INCUMPLIMIENTO OBLIGACIÓN DE DISOLVER SOCIEDAD O

In all research, the limitations of the study need to be taken into consideration during the process of analysing and reporting the data (Hittleman & Simon, 2006). While the involvement of only female PSTs could be perceived as a limitation in terms of generalisability and relevance to those from non-Arabic cultures, the decision to include only female participants arises because of cultural and religious practice in Saudi Arabia. According to the principles of Islam, a female researcher may not directly contact or interview male participants, and thus all male PSTs were ruled out of this study. However, this limitation can also be seen as strength in terms of informing teaching education within Saudi Arabia. Because of the segregated education system, it is important to present women’s perceptions regarding preparedness to teach. These participants represent the voice of a teaching force of an important and culturally distinct education system for females in Saudi Arabia. It may well be that research exploring male PSTs’ perceptions of preparedness to teach mathematics–who are educated in different universities and have the goal of teaching male students–are different from those for females.

The second limitation was the low number of participants, in comparison to the previously much higher rates of teacher education graduates (approximately 200) per year from each educational institution around Saudi Arabia. As mentioned earlier, the target number of education students has been reduced by the Saudi Ministry of Education as a means of addressing graduate teacher unemployment. This meant that the researcher was not able to access large number of mathematics PSTs at some universities. Moreover, although participants were recruited from 16 colleges of education, only a small number of respondents from some universities (1 – 6) volunteered to participate in this study (see Table 4.2). The

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participants in this study are estimated to be 30% of the cohort size of PSTs who were expected to graduate (approximately 300 PSTs) from the 16 participating colleges of education. Also it appears that the timing of the study influenced participation rates, with the pressure of exams and the practicum reported to have influenced PSTs’ willingness to participate.

Thirdly, because participation in the survey and the interviews was voluntary, this may have introduced bias into the results. It is possible that those who had higher levels of confidence agreed to participate in the survey and interviews, whereas those who were shyer or less confident may have declined to participate. Potentially, this may mean that the results are skewed towards higher feelings of preparedness and efficacy than expressed by the overall cohort of PSTs.

Another limitation of the study is that the data are self-reported. Although self-reported data is suitable for revealing the perceptions, beliefs, and values of the participants, self-reports have their limitations. In this study, the data reflect the participants’ memories of recent and past experiences, their perceptions of themselves as a learner, and their perceptions of themselves as a teacher. In comparing these perceptions collectively, we have no way of knowing how consistent the benchmarking on Likert scales is, nor how accurate their recall is, so the researcher had to rely on the participants to answer honestly (Patton, 2002). Moreover, as discussed earlier, potentially, some cultural influences may have made the participants reticent about providing a negative self-report.

A final limitation is that the interviews needed to be transcribed and then translated into English before analysis. Interview transcriptions can be problematic. For example, if an error is made during the transcription process, this can potentially affect the analysis and interpretation of the interviewees’ words (Bryman, 2007). To mitigate the effects of the transcription and translation process, I, as the researcher and interviewer, transcribed and translated all of the interviews. The researcher’s familiarity with both Arabic and English supported this process. In addition, transcriptions cannot record the more subtle aspects of the interview, such as the tone of voice, use of irony, the length and number of pauses and inflection, which may affect interpretation (Cohen et al., 2011). Similar to the more general limitations of telephone interviews discussed earlier, transcripts cannot capture the non-verbal subtleties that occur during face-to-face interviews, such as the use of gestures and facial expressions.

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4.10 Summary

This study used a mixed-method study design. Following piloting of the questionnaire and interview protocol, quantitative data were collected via 70 items in a questionnaire that used a four-point Likert-type scale. Qualitative data were collected via open-ended questions in the questionnaire and from in-depth interviews that lasted 30–40 minutes—with two interviews carried out face-to-face and 14 conducted via telephone. The questionnaire and the interview protocol were first developed in English and then translated to Arabic.

The target population for the research was female mathematics PSTs studying at Saudi Colleges of Education who were in their final year and who had practicum experience. Cultural and religious reasons meant that males were excluded from the study. The study posed considerable challenges around the recruitment of participants, especially for the interviews. As the Saudi Ministry of Education has recently limited the number of education students due to employment problems, the pool of participants was more restricted than expected. In total, 105 female mathematics PSTs from 16 Colleges of Education responded to the survey and 16 respondents completed interviews.

The questionnaire, initially presented in printed format, was reformatted as an online survey, in an effort to increase access and participation rates. An invitation sent via the mobile app WhatsApp had a response rate of 61% and further invitations sent via Twitter resulted in further recruitments. For analysis, the quantitative data from the Likert scale questions presented in the survey were cleaned and entered into a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. SPSS software was used for statistical analysis and the data were transformed into percentages as well as subjected to further analysis. The recorded interviews were transcribed and translated from Arabic for analysis. Key themes emerging from the transcripts were coded and categorised to allow for quantification of the data.

The study had several limitations:

 The study was only able to focus on female participants for cultural and religious reasons. The findings may therefore not be generalizable to male mathematics PSTs in Saudi Arabia.

 The number of participants was low.

 The data were self-reported and may have been affected by inaccurate memory or by unwillingness to provide a negative self-report.

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 The interviews were transcribed, meaning that nuances (e.g., tone of voice, pauses) could not be captured.

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