Each student in the year was required to submit a 300 word reflection on the group work activity as part of their assessment for the unit. This forms a bank of qualitative data within which students are able to give honest feedback about their experiences without it being seen by their peers. 118 students submitted their report and although not all of these would have completed the reflective writing it is still unrealistic to attempt to read and analyse what could amount to a maximum of around 35,000 words.
Therefore I have decided to take an example from each of the groups in the year. This is by no means exhaustive and will not be representative of the various perspectives within each group, but through the eyes of the student who is writing it will touch upon the experience created by all of those members.
There are nine studios in the year group, each of which split into two groups for the project meaning if I select one representative from each group I will have 18 testimonies of group activity. This is a far more digestible number and is in the region of the number of responses I had for the quantitative survey (22).
There are various factors at play within the selection of students, for example there will be students with particular difficulties in social situations, or multilingual students who find it harder to take part in conversations than those with English as a first language. I would like to ensure the data I analyse is representative of the myriad complexities of the student body but I also need to consider their representation of their individual groups. If I deliberately pick a student who struggles to communicate with their peers are they representative of the group’s consideration of it’s own success? But if I don’t select their account on that basis then an important voice is not being heard.
The best solution I can come up with is to randomly select a student from each group. This way I am taking any unconscious biases out of the equation and simply ensuring that there is one voice heard per group. The diversity of the students body would hopefully mean that many perspectives would be presented over the sample group of approximately 15%. I am aware that this is imperfect but I am striving for a digestible representation along the lines of Renata Tesch’s description of qualitative research analysis; like an artist capturing a face with a few brushstrokes. The face lacks details but is recognisable as the essence of that person. (Tesch, 1990)
References
Tesch, R. (1990) Qualitative Research: Analysis Types and Software. London: Routledge. Available at: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315067339.