the university and by society. This section describes the reason for selecting the instrument of interviews for this research, explains the interview design and justifies the interviewee selection process.

4.3.6.1 The interview instrument

Previous qualitative research methods in cultural citizenship research have used systematic examination of online discourses and participants’ dairies required by the researcher (See section 3.5). However, those options would consume huge amounts of time. In addition, the conducted questionnaire in stage one could provide much relevant information. Taking those elements into consideration, I chose the research method of conducting interviews in my investigation in stage two.

Interviews are a useful means to get in touch with interviewees’ views and meanings of the situation and of their reality (Punch, 1998). Further, qualitative data collected from interviews provides researchers with the insights into things that could not be “seen or heard, for example, the interviewee’s inner states” (Seale, 1998, p.202). Therefore, it suits with my intention to develop an interactive situation for data collection, as conducting interviews could encourage students to speak out in their own voices, helping the researcher to understand their roles in society and how they develop political judgments (Starkey et al., 2013).

4.3.6.2 The interview design

As indicated in the explanatory sequential strategy in this mixed methods research, I originally planned to have a full analysis of the quantitative data before commencing the interview procedure. By doing so, the quantitative findings could provide more evidence for the interview contents design and the interviewee recruitment. In other words, the “confirming sampling” strategy (Creswell & Plano Clark, 2007) was considered in the first place to choose interview participants, which was to confirm the preliminary findings, clarify the hypotheses and elaborate on answers to the major research questions. However, due to time constraints in China, I did not strictly conform to this procedure in carrying out the research. The research progressed to the second stage in late March, 2014 shortly after I conducted an initial and brief analysis of the questionnaire data.

In order to provide space for more flexibility in further analysis and cover the possible research areas, I decided to choose in–depth, open-ended, and semi-structured interviews with each participant. Compared with structured interviews and unstructured interviews, semi-structured interviews are on the one hand more flexible, and on the other hand they could provide a better comparison between different interviewees based on a settled structure of broad discussion topics (Bryman, 2004). A wide range of discussion topics was proposed, and each individual interviewee was encouraged to elaborate on feelings and civic experiences which were meaningful to them. A list of intended interview questions is exemplified as follows:

Q1: Do you agree that the university curriculum is doing a good job in promoting your citizenship consciousness? If so, why? If not, why not?

Q2: Which aspect of citizenship consciousness (political rights, social rights or moral developments) is emphasized in the current content of the university curriculum?

you think it is possible for the university curriculum to achieve this for students? Is this echoed in the university environment?

Q4: As the bridge between the university and the wider community, the mass media is embedded into every corner of students’ daily lives. How do you view its opportunities and threats in supplementing your citizenship understanding?

Q5: How do you evaluate the status and different roles of the university curriculum and the mass media, when considering their influence for citizenship consciousness?

Q6: If you were asked to propose an agenda for citizenship education in your university, what would you suggest?

Q7: What are your frequent online activities? Could you give some examples?

Q8: If you want to know more about political and social events, what would you normally do? Will you choose a particular type of mass media to follow? Please answer more specifically!

Q9: Do you have an account for social networking? What do you normally do on the social networks?

Q10: Who do you follow regularly on your social networking account? (For example: friends, celebrities, politician, families…)

Q11: Do you pay attention to some political or social topics? What would you do with that kind of information?

Q12: Have you ever attended some social events in person? Can you share your experience with us?

Q13: What motivates you to take part in civic participation in the university or through mass media?

Q14: What would you like to add? (For example, besides the mentioned type of mass media, what else do you think is useful for citizenship development?)

4.3.6.3 Selection of interviewees

Four aspects of students’ background characteristics of gender, educational level, educational background, political status were included in the quantitative design, and they are considered to be potentially influential indicators in the relation between mass media and civic participation. Therefore, these four predictor variables were all taken into account for short listing suitable interviewees in the initial design for the qualitative study. The strategy map for selecting interviews is shown as below in Figure 4.5. This sampling strategy indicated the use of the strategy of “maximum variation sampling” (Mertens, 1998), which includes the maximum variation in terms of background characteristics within the sample with the intention to explore extreme cases in different settings as well as to provide explanations for common cases.

Figure 4. 5: The rationale for selecting interviewees

However, due to time constraints and the availability of participants according to the 12 participants by gender 6 female 6 male by educational level 1st yr (3) 2nd yr (3) 3rd yr (3) 4th yr (3) by educational background 6 Art s 6 Scienc e by poiltical status 6 CPC members 6 ordinary students

further contact emails left in the front cover of the questionnaire, I was unable to identify every single student exactly according to the numbers shown in each category in Figure 4.5. For example, only one student of the fourth year attended interviews, and five students of the third year participated in the research. The probable reason was that during my visit to this university in March, most fourth year students were busy participating in career interviews; thus I found some difficulty in recruiting the fourth year students. In this sense, the selecting principle serves only as a guide for identifying suitable participants in interviews. Finally, twelve participants took part in the interviews.

4.3.6.4 The interview process

Emails were sent to recruit eligible interview candidates, and some students who had participated in the questionnaire replied and attended. Moreover, some students were recruited through a “snowballing” strategy: some participants recommended their friends, and a few students contacted me expressing their willingness to participate in this study.

Interviews were conducted at a pre-arranged time and place in Beijing to suit the time schedule of participants, and each interview lasted for about thirty minutes. Each participant was provided with a copy of the information sheet (See Appendix 6) and consent form (See Appendix 7) before conducting interviews. In compliance with ethical approval that had been obtained, they were informed of the purpose of my study and the possible area of questions I was going to ask. Participants were asked for their permission to use a voice recorder at the interview, and they were assured that their participation was completely voluntary and they would be free to withdraw at any time during the interview process. The interviews were conducted in Chinese, and the transcriptions were also processed in Chinese. The contents were later translated into English when presenting the results.

The interviews took the form of semi-structure, in which the researchers asked certain questions from the list of questions before hand. However, the questions varied in some degree according to the responses from the interviewees. For example, one of the

participants struggled to understand citizenship consciousness in the Chinese context, and she denied the existence of citizenship education in China. Efforts were made to encourage her to talk about daily activities and experiences to seek the potential for citizenship understanding. Participants were offered more autonomy to share and express their understanding. Therefore, interviews were more like a flexible conversation and dialogue, and are definitely not in the “ask – and – answer” style. Thus the interview process in this study reflects my efforts to create a conversational environment where both parties are equal based on Ellis and Berger’s (2003) approach of a reflexive interviewing.