MA ELT Dissertation

An Investigation into Learners’ Disposition and Perceived Ability to Learn Independently in the Centre for Independent Language Learning

4 The Interviews

It was decided to use interviews as well as a questionnaire for the five reasons given by Creswell (1994: 175).

Firstly, because of ‘triangulation’, by which it is hoped that the information gained during the interviews confirms the data from the questionnaire. This helps improve the internal validity of the investigation results.

Secondly, the interviews can complement the questionnaire results by exploring issues in more depth, for example by finding out why the subjects answered the questionnaire in the way they did.

Thirdly, the interviews can investigate reasons for unexpected or unusual answers to the questionnaire items. For example, more information can be sought on why interviewees gave a "Don’t Know" response, or why their answer was unusual; for example being at the opposite end of the scale from the mean. It can also provide grounds for analysis when the reliability of some of the questionnaire data is in doubt.

Fourthly, the interviewees may bring a fresh perspective to the topic under investigation, one which was not investigated by the questionnaire items.

Finally, in summary of the points above, a second research instrument adds scope and breadth to a study.

4.1 Type of Design Used

The interview questions were designed to help triangulate with the questionnaire items, complement them, develop them by being open-ended, and initiate discussion of the students’ disposition and perceived ability from the students’ perspective. See Section 4.3 below for a detailed rationale for each question.

4.2 Role of the Researcher

The researcher is a CILL tutor, and this role may affect the responses given by the students interviewed. Unlike the questionnaire, which was administered by CILL’s technical staff and where the tutor avoided contact with the students, it was necessary for the researcher to conduct the interviews because there were no resources available to train a non-CILL tutor interviewer.

In general, some of ways in which the results of the investigation may be biased, and, to an extent, have limited validity, include the interviewees possibly being reluctant to criticise CILL procedures or staff due to the role of the researcher as a CILL tutor. Specific examples include the fact that some of the workshops, the "How to Improve Your English in CILL" program and the CILL Internet site were authored by the researcher as part of his CILL duties. If the subjects of the interviews knew this, they may have been reluctant to criticise these LT opportunities, or make suggestions to improve them.

The questions in the pilot interview were phrased to try to reduce this effect, for example, Question Ten reads: "10. How many times have you asked a tutor for advice in your learner diary? Was it helpful?" where "it" refers to the advice, rather than to the tutor. This was changed in subsequent interviews to a question about whether the interviewee had followed the tutor’s advice. Although this question might still cause interviewees to give unreliable answers because they might feel pressured to answer positively, it would have been difficult to so in any other way, and because the answers were more concrete, it was possible to verify the answers by looking in the students’ diaries. This would not have been the case if the original second part of the question, "Was it helpful?", had been kept.

4.3 Data Collection Procedures

The interviews were carried out from 27^th November 1997 to 18^th December 1997. All the interviews were carried out in CILL. As suggested by Nunan (1992: 153), in each interview the researcher made notes and, with the subject’s permission, audio recorded the conversation. It was decided to use a structured interview (Nunan 1992: 149) so that interview questions could triangulate with questionnaire items. The interview tended towards being semi-structured in that the either questions or the prompts that followed them were open-ended, but it was decided not to use a semi-structured interview of the type described by Nunan (1992: 149 -150). This was because a semi-structured interview might not have resulted in triangulation with the questionnaire item topics.

All the questions include ‘open-ended’ questions because they were all designed to triangulate with items on the questionnaire and to explore issues in greater depth and from the student’s perspective. They all focus on the interviewee’s feelings, using "you" as the subject of the sentence to encourage the interviewees to give information from their point of view.

For their information, and for ethical reasons, the interviewees were given the following briefing and explanation before the questions: "The purpose of this interview and the questionnaire you did before is to investigate CILL students’ attitudes and abilities to learn English independently. The results of the survey will help CILL staff understand what independent language learning training CILL students want. I would like to tape record this interview. Only you and I will know your identity. Other people might see your words, but they will not know who said them. Is it OK if I record this interview?"

The following section gives the pilot interview questions and detailed rationale for the questions.

1. Do you think that becoming a more independent learner is important to you?

This question is to elicit more information on the interviewee’s disposition towards independent language learning.

2. Do you think you have become more independent in studying English since you first started at CILL? Why / Why not?

This question is designed to investigate the correlation between time spent in CILL and perceived ability in independent language learning. It was asked second to avoid the problem that students may have responded positively to the other questions, and then felt that their answers were inconsistent if they did not respond positively to this one.

3. How do you feel about choosing which topics you need to study?

This question is to triangulate with the second pair of statements in the first section in the questionnaire, and with the first statement in the second section. These are both about needs analysis.

4. How do you feel about writing specific aims in your learner diary?

This question is to triangulate with the second statement in the second section of the questionnaire.

5. How do you feel about choosing materials, exercises and activities?

This question is to triangulate with the third pair of statements in the first section in the questionnaire, and with the fourth statement in the second section.

6. How do you feel about learning and practising English without a teacher?

This question is to triangulate with the fourth pair of statements in the first section in the questionnaire, and with the fifth statement in the second section.

7. How do you feel about correcting your own mistakes?

This question is to triangulate with the first pair of statements in the first section in the questionnaire.

8. How do you feel about testing yourself?

This question is to triangulate with the last pair of statements in the first section in the questionnaire, and with the last statement in the second section, both of which are about self-assessment.

