Research

The main objective of this part of the project was to find a body of the best and the most effective teaching methods, based on an analysis of the three research and one testing method used within the research area of the project.

The partners provided two roles in creating the best practices based on the research:

• Filtering, expanding and editing the best practice suggestions that came from outside the partnership
• Providing additional ideas for best practices

The project team utilized the services of a psychological expert (PhDr. Tomas Urbanek, Ph.D.) to gain further insight in the research and analysis of the results of the research. The project chose 3 research methods and one testing method.

All the documentation used in the research and analysis, including the raw data, compiled statistics, questionnaires, interview transcripts etc. are available for download from the project website at www.dontgiveup.eu

Questionnaires

Target group – Language teaching specialists (language teachers and methodological experts) Reason – a questionnaire, sent by email or downloadable from the project website allowed a large number of language educators from all over Europe to contribute. The questionnaire and responses are available.

The questionnaire was designed by the project team and experts. The questionnaire was designed to gain specific information and opinions on Language schools, Language courses, Language teachers and the reasons students leave courses. It contained quantitative scales for assessment of aspects of adult language teaching that were analysed statistically, as well as open questions that required text answers and were subject to a Means constitution analysis. The open questions enabled the recording of the opinions of responders. A total of 48 questionnaires were completed and all were used within the project.

Each answer from the questionnaire was classified into one or more categories and further divided into categories that focused on those for teachers, for language teaching institutions, and for adult students themselves. They were also analysed, grouped and regrouped, in order to find a patterns, which would offer an explanation of possible relationships. This project stage lasted for a year and its final result was a detailed list of recommendations regarding the creation of the best motivational methods that can be found in the chapter below The Don’t Give Up! Best Practices.

In-depth interviews

Target group – adult language students
Reason – a face to face personal interview with a psychological specialist was used to acquire valuable information directly from language students.

The partnership considered that language course students could provide some valuable insight, particularly in the area of what they find motivating and of relevance, and what they find de-motivating and difficult. The interviews with language students took place between a group of 8 students and a trained interviewer over the course of one and a half hours. Two contrasting groups were interviewed – a group of successful students and a group of “eternal beginners” who have started and failed to complete language courses. It was assumed that the differences in their answers could be helpful in identifying the reasons behind attaining success or failure.

It was also considered that the students themselves may not understand the reasons why they would drop out of a course, or that information acquired from them would only be of an anecdotal nature. To overcome this possibility two contrasting groups were interviewed – a group of successful students and a group of “eternal beginners” who have started and failed to complete language courses. It was assumed that the differences in their answers could be helpful in identifying the reasons behind attaining success or failure.

The interviews were led by Psychology experts, they were recorded, transcribed and analyzed. The analyzed results were then included in the Best Practices.

The interviews consisted of two stages. Firstly, the respondents answered questions from a list with the interviewer taking notes. In the second stage, the respondent was asked to expand on his answers. In this way, the individual thematic focus of each interview was captured.

Meaning constitution analysis (MCA)

Target group – adult language students
Reason – the MCA method was chosen as an additional research tool. It was used to add to the information that the project team had not already obtained from the questionnaires and Interviews.

It is a methodology that analyses what people really think and feel when they talk or write. This method was chosen as a means of analysing the research in much greater depth and improving the information available to the project. The whole process was led and analysed by experts in psychology.

The MCA method is useful since it enables flexibility of focus on a certain aspect. It is also possible to use the results as additional information, or as independent research. The quantitative and qualitative outputs of the method were used to complete the data acquired by the two main research methods on the Don’t Give Up! website and contribute to the final Best Practices.

Workshops

Target group – Language teachers
Reason – workshops were chosen as an evaluation tool for the Best Practices and also as an internal dissemination activity. The reason was to gain comments directly from language teachers and to test the Best Practices within a real teaching situation.

The Best Practices in the draft stage were tested in workshops at Pelikan Language School (Czech Republic) and in CNAI (Spain). The workshops were organized for teachers and methodology experts and lead by Psychological and Methodological experts.

Every workshop attendee received 43 cards with basic information about each Best Practices. During the workshops they were asked several questions by a Psychologist. They also wrote their answers into a questionnaire. This was followed by a discussion among the participants in to the reasons for their answers. The result of the workshops was that the language educators gave a very positive response to the collected best practices. They made a number of useful and concrete comments, most interestingly they suggested 3 new Best Practices, they suggested clarifications of BP titles and suggested that the themes be better delineated.

The workshops were recorded and photographed. The completed workshop questionnaires, process analysis, recordings and photographs are available.

Analysis

The main objective of this part of the project was to find a body of the best and the most effective teaching methods, based on an analysis of the research. This project stage lasted for a year and its final result was a detailed list of recommendations regarding the creation of the best motivational methods.

The results of the information gathering were then analysed statistically, textually and where appropriate, using the Meaning Constitution Analysis. This analysis included reading through the transcripts of the interviews and the answers to the questionnaires.

Each answer and interviews were classified into one or more categories. These categories were further classified, grouped and regrouped, in order to find a pattern, which would offer an explanation of possible relationships.

The answers were placed into a template developed specifically for this task. Much of the original data and analysis is available for download.