My study is very much centred around the participants. These individuals have offered their time and energy to speak to me about how their languages and cultures shape their learning experiences at university. As part of the Research Centre for Languages and Cultures at the University of South Australia, I have taken part in various discussions around ethical research practices and doing justice to participants in research. In my own research, I have considered how to bring the participants into the processing and analysis of their data. For my study, each student was interviewed three times. Transcripts were developed verbatim from each interview and analysed.
During the process of interviewing, I intended for participants to have full access to their own data as well as provide supporting information and documentation where necessary. To ensure that everything was kept up to date, I created interactive drive folders for each student. In their folder, I uploaded the raw audio files and full transcripts for each interview as well as the information sheet and consent form in case they wanted to revisit the information they were offered at the beginning of the study. Throughout the duration of the interview periods, students could upload supporting documents to their drive such as assignment notes that were mentioned in an interview or presentation slides that they worked on during the think-aloud exercise. These documents provided context for myself as I processed the data to ensure that I understood what they were referring to in the interviews.
The main purpose of the interactive drive folders was for students to have up to date records of their own data. Should students consider it to be necessary, they can advise me of errors or changes to their data. Together, the research and participant could discuss any mistakes or private information to build solid understandings of the data.
I advised my participants that anything that I collected from them always belonged to them. Over the next year, as I begin the writing process, students are able to contact me at any stage to ask questions regarding the presentation of their data. These students are the centre of my research and therefore it makes sense to include their voice in the collection and presentation of their personal stories and experiences.
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