70 The eighth step in the process was to conduct unstructured interviews with the
three case study teachers, in addition to semi-structured interviews with the university managers, other lecturers, and students. As noted in Section 3.2.4.1, the final interviews
were conducted to primarily to obtain comments, ideas, and feedback from the participants regarding the teacher self-evaluation activities and their thoughts about
making changes in their teaching practices. Furthermore, unstructured interviews were conducted with the three case study teachers, which included questionings about the
observed lesson, or other matters to emerge from analyse of the video recorded lessons. The semi-structured interviews with the university managers, other English lecturers,
and students were conducted to gather information about their beliefs and perspectives
of teaching and learning as well as the research setting . Finally, documentary data from
university managers, the head of English, and the university staff at KUM was collected as complimentary data for the interpretation of results. The next subsection describes
the process involved in implementing the series of teacher self-evaluation activities in this study.
3.3.3 Teacher self-evaluation activity
This subsection describes the process undertaken to implement the self- evaluation activities in this study. A visual representation of the process is provided in
Chart 4 below:
Chart 4: The teacher self-evaluation activity implementation process
Step1.Videorecording teachinglearningprocess
Step2.Askingthepar3cipants tocompleteselfJreflec3on
ques3ons Step3.Askingstudentstogive
feedbackontheirteacher performancebythrough
ques3onnaire
Step4.Invi3ngteachersto exploretheinforma3onabout
theirteachingfromvideo recordingoflessons,selfJ
reflec3onques3ons,and studentfeedback
Step5.Invi3ngthepar3cipants totakepartincollegial
dialogues Step6.Iconductclassroom
observa3ons
71 As shown in the Chart 4 above, the first step in the teacher self-evaluation activity was
to assist the participants to videotape their teaching practices on two separate occasions. The classes were recorded using a handycam positioned on a tripod. Following the
completion of the first video recording, there was an interval of six or seven days before each participant’s teaching practices were recorded again. As discussed in Subsection
2.2.1 of Chapter 2, lesson video recordings enable teachers to notice particular aspects of their teaching practice, which cannot be recalled. However, it does not mean that by
video recording the lesson, everything that happens in the class can be captured since video recording of lesson only offers a partial rather than a comprehensive
viewperspective. In addition, Airasian and Gullickson 1997 claim that one of disadvantages of a video recording of lesson is that “it is only appropriate for only
evaluating certain teaching competencies such as behaviours that are readily observable during classroom instruction” p. 60.
The second step was to administer the teacher self-reflection questions to the teacher at the end of their lesson. The student feedback questionnaire was also
administered to students immediately following the lesson step three in the self- evaluation activities. A sample of the questionnaire is included as Appendix F and
sample completed student feedback are presented in Appendix O. Prior to the completion of the feedback forms, the students were informed of the form’s purpose
and were required to sign consent forms. The fourth step was to invite the teachers to individually explore the content of
the video recorded lesson, teacher self-reflection questions, and student feedback forms. This was a non-guided individual activity. At the conclusion of each input session, the
participants received the feedback from the students and the self-reflection questions. These data sources were then combined with data from the video recorded lesson. The
three sources then provided the participants with varied information pertaining to their teaching practices. This information was then to be as a significant source for
identifying specific issues relating to their teaching practices. The participants then were asked to address these issues through participation in
collegial dialogues the fifth step in the self-evaluation process, which were performed on four occasions and were recorded on tape. The participants were 10 lecturers
originally chosen for the research. I organized the collegial dialogues by dividing them into two groups. I also arranged the place and time for conducting collegial dialogues
and became the moderator in the discussions. The collegial dialogues lasted around 40 –
72 45 minutes in each meeting. A sample collegial dialogue transcription is presented in
Appendix M. The final sixth step in the self-evaluation process included observation of the teacher’s teaching practices following hisher engagement in the self-evaluation
activities. The aim of the final observation was to examine the effects of the activities
on their teaching.
This subsection described the data collection processes employed in this study both from an overall perspective and, more specifically, in relation to the series of
teacher self-evaluation activities. Discussion of research ethics is introduced in the next section.
3.4 Research ethics
As explained in the previous section of this chapter, this study is guided by the the epistemology of social constructionism and the theory of interpretivism.
Interpretivists consider humans as active and conscious beings so that they actively make choices. Accordingly, social reality is always determined by the subject and, thus,
there is no such thing as objective knowledge Weber, 2004. This subjective construction is receptive to interpretation and meanings in human interaction. In
reference to interpretivism, the finding of this study leads to adopting a position and opening for discussion. Adopting a position means that I enter the field with some sort
of prior insight about the research topic by using particular theories, from particular background, and from particular theoretical bias. Opening for discussion means that this
study is not the last word of this topic; I just offer findings for other researchers to take up, do something with, argue with, agree with, and disagree with. Phillips and
Jorgensen 2002 points out:
Critical research should take responsibility for providing a particular scientific description of reality on the basis of a particular epistemic interest; that is,
critical research should explicitly position itself and distance itself from alternative representations of reality on the grounds that it strives to do
something specific for specific reasons. At the same time, critical research should make clear that the particular representation of reality it provides is just
one among other possible representations, thus inviting further discussion p. 205.
This responsibility to adopt a position, yet also to recognise the tentative nature of one’s research claims, is in itself ethical, to the extent that ethics involves decision-
