Using a Question Matrix for Collecting, Triangulating, and Analyzing Qualitative Data

Putting It All Together:

Presented by Sharon M. Brooks, Ph.D.Walden University

TM © S. Brooks 2012

Welcome!

Sharon M. Brooks, PH.D.

Contributing Faculty MemberOf the Riley College of EducationWalden University

- Specialities• Parent Involvement• Diversity for Principals• School Reform• Reading and Math

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Questions area

Using a Question Matrix for Collecting, Triangulating and Analyzing Qualitative Data

Problem With Triangulating & Analyzing Data

Problem With Triangulating & Analyzing Data.

Analyzing Questions

Subquestions

Making the Matrix

Guiding Question

Participant Groups

Triangulating Data = Designing Questions

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9 Wrapping It Up

TM © S. Brooks 2012

Agenda.

1 Addressing the Problem Statement

1.1 Deciding on a Problem Statement

• Find a local problem that you feel needs to be solved.

One problem for many schools is the need to increase minority parent involvement in low performing urban schools.

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Deciding on a Site to Study

While working with Drs. Kenneth Leithwood of Canada, Christopher Day of Great Britain, Stephen Jacobson of the United States, and professors from four other countries to locate principals who were successful in challenging schools, I learned that the best way to help one’s local school to solve a problem is to study a school with similar demographics that was successful in solving that problem.

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Decision TimeThe selection process could be threefold:

1) The problem at one’s school that needs to be solved. 2) A school with similar demographics that has overcome this problem.3) Possible projects that can promote change.

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Selection of SitesSample

The focus of this study is two high poverty, low-performing schools that were considered the worst schools in their districts in terms of teachers, students, academics, and parents. At the first school, any elementary teacher a principal from another school in the district did not want was sent there, and it had 100% of the ELL students, 100% of the students with disabilities, and 67% of the district’s highest poverty students. The principal was a nonentity, so much that the students did not recognize him. It had the lowest academic scores in the district and was the largest elementary school with 975 students. So the first school was called the “dumping ground” of the district by both parents and educators.

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Parent involvement was so low in the second school that a local news reporter wrote that only 10 parents showed up for Open House out of the school’s parents of 300 children. Teachers came and went constantly. One 4th grade class had three teachers between September and November. Parents were locked out of the building. There were six or more fights per day. Kids were roaming the halls and cursing out their teachers. Principal absenteeism was extremely high. Teacher turnover rates and students moving away were common sights.

Site 2

Results of their Efforts

Parent involvement has grown to 70% for the first school.

As a result the principals’ efforts, parent involvement increased to 90%. Currently, the second school has 600 students with a waiting list of over 100 students.

Any Questions

1.2 Rationale for Selection

Sample When I visited both schools, over 20 parents were seen per visit. When asked, “How did this change occur at both schools?” the response was the principals. Both principals were present. They welcomed parents into their buildings. They provided their teachers with professional development in skills and in cultural awareness. They did not make rules that they could not enforce, even if it meant taking people to court. Their mottos were “these children can learn, they will learn, and you will teach them.” To stress their point, both principals replaced 85% of their staff.

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• Hence, students at both schools began to excel. The principals insisted that the buildings were clean and the students were respectful, and that parents felt welcome. Housing sales increased as parents moved back into the neighborhoods.

• As a result, these schools were chosen as the focus of my study in hopes that the strategies used by the two principals to increase parental involvement in their schools may help other practitioners in the field, who want to promote positive social change.

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• When it comes to analyzing data, young researchers do not realize that the problem often begins with the writing of their interview questions:– The questions are not related to each other: – Questions do not reflect the subquestions– Data cannot be triangulated.

Problems with Analyzing Data

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Problems with Triangulating and Analyzing Data

Stating the Title

State what you plan to know by the end of the research study that will help with your project.

Stating the Purpose3

What question will help you find the answer to your purpose or goal.

Stating the Research Question

1. Write the title of your project study on a blank piece of paper.

2. Next, write the local problem.

3. Write the purpose of this study.

4. Think of a research question that would help you reach your goal. This question becomes the question that guides the study.

