Page 69 - Getting of the fence

3.2 Methodology
3.2.1 Participants
The selection of the three schools (Schools A, B, and C) for our project was based on
convenience sampling: the three teachers who were involved in this study as part
of their MA in Education research project were working in these schools as EFL
teachers 8. A total of 268 students participated in one of three activities (described
in more detail below) in order to contribute their perspective in the development 3 of our model: written reflective accounts (student age 15 - 16), unguided focus
groups (student age 15 - 16), single open question survey (student age 15 - 18) (see Table 3.2 for an overview).
Table 3.2 Number of students participating in research activities per school
School Teacher Written account & Single open question Total students per school Unguided focus group survey
AA4 29 33 BB4 32 36 CC- 199 199
3.2.2 Data collection: methods
The data collection took place between September 2014 and January 2015 and consisted of the three different data elicitation methods described below, all of which took place in Dutch.
3.2.2.1 Written reflective accounts
Because we were interested in the students’ interpretation of the Comprehensive Approach, we asked students to translate the underlying practical elements of each of the four approaches into their own words. Since we were interested in what the students thought, that is, the outcome of their thinking rather than the students’ actual thought processes while completing this task, we asked the students to reflect on the meaning of the elements of the Comprehensive Approach in writing. The students received an A4 sheet of paper listing the 20 underlying elements and were asked to write down, in their own words, how they understood each element. They were also asked to indicate whenever they felt the elements were not relevant for the EFL literature component. Importantly, this procedure allowed the students to
8 We would like to thank the three MA students whose schools participated in this study. In order to preserve student and school anonymity, however, we cannot thank them by name.
Connecting students and researchers
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