DE LA EXPORTACIÓN DEFINITIVA

This section illustrates the research methods adopted in each stage of this study, as well as the relevant literature justifying these methods. At the beginning of this chapter, the three stages of the research were briefly outlined. Figure 3.1 presents a more detailed explanation of the research design.

Figure 3.1 Research design

As can be seen in Figure 3.1, after the pilot study, the quantitative research phase was followed by a qualitative phase. This particular sequence can be useful, as ‘the initial quantitative research allows a “mapping” of the issue to be addressed and also provides the basis for the selection of comparison groups for in-depth qualitative interviewing’ (Bryman, 1988, p. 137). The preliminary quantitative research could provide a context for qualitative work and build up a detailed statistical foundation regarding the students and their experiences, while the qualitative research can be used to ‘interpret, illuminate, illustrate and qualify’ the statistical findings (Walker, 1985, p. 22).

In the present study, the two strategies constantly complement and reinforce each other throughout the entire research. Although the questionnaire phase was mostly completed before the focus group sessions and interviews, the analysis of both the quantitative and

Data collection Pilot study Collaborative autobiography Narrative interview Questionnaire Pre-testing Questionnaire Survey (200 students) Focus group Narrative interview

(Additional semi-sturctured interview)

Data analysis

Quantitaive Data analysis using SPSS

Qualitative Data analysis using Nvivo

Informed the questionnaire design

Generating subsamples

qualitative data was ongoing throughout the research process. The questionnaire data provide ‘contextual information of a quantified variety’ and ‘indicate the incidence of particular groups in the general population’ (Brannen, 1992, p. 28). Additionally, the questionnaire sample constituted a basis upon which the qualitative research sample could be selected. The questionnaire data was frequently referred to in order to check an individual’s view in focus group/interview sessions against his or her own response in the questionnaire, as well as to compare the individual’s opinion with the views of the college sample as a whole (Section 3.8 Linking data will elaborate on how these two sets of data are compared and linked). The participants in the qualitative data collection stage (i.e. focus group and interview sessions) were at times asked to clarify their questionnaire responses. In this way, the quantitative data ‘sit side-by-side with’ the qualitative data as ‘indications of the way in which subjects think and feel’ (Bryman, 1988, p. 140).

3.5.1 Stage 1—Structured questionnaire

The questionnaire stage of the research had two aims: firstly, to provide a broad statistical overview of the students themselves and their experiences of vocational colleges and programmes, which could be used in conjunction with the qualitative data collected later in the research process; and, secondly, to generate subgroups and ideas for conducting focus group and narrative interviews. Therefore, the later qualitative phase of the research was informed by the quantitative phase. Before the questionnaire stage of the research, a qualitative pilot study was conducted. The design of the questionnaire was informed by the data gathered in the qualitative pilot study, such as the students’ career plans and different aspects of their current experiences. From the qualitative pilot study to the main quantitative and qualitative phases (the two “strands” of the research stage), qualitative and quantitative data were integrated and linked with each other.

Questionnaires are seen as useful instruments to quickly reach a relatively large sample in a flexible and cost-effective way (Bryman, 2012, p. 233). They are often used in survey research to study attitudes, opinions, perceptions and preferences (Borg et al., 1993; Wiserma and Jurs, 2005). Questionnaires provide ‘the hard quantified facts’ (Kvale, 1996, p. 164). A number of useful comparisons could be made using the statistical findings, such as the students’ experiences at the two colleges or the aspirations of respondents wishing to enter two different labour markets. Questionnaires also offer the advantage over interviews of there being an absence of an interviewer (Bryman, 2012, p. 233).

The questionnaire for this study was designed to gather detailed information about young people’s attitudes towards their programmes and colleges, their future plans, and the factors that influence their choices. The questionnaire (see Appendix 1) is partly based upon the one used in Rudd’s study on further education in England (Rudd, 1996). New questions were added to meet the aims of the study, while others were omitted as they were not deemed relevant to the present study. The questionnaire consisted of three parts: the first questions focused on obtaining biographical data, such as gender, current educational level, and socio- economic status of the family. The second part contained items seeking information about the students’ reasons for choosing their vocational college and their attitudes towards their current experiences. The third part covered their perceptions of future career and job opportunities. In total, there were 31 questions, many of which were divided into sub- questions.

After the questionnaire had been designed, it was carefully translated into Chinese and pre- tested with 10 participants, before being ready to use with a larger set of participants. Pre- testing a questionnaire with a small number of respondents can ‘test the procedures and quality of responses’ (Walliman, 2010, p. 175). Further improvements were made based on the feedback and comments gathered from the pre-test; for example, some sub-questions were revised and more options were offered for the respondents to choose between.

Access to the two sample colleges was granted by the administrators of each college in March 2017. The questionnaire was distributed to the students in the two sample colleges during the fall semester of 2017 via a social networking application WeChat. I was introduced to the classes by their teachers, and the participants were assured that the questionnaire was not connected to their courses and would have no bearing on their grades. Moreover, it was underlined that their participation would be entirely voluntary. They were also made aware of the aims of the project. I gave them the instructions for completing the questionnaire, and stressed the importance of giving careful and accurate answers. The participants were encouraged to complete the questionnaire on their smartphones or laptops in the last 20 minutes of their classes. They usually took between 9 and 20 minutes to complete and submit the questionnaire. The participants were also encouraged to forward the link to the questionnaire to their friends in other classes or programmes of the same college. The total number of the distributed questionnaires was 200 and the response rate was 100%. The sample was made up of 46% male students and 54% female; 35% were in their first year, 44% were in their second or third years, and 21% were in their final year.

