Continuing Findings

I continued considering what I should put in my findings chapter. Having explained the responses to the questions from the teachers at the two schools, I began to look at how I could discuss the advice I received from the interviews I had carried out in early March and mid-April when I interviewed the teacher who had actually carried out the field test. She was very encouraging. She and the children had enjoyed using the system and she was keen for it to be introduced into all the schools. I transcribed all the interviews I have recorded and have the transcriptions in the appendices as appendix 2.1 - 2.6.

Questionnaire

First I looked at the questionnaire. Ultimately I passed out 30 questionnaires to the two schools and was pleased to receive back 22 well-thought out and encouraging responses. These I tabulated and put the results in the appendices. First appendix 1 was a copy of the questionnaire I sent out and I followed this with appendices chart 1 - 8 which gave the results of the questionnaire using pie charts and bar graphs according to the information supplied.

In the text of the chapter I have explained the reasons for the questions and the teachers response to it. In a number of cases I have given direct quotes from some of the questionnaires. All the teachers thought my idea was very good and one or two actually wished me good luck if I went ahead with the project.

Time to write the Findings

After writing the Methodology and carrying out the various interviews I had had to do, I began considering the findings section of the dissertation i.e. what sort of information I had received from the interviews and questionnaires which I conducted.

Constructing the Final Piece

The signs were designed on A4 paper in the form of a square with the corners rounded so that, if the child picked one up he/she would not hurt themselves. They were then cut into shape and glued to foam board. On the reverse I placed a piece of "Velcro" which would then adhere to the main board which would be placed at the front of the class. The teacher can then attach the sign to the board at will, if necessary, taking it off the board to hold it up to emphasise a point.

The special needs signs I made slightly smaller and laminated them so that they would not be damaged if a child got hold of one.

I will be doing a test run for a prototype of the final piece from 6 - 14 April with a teacher from St Clara's school and then doing a follow- up interview with her to find out how she and the children got on. I am keeping my fingers crossed but am quietly hopeful all will be well.

Finally I have come up with a name for the product "Early Signs" and am toying with the idea of extending my designs to "Early Letters" and, possibly, "Early Numbers" if the present project comes off .

Designing the Final Piece

Having gathered all the information and comments from the interviews that I could and sifted through them to take out the main points, I sat down and began to design my signs. There is nothing I enjoy more than sitting down in front of the computer and beginning to design some new concept or other. I had already filled a sketchbook with possible designs and had a pretty good idea what I was going to do. The plan was to keep the signs simple but colourful and eye-catching.

I designed 22 signs- 10 were mild commands like "put your hand up", "keep in line", "no talking" and the other 12 were indicating which lesson was about to take place. These signs were designed to be placed on a board in front of the class so the teacher could indicate the point she wanted to make, either the lesson they were about to have or a particular command she wanted to make.

I also designed a further 10 signs for the special needs children. They were slightly different in colour and size as they were designed to be placed on the desk of the child by the special needs teacher. The teacher I interviewed was very helpful and told me which colours to use etc.

Interviews

I interviewed them all over a period of a week in early March. What they had to say was both informative and gratifying. They were all very enthusiastic about the project. In fact, the psychologist even went as far as to suggest it might be presented to the Education Board later in the year.

I had taken great care to prepare the questions I was going to ask each of them, varying them slightly according to their expertise. Taking the advice of Cohen & Manion (1998) I used mainly open - ended questions as they give the interviewees the opportunity to express their opinions and feelings freely.

I also consulted Corrie & Zaklukiewicz (1985) about the use of tape recorders and took the advice of Horalambos & Holborn (1995) on the usefulness of semi-structured interviews. ( full transcripts of the interviews will appear in the appendices of the dissertation).

Personal Interviews

Questionnaires were useful but I thought I needed to support these with more detailed information.  I decided , therefore, to do a series of personal interviews with a variety of experts. 

I thought four interviews should be enough, provided I selected the best people.  I chose:

A. An experienced teacher from St. Joseph School

B. The headmistress of one of the schools

C. A special needs from St. Joseph School

D. A Child Psychologist