an innovative approach

implementation of the teaching intervention. Good relationship building with these
participants enabled them to put trust in the researcher. This trust in turn helped the
researcher to identify unrepresentative information. Each classroom implementation
was observed persistently. This observation allowed the interpretation of key
elements of the data. Method triangulation was also used to collect qualitative data in
this study. The eleventh grade students’ understanding of photosynthesis was
collected through the designed surveys and also collected through interviews and
observations. The teachers’ reflection of teaching implementation collected through
interviews was also complied through the observations (see Figure 3.1, Evaluation).
Finally, member checking involved critiques of the collected data by other people
who participate in the studied situation. This checking helps the researcher to have
less bias in the data and have a clearer view on reality of the data.
Dependability concerns interpretations of human behavior, but not forming a
rule of the behavior. Dependability also needs clear descriptions of research methods
used to collect data, and clear descriptions of studied contexts. Merriam (1988)
suggested that a full description of the theory behind the study and the use of method
triangulation of collecting and analyzing data could increase the dependability. This
study which did not plan to gather the respective data, would attempt to fully describe
the theory behind the study i.e. the six guiding principles of the developed teaching
intervention as the basis for selecting participants, and the socio-cultural contexts of
the collected data.
Transferability and confirmability are additional issues for the worth of
research. The transferability concerns generalizability, application of the research
findings in new studied situations. In the case of qualitative research, Lincoln and
Guba (1985) suggested that providing more description about people was needed
significantly to generalize the finding in others. Generalizability has become
transferability which the readers have to consider the findings for their own context,
not the researcher. In this study a description of students, teachers and school
contexts, and that of collecting data were included to help the reader with
transferability.
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