The semi-structured interview was conducted after the focus groups, because this method yielded complex data with an emphasis on subjectivity involving the Uzbek language teachers’ stories, images, and descriptions. Part of this process was the sharing of sensitive information that they would not have wanted to share during the focus group interview format. Additionally, semi-
structured interview procedures were employed because they provided me with an avenue to ask clarifying questions or ask for a teacher to expand upon a point. The purpose was to uncover what the teachers do and why they do what they do for language assessment. The semi-structured interviews (and focus group interviews) provided answers to the “why” question, or in this study, the cognitions behind what they did with certain assessment practices.
4.3.2.1 Recruitment and participants. The recruitment for the semi-structured interview was based on who participated in the focus-group interviews. At the end of each focus group, I informed all participants of the third part of the study, which involved a one-on-one interview, and then gave each of them my student and personal email accounts. I asked them to contact me if they would like to talk further about assessment, and that the interviews were completely voluntary and confidential.
Of the fifty-three participants in the focus group, forty of those teachers contacted me by email and wanted to have a personal semi-structured interview. Because of the limited time and resources available to me to conduct all forty interviews, I selected participants based on region, and chose twelve teachers. Thus, I conducted twelve semi-structured interviews with one person from each province and the autonomous region of Karakalpakistan. Of the twelve participants, eleven were female and one was male. These teachers had been teaching English at the
university level for approximately eight to fifteen years.
4.3.2.2 Semi-structured interview protocol and procedure. The semi-structured
interview consisted of eight questions (see Table 11 below for questions and Appendix G for full Semi-Structured Interview Protocol):
Table 11 Semi-Structured Interview Questions
Can you please tell me about a time in your life / an experience when you took a high-stakes language test? How did you feel?
Can you tell me about an interesting experience when you were trying to assess a student’s language abilities?
Can you remember how you felt when YOU were being assessed/tested?
Are you respected more by your peers if your students do well on a test? How is language testing looked at by your administration, at your university?
Do students get/receive more money or prestige if they do well on language tests? What happens if they do not do well?
What are the economic benefits to students of doing well in school?
How large a role does the department head, dean, or higher-up administrative person have in the creation, implementation, and scoring of your language tests?
Can you talk about/discuss any Uzbekistani cultural rules (spoken and not spoken) for assessing students?
All interviews were conducted in July 2017. The procedure consisted of three separate steps. I arrived at my office at the Flying High Training Site early before each scheduled interview, with the day and time agreed upon by me and each teacher. All interviews were in a private, quiet, individual office: my office at the training site. I made sure that the IRB consent form was printed out for each interviewee to sign and date. Finally, when each participant arrived, I greeted them and thanked them.
At the start of the interview, I read through the consent form and had each teacher sign the form and ask me any questions about the interview procedure. (For the teachers who participated in the semi-structured interview, they heard the purpose of the study two times before – once during the survey and again for the focus group interview. All teachers were aware of the purpose of the study and wanted to participate.) As in the focus group interviews, I
explained to each teacher that I would audio-record the conversation and take written notes. No teacher opposed being recorded, and they all allowed me to take written notes in order to keep
the conversation going and to help track substantive matters. I also instructed each teacher not to state their real name or the name of the school they were working in, to protect their anonymity. After the initial greeting and instructions, I asked the participants the set of eight questions above including clarification and repetition questions. Finally, at the end of interview, I summarized what was asked and discussed during the session. The length of time for each interview varied. The shortest time was just over 12 minutes, while the longest was 1 hour and 8 minutes. The total amount of recorded time was 7 hours and 55 minutes, with an average interview time of 40 minutes.
I provided each interviewer with an Uzbek pseudonym to protect their identity. (See below for Table 12, that shows the province the teacher came from, the length of the interview, and the pseudonym given to the teacher.) These pseudonyms are the same as the ones from the focus groups. I used the same pseudonyms to track their reported cognitions from the focus group to the semi-structured interview for data analysis.
Table 12 Semi-Structured Interview Information
Pseudonym Province of Work Length of Interview
Interview 1 Klara Tashkent 44:59
Interview 2 Svetlana Samarkand 31:13
Interview 3 Ulugbek Djizzak 32:16
Interview 4 Diora Khorezm 41:01
Interview 5 Umida Karakalpakistan 34:07
Interview 6 Nodira Andijan 1:05:36
Interview 7 Aziza Fergana 32:10
Interview 8 Kamila Navoi 32:07
Interview 9 Mohira Kashkadarya 34:30
Interview 10 Feruza Namangan 12:01
Interview 11 Nozliya Syrdara 24:39
Over the months of July, August, September, and October 2017, I listened to the recordings and transcribed verbatim what was said in each interview. As with the focus group interviews, the same transcription procedure with the software Dragon v. 5.0.0. for Mac was used.