Blazing New Trails - Connexions

184 CRITICAL ISSUES IN PROMOTING ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT
teachers or principals scheduled for an interview opted out of the interview. The researchers
completed the interviews by asking a series of scripted open-ended questions which were
asked without prompts
The other crucial component was the interview style survey which provided the
opportunity for respondents to explain responses in words selected by them. Yin (1989)
supports the interview methodology as a valuable source of verification. The interviews were
appropriate because they allowed the respondents to select their vocabulary to expand the
highly structured questionnaire answers.
The 10 principals and 20 teachers revealed what they believed made their multiage
programs successful and what they believed to be challenges of a successful multiage
program. All interviews were coded for emergent themes and recoded after two weeks. The
codes served as a repository for themes emerging from the data during analysis and helped to
ensure consistency across data sets. The themes were listed on a spread sheet in order to
manipulate the qualitative data (Miller, 1994).
Data Analysis
Survey Monkey computed all Principles of Nongraded Education surveys. Data from
teachers and principals were collected and analyzed to determine if they were in agreement
with the assumptions of multiage. The survey data were entered by the researchers into
SPSS’s and statistical analysis was performed to determine the mean value and standard
deviation of those assumptions. Descriptive statistics were used to discover the frequencies
for each category of Pavan’s instrument. The beliefs of teachers and principals responses were
compared for similarities and differences.
The interview questions were categorized for both principal and teacher responses and
how they related to multiage education, the factors that have contributed to the
implementation of multiage education, as well as the factors that have limited the acceptance
of multiage education as effective learning environments. The researcher coded the
interviews, and after two weeks, they were recoded. The two coded interviews were compared
with each other for discrepancies. The quantitative and qualitative data were organized to
address the six research questions which formed the basis of this study. A data base was
created to record the data from the interviews. The creation of a qualitative data base
increased the reliability of the entire study because other investigators can review the
evidence (Yin, 1989).
FINDINGS
The purpose of this study was to explore the knowledge and beliefs of teachers and
principals and what they considered to have contributed to the success or limited the
implementation of multiage practices in their schools. Interviews were conducted and surveys
were administered to principals and teachers of multiage schools. The survey data were used
to determine mean and standard deviation values for each belief for the subgroup of teachers
and principals who completed the survey. Qualitative interview data were analyzed using the
Emergent Category Designation (Erlandson, 1993). For each question, the data were first
reviewed for categories or emergent themes that were titled so as to distinguish one category
from another. Once all the themes had been identified, the data were reviewed again to focus
on the content of each theme. The survey and interview data were utilized to answer the six
research questions.