Chapter 3 Methodology
3.3 Method of Data Collection
(1988), a metacognitive learner is someone who can “effectively undertake the constructivist process of recognition, evaluation, and when needed, reconstruction of his or her conceptions, perceptions, attitudes and abilities” (p. 239). By embracing a constructivist perspective, this research delves into the perceptions of difference and diversity held by QOED teachers.
Through an examination of their reflections, which are shaped by their own interpretations of personal teaching experiences, this approach allows for a nuanced exploration of how
teachers comprehend and respond to various aspects of their practice. By focusing on the cognitive processes underlying a teacher’s reactions, this study aims to provide a
comprehensive understanding of how QOED teachers navigate the complexities of fostering collaboration, valuing diversity and managing differences within the QOED context.
3.3.1 Interviewees
With the original Inquiry: how QOED teachers perceive and teach collaboration in their classes in China, I conducted eight hour-long interviews with eight teachers who specialise in teaching QOED at various universities in China. These teachers represent a diverse range of educational institutions, including normal universities, comprehensive universities and professional arts universities. Each teacher possesses over five years of experience in teaching QOED. Their individual backgrounds in dance education also exhibit considerable diversity. Some began their dance training at intermediate school, while others started in high school or pursued dance studies at university. The courses they teach cover a wide range, including choreography classes, Chinese classical dance classes and Chinese folk dance, all of which aim to train professional performers and dancers (see Section 2.6). The interviewees encompass a mix of genders, including both males and females, spanning an age range from their thirties to their fifties. They teach in various regions, covering both the northern and southern parts of China. Given the relatively small number of teachers of QOED in China who have been teaching QOED for more than five years, I provide less contextual detail here to sustain their anonymity, and throughout the analysis I avoid providing individual
pseudonyms, and always refer to them generically as “an interviewee said…”. This is particularly important as their critical reflections, if aligned with their identities, may have debilitating impacts on their careers.
Quality-Oriented Education Dance, being a relatively new field with innovative educational concepts, represents a new frontier for these teachers. As pioneers in the realm of QOED instruction in China, they are at the forefront of shaping and advancing this reform.
Simultaneously, they are the individuals actively engaged in determining effective and ineffective approaches. Through their experimental endeavours, these experiences generate valuable research data that aids in exploring the challenges and uncertainties faced by
teachers during transitions. This research specifically focuses on the challenges of facilitating difference and diversity by teaching collaborative and creative activities.
The tertiary student population that my interviewees refer to in QOED classes encompasses a diverse range of backgrounds. Some students began studying dance at a young age, during their primary or intermediate school years, while others embarked on their dance journey in high school. Additionally, there are students without any prior dancing experience. These
varying dance backgrounds of students are explored in Chapters 4, 5 and 6, as my interviewees perceive differences in relation to these backgrounds.
My interviewees have diverse educational backgrounds and teaching contexts. This includes instructing both traditional dance classes and QOED classes simultaneously, as well as teaching students with varying learning experiences and objectives. They hold a range of teaching experiences, having taught in universities, primary schools, and high schools. The diversity among interviewees adds complexity to the interviewing process.The following sections will provide the rationale for selecting the interview and narrative inquiry as the methods of data collection. Additionally, the emergence of new topics during the dialogues with the interviewees will be explored.
3.3.2 Interviews
The research utilised interviews as one of two methods of data collection, considering its effectiveness in gaining valuable insights into individuals’ experiences (Weiss, 1995).
Through interviews, I, as the researcher, was able to investigate “people’s interior experience […] what people perceived and how they interpreted their perceptions […] how events affected their thoughts and feelings […] the meanings to them of their relationships, their families, their work, and their selves” (Weiss, 1995, p. 1). Conducting interviews in this study enabled me to interpret the values and understandings of tertiary QOED teachers by
exploring their reflections on their teaching experiences.
