LA FORMACIÓN Y LA ESTRUCTURA DE LOS MEDIOS

For the student teachers’ written reflections, I approached analysing the data differently from the interviews. I adopted Strauss and Corbin’s (1998) ‘open coding’ as the first step in analysing student teachers’ written reflections. Open coding is ‘the analytic process through which concepts are identified and their properties and dimensions are discovered in data’ (Strauss and Corbin, 1998, p. 101).

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There are a number of ways of approaching analysing the data via ‘open coding’. Cohen, Manion & Morrison (2011, p. 516) explained that ‘it could be performed on a line-by-line, phrase-by-phrase, sentence-by-sentence, paragraph-by-paragraph or unit- of-text-by-unit-of-text basis’. Then, the codes can be grouped into categories and the researcher gives a title or name to the categories, based on a criterion that was decided by the researcher (e.g. concerning a specific theme, based on similar words, similar concepts, or similar meanings). The title of the category should be more abstract than the specific concepts or contents of the codes that it subsumes (Strauss & Corbin, 1998, p. 116). In undertaking such grouping, it is important that all the data fit into the group consistently, that there are no negative cases (Cohen, Manion & Morrison, 2011).

4.9.2.1 Analysing Student Teachers’ Written Reflections using ‘Open Coding’ Keeping the concept of ‘open coding’ in mind, I began reading student teachers’ written reflection carefully. I noticed that there were two threads emerging from the data which were relevant to my research interests. The first thread concerns my interest at the level of ‘product’ or the ‘what’, that is the topics student teachers write about in their reflections. The other concerns my interests at the ‘process’ level or the ‘how’, the evidence in student teachers’ journals which shows the level of engagement in their reflection process, for example, evidence of them analysing classroom incidents, drawing inferences and generalisations from particular incidents, and linking theory to practice. I considered these as the features of reflective writing. Thus, I took the decision to analyse the student teachers’ written reflections further in two stages.

a) Stage 1 Analysis: Topics of Student Teachers’ Written Reflections

I read each journal entry to ‘break open’ (Strauss and Corbin, 1998; Glaser, 1992) the sentences in the paragraphs to identify the issues being discussed in the reflections. I gave each issue an appropriate code, labelling the codes to describe as accurately as possible the issues found in student teachers’ written reflections. I coded the issues by highlighting and colour coding the sentences in student teachers’ written reflections (see Figure 4.4). I coded the issues found in both student teachers’ weekly and daily written reflections.

Stage 1 analysis was where I applied the quantitative analysis to the data. I wanted to identify the topic areas of the issues discussed in student teachers’ reflections

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and which topics student teachers write about most and least in their written reflections. During this process, I noticed that the issues could be found in different parts of the written reflections. For example, ‘classroom discipline’ would be an example of an issue that some of these student teachers wrote about in their reflections. This issue was later grouped under the larger ‘topic’ of ‘Classroom Management’, together with other identified issues such as ‘time management’ and ‘giving instructions’. Each issue can either be the subject of one sentence or a sequence of two, three or more sentences. Since I needed to determine which ‘topics’ were the most frequent and least frequent discussed in the written reflections, I had to find a way to code and calculate the issues systematically and consistently to validate the quantitative analysis. So, I decided to use the term ‘instance’ to indicate an occurrence of an issue in student teachers’ written reflections which was contained in one sentence or over an unbroken sequence of two or more sentences. Then, I used the following rule to code and count the instances: i) if the issue was found in the subsequent sentences in the same paragraph I counted them as one instance; ii) if the issue was found in two sentences but separated by another sentence (or more) discussing a different issue(s), I counted the sentences as two instances of the same issue (see Table 4.10).

Next, I grouped together the similar issues under broad topics areas according to my interpretation of these issues. For example, I grouped together issues such as ‘discipline’, ‘time management’, and ‘giving instructions’ under the topic ‘Classroom Management’, and issues such as ‘pupils’ participation and behaviour’ under the topic ‘Focus on Learning’. Then, I reviewed the issues for each topic to check that I was satisfied with my categorisations. The process of interpretation, however, was not easy or straightforward. Occasionally, it might seem that a sentence could be categorised in two different ways and I would therefore need to make a choice since it would invalidate the quantitative analysis to do so. For example, in the first paragraph in Figure 4.4, the student teacher wrote: ‘...the class became a bit chaotic during groupwork activity...there were a few passengers in the group and they started talking while their friends were doing work’. Is this an instance of ‘discipline’ or ‘pupils’ participation and behaviour’? In each case of this kind I would have to make a judgement. In this case I categorised the sentence as an instance of the issue of ‘discipline’, because the main concern of the student teachers seemed to me to be one of classroom discipline and of his/her own ability in controlling the ‘chaos’, rather than one of pupils’ participation. So, in the

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analysis I had to decide and choose one ‘issue’ in each sentence or sequence of sentences, count that as one instance, and then categorise the issue under one topic. I used my judgement and my interpretation to my best ability to code and classify the issues based on my knowledge and experiences as a teacher and teacher educator.

At the end of this process of analysis, I ended up with thirty issues grouped into seven topics from the student teachers’ written reflections. The seven topics are: i) Focus on Planning and Delivering ESL Lessons, ii) Classroom Management, iii) Focus on Learning, iv) School Environment, v) Support, vi) Teacher’s General Attributes, and vii) Teacher’s Use of Language in the Classroom. Figure 4.3 shows the steps of the coding process for analysing student teachers’ written reflections in Stage 1. Table 6.2 in Chapter 6 shows the list of topics and issues of student teachers’ written reflections. I also used ‘sub-topics’ to refer to issues for each broad topic.