5. Make sure that the title, problem purpose , and research question match or are aligned.

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TM © S. Brooks 2012

1.5 Guiding Question

Your title should reflect what you did.

Stating the Problem2

Tell what problem you want solved.

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What question will help you find the answer to your purpose or goal.

SAMPLE ALIGNMENT OF TITLE, PROBLEM, PURPOSE AND GUIDING QUESTION

Increasing the Involvement of African American Parents in Public Education: Case Studies of Two Successful School Leaders

SAMPLE

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How did the two principals increase African American parent involvement from less than 10% to 70 and 90%?

The purpose of this study is to investigate how two urban principals increased parent involvement in their schools.

African American parents are not involved in their children’s schools.

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Guiding Research Question

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1.4 Stating the Significance

• Once you have completed 1-8, think about for whom the results of this study would be important, why they would be important to them, and how answering the guiding research question would help address the problem.

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1.4 SignificanceSample

• This study is significant because it can help urban school administrators assigned to low-performing schools with high-minority populations adhere to the NCLB Act section regarding increasing parent involvement successfully. It also shows teachers, how to effectively communicate with minority parents. Lastly, it will show practitioners how to increase the cultural capital of formally marginalized parents, so the parents can feel more welcome in their schools.

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Selecting Conceptual Frameworks

A theoretical or conceptual framework is used as a guide by which the researcher can compare his or her findings. Two conceptual frameworks were chosen to guide this study: The topologies of Joyce Epstein (1995) for parent involvement, and The work of Kenneth Leithwood (2003) in regards to leadership in challenging schools.

Epstein’s 6 Topologies for Parent Involvement.

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• Parenting involves the education of the parent – helping him or her get a GED, emphasizing nutrition and child rearing skills.

• Communicating It is a collaboration of both parents and teachers in making sure academic material is completed, reinforced and understood.

• Volunteering relates to parents working in the school, mailing letters, helping during lunch, and doing clerical work.

• Learning at Home means managing children’s study times, recognizing and rewarding their achievements both at home and school.

• Decision-Making involves parents working on various committees in the school.

• Collaborating with the Community means working with various community groups to provide services to students and their families (Epstein, 1995).

Why was Joyce Epstein selected?• Even though Epstein admitted that her

topologies were developed for middle class or suburban, not urban, parents, they are implemented in 95% of the elementary schools across the United States.

• I wanted to know if the two principals were using her topologies and how, or if they were using different strategies to get minority parents involved.

• In essence, I wanted to compare their types of involvement with those used in other schools.

Leithwood’s Conceptual Framework Successful Leaders

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• Consider parents’ social capital as educational versus as deficits

• Create meaningful partnerships with parents• Redefine how teachers interact with parents• Enact antiracist practices• Principals and staff must advocate for social justice• Create a diverse staff

Why was Kenneth Leithwood selected?• Kenneth Leithwood is one of the most renowned

and respected researchers in the area of school leadership.

• His work is recognized internationally.• His framework for leadership has changed over

the years based upon his research. The framework selected was presented in the previous slide.

• I wanted to know if Leithwood’s framework for leadership applied to these schools or if the leadership styles of the principals were different.

What increase in parental involvement is related to strong leadership intervention by the principals?

What leadership practices used by the principals encourage African American parents and community members to become involved in their children’s schools?

What types of involvement by parents are evidenced in two high-poverty schools with predominately minority populations with successful leaders?

Think of 2 to 5 questions that can help answer the guiding research question.

Developing the Subquestions

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How did the two principals increase African American parent involvement from less than 10% to 70 and 90%?

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Before You Get Started: Designing the Matrix

Using a Question Matrix for Collecting, Triangulating and Analyzing Qualitative Data

Change the page layout to landscape. Place your title at the top followed by the guiding research question. You may add the purpose, but this is optional.

Write your title and Research Question

Count the number of subquestions, and the number of participant groups (parents, teachers, principals).

