Research Student Seminar - 'From fieldwork to thesis': Waheed Hammad's reflections on field research experiences and presentation of his paper on "School Culture: A Barrier to Teacher Participation in Decision-Making in Egyptian Secondary Schools"
The aim of last week‚s seminar (24/4/08) was to look at what is involved in turning heaps of fieldnotes and interview transcripts into a thesis ˆ an aspect of the PhD process which we sometimes don‚t think about until it hits us! As most of our regular seminar group are still at the stage of planning and designing their research projects, Waheed Hammad agreed to come to present on his experiences of moving from data collection to analysis and writing of the thesis. He began with a presentation on this process, then gave us an insight into the outcomes - through a paper based on a chapter from his thesis.
In his presentation ŒReflections on my journey from fieldwork to thesis‚, Waheed introduced us to his fieldwork context. He went back to Egypt in March 2006 to conduct 85 interviews with school headteachers and other decision makers. He was investigating their views of a new government directive to implement shared decision making (SDM). Waheed explained that he had decided to conduct as many interviews as possible within the three months fieldwork period ˆ even if he was not able to analyse all 85 interviews, he felt that this would mean he had enough data as some interviewees might have deviated from the topic. Looking back on his fieldwork experiences, Waheed reflected that it was relatively simple to collect all this data, but that the hardest part was to analyse and organise it ˆ like many previous researchers, he suggested that this was the difficult aspect of adopting a qualitative approach.
Waheed emphasised that the analysis of his data did not start after collecting all the data (i.e. back in UEA) but had been an ongoing process during his fieldwork. He began analysing data after his first set of interviews in one school and developed a routine of listening and transcribing interviews (into Arabic) on a daily basis. As he listened to the interviews, he would pick up emerging themes and these initial themes would help him to shape the next set of interviews. He recognises now that many of these early themes however needed to be changed later or seemed less important when he was writing up the thesis. At this earlier stage, Waheed conducted all his interviewing, transcribing and analysis in Arabic though later he translated chunks from the data into English to discuss with his supervisors and use in the thesis ˆ this was a complex and time-consuming task.
The first stage of the overall analysis was to work out a process to bring order to this mass of data. Waheed started to think early on about how to analyse the data, and asked himself: Œwhat stories can I learn?‚ As he had so many interview transcripts, he decided to use a software programme to help him organise and retrieve the data, rather than doing this manually. Waheed stressed that the software does not do the analysis for you ˆ this involves your own creativity and is a Œhuman technique‚ ˆ but that it can assist with the organisation. A major issue for Waheed was to find a software package that would recognise Arabic script (N-Vivo does not do this). Through an internet search, he discovered MaxQDA and EDU agreed to buy the licence for this program. He then began to enter all the interview transcripts into the program. As he had stored all the files as Word on his computer, this was relatively straightforward. He created 7 text groups, based on the 7 categories of participants (headteachers, deputy heads etc). The fact that he had used a digital recorder also facilitated the analysis process as he was able to load recordings straight into the computer. [Waheed mentioned that if anyone would like an introduction to MaxQDA software in order to analyse text in other scripts, he would be happy to help them].
The next stage was data coding ˆ to index the whole data set. Waheed used the program to attach codes to segments of the data (e.g. labelling all the sections about Œcentralised control‚). He referred to this process of reading through the data continuously as like seeking Œthe shape of the forest amid the trees‚ (Gerson and Horowitz 2002). The process of categorising and coding the data went Œhand-in-hand‚ until new categories stopped emerging and he felt he had got to Œsaturation point‚. By then he had identified 204 categories and these were allocated to 3375 text segments. At this point, the computer program began to be helpful in the process ˆ enabling Waheed to retrieve the segments more quickly as he started to Œtell the story‚. He first found the big issues ˆ these were identifiable by the complexity of structure. As he had created a hierarchy of sub-categories using the computer program, many of the large issues had five levels. Waheed described how he conducted two levels of analysis. First he just looked at what participants were saying about the issue (e.g. centralised control) and then the emerging Œlittle issues‚. At a second level, he began to dig deeper into their responses, such as their conception of the word Œexperience‚ when they said that Œthe teacher has to have large experience to take part in decision making‚. He realised that by Œexperience‚, they meant length of service and this related directly to their status (promotion is only possible in Egyptian schools after a certain number of years‚ service).
