Literature Review & Research Method

My fourth semester has just begun, and I have just finished reading all the literature that I downloaded or borrowed from the library over the past year. I believe I have just enough to make a case for my research proposal, however I'd like to collect more to make a more convincing case.

The last piece of literature ended up being one of the most rewarding as it was a dissertation done by a former student from the same department. She was interested in the same population, although not necessarily the same sample. I haven't even decided who to select for my study yet. She was also interested in one major variable. The biggest difference was in another major variable, as she was interested in teacher knowledge and I am interested in intercultural communication competence of teachers.

In total, I have read nearly 30 pieces of literature, most of them being peer-reviewed scholarly articles. Of the research-based pieces, an overwhelming majority were qualitative. There were a few quantitative studies, and they investigated the accuracy of measurement tools for various aspects of intercultural communication competence.

As I read through them, I created a document that comprised of summative notes for each study. I also created a color code which I applied to each article after reading. Green indicated that the study directly relates to my research interest. Yellow indicated that the study indirectly relates to my research. This means that certain parts of the study are useful, but the study as a whole is not. And red indicated that I found no value in the study. Fortunately for me, only a few articles were coded in red. In terms of quantity, yellow had a slight edge over green.

All of these articles only relate to my topic of interest. I haven't included literature relating to my research methods. The studies I read are helping to inform my decision of which method to implement.

I am most certainly going to investigate qualitatively, but I'm not certain to what extent the study will be qualitative. This means I am considering a mixed-method approach. A course on this approach will be offered next year, thus will better inform my decision. If I do use quantitative methods, they will definitely be descriptive and perhaps investigating a correlation between teaching successfully in another country and intercultural communication competence. I'm taking a statistics course in correlation & regression this semester that will provide me the tools and guidance if I choose to investigate this connection.

Just yesterday, I learned about the two major purposes of regression analysis: prediction and explanation. I could frame my research in either way, the former being the easier. If my purpose were to be prediction, then I "success teaching abroad" would be my criterion and one or more of the measurement tools for different aspect of intercultural communication competence would be my predictor. I could also switch around, making intercultural competence the criterion and variables in teaching success abroad as my predictors. If my purpose were to be explanation, then one possible research question would be: "Why do (experienced) EFL teachers vary in (one aspect of) intercultural competence?" with similar research questions varying in the description of the EFL teacher and the aspect of intercultural competence.

I expect that this semester will help me gain the confidence to implement quantitative methods. I also expect to collect more literature about my research interest in a class called "Cultural Curriculum." If I stumble across something illuminating in my research during the semester, I will definitely post it. If not, I will post something after the semester is done.

Finding Treasure

After spending a couple of weeks studying hard for a statistics exam, doing a practice participant observation and critiquing a study, I finally returned to my research. Sometimes I need a break from reading and searching for literature so I can come back with a new or better focus. When I returned to search for more literature, I changed the keywords to "teaching abroad" and found a couple of studies which have examined almost exactly what I want using the approach I was thinking about implementing.

I am surprised that a less specific keyword search came up with some better studies. Previously I was using terms like "native-speaking English teachers," "English as a foreign language," "intercultural communication," "intercultural competence," and various combinations of these terms. These results have given me plenty of literature for a theoretical framework for intercultural communication competence training for EFL instructors, but they didn't provide enough examples of how to investigate EFL instructors dealing with the culture(s) of the classroom abroad. So I'm a bit surprised that "teaching abroad" yielded better results without mention of culture or teaching English.

My database of choice for the past year has been Wilson Web. I have used others, but Wilson Web has turned up the most and best literature. It also seems to "understand" my keyword searches better.

The treasure I found is a short article on a lengthy qualitative study of native-speaking English teachers teaching writing in Chinese universities. Although I was disappointed that the list of references was shorter than I expected, it helped me locate a couple more treasures. Reading through these studies confirms that there haven't been enough studies about this topic, but there is a big need for it, which leads me to another treasure. I have more support to build a stronger case for carrying out my research.

I have yet to find a lengthy study or a dissertation that closely matches my research interest, but I'm finding the right researchers who may be able to point me in the right direction. I am very excited about what I may find, but I understand that I may be setting myself up for disappointment.

Some Possible Ways to Collect Data

Last week, I was thinking about the various ways I could collect data for my research. I used my personal experience to help inform my thoughts, although I have kept in mind that my experience may not be typical for an EFL teacher abroad.

At this point, I have conceptual three ways to gather qualitative data. One is to do about a year's worth of participant observation. I believe this would be the most "reliable" approach as I could "objectively" observe my participants adjusting their teaching techniques to the classroom culture. However, this method would require the most time, resources, and cooperation.

