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these categories: current practice, challenges, involvement in research, image, and future
direction. The questions in the first interview were designed to illicit contextual responses
to frame the situation of each participant. The final interview questions delved deeper
into the phenomenon in question in order focus on the impact of emergent curriculum on
practice and self-image.
The interviews were semi-structured so as to allow for emerging themes that have
not necessarily been previously identified. The interviews were 60 to 90 minutes in
length and tape-recorded. Both the initial and the subsequent interviews were transcribed.
The interviews took place at the work settings of the participants in order to evoke a
comfort level for easy dialogue. The specific questions related to the initial and final
interviews can be found in Appendices C and F.
Participant observation.
Between the two interviews, I visited each teacher in his or her classroom. I acted
as a participant observer and later shared with the teachers a written narrative of my visit
as well as photographs of their project documentation. As a researcher working within the
phenomenological framework, context is crucial to the documentation of experience. The
setting in which the action takes place is the classroom, a context “rich in clues for
interpreting the experience of the actors in the setting” (Lawrence-Lightfoot & Davis,
1997, p. 41).
During the classroom observations, I paid particular attention to the practice of
the teachers in the classroom as it related to the stated curriculum. All four participants
were implementing emergent curriculum and representing this with a particular project
topic. I recorded notes related to the project including dialogue, discussion, and activities