Future Educators

Anonymous

Final Paper

Introduction

Qualitative research is a type of scientific research. Although there are different types of research methods for this particular research project, I was assigned to use the qualitative research method. The qualitative research method consists of many components: ethnography, interviews, and content analysis. Qualitative research seeks to ask questions, to understand a given research problem or topic from the participants of the chosen population, and is especially effective in obtaining culturally specific information about behaviors, opinions, and values of the chosen population.

For my research project, I chose to observe a local non-profit organization, who is the largest employer of college students in the Central Valley. This organization operates more than 200 after school program and serves regions in the North, South, and Central Valley. My first step in collecting data was performing formal participant observations in an open space. Following the participant observations, I conducted three separate interviews with each participant, then concluded my research by analyzing different sources that were relevant to this particular organization.

Literature Review

As individuals, we are responsible for creating a society. Society is created and reinforced through the interactions we share. An interaction is when one engages in communicates with words and actions with another individual or a group of people and it is reciprocated. An interesting analogy that was used in the reading was the image of a society as a web of communication. That analogy simply stated that society is all an interaction. Symbolic interactionism is defined by learning through others and how we communicate with others. Gestures, significant symbols, objects, definitions of situations, roles, role taking, role making, and self are all central concepts of the framework for symbolic interactionism. Each of these concepts have been defined and elaborated into further details individually by different sociologists. Gestures are directly correlated to social acts. A social act involves at least two or more people taking each other into consideration in "satisfying impulses or resolving problems" (Strykes, 3097). Examples of a gesture can include vocal sounds, physical movements, body expressions, makeup, tattoos, and so on. Gestures also coincide with significant symbols, due to the fact that gestures have the same meaning to those who make them and those who are perceiving them. Objects have meanings that are pre assumed and emerged from the social interactions in our social realities.

What is the self? If someone were to ask you how to define the 'self', how confident would you be in your answer? There's often a debate between social psychologists, with more of a psychological orientation, and those who are sociologically oriented social psychologists, on how to define self and what the self is. Let us compare the two different perspectives. From the perspective of the psychological oriented, they tend to see the self as a private possession. This private possession is found to be rooted in and reflective of an individual's personality. Now, from the perspective of those who are sociologically oriented social psychologists, they see the self as essentially social in nature. In other words, a person's self is gained and grows through social relationships, which is a fluid process that varies over time and across different situations. In addition to the process of acquiring and growing through social relationships, the self relies on others to collaborate in this process. Through this process of collaboration, the self that a person establishes does not become something he or she owns. Rather, it is that the self that a person establishes it is something that others, for the meantime, contributes to him or her. Through a person's interactions is where the individual learns to take on the roles of others and learn to see themselves as social objects. By taking roles of others, we learn how to define and respond to ourselves in terms of social perspectives and standards. As Mead mentions, our self-conceptions get built into us from the outside in. Hence, the reason we learn by taking the roles of others while we are building these self-conceptions. Lastly, the self-concept is the broad perspective a person has of themselves as a physical, social, moral, or spiritual being. Through the analyses of self-concept, the process of this  must be taken into account not only how we define ourselves, but how the different definitions affect our behaviors.

The definition of "the situation" is what people use to know what is expected of them and what is expected of others in any given situation. Through the definition of the situation, people obtain a sense of the statuses and roles of those involved in the situation so that they know how to behave. The concept refers to how our understanding of the social context of where we may be, like a hospital, school, public library, gym, or grocery store, informs our expectations of what we will do, who we will interact with, and for what purpose. As such, the definition of the situation is a core aspect of social order.

In order to be a member in society, we must coordinate with others and come to an agreement on how to define the situation. Based on our own individual and shared beliefs, we can find a common ground with others. Given that, a lot of situations are ambiguous and some people may have a different idea or understanding of what's going on. That is why there is no single definition of a situation. The reason being is because reality is subjective and everyone's reality is true from their own perspective, but it may not be true from others' perspective. For example, the role of a student may or may not be the same for other students. Some may see the role of being a student very important and others may just take it as another role and carry along. As we interact with others, we tend to try and place them in social categories. For instance, a mother, an employee, student, pedestrian, driver, and so on. The role of a driver or pedestrian is a role that we take on almost daily, but we fail recognize this is a normal role and it's part of our routines. As we take on roles, we are also taking part in role making. Role making is when we improvise some of our attitudes and behaviors to construct this role performance to fit better with others. To a certain extent, role making may be constrained because of role-related expectations. Role-related expectations can stem from the society. For instance, a professor is to be dressed professionally, come to class prepared with a lecture, post grades and return emails in a timely manner, and so on and so forth. However, these expectations can not or do not dictate how every professor will perform their role as a professor.

Erving Goffman has introduced a great sum of important concepts and theories to our society. Goffman chose to emphasize the theatrical nature of our performances on the social stage in comparison to other sociologists. Goffman's concept of the presentation of self is one of the most powerful and very relevant ideas of symbolic interactionism. Individually, we are all socialized by our interactions with others. We also learn what roles to play in any given situation.

Thus this is why we as a society we take on many different roles and play different parts throughout the day to fit the given situations we take ourselves to be in. The social stage plays the analogy for an agency. These interactions between actors, roles, and the front and back stage are easily relatable to how we tend to present ourselves on the social environment stage. The social structures place certain expectations on these social roles and most individuals feel the pressure of conforming and they tend take the role of what society values, not what role they want to play. Because individuals in the society, don't like the feeling of being isolated by others in society, we are quick to conform to what is seen to be the "right way" to act and behave.

