Chapter 4- Methodology
4.8 Data collection procedures
goes well with this study. As stated by Galletta (2013), three parts are included in this framework-
1. Starting session: Begin with introductory information to make the participants connected with the session.
2. Middle session: Leading towards inclusive interview to achieve information needed for the study.
3. Closing session: For clarification reconnecting participants with the basics and approaching towards conclusion.
For starting the interviews, the researcher first needs to have the signed consent form from the participants. After that, she appreciates participants’ efforts for their contribution and talks about the goal, purpose and the usage of interviews for the study. Then the researcher makes the participants comfortable by ensuring the confidentiality of their identities. After that she starts the main session of interview by stating some basic information for example the classes in which they read in or the school in which they teach and so on. In this session the researcher does not expect from the participants to talk straight aligned with the research questions, rather they are allowed to say anything they feel to share with her regarding their experience so that they become free with her (The list of interview questions is given in the appendix section.)
Now the researcher turns to the next segment of the interview session which is the middle session. In this part she asks questions related with the research to get relevant answers needed for the study. Since both the interviewer and the participants are comfortable with each other, the researcher can move the complex questions and open-ended questions to understand the participants’ point of view (Galletta, 2013). For example, the researcher can ask about the
challenges they faced while attending and conducting classes in the in-person setting. Besides she can also ask some prompt questions arise from the discourse of the interviewees.
In the last part of the interview, she has the opportunity to clear all her doubts and for that she can questions for participants’ clarification. Also, she can ask relevant questions if she did not get sufficient answers of any questions. For this part Galletta (2013) stated that the researcher can ask participants if there is anything which they want to mention and it will make them to think if they forgot anything to share which will be beneficial for the researcher. Lastly the researcher thanks the participants for their valuable contribution to the study.
4.8.1.2 Piloting the Interviews
Before taking final interviews, the researcher piloted interviews with two of the student participants. The piloting of interviews was done to check if the interview questions were clear enough to be understood by the participants. In this regard, Alshenqeeti (2014) mentioned that piloting interviews plays a big role to obtain rich data since all the interview questions are already gone through the trial interviews which make them faultless for the final one. In one of the piloted interviews the researcher realised that participants are speaking about in-person classes but they are also referring back to their online classes. As a result, after one piloted interview, she included questions related to their online classes which brought her better response in the interviews. As a result, it can be said that the piloting interviews were useful for the researcher to have better result from the final interviews.
4.8.1.3 Conducting the Final Interviews
When all the participants agreed to give the interviews and sent back the consent forms, the researcher fixed time for the interviews. Since she conducted one to one interview, she gave a particular time to each of the participants as per their convenience. In addition, on the date of
the interviews the researcher reminded them the time. Since it is suggested by Talmy (2010) to complete the interviews within 30 minutes, the researcher tried to end each session within 25- 30 minutes.
For conducting interviews Murphy and Dillon (2014) proposed to follow six stages- arrival, introduction of the study, starting of the interview, in middle of the interviews, end of the interview and after completion of the interview. At the beginning the researcher and the participants exchanged greetings and she thanked them for their valuable time by following the arrival part. Then the researcher gave a short introduction and described the purpose of the study. After that to start the main part of the interview the researcher asked them some basic questions regarding themselves such as the names of their schools, the class in which they read in and so on. In this regard Galletta (2013) suggested to keep the personal questions to a minimum limit so that they do not feel hesitate to share that information. Hence the researcher asked very limited questions which were related to their personal lives. In the middle of the interview, she asked the participants questions which were aligned with the research questions (see Appendix section for interview questions). After that the researcher gave the participants hints of time for wrapping the interview session. At last, after completing the interview the researcher showed her gratitude towards the participants for their valuable contribution in the study and also asked for permission to contact them further if needed.