Narragating’ the labyrinth of a qualitative, narrative approach
4.5 Creating data and crafting narratives
4.5.2 Generating and eliciting stories
During this step, I employed narrative accessories or tools - data generation instruments - to elicit detailed stories of teacher participants’ personal, professional and social experiences. In order to encourage teacher participants to tell such stories, establishing trust and rapport with them is essential. During my visits to the school to address and interview teacher participants or observe lessons, I recorded field notes about the socio-cultural contexts, surroundings, culture of teaching and learning, ethos, relationships, resources and teacher-learner profiles.
Processes of data generation and data analysis, I maintain, are non-linear, iterative and closely entwined (Gibson & Brown, 2009; Neilson, 2008). Therefore, I believe that it is crucial for narrative researchers to conceptualise these processes as mutually informing each other, which allows them to not only discern relevant data but also to oversee their data generation process. As I tread this narrative, labyrinth path, I will walk you through my stages of data collection and processes of crafting and analysing narratives.
My data generation process comprised three phases. Phase One involved individual discussions with teacher participants, during which I clarified the research instruments.
Initially, teacher participants were required to construct a timeline (Appendix D),
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highlighting significant events, incidents or experiences in their lives. Furthermore, they had to analyse scenarios (Appendix E) related to HIV and AIDS teaching, as well as illustrate three critical lessons (Appendix H) in their HIV and AIDS teaching. Such data generation instruments, I believe, would not only provide rich data about their personal, cultural, religious, biographical and institutional backgrounds, but also shed light on their subjectivities. Data generated during this phase would shed light on teacher participants’
significant personal and professional life experiences, and possibly highlight critical incidents, turning points and their socio-cultural backgrounds. Phase One of data collection took place between April and July 2007. The average time spent with teacher participants, explaining and clarifying the data collection instruments - timelines, scenario analysis and critical lessons - ranged from 45 to 60 minutes. These data collection instruments were, nevertheless, completed at teacher participant’s leisure over three to four weeks. Thereafter, I negotiated convenient dates and times with each of them to collect their completed instruments and commence Phase Two of data collection, namely, lesson observations.
During Phase Two, teacher participants granted permission for me to observe and video record three lessons of them teaching HIV and AIDS education across different learning areas and grades. A research assistant from the larger project assisted with video-recording lessons, while I sat at the back of the classrooms going through lesson plans and worksheets as well as making notes. This phase aimed to examine subject positions adopted by teacher participants in their teaching of HIV and AIDS education, and how their subjectivities influence their teaching. In addition, I examined the content knowledge, attitudes, skills and values teachers taught about HIV and AIDS. I, moreover, recorded observations about teacher behaviour, teaching strategies, power dynamics and teacher responses to sensitive issues on an observation schedule (Appendix F). Although I noted learners’ behaviour and responses, these were not the major focus of this study. This phase generated data to address the first research question: How do teachers’ life experiences influence their subject positions/subjectivities when teaching about HIV and AIDS? This phase of data collection was conducted between August 2007 and June 2008, depending on which term(s) teacher participants were scheduled to teach about HIV and AIDS. Due to busy examination and administrative duties of teacher participants, lessons were not observed from November 2007 until February 2008. On average, lessons ranged from 45 to 50 minutes, and so, the average total time of three lesson observations ranged from 135 minutes to 150 minutes. I had
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initially planned to meet with teacher participants immediately after each lesson to discuss and probe further. However, this was not always possible, since most were not available due to other teaching commitments. Although I indicated in letters to teacher participants that the estimated total time of their involvement would be six months, I soon realised that this was an underestimate. Subsequently, I informed participants that their participation would be longer than six months, and most obliged. Given the poor network service in the semi-rural and rural schools, communication was a huge challenge, which I nevertheless admit, I failed to anticipate. And so, without e-mail and cell phone signal, a few lesson observations had to be re-scheduled. On completion of Phase Two, I discussed suitable dates and times for Phase Three which involved individual semi-structured interviews.
For Phase Three, I scheduled individual semi-structured interviews with each teacher participant, employing an ‘interview schedule’ (Appendix G) to guide discussions. Teacher participants granted permission for these interviews to be tape recorded. These interviews took place between August and November 2008. The duration of each semi-structured interview ranged between 1, 5 and 2 hours, depending on the depth of responses as well as the participant’s willingness to discuss personal, sensitive issues. Initially, interviews aimed to gather narrative insight into the personal and professional lives and subjective experiences of teacher participants. Following this, these interviews were not only used to probe deeper and clarify vague responses from the Phase One data collection instruments, but also to discuss lessons observed in Phase Two. Follow-up interviews were scheduled for further clarity and to probe gaps in the data. However, these follow-up interviews ranged from 30 - 35 minutes. My study also aimed to explore the role of teacher emotionality in HIV and AIDS teaching, therefore, additionally, I asked questions related to emotions experienced when teaching about HIV and AIDS. Hence, this stage generated data to address the second research question: In what ways is teachers’ emotionality significant in teaching about HIV and AIDS education? Therefore, the cumulative time spent with each teacher participant during the three phases of data collection ranged from 300 - 365 minutes. However, this excludes the time spent with teacher participants on co-construction of narratives, which I elaborate upon later in this chapter. The following table summarises how the focus of my critical research questions is linked to theoretical tools and concepts outlined in Chapter 2.