Counting Your Sub questions & Participant Groups

Count the number of sub groups plus one and this will be the number of columns needed.Count the number of subquestions plus one and this will be the number of rows needed.

Make your table.

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Your own footer Your Logo

Sample Interview Questions by Sub Groups[Also show how the conceptual framework/theoretical base relates to

these questions.]

Subquestions Principals Teachers Parents1. What leadership practices of these principals encourage African American parents to become involved in their children’s schools?

How do you see your role when working with parents?

Which actions did you initiate that you think were the most important factors for the implementation of the type of parental involvement that you have today? What do you do to help parents and teachers work together? What are some of the formal school activities designed for parents and community participation? What types of informal support from parents and community members have you noticed? What do you see as your biggest challenge to bringing teachers and parents together? What did you do to try to make this happen?

What role did the principal play in relation to your working with parents?

What are some activities offered in this school for parents that probably would not be offered in other schools? Why?

Which action of the principal has helped you work with minority parents? In what way and how? What do you do to get your parents involved?

 

What role did your principal play in parents and teachers working together?

What are some activities this school offers to get parents involved?

What does the principal do to encourage parent involvement?How do you show you are involved?

By column, create interview questions, keeping the order in which they were presented on the matrix.

Principal Interview Questions

How do you see your role when working with parents?

What do you do to help parents and teachers work together?

What do you see as your biggest challenge to bringing teachers and parents together? What did you do to try to make this happen?

Which actions did you initiate that you think were the most important factors for the implementation of the type of parental involvement that you have today?

What are some of the formal school activities designed for parents and community participation? What types of informal support from parents and community members have you noticed?

What long term strategies or plans of action for improving parent participation have you devised?

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Repeat this process for making the interview questions for all of your other sub groups. Be sure to keep them in order. Any questions?

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Continue developing interview questions for the rest of your subquestions by group.

Developing questions that match going across columns makes triangulating and coding easier.

•It is now time to collect your data.

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1. This is the process of combining information from the different data collection sources, interviews, observations, and documentation.

2. First the interviews are compared. Comparing this data increases validation.

3. Documentation and observations are often used to prove or disprove if the information given during the interviews are true. They are added at the direct interpretation level, because they aid in the interpretation of the data.

Triangulating Data

Principals

ParentsTeachers

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Triangulating and Analyzing Data

Make a blank copy of one sub group’s interview questions.

Preparing for Triangulation

After you have transcribed your data, put the interview data together by sub-groups. Make the font of the sub-groups a different color, e.g. blue – principals, red – teachers, green – parents.

Color Responses

Select a sub group of one site. Put all responses to interview question 1 under it. Make sure to write each participant’s number behind his or her remark. Look for common words or phrases. Repeat this process for all of the interview questions.Repeat this process for each sub group of one site. Now do the other site(s).

Open Coding – Line by Line Coding within Each Group

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Part 1:

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Sample: Sub Group - Parents IQ 2: What are some activities this school offers to get parents involved? • We’re basically informed about whatever rules they’re going to

make and they ask for our opinions which really makes me feel like you really care about what I think and they put our needs first and that’s basically how I feel about that. (Par05)

• The close contact, the one-on-one, they call me at work, they call me at home. It helps me keep abreast of my child’s assignments, whether or not they are doing well or good. I just feel like I can trust them to let me know if my child goes out of line in any way. (Par14)

• Includes parents in the decision process.

Triangulating & Analyzing Data

Write the first subquestion on a new blank copy of one sub group’s interview questions. Put all of the common words or phrases of the first sub group of One Site under the first question followed by the words from the other sub groups.

Axial Coding

Now combine your findings by putting the common words or phrases together by sub-groups from all sites. Keep comments by sub group together. You will be able to tell them by their color. Find common words and phrases among sub groups. Add field notes and documentation to support or disprove interview data.

Direct Interpretation- Interrelationships between groups both sites

Based upon the data, look for emerging themes.

Code Mapping or naturalistic generalizations

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Part 2:

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Triangulate subquestions: 1. What leadership practices of these principals encourage African American parents to become involved in their children’s schools?

