El Colo: tenés un comedor y empezás en el barrio

According to Punch (2009), research design is the overall plan for the research and it is influenced by what you are trying to find out or the research question(s). My research questions explored the universal questions about: who was learning; what were they learning; when, where and how were they learning. Hence, in my study the who question involved the personal aspects of the pre-service teachers as learners. The what question involved the professional knowledge and skills that they were learning and the where, when and how question involved the contexts for learning. The overall research plan was to interview pre-service teachers about their learning to teach experiences and as such, I was situating myself in the empirical world of qualitative data collection. My research questions were;

2. To what extent and in what ways did the pre-service teachers attribute personal, contextual and professional aspects as contributing to and influencing learning to teach?

Punch (2009) recommends researchers pay attention to four ideas when describing their overall plan or design. Researchers need to consider: the strategy (method or approach); the conceptual framework; from whom the data will be collected (sample); and finally, how will the data be collected. Punch claims the four ideas serve ‘to situate the researcher in the empirical world and connects the research question to the data’ (p.112).

In terms of strategy, my study sought to understand the social phenomenon of learning to teach in natural settings by asking those participating in the experience, the pre-service teachers. Kervin, Vialle, Herrington, and Okley (2006) claimed that qualitative research’s purpose is to understand social phenomena with humans as the primary data gathering instrument.The conceptual framework that evolved from the literature review asked universal questions about who was learning to teach, where, when, how and what was learnt. These universal questions also identified the structure for interviewing the participants in order to develop multiple cases studies analysis.

Bogdan and Bilkan (2007) analogise the qualitative researcher as ‘the loosely scheduled traveller’ (p.54) who has a general plan about how they will proceed, but the plan evolves as they learn about the participants, their settings and other sources of data through direct examination. They advocate for a retrospective account of the plan or design in order that the researcher remain open to new ideas and concepts. Kervin et al. (2006) also claimed the design in qualitative research evolves during the study and it is inductive analysis rather than deductive. Qualitative research is inductive because it aims to generate rather than test theory. Learning to teach is thought to be complex, dynamic and idiosyncratic, and as such, there are multiple viewpoints to be considered

(Darling-Hammond, 2006;Grossman, Hammerness & McDonald, 2014 Morrison, 2013; Zammit et al., 2007). Thus, my study sought to understand learning to teach by

focussing on the meanings that the experience had for seven pre-service teachers who were the participants in my study.

Silverman (2006) proposed four types of qualitative data collection methodologies that include: ethnography and participant observations; document analysis; interviews and focus groups; and recording and transcribing natural interactions. Ethnography and participant observations involve the researcher conducting observations in the natural classroom setting or field and also as a

participant in the experience. Ethnography and observation methods include interviews, checklists, anecdotal notes and/or audio-visual recording. Observations allow the researcher to observe roles, responses, interactions and influences from all participants including themselves. One disadvantage of observation is the impact of the researcher’s presence on the participants and this is more obtrusive if ethnography or participants observations are audio visually recorded. A second disadvantage is the time factor. Observing participants requires the researcher to be present for significant periods of time which would limit the number of participants or sources of data within the study timeframe. Alternatively, increasing the number of participants would mean less time with each participants which may have resulted in ‘thinner’ data. For these reasons observations were not considered the best option for my study.

Document analysis involves the use of ‘texts’ that have been recorded or

produced without intervention from the researcher. Punch (2009) described a number of ways of classifying texts which range from: source (public, media, private and artistic); authorship (personal, official-private and official-state) and access (closed, restricted, open-archival and open published). Silverman (2006) believed qualitative researchers undervalue documentary evidence and he suggested documents provide ‘rich, naturally

occurring, accessible data which have real effects in the world’ (p.195). He suggested researchers should treat documents, not as critical analysis, but rather representations of knowledge and skills that show the effect of an experience and how the texts represent reality. According to Silverman, texts can be analyzed for content, narrative structure, ethnography and membership categorization devices (collections based on rules). Another important use of documents or texts is their ability to triangulate with other data collections methods. However, Punch (2009) cautioned that texts need to be scrutinized from more than several angles related to how the documents came into existence in the first place. Hence, my study considered the use of documents, such as lesson plans, assignments, philosophy statements and academic transcripts, as further evidence and support for describing the pre-service teachers’ learning to teach

experiences.

Interviews are another form of qualitative data collection that can offer a rich source of data about how people interpret their experiences. Silverman (2006) proposed four types of interviews: the structured interview; semi-structured interview; open- ended interview; and the focus group interview. Most common to qualitative research is the semi-structured, open-ended interviews which are usually conducted on a one-to one basis or in focus group interviews. All four types of interviews are active and

collaboratively constructed between the interviewer and the interviewee(s). One advantage of interviews is their ability, if well-constructed, to access individual or group’s attitudes and values, which are not obvious in observations or structured

questionnaires/interviews. They also allow the interviewer to: clarify; make genuine and authentic questions based on the interaction; take opportunities to delve much deeper into the interviewee’s perspective; and how they came to hold those views. Another advantage is that the interviewee has the opportunity to shape the content of the

to explore and hear the voices of pre-service teachers, who Allen and Wright (2014) found had been overlooked in past research. Hence, the qualitative data collection method of interviewing appears to be the methodology best suited the research purpose. One disadvantage of interviews is the formality and unnatural nature of the dialogue, which can sometimes be intimidating or influence interviewee responses, however, in my case I knew the participants quite well and the interviews were more like a

