• << eFellows
• Introduction
  • Background & Context
  • Personal Significance
  • Research Questions
  • Theoretical Perspectives
  • The Process of Education
  • The Learning Environment
  • The Physical Environment
  • Different Learning Styles
• Methodology for a case study
  • Quantitative data
  • Qualitative data
  • Standards for validation
• Data Collection
• Data Sources & Analysis
  • Quantitive data sources
  • Standardized test results
  • Qualitative data sources
  • Data Analysis and Interpretation
• Creating a user friendly classroom environment
  • Teacher Training
  • Lifelong learning
  • The learning journey
  • Fitting policy into practice
• Conclusion
• References
• Appendix 1
• Appendix 2
• Appendix 3

Qualitative data

To compliment this objective epistemology, I used the more subjective and interpretive epistemology of using interviews with each of the 10 sample students to gain further insights into how these students see their classroom environment, including their ideas on the use of e-learning to help them learn. This allowed me to become more immersed in their small group to discover what understanding these students have of their classroom learning environment and how they think it influences their learning.

I included a sociogram of the two classes to show which students were the most popular and those who were least popular with their peers. I was then able to check if this confirmed their perceptions of their relationships with their peers from the results of the questionnaires. I spent time observing the selected students in their classroom to add a further dimension to the data.

In order for me to have a record of how this group of students think and write, I set up email addresses for them, to enable them to write weekly on-line journals by sending personal emails to me. I was able to use these comments in conjunction with the interviews, observations and questionnaire responses to help validate all the data sources.

Two journal entries with similar content but showing the contrast between written language capabilities.

Hi
This holidays my family and I have been to the movies twice to see Harry Potter 3 and Shrek2
I thought that Shrek was not as good as the first one because there was not as much going on but I thought that it was just as funny. I think that Harry Potter 3 is the best one they have made but the school looks a lot different than it did in the last 2 movies I also think the new people in the movie look as they have been doing all the movies.

on the last Wednesday & Thursday of the holidays we went to town on Wednesday we went and just did shopping but on Thursday we went to a lot of furniture shops Mum ang Dad brought me a new bed because I am getting to small for my other one. On the Saturday before we go back to school Dad wonted to see how tall I am and I am 5 foot 7.

From Karla (11 yrs)

hi
i have got a netball at 11:05 tomorrow and hocky and goalie and you cant reckernise me

In class we are study the olympx and in week 5 we are working with rm9

when are you working with my web site group? becaues you have with other groups or with me. because you get derstadid and its herd when we are just geting it.

on last sarday my gran had chinaeser student for a week and that night i used chopsticks and it was fun .and i took them by myself to the musmem and libery and center city.and then at 5:00 we went to the oqodick center

see you later
bye
Nicki (11 yrs, dyslexic)

© Karen Newbrook 2004