After the first Holy Given School involved in this research project, South Korea 2008, I met with some of my critical friends and validation group to reflect on the interviewing procedure, the questions being asked in the interview schedule, and students’ responses.
Throughout this whole research process, my priority was for students’ own voices to be heard as clearly as possible expressing what was happening in their own lives, to assist in identifying themes and signs that would indicate whether transformative learning had occurred for them or not. I discussed this with members of my critical friends and validation group. Both questionnaires and interviews had been conducted for most of the students in the first school involved in this research, and although questionnaires offer
relatively straightforward data collection and analysis, as noted by Harris and Brown, they can tend towards being objectively ‘disconnected from everyday life’ (2010:2) and not allow students to so freely express themselves in identifying changes that have, or have not, taken place in their lives in the school. This is particularly true in high-context25 Asian cultures
where people prefer to communicate their thoughts, feelings, reflections and perspectives in a more indirect, ‘abstract implicit manner’ (Merkin, 2009). Further, although questionnaires were translated into the local language in the first school, it was recognised that conducting interviews minimises misinterpretation by students of the questions by the particular language used and allows students to seek elaboration and clarification of questions being asked (Harris & Brown, 2010:2). Another benefit of interviews is that they provide the opportunity to be open enough to facilitate authentic responses, although care must still be taken to ensure the way in which questions are being asked is not leading students to respond in a certain way. Consequently, it was agreed that it would be more beneficial to focus on conducting recorded and transcribed interviews from this point forward, rather than completing written questionnaires, and this approach was implemented.
Further discussion took place around the preference of students responding to the interview schedule in their own language – written or spoken. Although my critical friends and validation group noted that some students preferred to answer questions in either written or spoken English even if it were not their first language, we were nonetheless in agreement that interpreters should be provided in all schools and interview questions asked in a student’s first language wherever possible. Thus, some interviews would require two steps of translation, as well as transcription and analysis. We recognised that treble handling of raw data could potentially lead to some loss in translation, but still considered this preferable to the potential inability of students being able to fully understand questions and freely express themselves in English as a second (or third) language. Interpreters and translators would also need to be carefully selected for their impartiality and ability to interpret and translate effectively. This action would be implemented for the second school onwards.
25 High-context cultures are those in which most information to be communicated is already shared by people
in the society, leaving very little information to be communicated explicitly. Communicating the context behind the message is therefore the focus. In low-context individualistic cultures, most information needs to be incorporated into the message. Communicating detailed background information is the focus, with little need for context Merkin, Rebecca S., 2009. Cross-cultural communication patterns - Korean and American communication. Journal of Intercultural Communication [Online], Issue 20, May. Available at: http://www.immi.se/intercultural [Accessed 11 August 2016]
Another concern I discussed with members of my critical friends and validation group was that when conducting interviews in the first school involved in this research cycle, I sensed some students may be giving answers to my questions they believed would please me, or ‘make a good impression’. This has been referred to in literature as ‘social desirability distortion’ (Richman et al., 1999:755), and in my context I was concerned that ‘some people may respond based on what they believe is socially desirable rather than what they think is true’ (Harris & Brown, 2010:2). When this was discussed with my critical friends, they confirmed the validity of my concern in the cultures represented in Holy Given. Although not unusual as a mark of respect, particularly in Asian cultures for the position I held in the school (Chuah, 2010), it was agreed that from this point forward, in order to set students at their ease in responding to questions, members of my administrative staff would conduct all interviews on my behalf.
After categorising and codifying collected data from responses to the interview schedule in the first school under the strands of the curriculum framework, and analysing and considering the results, I conferred with two of my critical friends who had worked with me in the formation of the curriculum and who had experience teaching the curriculum in Holy Given Schools. I sought their input to gain fresh perspective on the types of questions being asked, and to ascertain if they thought the questions were eliciting responses that could help identify what was going on for students in terms of transformative learning. I shared my own reflections, noting that the responses we were drawing by the type of questions being asked helped identify the impact of the curriculum, content and ways in which teachers could teach more effectively. Although these gave good insight and highlighted areas for potential development, and I was still able to gather sufficient clues in the data to analyse students’ transformative learning experiences for the first school in this research project, I was nonetheless still not convinced that I was asking the right questions to enable me to assess properly the full extent to which students had, or had not, engaged in transformative learning. A personally disquieting concern I also shared in this regard was that when framing my questions, I was uncertain as to just how much I had been influenced by my own Western (mindset) model that relied heavily on assessing the acquisition, understanding and application of knowledge, rather than on the impact of that knowledge on the students themselves. Yang et al and Nisbett et al acknowledge the differences in cognitive patterns across cultures in the way people ask questions and seek information. ‘Western cultures are associated with an analytic and low-context cognitive pattern, along with individualism, while Asian cultures are associated with a holistic, high- context cognitive pattern, along with interdependence and collectivist social orientation’
(Nisbett et al., 2001; Yang et al., 2011:1). My desire was to ask questions that were relevant, meaningful and connected with students of other cultures on a deeper level. Bouma acknowledges the interactive value of qualitative research in this regard:
Qualitative research allows more continuous reflection on the research in progress, more interaction with the participants in the research, and there is usually more room for ongoing alteration as the research proceeds ... if one approach is not working ... later interviews and observations can be adjusted accordingly (2000:176).
Consequently, some questions were reconsidered and reframed, and three new questions were added. The new questions probed for clues of changes that had occurred for students through the school that could be unearthed in their descriptions of the school to someone else. The question was, ‘How would you describe Holy Given School to a friend who was thinking of doing it? The second question added to two existing questions regarding changed relationship and communication with God. The new question, ‘Have you encountered God during the school? If yes, how?’ explored this relationship further, and together these questions were designed to probe more deeply whether students had moved in their relationship with God as a result of Holy Given. Further, a significant number of students came from a Pentecostal background where they had learned a ‘prosperity gospel’,26 and because I have taught a theology of suffering, I also wanted to know if
students’ thinking in this area had been impacted both informatively and transformatively27
(Kegan, 2009:42-3). Consequently, the third new question asked, ‘What was your understanding of pain and suffering before the school? Has it changed? If so, how?’