In Chapters Four, Five and Six analysis of data is made through different lenses or perspectives. These emerged out of the reiterative research design and are conceptualised in Figure 2.
Figure 2: Research Lenses
Lens 1: Narrative, Role and Tension (The Elements)
Beginning with the video recall data sources and reflective journals, the student's responses to the drama and self-analysis of engagement were analysed. From the three workshops of two hours each, key moments in each workshop were determined through triangulation. This was through correlating with the facilitator, the participants and the researcher notes, a point in the workshop where participants felt the most energetic, alive or excited. The three moments are of 13-28 minutes each. These key moments were then recoded in a series of reiterative analyses. Firstly, they were transcribed word for word. Each turn was then coded with a general observation with no specific objective, allowing themes to emerge organically. Narrative, role and tension emerged as recurring themes through this lens. Participants reported on elements of the three themes during dramatic engagement and they are discussed in Chapter Four. Chapter Four explores narrative, role and tension and defines these as elements within dramatic engagement in process drama for language education.
Lens 2: Playbuilding, Roleplaying, Sensemaking (The Processes)
At this analysis level, 480 coded references in thirteen data sources were explored across three themes: language education, process drama and engagement. This descriptive level of analysis was a practical analysis of the art form usage by participants and also their response to learning in the art form across all of the data sources. The data was collected from the following sources: the transcripts of the two video recall interviews conducted (VREC1T and VREC2T) and the interviews conducted with the teacher after each workshop (W1TEI, W2TEI and W3TEI) and the researcher notes (RN1). The analysis and
Narrative, Role, Tension Metaxis, Metacognition, Meta-emotion Playbuilding, Roleplaying, Sensemaking
coding were thematic and looked at demonstrated actions around the reported moments of engagement. The researcher notes were coded in NVivo to allow for any unexpected themes to emerge. Each activity was initially coded as a subset of either art form or pedagogy. Upon completion of coding, categories were created outside of the workshop space, including language education, process drama and engagement. Analysis was made by workshop and also themes across workshops. Chapter Five explores playbuilding, roleplaying and sensemaking and defines these as processes within dramatic engagement in process drama for language education.
Lens 3: Metaxis, Metacognition & Meta-Emotion (The Catalysts)
It became apparent during the later cycles of analysis that there were additional concepts that needed to be included in a definition of dramatic engagement. During the video recall and the transcripts of these interviews, participants were describing states during engagement that were related to narrative, role and tension but seemed to be describing operating on multiple levels. These were descriptions of multiple role (metaxis), multiple logic (metacognition) and multiple emotions (meta-emotion). The key moments were again scrutinised for evidence of metaxis, metacognition and meta-emotion. Chapter Six explores these three concepts and defines these as catalysts within dramatic engagement in process drama for language education.
At the end of the reiterative data and writing cycles, to validate the phenomenographic approach, the entire research method was interrogated to determine the appropriateness of the methodology. The following questions, adapted from Luft and Overgaard (2013) were used.
1. What is the researcher’s current understanding of phenomenography and how does it fit with process drama, language education and dramatic engagement?
2. Has anything been missed?
A presentation was made at this point by the researcher at the World Phenomenology Conference at Harvard University in 2014 of this practical application of phenomenography in process drama and language education (Pheasant 2014). Analysis had been made of the key moments on multiple levels – narrative, role and tension, playbuilding, roleplaying, sensemaking, metaxis, meta-emotion and metacognition. Feedback was given from other phenomenological and phenomenographic researchers of the importance of the participant experience as an event within the phenomenon of dramatic engagement and that a closer scrutiny should be made of these momentary and transformative events. Therefore, further exploration was undertaken of the transformative events in the key moments and this has informed Chapter Seven, and a rewrite of the literature review to include transformative learning theory.
As more refined processes within phenomenography were utilised, some specific issues arose that had to be addressed in the research and writing process. In applying Akerlind’s work in using phenomenography
to research teacher training (Åkerlind 2008), a validity check was performed at this final stage of the research. The interrogative questions were asked about the research.
1. How is the researcher ensuring that they take a logical and empirical approach?
2. By what axes or criteria is the researcher plotting the experiences of the participants along spectrum lines to describe different experiences and create metaphors?
3. Is the spectrum analysis along a straight continuum (from awareness of the concept to unawareness) or described as pieces of a whole (like a pie)?
4. By describing the participants along these spectrums, how is the researcher in turn then describing and clarifying their understanding of the phenomenon?
5. Could the researcher use additional phenomenographic techniques to look at the comparison between each participant's notion of dramatic engagement by four lenses - contrast, generalisation, separation and fusion? (Åkerlind 2008)
These questions were addressed in an ongoing manner in the Researcher Journal. Based on each participant’s experiences, four profiles of types of participants within dramatic engagement were constructed. This involved resorting of data according to participant and analysing further the impact of the facilitator. Further analysis was made of the researcher notes regarding personal responses to narrative, role, tension, playbuilding, roleplaying, sensemaking, metaxis, metacognition and meta- emotion. By defining these participant types, and surfacing facilitator and researcher perspectives, four distinct models emerged which allowed a further mode of analysis of dramatic engagement from multiple perspectives. This enhanced the phenomenographic outcome space. Defining the three key moments in the research, one in each workshop, data was re-sorted by these four models. Revisiting the data again and undertaking selective coding of the major themes across all sources provided validation of theory within practice. This has allowed for a greater phenomenographic description of the aesthetic experience in language education.
Defining the three key specific moments in the research (one in each workshop) the data was sorted by model and narratives of the experience for each participant type was written. This consolidated findings from the four case studies and allowed for a final phenomenographic description of the aesthetic experience in language learning through process drama. This has informed Chapter Seven.
The final reduction and bracketing process assessed the measurable notions of dramatic engagement and then looked what else was there. Use was made of rubrics to capture the experience of the participants and share the more ethereal aspects of their phenomena.
This methodology has allowed exploration in detail of the research question:
What is the nature of dramatic engagement in process drama for language education?
To address this question, three sub-questions were constructed:
1. How do role, narrative and tension contribute to dramatic engagement in process drama for language education?
2. How do playbuilding, roleplaying and sensemaking contribute to dramatic engagement in process drama for language education?
3. How do metaxis, metacognition and meta-emotion contribute to dramatic engagement in process drama for language education?