Student Experiences of the Leaving Certificate Applied Programme

12 ENGAGING YOUNG PEOPLE?Certificate programmes as they move through senior cycle and can usefullysupplement the information obtained from other sources.2.4Moving UpSurvey ofSecond-levelPrincipalsThe Moving Up Survey was conducted in order to provide context forthe Post-Primary Longitudinal Study (see below). It involved a postalsurvey of all second-level school principals which was carried out in early2002. The questionnaire to principals focused on issues relating to thetransition from primary to second-level schooling. However, it alsocollected considerable detail on subject and programme provision, abilitygrouping and the nature of student intake to each school. There was a highresponse rate (78 per cent) to the survey, with a total number of 567principals participating in the survey. These survey data allow us to relatewhether a school provides the LCA programme or not to a range of schoolcharacteristics, including the prevalence of literacy and numeracydifficulties among its student intake.2.5Life HistoryInterviewsAs this part of the study seeks to elicit opinions and feelings about youngpeoples’ experiences in LCA and their post-school pathways, in-depth faceto-faceinterviews were conducted. The interview strategy used is whatPatton (1990) describes as the “interview guide approach” which meanseach interviewee was asked the same basic questions with variations in thewording and the sequence in which the questions were tackled. It was feltthat semi-structured face-to-face interviews would …allow for a more thoroughexamination of experiences, feelings and opinions that closed questions could never hopeto capture… (Kitchen and Tate, 1999, p. 213). They also allowed thepossibility of modifying the line of enquiry, to follow up on interestingresponses and investigate underlying motives (Robson, 1993, p. 229). Byexamining educational issues through individual lenses, these interviewsoffer diverse perspectives on students’ school experiences and provide aholistic understanding of the interviewee’s point of view.The framework of the interview schedule was within the life/oralhistory context. Instead of addressing respondents’ opinion in presenttense, the interviews sought reflection and to some extent analysis by therespondent about past events. As Thompson (1998) highlights, using alife/oral history framework covers the underpinnings of the ‘decisionswhich individuals make’ (Thompson, 1998, p. 298). Using this frameworkenabled this study to investigate the reflections and opinions of youngpeople about their experiences prior to LCA, during LCA and their postschooloutcomes since they left the programme.The interviews followed a semi-structured format, with a list of themesand key questions serving to guide the interviews. However, given the widerange of factors and processes influencing young peoples’ experience ofLCA, the interviews were sufficiently fluid to allow for a full exploration ofthe experiences of individual participants. Topics discussed includedexperiences of school at junior cycle, the pathways and choice process intoLCA, learning experiences in LCA in addition to respondents’ occupationalor educational outcomes when they left school. The interview questionsbegan with areas which it was felt participants would be familiar andcomfortable to talk about. These ‘warm up’ questions were designed toelicit information of a factual and descriptive nature concerning their ownbiographies. Following this introduction, the interviews focused on: