Page 132 - Getting of the fence

Chapter 6
longitudinal nature (two years), the intensity of data collection of this study, and the assumption that voluntary interventions have a higher initial buy-in, which “goes a long way to improving implementation and facilitating sustainability” (Desimone & Stukey, 2014).
The selection criteria were that the teachers hold a Master’s degree in teaching EFL and that they would teach senior pre-university level year 5 between September 2015 and July 2017. We initially approached eight teachers from eight different schools and all eight teachers volunteered to participate. When two colleagues from schools D and E heard about the participation in this research project they asked if they could also participate, to which we consented. To summarise, in September 2015 we started with ten teachers from eight different schools. One teacher withdrew from the research after a few weeks due to organizational issues at her school. Another teacher withdrew because she accepted a teaching position at a different school after one year. In the end, eight teachers from six different schools participated in this research project. Schools A, B, D, E, and F are regular Dutch secondary schools. School C, however, only offers secondary education for adults (in Dutch: voortgezet algemeen volwassenen onderwijs, in short, VAVO). A VAVO school offers students of 16 years or older a fast-track lane, i.e. two years in one, or the option to follow specific subjects at a certain level.
All teachers (five female and three male) held Dutch nationality and had a Master’s level educational degree in EFL teaching. The teachers had an average of 21.25 years (range 8 - 37 years) of experience as EFL teachers. Table 6.1 presents the teachers’ characteristics (all teachers’ names are pseudonyms), the average number of students per class per year (including their Mean age), and the average percentage of EFL literature lessons per year as part of the EFL curriculum. Furthermore, year 1 refers to the academic year 2015 - 2016 before the intervention and year 2 refers to the academic year 2016 - 2017 after the intervention.
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