3.1 Qualitative Research
In this research, the researcher intended to investigate the problem for Chinese ESL learners and to acquire an understanding of the central phenomenon. In order to gain more detailed information about this phenomenon, the researcher recruited a small number of participants (n=6) in order to have more time to analyze the data and interpret the meaning from the findings. The research design is qualitative and more specifically, a multi case study design.
3.2 Participants Participants of this study are Chinese students from the Centre for English Language Development at a medium-sized university in Ontario. The decision for choosing research participants from this university was based on a ranking list of Canadian universities …show more content…
Considering the participants were still taking an ESL program, answering questions in English proved to be very limiting (they had difficulty expressing their ideas in English). Therefore, the interviews were conducted in Chinese, which was the first language of the participants. Time for the interviews was based on participants’ schedule and the places of the interviews were decided by the participants for their convenience. Some participants preferred to take part in the interviews on campus rather than their residences, although they were not close to the university. Thus, the interviews were designed to be one-time and in-depth meetings so that participants would not need to travel back and forth but the researcher could still get enough information. The participants were interviewed individually, as most of the Chinese students were relatively more introverted in public compared with their Western peers. The questions were semi-structured and more exploratory to provide a certain degree of freedom and encourage spontaneity (Alzheimer Europe, 2009). Therefore, the interviewer designed some questions aimed to collect general information from the participant, to lead the discussion into a deeper level, and to put the participants at ease, such as “What level of ESL program are you taking?” “Are you going to take undergraduate or graduate program after this ESL course?” “What will be your program
In this research, the researcher intended to investigate the problem for Chinese ESL learners and to acquire an understanding of the central phenomenon. In order to gain more detailed information about this phenomenon, the researcher recruited a small number of participants (n=6) in order to have more time to analyze the data and interpret the meaning from the findings. The research design is qualitative and more specifically, a multi case study design.
3.2 Participants Participants of this study are Chinese students from the Centre for English Language Development at a medium-sized university in Ontario. The decision for choosing research participants from this university was based on a ranking list of Canadian universities …show more content…
Considering the participants were still taking an ESL program, answering questions in English proved to be very limiting (they had difficulty expressing their ideas in English). Therefore, the interviews were conducted in Chinese, which was the first language of the participants. Time for the interviews was based on participants’ schedule and the places of the interviews were decided by the participants for their convenience. Some participants preferred to take part in the interviews on campus rather than their residences, although they were not close to the university. Thus, the interviews were designed to be one-time and in-depth meetings so that participants would not need to travel back and forth but the researcher could still get enough information. The participants were interviewed individually, as most of the Chinese students were relatively more introverted in public compared with their Western peers. The questions were semi-structured and more exploratory to provide a certain degree of freedom and encourage spontaneity (Alzheimer Europe, 2009). Therefore, the interviewer designed some questions aimed to collect general information from the participant, to lead the discussion into a deeper level, and to put the participants at ease, such as “What level of ESL program are you taking?” “Are you going to take undergraduate or graduate program after this ESL course?” “What will be your program