4.5.1
The research sites
The study took place in five public primary schools in one particular state in Malaysia where the NQTs graduated from the ITE. The reasons for choosing the participants and the state were practicality and familiarity with the context. The state chosen is where the participants’ schools/workplace is situated, and it was convenient for me to conduct the interviews with them.
4.5.2
Sampling strategy
In this study, I used purposeful sampling, and Creswell (2012) states that using such sampling strategy means that certain sites or people are selected because they possess a similar trait or characteristic. I selected participants who belonged to a common subgroup in the community: teachers who graduated from the same education programme. My participants were five NQTs, who were in the first cohort of a B.Tchg. TESL programme provided by the institution introduced in the background chapter. However, I had to select and present only four NQTs because of the need to report in detail on each NQT.
According to Creswell (2012), the quality of a sample is more important than the number because my intention is not to generalize the findings to a sample population but to develop an in-depth exploration of a central phenomenon. He also warns that a larger number of cases will result in more data and may result in superficial perspectives. Although all the participants have undergone the same teaching programme, each of them was treated as a unique case before their cases were examined collectively to search for insights into the issues raised by the research questions.
4.5.3
Participant recruitment
My working experience as a lecturer in the ITE had assisted me in gaining access to the participants, who were my ex-students. In August 2014, I mentioned to a few of the students in the cohort about my study, and I expressed my intention to search for volunteers. A few of them seemed interested in participating in the study. Due to practicality, the sample was chosen from those who had opted for my home state in their posting application forms. The results of their posting were not known until the end of December 2014. I contacted the programme co-ordinator and appointed her
as my gatekeeper. It is important to have a gatekeeper ,as mentioned by Hammersley and Atkinson (1995), because a gatekeeper helps researchers locate people and assists in the identification of places to study. She provided me with the list of where the trainees were posted. I contacted them through email and/or WhatsApp (a smartphone application) and asked for volunteers. Those who were interested, contacted me, and I provided them with further details, which consisted of a brief outline of the information of the study. Once they confirmed their interest, I sent them a copy of the participant information sheet and consent forms (Appendix D) via email before I embarked on my initial data collection sessions, which were Skype interviews. I also informed the participants that their identity would not be revealed and it would remain anonymous in any part of the research. In addition, I assured them that any data gathered in the study will be kept confidential. The study was carried out took over a maximum period of 12 months (March, 2015 - February, 2016).
4.5.4
The participants: four newly qualified English teachers
This section includes a brief description of the four participants in this study.
Alice: She is a Chinese teacher teaching in a national-type Chinese school (NTCS).
She received her education in an NTCS at both primary and secondary school levels. She did not enjoy learning the English language as a subject during her schooling years and only developed a love for the target language during her foundation years at the ITE.
Joanna: She is also a Chinese teacher teaching in an NTCS. However, during her
primary and secondary school years, she attended national schools. She perceived learning the English language as fun.
Salina: Salina is an Indian teacher teaching in national-type Tamil school, and she
received her education in a convent school where English was widely spoken. She enjoyed learning the English language during her school years especially when she was selected to take part in choral speaking competitions.
Erni: She is a Malay teacher teaching in a national school where the majority of the
students are Malay. Erni attended national primary and secondary schools. She did not share much about her schooling experience since everything seemed fine to her.
All together I have five participants but I decided to report on only four of them (Alice, Salina, Erni and Joanna) for the following reasons:
First, since Nur, the fifth participant, belongs to the mission school, I thought initially that it would be good to choose participants who do not have similar backgrounds with regards to the schools they were posted to. This would give the study insight into different aspects of the school culture, activities that they do and their routines as well as the participants’ beliefs about teaching-learning and about their actual classroom practices. However, I felt that there were a lot of similarities in her beliefs and classroom practices that were shared by the other four participants. Second, the four participants were from different school types in Malaysia which allows a fair range of different data presentation on the education in Malaysia. Although two of the participants, Alice and Joanna, were from national-type Chinese schools (NTCS), each with a similar school ethos, both of the participant offer unique and interesting data. They have slightly different beliefs about teaching-learning in NCTS classroom. Salina was chosen because she worked in a national-type Tamil school and her data was distinct from the others, although there were also similarities in beliefs and classroom practices to a certain extent. Third, initially, I thought of excluding Erni when reporting the data since I encountered little progression in her classroom practices. However, her data might provide different insights on NQTs’ beliefs and classroom practices.