Semi-structured interviews were utilised, as they are commonly employed in qualitative research (Holloway & Galvin, 2016). Moreover, semi-structured interviews are inherently flexible in terms of questioning techniques; for example, the wording of questions can be adapted to suit the course of each interview (Berg, 2009). It has been argued that in
humanities-based research, where the focus is on exploring meaning, researchers often shape their research questions in a way that influences the expected answers, thereby the “liabilities appear minimal” (Risner, 2000, p. 158). In this research, however, new topics often emerged during the interview process, which challenged me as the researcher to reflect and re-orient my research foci. For example, one interviewee said, “I know that my current teaching is not working but I do not know how to resolve this issue”. This means that my interviewees acknowledged an uncertainty in their new teaching practices as QOED but could not quite
articulate how or why they felt a sense of internal contradiction in their QOED teaching practice.
Semi-structured interviews provide the opportunity to customise the order and wording of questions for each interviewee, enabling the exploration of “new topics” (Martin, 2012, p.
85). By taking advantage of this inherent flexibility, I was able to investigate emerging themes and gain a more profound understanding of the interviewees’ professional practices.
The predefined questions in this study centered around the concept of collaboration. For instance, inquiries were made about how the students were grouped and whether there were any memorable moments. During the interviews, follow-up questions were tailored based on the interviewees’ responses. For example, the interviewees mentioned grouping students based on their personalities, so I delved deeper by asking how they identified students’
personalities and why they considered it important to group students in this manner. I also further inquired whether any students faced difficulties working within the group and the reasons for this.
This approach facilitated the emergence of new topics. For example, some interviewees pointed out that regardless of how they formed student groups, there would always be a leader who emerged and guided the group’s work. Consequently, subsequent questions were posed to explore the reasons behind the presence of a leader and the process of selecting individuals for leadership roles. Starting from the selection of leaders, I asked further questions in relation to how decisions were made in students’ groupwork. In this way, the gathered data helped me to understand the QOED teachers’ perspectives of their teaching actions and practices.
The above way of asking questions is supported by the constructivist perspective that
knowledge is not passively acquired but actively constructed through interactions with others and “acting in the world” (Ackermann, 2004, p. 16). Therefore, within the framework of flexible questioning, there exists the possibility of co-constructing meanings between myself as the researcher and the interviewees. By engaging in dialogues with the interviewees, I gained a deeper understanding of their perspectives on, for example, teaching collaboration.
To explore the topic of teaching collaboration, I posed the following question: “As we understand, teaching collaboration is a central aspect of the QOED framework. How did you facilitate collaboration in your classroom?” One of the interviewees responded, "I never have
to worry about communication and collaboration. Even if the students are unfamiliar with each other or initially hesitant to speak, they naturally begin conversing as soon as they are grouped together in my class”. Upon receiving this response, I further inquired, seeking to delve into the dynamics of collaborative discussions within student groups: “For instance, when there are four or five students in a group, do they generate diverse ideas during their conversations? Are their ideas highly divergent? And how do you handle situations when different ideas emerge within a single group?" The interviewee replied, “Yes, there are indeed different ideas within a group. I recall one instance where a group had three distinct ideas. To address this, I asked the students to vote for the best ideas within their group”.
By probing deeper into the interviewees’ experiences, I gained valuable insights into their classroom practices regarding how they perceive collaboration and what might be the purpose of teaching collaboration in their classes. This process of interactive questioning facilitated a mutual exchange of ideas and contributed to the emergence of new topics: how the teachers perceive difference and diversity in their teaching of collaboration. This new topic then became the focus of the research and is further explored and unpacked in the discussion chapters of this study.
The approach of engaging in interactive questioning not only facilitated the co-construction of knowledge but also provided me with the opportunity to seek clarification on topics that were not initially clear. For example, one interviewee expressed the view that “humans are social animals, and whenever students are divided into groups, there will always be stronger and weaker students”. Intrigued by this statement, I pursued further clarification by asking,
“How do you determine or identify the stronger and weaker students you mentioned?” In response, the interviewee elaborated, providing specific observations, stating, “For instance, I have noticed that within each group, there are consistently one to two students who naturally assume leadership roles, while there are also others who willingly follow their lead”. By delving deeper into the interviewee’s perspective, I gained a clearer understanding of their criteria for categorising students as stronger or weaker in the context of group dynamics, which also contribute to the new topic: their perceptions of differences and diversity. This iterative process of questioning allowed me to expand my comprehension and uncover nuanced insights into the dynamics of student interactions within groups.