The second idea, which I would combine with the first, but it would be more feasible to do without the first, is to interview these participants. At most, this would require me to visit the site for a first and maybe final meeting, but I could conduct the majority of interviews online via Skype, Google voice and video chat, or some video conferencing program like Adobe Connect. Here I could collect the participants' impressions of the foreign classroom and their development of their teaching approaches and philosophies.

The third idea, which is the most feasible but least "reliable" in terms of objective truth, is conducting interviews of participants who have had experience teaching EFL abroad. I learned in the qualitative methods course that this technique is called a "retrospective interview." There are too many risks with collecting reliable data as I feel that I could manipulate the interview too easily to get the answers I'm looking for not to mention the fact that memory is fallible and people like to embellish their experiences to make the narrative more interesting.

I believe that the best approach, if I had the time and resources, is to use a combination all three methods, which would support the concept of triangulation. As I asked in my class, I wonder if it is possible to do a part of the combination (the faster and cheaper aspects) for a dissertation and to a follow-up study (the slower and more expensive aspects) later on. I do not desire a dissertation that is fast and cheap, but the saying on campus is that "a good dissertation is a done dissertation."

A Lot of Reading

Within the past few days, I have discovered a treasure trove of literature online and in print. Of all the literature, the one I look forward to reading the most is The Sage Handbook of Intercultural Competence. It has two chapters very relevant to my dissertation. One concerns the intercultural competence in teacher education and the other in foreign languages.

I also found that using "cultural" and "competence" as key words in the contexts of English education or foreign language education for searching for articles using the university's database, I have come upon several relevant articles. One of them seems to be raising the same questions and approach that I would like to do, but I've only read the abstract so far.

While in the midst of coursework, I have found it difficult to reserve time to read for my dissertation. When I finally have some time to read, I find myself drained from reading materials for courses and writing papers. I need to find a way to prioritize my reading. It is not necessary for me to finish reading some papers for my research this semester, but it is important for me to finish reading for classes if I'd like a satisfactory grade. My strategy so far has been to skim over class readings that seem not to overlap with my research area. This strategy is mildly successful, but not successful enough for me to get the feeling of accomplishment.

Limiting My Target Population

After reading a little about intercultural communication and qualitative methods, I have decided to limit my target population. I started with a wide net: American EFL instructors who teach or have taught abroad in countries where English is not the official or dominant language.

I have decided to limit this population to instructors who teach or have taught high school students or older as the learners will have some developing or developed concept of native culture and "foreign" culture. As I read more of the literature, I will be able to rephrase this in much clearer and more appropriate terminology with sufficient evidence to back up my reasoning.

I believe this will not be the last time I will adjust my target population.

A Reacquaintance

When it comes to gathering literature for my research, I have easily found enough for the context of teaching English as a second and/or foreign language. I can also find lots of examples for case studies and ethnographies of living and/or working in a foreign country. However, I've had some difficulty finding an overlap of the two...until recently.

I took a course on cross-cultural and intercultural communication in my MA program, which was 8 years ago. I kept the textbook all these years, and I recently opened it up in hopes to find a relevant chapter with a nice list of references. The textbook is Intercultural Communication, A Reader by Larry A. Samovar and Richard E. Porter, the ninth edition published by Wadsworth Publishing Company. The most relevant chapter is "Intercultural Communication in the University Classroom" by Lisa M. Skow and Laurie Stephan. And in this chapter is a useful table outlining the "value differences in teaching and learning" from a study by Geert Hofstede, who is quite famous or infamous in the field of cultural anthropology.

I believe that I might uncover more useful literature by finding sources that cite Hofstede that either support or criticize his approach or conclusions. Although this is quite exciting, I must keep my focus on my current course work.

The Quantitative Qualitative Dispute

This week I've been mulling over personal feelings over using qualitative and quantitative research. I have realized through taking my qualitative research course this semester that my liberal arts undergraduate program (with emphasis in the humanities) trained me for qualitative research. Ever since graduated from the college, I've had a qualitative sense of finding "answers," especially in intercultural communication contexts.

However, when I look through the literature in ESL education, I am more satisfied when uncovering research that primarily use quantitative methods. This has revealed to me that I have a bias for selecting quantitative research but for using qualitative methods. I hope that I can mitigate these biases. I would like to value literature using primarily qualitative methods as highly as literature using quantitative methods. Even more so, I would like to become more comfortable using quantitative approaches to research although it appears that my research questions are better suited for qualitative research.