9. Have you been to any CILL workshops? On what? What did you think of them?

This question is to check on what LT opportunities the interviewee has taken up. The "On what?" question is to check whether the workshop was a LT opportunity, or a language learning workshop. Piloting the questions showed that the first prompt, "On what?" needed more elaboration, so it was changed to, "What was it / were they about?"

10. How often have you spoken to a CILL tutor and asked for advice? Was it helpful?

This question is to check on what LT opportunities the interviewee has taken up. Piloting this question showed that the first interviewee thought that the researcher wanted an exact number of times that she had spoken to a tutor. Therefore an additional prompt of, "Often, not very often, a lot, never?" was inserted after the initial question. After further consideration and discussion with the Senior Lecturer-in-charge of CILL, it was decided to change, "Was it helpful?" to, "Did you follow the advice?"

11. How often have you asked a tutor for advice in your learner diary? Was it helpful?

This question is also to check on what LT opportunities the interviewee has taken up. This question was changed in the same way as Question Ten.

12. Have you used any of the study skills books? Which ones? Were they useful?

This question is, again, to check on what LT opportunities the interviewee has taken up. In the pilot interview the books named by the interviewee were not books from the CILL study skills shelf. (See Appendix Seven: Transcript of the Pilot Interview.) The student may have been confused because many books, not just those on the study skills shelf, contain LT elements.

In order to avoid confusion as to what a study skills book is, it was decided to use a visual aid to help in the comprehension of this question (Frey & Oishi 1995: 74). In subsequent interviews a study skills book was shown to the interviewees. Also the wording of the question was slightly altered to, "Have you used any of the books from the study skills shelf? Which ones? Were they useful?" The study skills shelf was chosen because if the students had used books from that shelf, it could be said to show a deliberate effort on the part of the students to do some learner training.

13. Have you used the ‘How to Improve Your English’ computer program? What did you think of it? Do you have any suggestions?

This question is another question to check on what LT opportunities the interviewee has taken up. In the pilot interview the interviewee did not seem certain which program this was. (See Appendix Seven: Transcript of the Pilot Interview.)

In subsequent interviews the interviewee was shown a picture of the main page of the program as a reminder. (See Appendix Five.)

14. Have you used the CILL Internet pages? What did you use them for? What did you think of them? Do you have any suggestions?

This question is another question to check on what LT opportunities the interviewee has taken up, as well as asking for suggestions for improvements that could be made to the LT pages of the CILL Internet site. In the pilot interview the interviewee did not distinguish between pages in the CILL Internet site and pages accessible from the CILL Internet site, in other words all of the publicly-available Internet. (See Appendix Seven: Transcript of the Pilot Interview.)

In subsequent interviews the interviewees were shown a copy of the distinctive design of the CILL Internet pages. The wording of the question was altered to highlight this; "Have you used the CILL Internet pages, like this one, with a yellow and white background?" (See Appendix Six.)

A new question was added here: "Do you think you need more training in how to study independently? What kind of training would you like?" The purpose of this question is to more closely investigate the third aim of this investigation, which is to judge whether further LT for these students is needed or wanted.

15. Can I look in your learner diary later for some examples for my dissertation?

This question is to obtain permission to examine the interviewee’s learner diary to obtain further evidence to support the questionnaire and interview findings.

4.4 Data Analysis Procedures

The data was analysed by comparing the statements of the six interviewees. (See Section Six.) It was decided not to try to quantify this qualitative data and correlate it statistically with the questionnaire results because of the difficulties in quantifying qualitative research and the distinct natures of qualitative and quantitative research.

4.5 Findings of the Interviews

Because they complement each other, the findings of the questionnaires, interviews and the diaries are detailed in Section 6 below.

4.6 Limitations

Some of the interviewees found being interviewed in English involved a large degree of communicative stress. One student described the interview in her learner diary:

As observed by this student, worry about using English may have interfered with communication, for example by making the student answer a question which they were not sure of the meaning of, rather than requesting a more comprehensible phrasing of the question, or by making the student reluctant to elaborate on answers. This may make the students’ comments less reliable. It was not possible to use a Cantonese translator due to insufficient resources to recruit and train one, and the additional problems of translating the results into English reliably.

In addition a lack of familiarity of interviewees with terms used by the researcher may have been problematic. For example, one interviewee, on being asked what kind of learner training she would like, asked how to book a room. This may have been due to a lack of understanding of the researcher’s idea of LT.

The possibility of the lack of student awareness of the range of LT opportunities available to them only come to light when the interview results were being analysed and the frequency of negative responses to questions nine to fourteen was noted. Therefore questions about why there was a lack of awareness were not included among the questions in the interview.

The dual role of the researcher as both a CILL tutor and an interviewer may have made the interviewees reluctant to be critical. In order to try to reduce this effect, the interview questions avoided asking the interviewees to make judgements of the tutors or the centre, instead asking them to focus, for example, on the advice given by the tutors or the facilities available in the centre. However, this may not have totally removed any student reluctance to answer freely.

The presence of the tape-recorder, making the interviewees’ statements ‘on the record’, may have been off-putting (Nunan 1992: 153.) However, the advantages of improved reliability and verifiability of the data made recording the interviews the preferred option.

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Link to Part: Intro, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, Bib, Appx

Last revised on Tuesday, September 24, 2002

If you have any comments, please contact Andy Morrall at ecandym@polyu.edu.hk