3.3.3 Narrative Inquiry
Narrative inquiry has increasingly been applied in educational research (Connelly &
Clandinin, 1990; Lieblich et al., 1998). In educational research, narrative inquiry is “the study of the ways humans experience the world [...] education is the construction and
reconstruction of personal and social stories; teachers and learners are storytellers and characters in their own and other’s stories” (Connelly & Clandinin, 1990, p. 2).
Narrative inquiry was employed in this research as the second of the two methods of data collection. Narrative inquiry encompasses the process of crafting a story, the cognitive structure of the story itself, or the outcome of this process, often referred to as “stories”,
“tales”, or “histories” (Polkinghorne, 1988, p. 13). During the interviews, I actively fostered an environment where the interviewees felt encouraged to share their stories, particularly focusing on their narratives and experiences within their teaching practice in QOED.
However, I encountered difficulty in requesting teachers to provide comprehensive and clear stories of their own experiences. For instance, when I asked, “Can you share a memorable story from your teaching of QOED?”, the responses often consisted of subjective comments about the students’ actions or their perceived thoughts. For instance, one teacher recounted,
“this year’s students strictly followed the format I gave them during their teaching practice. I think this was influenced by their learning background. Most of them started learning dance in high school [known as Pugaosheng], so their dance abilities were relatively low, and they did not demonstrate enough critical thinking”. To rationalise their thoughts and comments, the QOED teachers frequently recounted stories of their students, using them as a means to support their perspectives. Nevertheless, this practice offered me, as a researcher, a vivid and comprehensive understanding of their experience of events and occurrences within their classroom.
Some narratives within this research were constructed by the interviewees as they reflected upon and responded to my interview questions. These combined efforts contributed to the richness and depth of the narratives gathered for this study. Narrative inquiry supports this perspective by recognising narratives as a means of reflecting personal experiences (McNiff, 2016). Consequently, when narratives are utilised as data, interpretation becomes an essential component of the process (Reissman, 2005). As the researcher, this meant that my
responsibility extended beyond simply receiving information from the interviewees. It also
involved delving deeper into the underlying meanings embedded within their stories and engaging in the process of interpretation. By engaging in this interpretive endeavour, it became possible to attain a more holistic comprehension of the narratives put forth by the interviewees.
Through the process of interpreting the narratives shared by the interviewees, multifaceted interconnections appeared across the narratives came to light, stemming from the
interviewees’ diverse backgrounds, which encompass unique perspectives, teaching contexts and professional experiences. This gave rise to a rich tapestry of information that posed a challenge to disentangle. Because each interviewee brings a distinct lens through which they interpret and articulate their teaching approaches, it seemed important to explore their experiences in greater detail to gain a more comprehensive understanding.
Recognising this complexity, I felt the need to conduct follow-up interviews to explore the nuances of their teaching practices in details. However, due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on travel and research opportunities, I was unable to conduct these second interviews during my PhD journey. Despite my efforts to connect with the interviewees online, the challenges posed by differing lockdown periods and time zones between New Zealand and China made it difficult to establish a suitable timeframe that would allow for casual and relaxed dialogues.
Although I did not have the chance to conduct additional interviews, the initial interviews still provided valuable insights into the interviewees’ perspectives and reflections on teaching collaborative activities in their class. It is important to acknowledge this limitation and
interpret the data within its context while recognising the potential for further exploration and refinement in future research endeavours.
Drawing upon the pre-COVID-19 data collected, the next section will unpack how the data was analysed in this research with a focus on QOED teacher’s perceptions of difference and diversity, and how these perceptions may influence the ways in which they provide
opportunities for students to collaborate and value each other’s creative contributions.