Data Collection And Analysis

By Author: Crystal
Total Articles: 95
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This research is part of a larger ethnographic study that documented many aspects of the middle school poetry program, including the literacy learning that occurred as a result of the partnership between the community poet, the teacher, and the students (Wiseman, 2007). This article focuses specifically on students' perceptions of their families' involvement. My research uses a broadly qualitative and descriptive approach (Miles & Huberman, 1994). As a researcher and former teacher, I was both a participant and an observer with this classroom, using ethnographic techniques of participant observation and descriptive analysis to document the poetry program and the classroom interactions (Creswell, 2008). I attended poetry workshops, regular English class sessions, and field trips during the school day and after school, and poetry events, and I also met participants for interviews and member checks in Vibram Fivefingers Shoes the community. Data for this article were generated primarily from focus groups, but also from observations, interviews, out-of-school poetry events, and ...
... collections of poetry written by students.

I became involved in this poetry program because of my interest in classroom learning opportunities that connected students' in- and out-of-school literacy. I spent a full school year in this classroom, observing and interacting with Theo, Pamela, and their students. My role evolved from observing and taking notes to working with small groups, assisting students, and discussing their writing and experiences. In addition, I held focus groups with five students to discuss topics related to their experiences within the poetry workshops (Creswell, 2008). My rationale for interviewing students in groups is that they are often more comfortable speaking with their peers, the conversations were richer based on the interactions among students (Morgan, 1997), and often times the dynamics are more comfortable if adolescents are discussing topics in groups. From January to May, five students participated in a focus group that met outside the class, in a classroom during lunchtime for approximately 45 minutes each session for a total of 5 sessions. The focus group included one Hispanic boy and four African American girls. These students represented differing backgrounds regarding parent involvement and relationships, writing abilities, and experiences outside of school and were selected with the help of Pamela and Theo. They felt that this was a group of students that would accurately reflect a range experiences in this particular classroom. I used primarily open-ended questions (Seidman, 2006) such as, Tell me about your family participation in the poetry coffeehouses, or Tell me about the poetry you wrote today, and from there, I moderated the focus group while students discussed their ideas and thoughts. At times, Pamela and Theo suggested discussion topics for the focus groups based on their observations and interactions with the students. I came with a list of possible questions or discussion topics, but the students were very comfortable talking in the group and often discussed and posed questions without me having to moderate or guide them.

The focus groups, as well as classroom lessons and evening coffeehouses, were audiotaped and transcribed to be analyzed. Themes were established inductively (Strauss & Corbin, 1998) and data were used to generate theory (Coffey & Atkinson, 1996). My goal was to create a story of this classroom that represented the participants' experiences in a way that was sensitive to their Vibram FiveFinger Discount knowledge and understanding; therefore, member checks and peer debriefings were a significant aspect of my research and conducted with students throughout my data collection and analysis. The students in this focus group provided me with member checks regarding findings throughout data collection and analysis and also read through significant parts of my data analysis to provide verification (Creswell, 2008).

Students' views about their families' involvement reflected both their levels of comfort sharing their poetry and also the life experiences within their homes. Their attitudes and beliefs fell into three categories: students who felt that the poetry workshop was congruent with the types of activities that their parents would and could participate in, students who actively kept their families from coming because of the personal nature of their poetry or the structure/ expectations of the coffeehouse, and students who blocked involvement between the school and their families because of perceptions of stress levels and time constraints of their parents. In the next sections, I will describe the students' different feelings about family participation as they participated in this program.