Image retrieved fro Google images on October 20, 2010
The approaches I have chosen to conduct the data analysis from all my data analysis intruments are based on Corbin and Strauss' (1999) Grounded Theory and Sagor's (2004) Trend's Analysis. Corbin and Strauss stated that grounded theory is "theory that is developed inductively from a corpus of data". This means I will take the data that I have collected during the implementation stage and then I am going to use known facts (from literature) to produce some general principles. To "ground" my theory I must go through a series of steps in order to filter my data so I can find the core categories and relate these among each other with the aim of creating a single story around my findings.
After creating my categories, I will find the trends or patterns from each category that led my students to improve or stagnate speaking accuracy throughout the entire three-month course. Therefore, I have to employ Sagor's "trend analysis". From this analysis, I must answer three vital questions that will eventually answer my research question. The three questions are:
- What did I do?: In this stage I have to describe the actions I did during the implementation process so I can detect the patterns and create a timeline.
- What changes occurred regarding the achievement targets?: In this stage I will identify the trends by using descriptive statistics (mode). The idea is to identify the frequency in improvement or stagnation.
- What was the relationship between actions taken and any changes in performance on the targets?: In this stage is where I do my interpretations of the events by linking my findings (facts) from all my data collection instruments with my knowledge (intuition).
