Maxwell 5.1

Negotiating Relationships with participants in my study.

The participants in my study would most likely be the teachers at my university. Currently, Sias has about 120 foreign teachers, which I've heard is the largest foreign teacher population in China, although that could have changed since I heard it. A little over half of the teachers are language teachers, teaching oral English directly for Sias. Perhaps a third of the teachers work for an American university called Fort Hays State University which is based in Kansas. These instructors teach a range of subjects although mostly oriented around business courses. This population also includes about a dozen composition teachers who teach a typical first year composition class to sophomores in the Ft. Hays Program. The final sixth of the population are academic teachers that teach for Sias. Turnover is moderately high, with about a third of the teachers leaving every year. However Sias also has teachers who have been here for over ten years.

I intend to recruit volunteers from within this population. My criteria will be teacher who teach content course (not oral English) because I want to focus on how teachers reach non linguistic oriented learning objectives. I have at least an acquaintance with all of the foreign teachers at Sias because we are all required by university policy to live in the same building and free meals are offered in the community dining room. I have had the opportunity at many points to discuss my research interests with them and many of them are familiar with the proposed topic of my dissertation.

My tentative plan is to send out an email through the administrative office asking qualified teachers to volunteer. I may offer my baking skills as an inducement, since American style baking is a little harder to come by here in China. In my email, I will try to make if very clear to my participants that mine is an exploratory study--not evaluative. I think teachers will want to volunteer because they know me and are interested in my topic. If the email approach doesn't work, I may ask more directly, but I don't want to put too much pressure on potential participants, so I will have to think through how to manage that if things work out that way.

The people whom I'm most interested in interviewing are not in my department (the Fort Hays composition teachers) and therefore should not feel threatened or coerced by my inquiry. Teachers in the Fort Hays program have a lot of autonomy and as I am not their immediate supervisor, they should not perceive me as a threat to their job. Sias teachers are much more closely observed, but as I am not part of their leadership team, my position of not being an authority should be clear to them.

I have also chosen this population because I understand it quite well. These teachers will feel more confident opening up to me because we are from similar cultural backgrounds and work under the same kind of conditions. I can use my unique understanding of their situation to maintain our relationship.

One ethical consideration may arise. I am being considered for an assistant dean position within the Fort Hays program. If I get that position, I will be in a position with greater power difference between myself and the content teachers in the Fort Hays program (the bulk of the content teachers at Sias). If this should happen, I will have to reevaluate the situation and how my change in job title may affect my relationship and ability to collect data in this program. If things come to that, however, I may restrict my data gathering to the Sias content teachers, or search elsewhere in China for foreign content teachers to interview.