Mitos de la violencia familiar

One of the advantages of observational methods, as Axinn & Pearce (2006: 9) point out, is that they can be ‘relatively unstructured’, and have the potential to ‘yield unique sources of insight and introspection’. They also quote from Burawoy (1991, cited in Axinn & Pearce, 2006: 9) that participant observation methods provide the opportunity to researchers to put themselves “in the shoes” of the people they study and use introspection as a tool.

The qualitative researcher’s field notes contain what has been seen and heard by the researcher, without interpretation. In other words, the participant observer’s primary duty is to record what happened without inferring the feelings of the participants (Maykut & Morehouse, 1994; p.73) As Denzin and Lincoln (2003) indicate, there is no ‘pure’, ‘objective’, ‘detached’ observation, because all observations involve the observer’s participation in the world being studied. The effects of the observer’s presence can never be erased from affecting the feelings of the participants. The researcher was trying to limit her interfering during the fieldwork. In this two phase study, the first phase was carried out in an English secondary school. I attended and experienced their Circle Time. As it is the nature of Circle Time that everyone should be encouraged to be involved, I observed while participating. I wrote a report to describe what happened after each session, just as I did for Circle Time in the Chinese school. I conducted Circle Time

myself in a Chinese secondary school in the second phase of the study. There were difficulties in reporting the observation, as I had to conduct three Circle Time sessions in one afternoon; I made notes after the afternoon sessions. I did not intend to write down every sentence the students said, while I described what happened, and made notes of the students’ reactions. When trust was built up after several weeks, I started using a tape recorder with the students. I found that although students agreed to my recording what they had said, some students were not comfortable in using it, and some suggested I should get rid of it. I gave up using it although it could have helped to produce a more detailed observation record. Participants have a right to know what is going to happen to them or around them and to agree or disagree to taking part (Angrosino & De Pérez, 2003). This also relates to ethical issue for researcher’s consideration (refer to§4.7). In so doing, students were offered a more free and comfortable environment to express their feeling and reveal their issues. Combining multiple methods, data collected by the other methods could supply the information needed without the tape recorder. During the fieldwork, students and teachers were encouraged rather than required to participate in studies (de Vaus, 2001).

4.3.4 Documents

Two kinds of documents were used in this study: personal documents and school documents. Firstly, it is possible to find out some interesting data from students’ personal compositions and diaries.

we had done during Circle Time. Students in their compositions show strong positive views towards the Circle Time sessions.

“…Actually, everybody should be a listener. A listener is a person can listen to others and learn from others as well. An expressive person is a person has his/her own ideas which mean the thought is moving on with the lesson. In fact, I think all lessons should focus on talking about the feeling, listening to others, and playing games for relaxing.” (CD-03)

In most Chinese schools, it is common for students to write a weekly report about their feelings. It is a way to talk about some issues, to discuss with teachers. The class teacher will write a comment or response to their problems. Some students also wrote about their feelings about Circle Time which took place in that week.

“Today was our turn to have the circle time session. It was delivered by Miss Wu Ling who is very kind. I like this subject because it’s easy and we can also play games. Miss Wu Ling teaches lesson from a fun perspective, I think many students like her. Otherwise, we from Class B wouldn’t fight with Class A for the sessions.

Today, we talked about boys and girls. The teacher asked us a first question: ‘what do you think is better to be a boy or a girl’? Everyone had an answer, especially a girl said, ‘I wish I was a boy’ because if she was a boy, life would be simple.

Another boy wanted to be a girl because he thought now when girls hit boys, it is fine; but boys cannot fight back (as teachers said boys should behave like gentlemen).

Miss Wu also asked: ‘in your mind, what do you think a good boy or girl?’ We answered that boys should be like gentlemen, sunny also; girls should be like ladies, smart and kind.

Personally, I think a good boy should be gentle and a good girl should be kind, lovely and soft...

After the session, Miss Wu also led us to have a game. That’s the end of this week’s

session.” (CD-05)

The official document of students’ academic results is also used in this study to assist as evidence. As I mentioned before, the students in each year group were equally divided into 12 classes. The 12 classes have almost the same number of boys and girls, the same number of successful students and lower achieving students. As a result, the average scores of each subject had only a slight difference. At the end of term, the students’ academic results were evaluated again, to analyse teachers’ and students’ work.

These kinds of data will be used as part of pre-test and post-test to generalize and support the experimental study (refer§5.1.3).