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Research Questions Focus Theoretical tools Theoretical concepts 1. How do teachers’ life
experiences influence their subjectivities when
teaching about HIV and AIDS?
Teacher subject positions, subjectivities
Theory of
power/knowledge and technologies of the self
(Foucault)
Subjectivities, Technologies of power / resistance, Technologies of the self
2. In what ways is teachers’ emotionality significant in teaching about HIV and AIDS education?
Teacher emotions
Emotional geographies (Hargreaves) Genealogies of emotions (Zembylas)
Emotions, Emotional geographies, Ethics of care
Table 4: The relationship between the focus of the critical research questions and theoretical tools or concepts
Obtaining a variety of narrative materials - written, observed and oral accounts, I maintain, allows narrative researchers to craft or create rich, comprehensive personal narratives, which motivated my choice to gather a range of narrative materials or data. The data generation instruments: timelines, scenario analysis and critical lessons (written), lesson observations (observed) and semi-structured interviews (oral), not only produced written, observed and oral accounts of teacher participants’ personal, professional and lived experiences but also encouraged them to engage with issues of subjectivities and who they are, in relation to significant events or experiences in their lives. My use of timelines resonates with Leitch’s (2006) autobiographical timelines, to record positive and/or negative life events of personal and/or professional import - like graduation, death, marriage and divorce - and related emotions experienced.
Lesson observations were employed to explore teachers’ subject positions, subjectivities and emotions in their teaching about HIV and AIDS education. Instead of being either an active participant or passive observer, I nevertheless locate myself within a middle-ground position (Creswell, 2007). Within such a position, I was cautious not to actively interfere in the lesson
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while the teacher was teaching and did not passively detach myself by just observing.
Teachers discussed content, strategies or activities of the lesson with me, while learners were engaged with individual or group work. Added to this, I listened to learners’ group discussions, commenting on or questioning particular, controversial or incorrect responses.
Observed lessons, furthermore, were recorded on video to better capture classroom ethos, culture of teaching and facial expressions of teachers. I was, nevertheless, mindful of the
‘observer effect’ my presence could have on teacher participants as well as learners. While I was well aware that I cannot eradicate the ‘observer effect’, instead I attempted to limit my observer bias by interacting with teachers in a “natural, unobtrusive and nonthreatening manner”. Since I wanted to observe how teachers “act and think in their own settings”, therefore, I developed close relationships of trust so that teachers were at ease and did not deliberately ‘act’ differently due to my presence (Bogdan & Biklen, 2007, p. 39).
In conjunction with the above, I conducted individual, face-to-face, semi-structured interviews to gather descriptive data from teacher participants to craft their narratives. As such, the interview not only denotes the site where data are generated, presenting an occasion to examine participants’ understanding of the research focus (Elliott, 2005), but also allows researchers to gather rich, descriptive data of teacher participants’ interpretation - in their own words - of their experiences and worlds (Bogdan & Biklen, 2007). Interviews were transcribed, and in some instances where teacher participants or learners spoke in isiZulu, needed to be translated as well. I was sensitive to teacher participants’ contexts and, therefore, adapted order and phrasing of questions accordingly. Interviews were performed flexibly, probing particular questions further for clarity and encouraging conversation on relevant issues that arose but were outside the range of the interview schedule. Empathy and good listening skills of interviewers, indeed, are essential to conducting successful interviews and generating rich data (Bogdan & Biklen, 2007; Creswell, 2007; Elliott, 2005; Plummer, 2001; Riessman, 2008a).
For Plummer (2001, p. 144), interviewers should actively “think and feel (his or her) way into that subject”, be attentive and motivate interviewees to respond freely and comprehensively.
Nevertheless, a caveat: teacher participants are not passive respondents; instead they actively craft responses to questions, drawing on life experiences, choosing which events to share or conceal.Therefore, I not only paid attention to what teacher participants said, but also to their
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contradictory and emotional responses and silences. In an attempt to minimise possible practical challenges, I phoned teacher participants to confirm dates and times of interviews, arrived punctually, had copies of my interview schedule, ensured tape recorder had batteries and I had sufficient tapes to record interviews (Plummer, 2001). As an emotionalist interviewer (Silverman, 2006), besides developing rapport and trust with teacher participants and providing stimulating, conducive encounters, I also talked openly and freely about personal experiences and emotions. Narrative interviews, I believe, are not only appropriate to delve deeper into the lives and personal experiences of teacher participants, but also provide narrative spaces for interviewers and interviewees to collaboratively create meaning and generate stories (Elliott, 2005, p. 23).
Added to this, I asked teacher participants to record three critical lessons and respond to three scenarios related to HIV and AIDS teaching. I hoped that by reflecting on critical lessons, teacher participants would reflect and shed light on the challenges, subjective experiences and emotionality in their HIV and AIDS teaching. The scenario analysis aimed to elicit their attitudes, values and beliefs related to HIV and AIDS.
The preceding discussion justifies my choices for the data generation instruments - narrative resources - employed to elicit personal narratives of teacher participants’ life and teaching experiences. The next step of my narrative, labyrinth journey, explicates the process of crafting narratives.