The participants of the study were mainly in-service teachers of English language from several Qatari high schools and tertiary institutions. For most of the INSET events throughout the study, an invitation was sent out to local high school teachers. In the first stage of the study, 80 teachers participated in the needs analysis survey and focus groups. In the second stage, more than 100 teachers participated in three cycles. The final stage was personal reflection and discussion of the data and did not involve any participants. The age range of teachers in Qatari institutions is 35 to 55 years. Although gender was not a particular area of analysis, teachers from both genders were involved in the study. Participants were from different countries and different cultural backgrounds.
4.5.1 Participants’ affiliation
For this study, I have decided to invite high school and tertiary teachers regardless of their institutional affiliation for the following reasons: 1) participation was mainly voluntary, and I wanted to ensure that I have enough volunteers, and 2) all tertiary and high school teachers share a similar context with common needs. Qatar has a vibrant ELT community that serves similar clients with similar contextual characteristics and challenges. In addition, 3) it is a common practice in Qatar for teachers from schools, bridge programmes, and ESP units to get together at INSET events. The Qatari TESOL community has a number of professional networks that regularly organise INSET opportunities, e.g. QatarTESOL, the British Council’s ELT Forum, and recently TEFL-Qatar. As such, practitioners from different institutions were invited to take part in the different cycles of this study.
4.5.2 Participants’ details
Table 4.3 below provides an overview of the participant details for each phase of the research.
Table 4.3: Overview of the study participants
Stage Actions Participant details and demographics
On e Nee d s an aly sis Prelimin ary work 14 teachers:
- From private, international and government schools - 25-40 years old
- Both females and males
- all have a BA degree in English language/English literature and some have a master’s degree
2 school principals
The first one was a Qatari male private school principal in his 50s. He has a PhD in Education and is in charge of two schools with more than 40 ELT teachers.
The second one was a Qatari male government school principal in his 30s. He has a BA in geography and has worked as a teacher for 10 years. His school has around 15 ELT teachers
Main needs analysis
80 teachers from different high schools (private, government, international and community) answered the survey. The survey was anonymous and demographic details of respondents were unattainable. However, item 1&2 of the survey show that 64% of the teachers have more than 6 years of teaching experience and most of them have attended more than 10 PDs in the last 3 years.
As for focus groups, 20 high school teachers took part. They were all bilingual, 15 male and 5 female teachers from government schools. Some of them were teachers I have worked with before. All participants were expatriates mainly from other Arab countries who teach in Qatar.
T wo Im p lem en tatio n / in ter v en tio n First cycle
22 high school teachers
In this cycle, 22 teachers (8 females, 14 males) were recruited through the MoE high schools. Several of these participants were among those who completed the needs analysis survey and participated in the focus groups. All the participants speak Arabic as their mother tongue, and were from different countries with varying cultural backgrounds (Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Iraq and Lebanon). All of them had to take a 60-hour PD programme prior to the cycle. They were between 30-50 years old.
Second cycle
75 tertiary teachers
Almost equal distribution of males and females from the local ELT community. Most participants were from either the Foundation Programme at Qatar University or other local government and private high schools. Two participants were from other ELT tertiary institutions in Qatar. 6 to 25 attended each session. The total number of unique participants in all the sessions was around 75. Participants were both native and non-native speakers and came from many countries (America, UK, Australia, New Zealand, Maldives, Philippines, India, Pakistan and Arab World). The age range was from 30-60 years.
Third
15 females and 12 males. The participants were from several nationalities: 8 native speakers and 19 non-native speakers. They were from Europe, Asia, and Africa. The third cycle participants were mainly teachers from the Foundation Programme at Qatar University, schools, and the one from the British Council.
4.6 Conclusion
This study was designed as mainly qualitative AR, with the purpose of exploring INSET in Qatar to improve my training practice. AR was used as an investigative methodology design, to address challenges through the interventionist training courses in the implementation stage. To achieve the aims of this study, I employed survey, interviews, focus groups, and journals as data collection methods.
Chapter 4 presented the research design, data collection methods, and data analysis, and explained why AR was adopted for this study. Chapter 5 illustrates the first stage of the study.
Chapter Five: Needs Analysis
This chapter presents a narrative analysis of the needs analysis stage. It provides chronological description of the instruments, which were employed in this stage, their design, pilot, and results.
5.1 Introduction
This study is a three-stage investigative AR project. The first stage was an
explorative needs analysis stage on INSET in Qatar. The second stage constituted the cyclic design and implementation of an interventionist INSET programme in the form of three AR cycle. The third stage involved overall reflection on the study.
The two main instruments in the needs analysis stage were survey and focus groups, which aimed at identifying, describing, and exploring the current situation of
INSET in Qatar. This included attitudes towards INSET, perceived challenges and success factors, preferred themes and delivery modes, trainer role, and impact. The overall aim was to gain insights that can inform all the three cycles in the
subsequent implementation stage. The design and procedure of each instrument are presented followed by the results of both instruments. This study also involved a brief fieldwork phase.