technology as a particular challenge and suggested that consequences of “the using such methods should be carefully (p. viii). This proved to be considered” the optimum method and was successful, considering the return of the hard copies. Nonetheless, these then needed to be manually uploaded onto a spreadsheet, which was very time consuming. The following table presents a sample of the survey questions asked: Figure 3.3: Sample survey questions How do you currently support very young children with early reading? Please list your strategies/activities/experiences/teaching for: Babies Toddlers 2 year olds 3 5 year olds – What has informed these strategies/activities? How do you decide how to teach and what to teach? Have you have had any training or staff development on early reading? How has this influenced or impacted upon your current teaching in this area? Please provide examples. Are there any particular challenges in teaching/supporting very young children with early reading in your setting? The survey questions are presented in full in Appendix 0. The other qualitative methods utilised were interviews and focus group workshops. Rubin and Rubin (2012) describe interviewing as art of hearing “the (p. xv), which I established as an effective description. Boudah (2011) data” advocates that interviews are very important within the field of qualitative research because these are a useful method to investigate a particular issue in depth and to discover how individuals or groups of people think, understand and feel about an issue. Given the aims of this study, interviews were clearly going to be a very valuable tool as I sought to understand the experiences, views and beliefs of the practitioners. Similarly, Fraenkel et al., (2012) also propose that interviews can be used to explore thoughts and participants’ feelings about a particular situation. It is these aspects that warranted the use of interviews as a research method; practitioners using their own words as
technology as a particular challenge and suggested that “the consequences of using such methods should be carefully considered” (p. viii). This proved to be the optimum method and was successful, considering the return of the hard copies. Nonetheless, these then needed to be manually uploaded onto a spreadsheet, which was very time consuming. The following table presents a sample of the survey questions asked: Figure 3.3: Sample survey questions How do you currently support very young children with early reading? Please list your strategies/activities/experiences/teaching for: Babies Toddlers 2 year olds 3 – 5 year olds What has informed these strategies/activities? How do you decide how to teach and what to teach? Have you have had any training or staff development on early reading? How has this influenced or impacted upon your current teaching in this area? Please provide examples. Are there any particular challenges in teaching/supporting very young children with early reading in your setting? The survey questions are presented in full in Appendix 0. The other qualitative methods utilised were interviews and focus group workshops. Rubin and Rubin (2012) describe interviewing as “the art of hearing data” (p. xv), which I established as an effective description. Boudah (2011) advocates that interviews are very important within the field of qualitative research because these are a useful method to investigate a particular issue in depth and to discover how individuals or groups of people think, understand and feel about an issue. Given the aims of this study, interviews were clearly going to be a very valuable tool as I sought to understand the experiences, views and beliefs of the practitioners. Similarly, Fraenkel et al., (2012) also propose that interviews can be used to explore participants’ thoughts and feelings about a particular situation. It is these aspects that warranted the use of interviews as a research method; practitioners using their own words as
120200555%20Thesis%20Final%20Karen%20Boardman%20April%202017.docx