Page 92 - Getting of the fence
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                                Chapter 4
 answer was positively or negatively worded and whether we could fit it into one of the 15 elements (the subcategories of the four approaches in Figure 4.1). When this was not the case we checked whether the answer fitted into one of the four approaches. Then, if this was not the case either, we checked whether the answer was related to English or English literature.
After the independent rater coded all the answers, the researcher coded a random sample of the data (20%, n = 127 students) to ensure the reliability of the coding. Interrater reliability was established using Cohen’s kappa value (.93), which showed a strong agreement.
Figure 4.2 illustrates the type and variability of data we worked with. The first student mentions a variety of topics (‘social development, general knowledge, English history, language development, good for the development of understanding texts of a higher level, improving reading skills’), but then ends with a somewhat facetious answer, ‘you don’t know who I am, ha ha ha’. The second example shows only one bullet point in which the student mentions one specific topic: ‘You see how grammar which you encounter in the course book, is more concrete and how it is used in real life’.
Figure 4.2. Two examples of student answers
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