The aim was to conduct eight focus groups, purposively organised by gender and ability (according to raw score on the NGRT) to reflect the research questions, across the two schools participating in each study. In each school, an equal number of participants from the two groups was selected for each focus group, in order to ensure that views were invited from a balanced sample of those who had experienced the different orders for both stories and for control and experimental condition. Participants were not aware that their experience of the activities differed from one another.
Participants were asked to share their opinions and habits following a semi-structured interview format with ten guiding questions (see Appendix I). They were encouraged to expand their answers beyond the basic response in order to enable a fuller understanding of their perceptions of the triggers for situational interest manipulated in each experimental task (the manipulated variable being choice or novelty), task
enjoyment and reading, in order to assess if the presence of the manipulation in their reading task had affected their interaction with the storybook, and to understand better the possible implications of situational interest.
Due to timetabling difficulties and pupil commitments in sports activities, it was only possible to run three focus groups in one of the schools taking part in the novelty through story presentation study; in one school that had participated in the choice study, the participants were all drawn from only one class due to timetabling difficulties (one class was off-site).
9.2.1 Participants.
For each of the experimental studies, a total of 32 participants was invited to join small discussion groups of up to four that were split by both gender and ability.
A total of 23 focus groups were conducted across the three studies (8 for Study 1, choice; 8 for Study 2, novelty through story presentation; 7 for Study 3, novelty through non-textual features with a total of 87 participants (M = 3.8). Where possible, each focus group consisted of four purposively sampled participants (i.e. 4 high ability boys; 4 low ability boys; 4 high ability girls; 4 low ability girls), however there were several instances where there were fewer participants because pupils had timetabling commitments or pupils were withdrawn by their teachers because it was felt that they would be caused anxiety by participating in the focus group. In order to maintain the integrity of the characteristics of each focus group, further pupils were only selected to join the groups where it was felt that their ability level was in a similar range to the other participants in that group.
Table 9.1 illustrates the number of participants by gender and ability, as well as mean scores for both the adapted Motivations for Reading Questionnaire and the New Group Reading Test (NGRT) and mean Reading Age.
Table 9.1.
Number of Participants for all Studies by Gender and Ability, Showing Mean Scores for Motivation, NGRT and Reading Age
All Studies Number of participants Motivation Score NGRT Raw Score Reading Age Mean score Range Mean score Range Mean age Range Boys: high ability 22 123 90 – 145 46 43 – 48 11+ 11 – 11+ Boys: low ability 24 108 62 - 146 26 12 - 33 7:05 6:08 – 8:05 All boys 46 115 62 – 146 35 12 – 48 9:02 6:08 – 11+ Girls: high ability 20 117 94 – 149 46 43 – 48 11+ 11 – 11+ Girls: low ability 21 106 68 – 134 29 15 - 40 7:08 6:09 - 9:00 All girls 41 111 68 - 149 37 15 - 48 9:04 6:09 – 11+ Total 87 115 62 – 149 35 12 - 48 9:03 6:08 – 11+
9.2.2 Procedure.
All focus groups took place after the reading comprehension activities had been completed and on the same day as the final activity. These sessions were conducted in a separate classroom or designated quiet space during the school day with the researcher and the participating pupils present. Chairs were set up in a circle to support an informal atmosphere. The procedure for all focus groups in all schools was identical.
The class teachers were given a list of the groups and a randomised order and asked to send the participants to the allocated room.
The focus groups were conducted according to the main ethical procedures outlined in Chapter Three, section 3.2. In addition to this, the following structure was also followed, that emphasised the well-being of all participants.
On arrival, participants were told that they had been randomly selected from the whole cohort to come and talk to the researcher about the activities they had been doing. They were told that they were helping the researcher with work that was trying to understand more about how children their age felt about reading and whether or not having different activities (such as choice, being read part of the story by a visitor and extra features like scratch and sniff stickers) during a reading task was valuable. Participants were told that they did not have to take part at all, did not have to answer the questions if they did not want to and could leave and return to their classroom at any time. Participants were also assured of full confidentiality. A Code of Conduct was explained (see Appendix L). Participants were informed that the session was being audio-recorded. Participants were asked to give their consent and given an opportunity to ask any questions before the recording was started.
Each focus group followed the same format where an ice-breaker activity, started by the researcher, preceded the main questions (see Appendix I). These questions were adapted to reflect the manipulation of each study but were otherwise identical and were used to guide the researcher during each focus group in order to ensure that the same research questions were investigated in each setting.
The focus group questions were structured to reflect the research questions and investigate the views of the participants around the different reading stories and the manipulation, the comprehension questions and their enjoyment of the tasks. The initial questions were designed to be easy to answer to put the children at ease and support the group dynamics for ease of discussion (Greene & Hogan, 2005). Initial
questions were designed to be open-ended, such as ‘do you like reading?’ or ‘did you prefer either of the stories?’ to encourage participants to share their views whilst following a guided format. Follow-up questions, using ‘why’, were used to encourage participants to think more closely about their answers.
All participants were given an opportunity to speak and give their view for each question. Participants were free to ask questions at any time. At the end of the session, participants were invited to ask any further questions.
9.2.3 Analytic procedure.
Each audio recording lasted between 7 minutes 00 seconds and 13 minutes 27 seconds, (mean length 9 minutes 50 seconds) and was transcribed in full. This enabled initial familiarisation with the data, which is considered a worthwhile stage in analysis, particularly for initial identification of themes (Lapadat & Lindsay, 1999). Following this, in order to carry out the analysis of the transcripts, a systematic review of the data was conducted in line with the recommendations of Braun and Clarke (2006). Initially, in order to deepen familiarity with the data, all of the data were read several times. This also allowed the early identification of codes and provided an opportunity to summarise ideas that were relevant to the research questions. Once all relevant features in the transcripts that related to the research questions had been coded, shared features within these codes were identified to form themes. (See Appendix U for a list of codes and Appendix V for a sample of coded transcript). The analysis set out to enrich understanding of the participant perspective of the operationalisation of situational triggers for reading comprehension and task enjoyment. It is limited in that the interpretation of the qualitative data is dependent on the researcher’s interpretation of the transcripts and knowledge of the research area. In this way, it is accepted that underlying features and the presentation of themes are restricted by the researcher’s background and knowledge.