Figure 4.3: Stage 1 Analysis for Written Reflections

I used a simple calculation method to find the percentage for each topic to help answer the question of which topic student teachers write most in their reflections. I counted the instances in each issue/sub-topic against the total number of instances in all seven major topics. I then converted the fraction obtained for each topic into a percentage (see Table 6.2 in Chapter 6). Thus, I was able to measure and compare between each topic and see which ones the prominent topics in student teachers’ written reflections are. This analysis was also helpful as it provides a quantitative basis from which the qualitative data is situated, and thus the qualitative data can be seen in perspective.

Read each entry, sentence-by-sentence to identify issues being discussed in the journals.

Code each issue with appropriate labelling. These issues then become 'instances'. Code and count the instances according to a specific rule.

Group together similar issues under broad topics. For each 'topic' there are a number of 'issues'/'sub-topics'.

128 Figure 4.4: Coding Process for Written Reflections

Table 4.10: Grouping Instances into Issues and Topics

No. Instance Issue Topic

1 However, the class became a bit chaotic during groupwork activity. (1)

Discipline Classroom Management 2 I realised that there were a few

passengers in the group and they started talking while their friends were doing work. (1)

Pupils’ Participation and Behaviour

Focus on Learning

3 To solve this problem, I should prepare activity that requires every member’s contribution. (1)

Language Learning Activities and Strategies

Focus on Planning and Delivering ESL Lessons

4 Other than that, the pupils lost focus (1) when other group was reading the text.

Discipline Classroom Management 5 I think I have to ask them read in a

different way. (2)

Language Learning Activities and Strategies

Focus on Planning and Delivering ESL Lessons

6 Maybe I can ask them to read the text using sheep’s voice or add some sheep’s sound in between the paragraph. (2)

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b) Stage 2 Analysis: Features of Reflective Writing in Student Teachers’ Written Reflections

In the second stage, I analysed the written reflections a second time, again following ‘open coding’ procedure. I started by reading the journal entries once more to see how student teachers expressed themselves in the reflections. As I was doing this, I noticed that student teachers’ written reflections have a number of features. However, in this stage I only applied qualitative analysis to identify the features of student teachers’ written reflections. I colour coded the sentences in student teachers’ written reflections, giving each one an appropriate label to indicate the possible feature of reflective writing (see Figure 4.4). Then, I examined these codes further, combining them into larger categories. At the end of the process, five main categories emerged from my analysis process. These categories are the features of reflective writing in student teacher’ written reflections. These features are: ‘Evaluation’, ‘Reasoning’, ‘Self-Realisation’, ‘Problem Solving’, and ‘Describing Events’. I developed a definition to describe each feature based on the characteristics I found in student teachers’ written reflections (see Table 6.3 in Chapter 6) and the expressions student teachers used in writing their written reflections. Figure 4.5 illustrates the second stage of the analysis process of student teachers’ written reflections.

Sometimes I could see that there was more than one feature that emerged from the journal entry. For example, in Table 4.11, the student teacher wrote in the first sentence: ‘The class became a bit chaotic’. In this sentence, I coded and interpreted it as ‘identifying problems’ and categorised it as a feature of ‘Problem Solving’. Then in the second sentence the student teacher wrote: ‘There were a few passengers in the group, and they started talking while their friends were doing work’. I coded and interpreted this sentence as ‘reason for problem’. I categorised this sentence as ‘Reasoning’. So, one journal entry could contain more than one feature and these features could be different features. However, more than one of the same features could also be found in one journal entry. For example, in the fourth sentence in Table 4.11 the student teacher wrote: ‘The pupils lost focus when other group was reading the text’. I coded and interpreted this sentence as ‘identifying problems’. I then categorised it under the feature ‘Problem Solving’. More explanation about features of reflective writing in Chapter 6.

130 Figure 4.5: Stage 2 Analysis for Written Reflections

Table 4.11: Coding and Categorising the Features of Reflective Writing

No. Instance Code Features

1 However, the class became a bit chaotic during groupwork activity.

Identifying problems Problem Solving

2 I realised that there were a few passengers in the group and they started talking while their friends were doing work.

Reason for problem Reasoning

3 To solve this problem, I should prepare activity that requires every member’s contribution.

Solutions or suggestion

Problem Solving

4 Other than that, the pupils lost focus when other group was reading the text.

Identifying problems

5 I think I have to ask them to read in a different way.

Solutions or suggestion

6 Maybe I can ask them to read the text using

sheep’s voice or add some sheep’s sound in between the paragraph.

4.10 Chapter Summary

This chapter presents the methodology of my research. Considering the main aim of my research that is to gain an understanding of how reflection is conceived by the key participants (trainee teachers and their tutors) on a teacher education programme in Malaysia and to explore what ‘reflection’ involves, I decided that a mixed methods research would be suitable for my study. In adopting this approach, I used both

Read each journal entry to identify how student teachers expressed themselves in the written reflections.

Colour code sentences and label them accordingly to indicate the possible features of reflective writing.

Examine and combine codes into larger categories. The 'categories' are the 'features' of reflective writing.

Define the features of reflective writing based on the characteristics and expressions used in student teachers' written reflections.

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qualitative and quantitative procedures in analysing the data in student teachers’ and teacher educators’ interviews and student teachers’ written reflections. This helped me to explore in greater detail and extensively about ‘reflection’ in this study. For example, through the interviews I investigated what the student teachers and teacher educators understood by the term ‘reflection’, the benefits, values and roles the reflection plays in developing future teachers, and the adequacy of the support and guidance provided to the student teachers in writing their reflections during teaching practice. From a textual analysis of the written reflections, student teachers’ engagement could be explored, and the quality, depth and features of the ‘reflection’ could be examined. The next three chapters contains the analysis of the data of this research.

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