The challenge of academic writing for Chinese students within ...

Data collection phase two
Value of one‘s learning experience
Before the interview, each participant was asked to recall and locate their learning experience
on a scale of 1 to 10 (1 being the lowest and 10 the highest score) on a graph. It was an
attempt to assess the value of their learning experience as they perceived it. They were also
asked to assess their UK learning experience on a separate graph by using the same scale.
These graphs help readers visualise students‘ experience in a ‗snapshot‘ and pin point some
key moments of their learning experience. The pioneer of using visualisation in such
educational research provides a new way of interpreting student‘s learning in a snapshot.
One-to-one semi-structured interview
The subsequent one-to-one interviews were employed to confirm my understanding of their
autobiographical account and further explore their current learning experience. Eighteen oneto-one
semi-structured interviews were conducted. Each interview lasted about 60 minutes.
Both English and Chinese languages - Mandarin were offered to interviewees at the
beginning of the interview. The participant can choose either of these languages. Thirteen the
interviews were conducted in Mandarin and three in English according to participants‘
choice. During the interviews, the questions were asked in both English and Chinese in order
to clarify the meaning of each question. Prompts for each question were also prepared in
order to help interviewees develop their response.
With interviewees‘ permission, all interviews were digitally recorded. After each interview,
the researcher transcribed and translated each recording. It was a time-consuming job. A 60-
minute recording took the researcher about 5 hours to complete the process of transcription
and translation. However, it proved worthwhile for the researcher to gain a deep
understanding of the data. It helped the researcher make sense of the data and some initial
themes emerged from this process.
Interview questions design
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