2) OTROS MERCADOS

Yin (2014) suggests that interviews are one of the most important sources of case study evidence. Interviewing allows the researcher to capture the relative perspectives of participants by offering “in depth, open ended inquiry into people’s perspectives and experiences” (Patton, 2002, p. 203). Clarification of issues emerging during classroom observations and document study (ibid) can also be gained. My primary reason for interviewing was to collect data on what students felt about L2 writing, specifically when writing in pairs or groups. By observing the events and then interviewing the teacher and student participants after the observations, I found that I was able to fill out an interpretation of what was happening in the classroom that would not have been apparent by mere observation alone. I carried out my interviews with the teacher and student participants for a period of two months, recording, and later transcribing them, for further analysis and interpretation. The interviews revealed some unreported and perhaps uncomfortable aspects of writing in a university setting that were hard for students to discuss with their pair/group members or even with their teachers.

The interview sessions with the three academic writing teachers were conducted individually. The individual interviews provided opportunities for intensive exploration of each teacher’s perspectives on the different approaches to teaching writing in the classrooms. On the other hand, as students worked in groups for their writing tasks, it was useful for me to conduct group interviews to listen to their opinions about writing in the university classrooms. A group interview provides views of a larger group of persons and deliberately tries to surface the views of each person in the group (Krueger & Casey, 2009).

Given that the range of language proficiency of the participants varied, I did consider whether some of them might want to be interviewed in Bahasa Malaysia rather than in English. However, many opted for English to be used, saying:

I am not that fluent so the interview sessions could be a place for me to practice my English.

I am used to speaking in English at home and with friends, so I think it should not be a problem. But if I cannot recall a word in English, I will use Malay. Hope that is ok.

I adopted an open, less structured, approach to interviewing, paying little attention to linguistic abilities, (particularly when English was spoken), in order to capture the personal aspects of the participants’ practices and perceptions in relation to the context under investigation. I used the shorter case study interview approach, mostly focusing for about one hour or so, with the option of it being open -ended (Yin, 2014). I gathered information relevant to my second sub-research question – ‘to know what factors enhance

or inhibit L2 writing in groups among students in higher education’. I tried to apply a

sensitive approach in order to understand the depth and breadth of their academic writing problems.

I used semi-structured, open-ended questions to search for their views, values, concepts, experiences and challenges when trying to achieve expectations. The three academic teachers were interviewed individually whereas the students were mostly interviewed in groups. It is hoped that this qualitative data on linguistic ability, background knowledge, experiences, beliefs, expectations, and mutual group cooperation could be useful to other student writers and teachers in helping to achieve a better understanding of writing practices in the HE context.

I interviewed students in pairs and groups, deliberately trying to capture the views of each group member. This helped to answer my third sub-research question – ‘to learn about

students’ perceptions, beliefs, and their attitudes towards group writing as a vehicle to writing in the university’. The respondents (10 student writers) were not selected, as this

was based on a voluntary basis, but everybody was briefed on how the interview sessions would be conducted. The interview questions were open ended and interviews ranged from 45 minutes to one and a half hours. All were audio recorded. Based on an analysis of first round interviews (collected in April 2016), a second round of data collection was initiated. I also audio recorded interviews with the three teachers after each classroom observation. It was important to have a schedule so that student and teachers participants knew when their interview sessions would be. Even though all the conversations were recorded, I also wrote additional comments on my Interview Protocol Sheet (see Figure 4.2).

Figure 4.2: Interview Protocol

The qualitative data obtained during observation was typed out and collated into the various elements/themes. Interviews were transcribed and the data was analysed and interpreted (see Figures 4.3 and 4.4).

Figure 4.4: Sample of transcribed interview

The interview guide for the teachers and student participants was designed to ensure that I collected comparable data across the three writing modules. This guide included questions about demographic information, writing practices around student academic literacy development, views, values, concepts, experiences, challenges, beliefs, perceptions, expectations, achievements, preferences and commitments. The questions were open-ended in order to enhance the opportunity for truthfulness, reflection and exploration (Bailey, 2009, p. 73). See Appendix C for the list of teachers’ questions and students’ questions used in the interview sessions.