Data collected so far...

The data you have collected so far and how you are

analysing it

Research literature - Examining the impact of digital technologies on student learning

Describe the data you have collected so far:

I have collect data through interviews. I was able to successfully interview 4 experienced teachers of at least 3 or more years who use digital technology in their classrooms. For me it is more meaningful to interview a participant in person rather than by phone or email as Smith (1997) states ‘It is important to meet people in person and to be a face that is known to and seen within a community. Interviews that have been conducted through kanohi kitea promote community voice and real life interactions.

The other methodology implemented in this project is action research. Action research methodology focuses on one’s own practices or the teacher’s perspective for the improvement of teaching and learning purposes (Mutch, pg. 108, 2013). This is relevant for this research because part of my criteria is to interview one’s perspective or experience, in this case the teacher. This will also inform other educators and beginning teachers like myself, about the impacts of digital technology in the classroom.

The interviews will be recorded on a password protected Samsung mobile device which will then be transcribed using a password protected laptop. All recordings and transcriptions will be deleted after the presentation at the end of this year (2020). The interview will be semi-structured of 7 questions relating to their experience teaching with digital technology. (see Appendix A)

Explain how you are analysing your data:

For the current study, the data analysis followed Mutch’s (2013) method of Thematic analysis. This method of data analysis is a qualitative strategy that locates themes from the raw data. This way of working is also called constant comparative analysis or grounded theory. Mutch’s (2013) thematic analysis process follows eight steps which are: 

1. Browse

2.  Highlight

3. code

4. group and label

5. develop themes or categories

6. check for consistency and resonance

7. select samples

8. report findings.

Reflect on your evidence so far:

I began by transcribing the interviews, then checked and corrected any spelling and

punctuation before returning each one to the interviewee for final comment. I made electronic copies and filed the originals. Next I used the “find in document” function in google docs to highlight key words or any ideas that interested me from the transcripts. After highlighting key words and ideas in the transcripts, I used this “open coding” to look for repeated patterns in the data. I also used prior codes such as “engagement” or “collaboration”, which is derived from the literature review. Becoming increasingly familiar with the data led to some of the codes being renamed or subdivided. On completing the coding, I cut coded chunks from the transcripts and pasted them onto a new google document under separate themes. 

The emerging themes were engagement, collaboration, and personalised learning. Some of the data belonged to multiple codes with some data appearing more than once. The themes were put in in order of how many times they appeared in the transcripts from the most to the least. A sub-category emerged from the top rating theme and a final list was formed under the headings of student engagement (which included the sub heading of student disengagement), collaborative learning, and personalised learning.

The next step was to revisit the original text to select quotations to exemplify what I wanted to describe in my findings. Once the relevant samples were selected, I started to construct my findings by summarising the key themes, providing relevant examples.

Reference:

Henderson, S., & Yeow, J. (2012, January). iPad in education: A case study of iPad adoption and use in a primary school. In System science (hicss), 2012 45th hawaii international conference on (pp. 78-87). IEEE.

Ministry of Education. (2017). Education in New Zealand. Retrieved 12 July, 2017, from https://education.govt.nz/ministry-of-education/specific-initiatives/digital-technologies-for-teaching-and-learning/ 

Mutch, C. (2013). Doing educational research : a practitioner's guide to getting started. (2nd ed.). Wellington: NZCER Press.

Smith, L.T. (2012). Decolonizing methodologies : research and indigenous peoples. New Zealand: University of Otago Press.