A collaborative approach to Narrative Inquiry Interviews (original) (raw)

2016

Abstract

A collaborative approach to Narrative Inquiry Interviews. The aim of this presentation is to outline the reasoning and approach to setting up a collaborative graduate student-led research project. The project itself is an narrative investigation into how international graduate students who are second-language users of English have negotiated English language proficiency tests such as TOEFL and IELTS as part of the application procedure to graduate school. In this presentation, we will describe the origins of the project, and go into detail about the purpose of the project, which stems from our own reflections and observations as international and non-international students within our Department of graduate study. Introducing the reasoning behind the project, we will illustrate how we have woven ethical considerations of working with peers, as co-researchers and participants, into the methodology of the project, the interview process, our own researcher reflections. We will also provide the specifics of seeking faculty and/or departmental support, ethical approval, recruitment, the transcription process and using technology to collaborate. In conclusion, we will discuss some of the next steps we anticipate taking in order to complete such a project. While critical language testing scholarship has described the gatekeeping nature of high-stakes commercial English language tests and institutional language policies (Shohamy, 2001), research has yet to explore their human side. This project uses a Foucauldian (1982) framework, which provides a lens to understand the interaction between student agency and the techniques of power that are embodied in institutional language policies and high-stakes language assessments. Narratives gathered through interviews will be coded and analysed by emerging themes using NVIVO. We seek to uncover international students' perspectives on the testing process itself (from test preparation to test completion) as well as their initial time at the university. Specifically, what supports are available to them and what challenges do they face during test preparation? How does this process of negotiation-and the test itself-affect international students in their initial months at the university? This research raises important questions relating to social justice and the consequential validity (Messick, 1995) of high stakes language tests.

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