4.5.5
My relationship with the participants
Connelly and Clandinin (2000) point out that the researcher and participant relationship determines the quality and the quantity of the information gathered. My role in this research was that of a “non-participant observer” (Cohen et al., 2007) which will be discussed further in Section 4.6.2. Copland et al. (2016) mention that,
Although classroom observation is undoubtedly the best method for finding out what happens in classrooms, it must be remembered that the presence of a non-participant observer, or even only of a tape recorder, will inevitably lead, to some extent, to an alteration of normal behaviour, to what Labov (1972) calls ‘the observer’s paradox’, and allowances must be made for this in the analysis and reporting of the data.”
(p. 13)
Creswell (2009) also suggests that being an insider helps in the familiarity of the context and might help to create a rapport to a certain extent; however, it is important to note that although I had taught the cohort for a semester, my relationship with my participants was not so close, because I only taught them for a particular module and it was a mass lecture. One possible conflict that might arise from being their former
lecturer was that during the initial stage they associated my classroom observation with authority, someone who observed and evaluated (inspectorate role). However, after the initial data collection of classroom observations, the participants began to be more relaxed in terms of sharing their own thoughts and experiences on classroom practices, when I had assured them again that the interviews and classroom observations were only for the purposes of my PhD research.
In addition, Cohen et al. (2011) note that it is important for the researcher to treat research participants as subjects rather than as objects to be used instrumentally. In this study, I tried my best to create and maintain a good rapport with the participants, and instil them with respect and self-esteem. During the initial stage of the study, I felt that there may have been a degree of social desirability response bias leading them to put on a show and provide me with the responses that they thought I wanted to hear. However, during most of the data collection, their responses were quite blunt about educational issues and they were willing to share the issues that their administrators would not disclose.
Compared to the other three participants, my relationship with Erni was quite close since I supervised her for her two-month practicum in Semester 5. I took this opportunity to make Erni my gatekeeper for the research in addition to my colleague, who was Erni’s programme co-ordinator. Once I received the list of 13 potential participants, I contacted each of them personally. At first, six members from the cohort gave their commitment to the study, but later one had to withdraw due to health issues and five agreed to participate. According to Park (2006), it is very important for the participants to establish trust with the researcher, and the participants will share their life stories only once they feel safe and had built trust with the researcher. Once they had agreed to participate, apart from sending them a copy of the consent form via email, I took the initiative to create a WhatsApp (WA) group, ‘University of Leeds Research’. One of the rationales for creating the group was to disseminate research information. At first, I allowed them to choose the time that was convenient to them for my first Skype interview. Before I embarked on my fieldwork in Malaysia, I had an informal meeting with all of them so that I could learn more about them and for me to share my own experiences as well as the stories of my current and future journeys. After the informal meeting, I informed them that they can used the WA group as a means of communication: for instance, in sharing information about the school activities, classroom practices, issues and concerns related to the study. I took this opportunity to build their trust and gradually, they started opening up to me. At times they would share their personal stories relating to their ‘mint’ teaching
experiences, both positive and negative – for instance, how this research helps them in reflecting on their current practices – and there would also be issues that they shared which might be sensitive to the school management or to the MoE in general. They informed me that they were grateful to be part of my study since my presence was also considered as teaching-learning support like they used to have during the practicum, particularly during SRI, whereby they had the opportunity to watch the video and reflect on their lesson.