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Asia-Pacific Forum on Science Learning and Teaching, Volume 17, Issue 2, Article 12 (Dec., 2016) |
Methodology
In this section, the sample, the data collection techniques and data analysis will be discussed.
The Participants and Selected School Environment
Hafiz and Alif (pseudonyms) are Year Five Science teachers. Both were male teachers, of similar ethnic background and were in their mid-thirties. They had been teaching in SK Bintang (pseudonym) for the past 12 years. Both of them had not attended any professional development programmes in the past three years prior to this study. Hafiz and Alif taught students of the best classes. Placement of students into their respective classes was based on the previous Year Four final examination which consisted of scores of the four core subjects: Bahasa Malaysia, English, Mathematics and Science. The top 75 scorers were placed into two classes 5 Merah and 5 Kuning, randomly.Hafiz taught 5 Merah and Alif taught students of 5 Kuning; these students are high academic ability students. Hafiz had 37 students in his class whereas Alif had 38 of them. The ratio of boys to girls in each class was almost equal. Majority of the students in both the classes held positions such as school perfects and librarians. Although both were qualified to teach science, the difference between Alif and Hafiz was that Hafiz was in the process of obtaining his Master’s degree whereas Alif has only a bachelor’s degree in science education. In addition, Hafiz had been teaching Year Five science for eight years and Alif had five years under his belt.School Environment
Their school principal was a very open-minded and forward thinking lady who welcomed innovative and challenging programmes for her staff members. For example, during the meeting to obtain permission to enter the school for this study, the school principal commented that research about her school was considered a positive affair. She was very enthusiastic about the study and enquired more about what and how the study would be conducted. From the informal conversations with her, it became explicit that she was knowledgeable and was keen to learn. She also treated her teachers with respect and encouraged them to participate in this study.SK Bintang was a co-educational public primary school located in Selangor, a state in Peninsular Malaysia. The school was situated in a semi-urban area. The school had two computer laboratories, three science laboratories, one workshop for Living Skills Studies and 25 classrooms that were distributed among four blocks of three-storey in the school compound. In one of these blocks house the administrative floor, a book shop and the school library. The school compound was well kept with educational murals on the walls and a mini science corner with a pond and fish in it. Both Alif and Hafiz had access to the science and computer laboratories. SK Bintang had eight classes of Year Five and Hafiz, Alif and another female teacher (who did not participate in the study) taught at this level. According to both, Alif and Hafiz, all Year Five teachers normally got together to discuss about the coverage and preparation of school-based examination papers.
The Data Collection
The study used data collection techniques namely classroom observations and interview sessions. The study employed passive participation observation. At first, the researchers decided to use an observation protocol but during the pilot study it was discovered that much of the rich classroom discourse could not be obtained. It was decided that for the actual study a tape-recorder would be placed near the researcher who sat at the back of the classroom to capture the dialogue and discussions during the lessons. For easier comparison of teachers’ practices, the two teachers were observed when they were teaching the topic ‘Energy’. The researcher’s field notes captured nonverbal interactions as well as a list of imperative questions about teachers practices that later would be asked during the interview sessions.
An open-ended interview protocol was used to probe for clarification about certain practices that the teacher exhibited during the lessons. The interview session would begin with a question and depending on the teacher’s response another question was asked. The number of classroom observations depended on how long the teacher took to complete the topic on ‘Energy’. Generally, the teachers took about 5-6 lessons to complete the topic. The interview sessions where conducted until saturation point where the researchers felt that the teachers were not putting forward any new information. The teachers in this study indicated saturation point after two sessions each lasting about 40 minutes.Data analysis
The audio-taped classroom discourse and interview sessions with teachers were transcribed verbatim. The transcripts from both, classroom observations and interview sessions were read and reread to elicit information about teachers’ formative assessment practices. A matrix was created for each teacher. The matrix contained pre-determined themes such as ‘Assessment’, and ‘Feedback’. Excerpts from the transcripts were coded and placed into the relevant pre-determined theme. When the excerpts could not be placed into any pre-determined theme, a new theme was allowed to emerge. In the original study, a new theme emerged named as ‘Pedagogical Skills Associated with Assessment’. Once, each teacher had a matrix, the study used the constant comparative technique (Glaser & Strauss, 1967) to compare the two teachers’ formative assessment practices (Charmaz, 2000, p.515). Once the comparison was done, the matrix was reviewed and discussed until consensus was reached. Peer debriefing was done to ensure the trustworthiness and dependability of the data analysed.
