The Results Are In...

Sort of.

Summer, three years in to this messy thing. All my data, bar three classroom observations, is in (or should that be 'are in' if data is a plural noun? Sounds wrong!) and transcribed. So now I approach...data analysis.

I have researched web-based qualitative data analysis software and 'Dedoose' seems to be the most similar to NVivo, so I am planning to trial it for the next few weeks. Assuming that the software is successful, my next 'jobs' are:

1. Sign up and get to know the Dedoose application
2. Upload all data collected and transcribed so far.
3. Conduct the final three observations in September and add those.
4. Complete the first level of analysis
5. Begin condensing and reducing each code ready for writing up.

I have recently returned from a rare supervision with my second, much more brutal(!) supervisor.
"So, what have you found out so far?" was the opening gambit to our meeting. Gulp.
It's a good question. Not much, it seems.

• the transformative significance of the action seems to be related to the longitudinal nature of the research; participating teachers have been involved over two years
• teachers report increased confidence in pedagogy surrounding reading teaching
• teachers explicitly foreground the collaborative nature of the reading process in the classroom
• teachers function as advocates for the primacy of narrative
• teachers seem to have found more creative ways of conducting reading and inviting volunteers from the class to contribute to the reading process
• teachers spend more time in lessons on reading - reported and triangulated through observation
• teachers themselves are reading aloud more
• teachers are finding creative ways to represent the learning/reading
• teachers put engagement first and seem very articulate about how and why
• teachers are consciously creating a 'safe space' for reading to happen

Straightforward, and not setting the world alight. In addition there were some unexpected and less encouraging 'hunches':

• teachers are occasionally misinterpreting theoretical and pedagogical perspectives (but still applying these 'confidently' in the classroom)
• teachers don't seem to be doing what they 'say' they are doing

There's one blindingly obvious problem with these crude and unsubstantiated observations though: they all relate to the teachers. I seem to be preoccupied with the nexus between teachers' reading, knowledge and understanding, and the actual 'doing' in the classroom; and also the 'snowball' design of the research: how it seems to be folding-in at each stage; e.g. as teachers use the transcripts of the student interviews to further inform their thinking and practice. Where are the students in all this? They formed approximately a third of the original research design, but I'm not in a position to say anything very much about them at all.

I need to have a much closer think about the students...

What else would I do differently, having come this far? My experience of the observation process has certainly shifted; I might conduct the student interviews differently for richer discussion; my interview technique, particularly in relation to the student focus groups and the observation through transcription that I might inadvertently be shutting down potentially fruitful avenues of dialogue, so I'd watch out for that more than I have been.

Meanwhile, you will find me buried somewhere in a software tutorial.

NVivo training

Had the first session of NVivo training this week. I can see how useful it will be, but the laptop I was given spent an hour and a half updating and that meant that I couldn't do very much that was hands on.

I conducted two more lesson observations, two more teacher interviews and two more student focus group interviews on Friday, so data collection continues apace. Two participants are very accessible and the other two proving slightly trickier. The end of term looms ahead and I suspect that I will not be done.

Still, I do at least have plenty of data to work with, currently. It feels difficult to get on with it without knowing the full capacity of the software; but time to get to know my data is here.

In The Field

Dear me. Can it really be six months since I have posted here? That is an unpleasant side effect of doctoral study: how quickly time seems to pass. And now I have had half a year of being 'part-time' and 'in the field' (though the reality is that I have had to be paid to be working in school for at least one Friday a month, if not more) and having relinquished the head of department role but exchanged it for an international one.

A quick sketch of where I have got to, then, in terms of the shape of my research and the state of my data collection:

The academic year 2016-2017 was spent in collecting data from six twilight sessions, or 'Study Group Research Interviews' as I termed them for the Qualitative Methods paper I had to write.

From September I was really down to four teachers (and me) in the collaborative research group: one left the school entirely and another has such a reduced timetable as to make it impractical to include her.

The Autumn Term is really the reading-teaching term, and this is where the bulk of the intervention will have taken place; it certainly did for my own practice. Near the start of the term, participating classes should have undertaken an Attitudes Towards Reading survey. At the end of December, then, I began individual semi-structured interviews with the remaining teachers. The last of them took place at Entebbe airport, on the way home from a school trip to Uganda at half term, so I have four of those, three now transcribed, to add to the six transcriptions of the Study Group Research Interviews from the previous academic year. 

Next steps are that I need to conduct three observations of each teacher in the next six weeks, and select three case study students per class. Following this there needs to be a follow-up interview with each teacher, and the final student survey. My data sets should then be completed by July. Exciting!

This afternoon I attended a Qualitative Data Analysis seminar. Scary to think that I will really need this stuff in the very near future. In fact, for next month's supervision my main supervisor and I will blind-code two of the round one interviews for a compare and contrast exercise. It will be good to have a practical session for a change. The day finished with a supervision with both supervisors which lasted for nearly two hours, but I have come home with both their sketches and visualisations of the research which is always helpful.

I'm yet to have 'NVivo' training, and it seems that this is going to be crucial for managing my data. Courses at the university seem to be infrequent and over-subscribed. One of our number has resorted to paying for an external course.

One thing that has buoyed me in the last few weeks is receiving 'highly commended' in a Reading for Pleasure Research award. I was spurred to submit to the award after participating in Women in Leadership training at school and feeling somehow 'guilty' that I was no longer in leadership! I'm also putting together an application for a research grant for a different but connected piece of research, so some interesting things are happening as a result of my studies to date.