Another element that fed into Waheed‚s overall analysis was the documentary analysis that he had conducted whilst visiting the schools. He had wanted to analyse the minutes of meetings of school boards, boards of trustees, and meetings between the undersecretary with secondary headteachers. Due to sensitivity about the confidential nature of these documents, he was not able to take photocopies but was allowed to see them in the schools. Although Waheed would not be able to quote directly from the documents in his thesis for these reasons, he wanted to draw on his analysis of what kinds of decisions were made in the sample schools and how central directives were conveyed and what language was used in communicating them. By analysing specific points (such as the frequency of certain kinds of decisions ˆ such as school exclusion) as he read the documents in situ, Waheed was able to work out a typology of decisions and compare between schools. He also learned that many of under-secretary‚s directives in meetings with headteachers were echoed in the documents of headteachers‚ meetings with teachers in the schools.
The outcome of this whole analysis process (which took about a year once Waheed had returned to UK) was 150 pages of analysis Œbefore any serious writing‚. Once he reached this stage, he read back through his analysis to identify the big themes that would form the basis of his thesis. These included: the model of decision making, school culture as it relates to shared decision making and responses to structural change.
We then discussed some of the issues raised in Waheed‚s presentation:
- Given the ethical questions about accessing the documents in schools, how have you mentioned them in your thesis? Waheed explained that he had been completely open with the school staff about why he wanted to read the meeting minutes. Although they were suspicious and worried (to the extent that a person would sit next to him and watch what he did), he had reassured them of his agenda and that he was only reading them to see what decisions were made in schools. For this reason, he felt confident that he could use this particular information in his thesis, but would not be quoting directly from the documentary sources.
- Did you conduct this documentary analysis before the interviews to get an idea of the decisions that were taken? Waheed had conducted this analysis alongside the interviews ˆ for practical reasons as he was moving from school to school for each set of interviews. However he was able to relate the documentary analysis to the issues that he had learned about in interviews about what kind of decisions were made in schools.
- You used the term Œnarrative‚ in relation to teachers‚ narratives ˆ is your write-up like a story? Waheed agreed that in one sense, he is telling the story of these schools but that he has not adopted a narrative approach. He went on to relate a conversation with his supervisors where he had questioned how to describe his research methodology ˆ a case study, ethnography, evaluation? His supervisor suggested that it could be seen as a Œhybrid‚. We discussed in what respect he could be seen to be constructing a case study of SDM in Egypt and how this might affect how the thesis was shaped and presented too. We also reflected on the different ways in which research can be considered in terms of Œstory‚ and Œnarrative‚. Though some participants felt uneasy using the term Œnarrative‚ in relation to Waheed‚s study, one of the group described how narrative analysis could have a part to play in all research Œstories‚.
In the second half of the seminar, Waheed presented a paper on ŒSchool culture: a barrier to teacher participation in decision-making in Egyptian secondary schools‚ (see attached). In this paper, Waheed gave us an insight into the findings of his research in relation to one of the major themes he had identified in the data analysis process described early ˆ school culture. He had found that there was resistance to the implementation of SDM at all levels: from headteachers (who were used to autocratic ways of operating and were reluctant to be held accountable for decisions made by their staff), and from teachers (who felt undervalued and because of their poor pay and working conditions did not want to adopt the additional role of decision maker). In discussion, we focused on the following points:
- The contradiction in SDM being imposed as a centralised process by the government (who in turn had been obliged to accept this policy reform as a condition attached to securing aid from the World Bank and other agencies) ˆ when the underlying aim was to increase decentralisation of decision making.
- The poor working conditions of teachers ˆ where the pay was not sufficient to support their families so they had to take on private tutoring ˆ was reflected in many other countries. This was creating a parallel education system that affected the already low quality of state education (since the teachers were exhausted and demotivated after teaching privately early morning and in the evenings). We agreed that the teachers‚ lack of commitment should not be viewed in terms of lack of professionalism. The students‚ attitudes were also affected ˆ Waheed suggested that most students go to school to be registered present, rather than to learn.
- How far is it just the Œschool culture‚ that presented a barrier to successful implementation of SDM? Are there other cultural practices and values (such as a greater emphasis within society on social cohesion and a stronger social hierarchy - so teachers were more worried by the prospect of Œchaos‚ and Œconflict‚) which affected the transfer of SDM from UK and US cultural contexts? Related to this was how to transform cultural values ˆ particularly in this situation when teachers were used to compliance and Œpassive‚ roles, rather than being active in school decision making. Waheed said he had been surprised that few people had received training, for instance, to be on the Board of Trustees.
Many thanks to Waheed for such an in-depth account of the process of moving from data collection to writing, and also for taking us right into the heart of his thesis. If you would like to see his two Powerpoint presentations, they will be posted with this summary on the research website.