The study areas of the respondents fall into four categories: finance and management (35%), engineering (14%), language (28%), and IT (23%).

3.5.2 Stage 2—Focus group

At the end of the questionnaire, the respondents were asked to indicate if they would like to be invited to the focus group and interview sessions. In this way, 16 students at Riverside and 20 students at Seaside were recruited for the focus group sessions. Four focus groups were conducted at each college with students majoring in chemical engineering, marketing, business, English, and IT. The duration of these focus groups ranged from 40 to 90 minutes.

The focus group is a means for collecting the shared understandings of several individuals, as well as to get the views of specific people (Creswell, 2012, p. 218). It is ‘a highly efficient qualitative data-collection technique’ (Patton, 1990, pp. 335-6) and allows ‘the researcher to develop an understanding about why people feel the way they do’ (Bryman, 2012, p. 503). In focus groups, the interactions among group members enable individuals to discuss issues with each other and challenge each other’s views, which could ‘yield more interesting and realistic accounts of what people think’ (Bryman, 2012, p. 504). Interaction is the essence of focus groups because it unveils the reality of the group and provides an understanding about how the group members think and express their viewpoints (Ivanoff and Hultberg, 2006, p. 127).

Several issues were considered when designing the focus groups, including the group composition, the number of participants, and the moderating style. Since the participants in this study have similar lived experiences as vocational students, the focus groups should be homogenous and consist of familiar faces (Liamputtong, 2011). The recommended number of participates in a focus group ranges from 3 to 15 (Lewis, 1992, p. 418). The size of the focus group is important to consider to ensure maximum interaction and an environment in which participants can actively discuss in a group (Smithson, 2008). Four focus groups were conducted in each college, with 4 to 8 participants in each group. A flexible moderating style was adopted for conducting the focus groups of this study so as to allow the participants to ‘do most of the talking, thus providing rich descriptions of social life and in-depth explanations of social processes’ (Hesse-Biber, 2010, p. 184).

A list of possible topics for discussion was developed before conducting the focus groups, as this ‘helps make interviewing a number of different people more systematic and

comprehensive by delimiting in advance the issues to be explored’ (Patton, 2002, p. 343). The topics by and large covered four themes: the students’ past choice-making stories, their current college experiences, their aspirations for the future, and their attitudes towards the stereotyping. The focus group sessions usually began with the participants introducing themselves, which helped to reduce any tension and create a more comfortable sharing environment. There was then a section in which each participant shared their choice-making stories, during which many of them reported similar experiences. They also discussed their attitudes to the current curriculum, pedagogy, assessment and facilities in the colleges. During the discussions, their interactions, whether complementary or argumentative, all evoked a great deal of valuable information and reflections. The last section allowed them to talk about their plans for the future and their thoughts on the potential stereotyping of vocational students.

3.5.3 Stage 3—Narrative interview

The participants in the narrative interview sessions were recruited from the questionnaire respondents and from the focus group participants. Nine narrative interviews were conducted at each college and each lasted approximately 60 minutes.

Interviews are a useful means for uncovering interviewees’ views and meanings regarding a situation and their reality (Punch, 1998). Martin Bauer defines the narrative interview as ‘a setting which encourages and stimulates interviewees to tell a story about some significant event in the informants’ life’ (1996, p. 2). It goes beyond the question-response-type interview and follows ‘self-generating schema’, using everyday communicative interaction, namely storytelling and listening. The narrative interview is used to investigate ‘hot issues’, which may be potentially embarrassing for respondents or be of a personal nature (Bauer, 1996). Since the participants of this study are vocational students who have not performed well academically or who may have struggled during their learning history or might consider their “vocational student status” embarrassing due to the popular stereotypes, a narrative interview is particularly useful for providing ‘a more sensitive approach’ to investigating these issues (Bauer, 1996, p. 12). The central topics of the narrative interview in this study were the students’ previous personal and educational experiences; their current vocational education experiences; their perspectives on the future possibilities; and their attitudes towards the popular stereotypes. The narrative interview consisted of four phases:

I— initiation II— main narration

III— questioning phase

IV— concluding talk (Jovchelovitch and Bauer, 2000)

In the initiation phase, the interviewees were informed of the procedures and the topics, so as to trigger the process of narration (Jovchelovitch and Bauer, 2000, p. 63). When the narration started, it was not interrupted until the interviewee signalled the end of the story. I limited myself to active listening, providing non-verbal or paralinguistic support to show interest, while writing down the questions to ask in the next phase (2000, p. 64). I also wrote down the ‘markers’, i.e. the passing references ‘made by a respondent to an important event or feeling state’, to elicit further reflections (Weiss, 1994). The uninterrupted narration phase was followed by a questioning phase, which included immanent questions to complete the gaps in the interviewees’ stories, as well as to further probe interesting points emerging in their questionnaire responses or comments made in the focus groups. At the end of the interview, there was a brief talking phase which could provide additional information to enable contextual interpretations of the informants’ accounts (Bauer, 1996, p. 8).

The present study also included semi-structured interviews with teaching staff. The teachers were asked about their experiences of assisting the students and their opinions about the prevalent attitudes towards vocational college and vocational students. The teaching staff also provided their opinions on the current curricula in their colleges. Three members of the teaching staff at Seaside were interviewed. As Riverside is a publicly funded college which is closely supervised by the Party, it was difficult to recruit any college staff for interview. But one of the teachers at Riverside did agree to do an interview on the condition that there would be no recording.