• If we’re talking about an attractive building, we had to learn how to put up relevant boards, attractive boards. If we’re talking about a clean environment, we have to practice what we preach and make sure that our room is clean and orderly and the corridors are always clean by picking up the paper and all of that. (Prin 2ISSLP)

• The cleanliness of the building, the grounds even. The outside of the building is much more well-kept. The inside of the building is warm and inviting. Now it’s like a place of love. It’s like a family, it’s like a home. (T09)

• She changed the lunch room. I’m telling you, she changed the atmosphere up there. They repainted it and gave it a new spirit. And the food got changed and the kids started getting better. (PAR13)

• Axial Coding/ Direct Interpretation (2 levels): • Cleaning Building• Changing Structure• Establishing a full service clinic• Creating a safe learning environment• Removing drug dealers & intruders• Disciplining with respect• Making Decisions

Analysis

Open Coding

Axial Coding

Direct Interpretation

Themes

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Summary of Findings Direct INTERPRETATION (SUB THEMES):

• Creating a Caring Environment for Parents– Protected Students– Taught Protocol– Incorporated Social Values into

School Culture– Monitored Teachers– Held Teachers Accountable– Included in Decision Making– Taught Teachers Family Values

• Advocacy– Used Parent Assets

• Volunteering & Meetings as Needed

• Increasing Teacher Efficacy– Skill Area Knowledge– Knowledge about Population

• Respected Constraints– Time – Transportation– Communication– Language– Child-Care– Notification– Increased Minority Teachers– Removal

Presenting Your Findings as Themes

• Give an overview of your findings.• Using your subquestions as a guide, present your

themes. In this case, there were two themes: Creating a caring environment for parents, and Increasing teacher efficacy.

For instance, for subquestion 2:What leadership practices used by the principals encourage African American parents and community members to become involved in their children’s schools?

The theme was creating a caring environment for parents. After discussing the theme, discuss each of the sub-themes, such as teaching parents school protocol.

1. Now that you have presented your findings, compare your themes to the theoretical or conceptual framework(s) discussed in Section 1.

2. Compare your findings to the first conceptual framework. Not only discuss it, but if possible draw a table to show the similarities and differences. See Table.

3. Compare your findings to the second conceptual framework. Not only discuss it, but if possible draw a table to show the similarities and differences.

DISCUSSION: Comparing to the Conceptual Frameworks

Findings

LeithwoodEpstein

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Comparison to Epstein’s

Epstein’s Model School’s Model

VOLUNTEERINGHelp Teachers or School Personnel with Work

HOMEInstruction of Academic Skills

CONNECTION TO COMMUNITYPresentation, Voting

HOMETeach Things That Bring PrideHelp Community

COMING TO SCHOOLHelp for School, Community, Child or Self

PARENT ADVOCACYAdvocate for Community or School for Social Justice

Comparison to Leithwood and Riehl

• This study showed what the successful principals did:– recreated meaningful partnerships with parents,– redefined how teachers interacted with parents, – implemented antiracist practices, – increased staff diversity– Did not pre-judge parents’ social skills

• However, the majority of principals– Ignored teacher-parent relationships– Were considered silent supporters of discriminatory practices– Considered parents’ social capital as deficits• Lastly, compared to rest of literature – Sections 2 & 3

References

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Brooks, S. (2005a). Increasing the involvement of African American parents in public education: Case studies of two successful school leaders. (Doctoral Dissertation, University at Buffalo) retrieved from ProQuest Dissertation Abstracts International (Publication No. 3179468 ),

Brooks, S. (2010). Making a qualitative matrix chart sheet. (Georgia Southern University).

Merriam, S. B. (2009). Qualitative research: A guide to design and implementation. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

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Epstein, J. L. (1986). Parents’ reactions to teacher practices of parent involvement. The Elementary School Journal, 86(3), 277-294.

Leithwood, K. & Riehl, C. (2003). What do we already know about successful school leadership? Paper prepared for the AERA Division: A Task Force on Developing Research in Educational Leadership.

THANK YOU!

© S. Brooks 2012