debriefing and natural conversation about their experience of learning to teach. Based on the advantages and disadvantages described by Silverman (2006) the qualitative data collection methods of document analysis; interviews; and recording and transcribing of natural interactions pointed to the potential for multiple case studies. Yin (2003) recommends case studies as the preferred research approach when posing who, what, where, how or why questions; when the phenomenon involves ‘real’ life

contemporary contexts; and when the events or behaviours are not being manipulated. These conditions matched the aim of my study. Neuman (2011) described case study research as having ‘a detailed focus but tells a larger story’ (p. 42). The multiple case study methodology was chosen because it offers ‘rich’ data and has several advantages in telling the story of the individual participants (micro-level) and its relationship to the larger process of learning to teach (macro-level) (Neuman, 2011). Additionally, given the literature review found learning to teach to be quite complex, dynamic and

idiosyncratic is makes sense to have more than one case study because a single case study would be too narrow a view and I was not aiming to critically test an existing theory, a rare case or phenomena that had been inaccessible to scientific investigation (Yin, 1994). My aim was to investigate the similarities and differences between the multiple case studies.

Neuman (2011) contended that case studies have a number of advantages. First, they attempt to understand the perspectives of the actual participants and their personal

and unique story about the experience under investigation. My study, through the literature review, recognised that the experience of learning to teach was considered idiosyncratic, and therefore a study of multiple participants will involve multiple perspectives from which participants tell their unique, individual stories. Thus, seven pre-service teachers’ experiences of learning to teach are at the centre of this inquiry.

A second advantage of case studies is their ability to ‘capture complexity and trace processes’ (Neuman, 2011, p. 42). In case study methodology, the researcher is constantly revisiting and reorganising the data in order to capture the unique and common experiences. In this regard, my data analysis was not forced into a pre-

determined framework but rather a framework emerged as a chronological narrative of each pre-service teacher’s journey from pre-university to near completion of their initial learning to teach experience. A third advantage of case study methodology is the

heuristic appeal (Neuman, 2011). In my study I wanted pre-service teachers to tell me how they have learnt to teach. My aim was to discover more about the learning to teach process from the people who have just experienced the process.

Case study approaches are often criticised for potential bias on behalf of the researcher’s opinions and prejudices, lack of generalizability, and for being time consuming and lengthy (Yin, 2003). In my study, researcher’s bias was controlled in several ways. First, the interview method allowed questions to be repeated, answers to be clarified, repeated/rephrased, and the ability for the interviewer to press for further information. Second, being aware of my own bias in terms of the impact of the

university experience allowed me to monitor my interpretation by specifically auditing or memo writing how quotations were coded. This monitoring was done in the cross- case analysis using a matrix. I also controlled bias by actively seeking evidence that was contrary to my expectations and I attempted to be open-minded in my analysis. Finally, participants were able to read my construction of their original detailed case study,

containing most of their quotations, and participants were encouraged to edit and delete information that did not represent their view. I was not looking for generalizability, but rather similarity and variations between participants in the cross-case analysis.

Transcribing and the completion of the first full case studies were time consuming and lengthy, but the data were rich and individual’s views were repeatedly affirmed

throughout the three interviews and in their self-chosen artefacts, further confirming and strengthening the credibility of the data for each case.

Yin (2003) described exemplary case studies as having the following

characteristics: the case must be significant, complete, provide alternative perspectives, be evidenced-based and composed in an engaging manner. The cases in this study were significant in their uniqueness for describing the learning to teach experience from the perspective of the pre-service teacher and with the current attention from media and local Australian government about teacher education. The three interviews allowed for data from the first two interviews to be clarified, revisited and revised if participants ‘felt different’ about the question or topic. Additionally, the participants were presented with ‘their story’ to confirm and edit at the conclusion of the interviews. All case studies were included because they all tell a slightly different story with different emphases at various stages of the participant’s journey. The cases are significant because they contribute a different narrative and reflection on learning to teach from the perspective of the pre-service teacher, which Allen and Wright (2014) argue have been overlooked in the past.

The cases in this study were complete in their ability to tell the chronology from pre-university to the final year of their initial teacher education. This completeness acknowledged the influences of personal experiences, prior beliefs about learning and teaching and current influences from university and school contexts, and acknowledging professional learning and skills that remained static or changed. The extent of

duplication of information in the original transcripts was the result of both my clarification of understandings but also consistencies in participants’ thinking about teaching.

There was notable variation in the descriptions of participants’ experiences and they also completed a self-efficacy rating of their professional strengths and needs including readiness to teach which were notably idiosyncratic. The cases were

evidence-based as they used verbal, written transcripts and the pre-service teachers had the opportunity to edit their full case study. The transcribed quotations in the case studies also provide evidence to support my interpretations. The case studies also included reference to artefacts such as teaching philosophy statements, academic transcripts, lesson plans and learning tools such as matrixes. These artefacts were not created as a result of the case study rather they were self-selected by the participants to share as evidence of their understanding about teaching and supported their dialogic statements. The case studies were composed in an engaging manner by many edits and reworking in order to utilize the rich data base whilst maintaining the integrity of the individual pre-service teachers’ own stories of becoming a teacher reflecting the highs and lows.