Students' Diaries

The purpose o f the diaries was to gain access to students' views regarding their cultural expectations and experiences and to allow them to voice, in a more personal manner, topics that they - for various reasons - may not feel able to express in the classroom or the small-group interviews. The diaries were also intended to be the principle means of determining the extra-curricular effects o f the overseas experience on the students, and how this influences, or fails to influence the process o f cultural learning. The diaries have allowed me to find more in-depth answers to Research Questions 2, 2.2 and 3 in terms of the effects of extra-curricular activities, and other issues the students fe lt were causing them problems that may be indicative o f their own cultural beliefs. However, the small number of diaries returned restricted what might have proved to be very revealing data. The literature I consulted concerning diaries included Burgess et al. (2006) and Andrews et al. (2004).

The amount of information the students were willing to disclose may be an ethical matter requiring more consideration; however I did fully brief the students on such matters when I explained the purpose o f the diaries; for example, points to include and points to exclude, and how to keep in touch w ith myself regarding any problems with making entries. In investigating Research Questions 2 and 3, I felt that students might be unwilling to share their views in the small-group environment concerning experiences outside the classroom; in particular, interactions with members of the host culture, and the diary offered them a more secure area to record these views. In fact, students

demonstrated that contact with members of the host culture outside o f the classroom tended to be minimal, reflecting the following quotes from the Initial Study:

Ben: 'I try to talk to ... um ... the family in the evening but they are quiet. I thought maybe they don't like me, but now I think it 's ... it's their way.'

Ken: 'We talk in the pubs in the evenings, but that's just with (other) students. I try to practise my English w ith people in the restaurants or out in the street but they don't want to ... w h a t... to talk.'

The diaries were fe lt to be an important means o f answering such questions, although they were always intended as a supplement to the observations, the interviews, and the questionnaires, accessing data that is not clouded by the image the students create for themselves in the classroom. This image is generally a persona that, in the case o f Far Eastern students, is complicated by the group dynamic. In other words, the beliefs about group identity at the heart of their culture may present a barrier to any genuine understanding o f their motives and aspirations. This is pointed out by Alptekin and Alptekin (1984, p. 17) who sympathise with the students who see 'little need to "affiliate" with the hosts, either linguistically or culturally.'

As the diaries were presenting the students with an opportunity to disclose potentially revealing information, and with a higher degree of confidentiality than the other methods of data collection, I fe lt that the ethical issues at stake needed to be covered in a little more detail - see Ethical Considerations at the end o f this chapter. All o f the students were asked to complete diaries; ten agreed. The diaries were originally planned to be kept by the students on a daily basis, and returned to me and the end o f every week via email. This did not prove to be practical due to the students' hectic schedules, and their apparent difficulty in returning the information within the tim e agreed. Following an

initial briefing they assured me that they would make every effort to complete their diary entries. Unfortunately, only five of the ten students selected complied with the request and then the entries were quite erratic, although the information supplied provided useful data. As I wished the students to be as specific as possible in their accounts, I realised that I had to give them a little more information in terms of the subject matter I wished them to cover, and the students were asked to consider their experiences in Brighton and other local places during the past week - or since the last diary entries. I gave the students a list o f questions they could use as a guide - Appendix E. They were also encouraged to write their honest thoughts on the topic, and to email their entries once a week to me. Students were thanked in advance.

Unfortunately, only two students from Data Collection Phase 1, and three students from Data Collection Phase 2 returned the emails, but the data was still useful despite the small sample obtained. The data from the diaries was analysed by reading the emails and looking fo r patterns or themes that either reinforced the data from the questionnaires, the classroom observations, and the small-group interviews, or suggested new issues based on students' more personal information. The coding was done by highlighting similarities and differences between emails and the data from other sources, using constant comparison. See Appendix F, Table F.10 fo r pseudonyms of students who submitted diaries.