An important concept Goffman has introduced is impression management. How we manage our impression is central to the presentation of self. Impression management can be done consciously or subconsciously and this is when people attempt to influence the perceptions of other people about a person, object, or event. Goffman continues to emphasize, through his writing, that we, as individuals or even when we are in groups, are constantly trying to shape our appearances, actions, and behaviors to how we think people expect us to act. These performances take place in two regions: front stage and back stage. The front stage is where the performance actually takes place, while the backstage region is where the performer is preparing for the performance. According to Goffman, in order to have a successful performance we must control the definition of the situation. Controlling the definition of the situation  allows us to have an influence on how these meanings are being interpreted. A few key ideas to set the tone to defining the situation is our mannerism and appearance. For instance, at the gym there are many women who tend to wear short spandex shorts and a sports bra. The women who are wearing this to the gym appear to be in shape. To these women, who are confident enough with their physical appearance, can be lowering other women's self-esteem without acknowledging they are doing this.



Methods

Ethnography

Within qualitative research, there are different methods on how to conduct your research. For the purpose of this paper, I will begin by focusing on ethnography. Ethnographic research is a type of field research that is based on interactions and conversations between a group of people in one particular chosen setting. The first stage of an ethnographic study is gaining access and ways to access the setting. As a student ethnographer, when selecting a setting there are guidelines and safety concerns to put into consideration. Depending on your allotted time for the study, this will be a determining factor for the setting. Short studies are typically done in a smaller setting, for example one classroom in a school.

When choosing to conduct an ethnographic research, there are many different aspects to put into consideration. When evaluating the appropriateness of a setting for your study it is important to think about to the accessibility to the setting (public or private). In addition to accessibility, there are geographical issues, interests, costs (Warren & Karner, 2015). In order to gain initial access to your setting, you must be granted or denied by a gatekeeper. It is ideal that you choose a group that you are familiar with or even a member of. This will alleviate any rough patches that someone who is not a member may encounter. However, under certain circumstances where you may not be a member of the group, you then become the "stranger in a strange land" (Warren & Karner, 2015).

Whether if the researcher chooses to study a group they are familiar with or not, it is necessary that the researcher is aware of their presentation of self. When a researcher presents themselves in a way that reflects their possible participants, it's more likely that their study will succeed. The presentation of self includes the way you dress, the way you speak, and the way you act. In addition to gaining entrée, which is having access to the setting, researchers may opt in for go-alongs, tour narratives, or shadowing (Warren & Karner, 2015). These require moving and engaging with the participant while combining ethnography with interviews, face-to-face conversations, or videotaping. Following the selection and acception into a setting, you, as the researcher, are then able to begin your field research.

Interviews

The second component of a qualitative research study is the interview. It is absolutely necessary to gather the information during the ethnography portion due to the fact that it acts as not only a method of gathering data, but also getting to know your chosen participants better. Interviews are a core part in a qualitative research study that begins with an interview guide. Without composing research questions beforehand, there will be no structure to the interview. In order to conduct an in-depth interview that is appropriate there also must be complete anonymity connected to the interview (Warren & Karner, 2015). In addition to offering complete anonymity to the participant, the researcher must acknowledge the participants' feelings and emotions. The researcher should respect, understand, and have empathy about anything the participant may happen share during the interview. In the case where a participant may get emotional, the researcher is encouraged to show empathy to the participant and followed by using prompts and probes. By simply asking the participant, "okay, how does that make you feel?" will show the participant that you are actively listening and that you are empathizing with them (Warren & Karner, 2015). Although, you may not completely understand where they're coming from, when you ask a question like that, the participant will feel less emotional and perhaps begin to feel more comfortable with you.

During the interview portion of your research, it is important that a researcher record the interview because if the researcher bases data off memory, there is bound to be a mix up of information and taking notes while the participant is talking would take more energy than required (Warren & Karner, 2015). Once the researcher transcribes the audio recording, the next step is to input the data into NVivo and begin analyzing it.

Content Analysis

In order to fully comprehend the underlying culture within a particular group, the researcher must conduct a content analysis, which is the last component of a qualitative research study. It is critical that the ethnography and interviews, as previously mentioned, are completed thoroughly to ensure that the content analysis runs smoothly. The beginning steps for a content analysis requires the researcher to gather sources, outside of the interviews, that is relevant to the chosen research topic or group. Sources include magazines, newspapers, images, internet, videos, and historical documents. Magazines and advertisements are usually a good starting point to begin the document collection process (Warren & Karner, 2015). If a researcher chooses to use the internet, sources like website blogs and user review websites are also credible. Another credible source that can be found on the internet are online reviews about the organization you are studying. Online reviews can reveal real experiences and insights from an insider, whether if the reviews are positive or negative, the online reviews are equally useful in the research. The internet is a powerful tool in obtaining data for analysis (Warren & Karner, 2015). However, when analyzing the gathered sources, researchers should be cautious to not assume everything found on the internet to be true. Instead, the researcher should ensure the accuracy of the information obtained from the internet.

Methods: Ethnography

In effort to protect the anonymity of my participants, the names of individuals and groups have been changed. The data for this research was collected from participant observations from two separate events in November of 2018 attended by employees and administrators of Teaching Forward. For my observations, I was sure to complete them at two separate locations and during different events to ensure I gather sufficient information during the observations of how the employees communicated, interacted, and responded to their surroundings. Also, through my observations I was able to see the different roles the employees would play depending on the different situations.

My first observation was during a monthly professional development training on November 3rd. This observation took place at the Fresno State Satellite Student Union from 8:00 am to 10:30am. Altogether, there were approximately 200 employees and 15 members of the organization's leadership team present. For my second observation, it took place at the Rose Garden area of Fresno State on the same date after the professional development training. This observation took place from 11:00 am to 2:00 pm with the same selected group of employees.

For my observations, I decided to focus specifically on a few different concepts and theories that we have discussed through the entirety of the class. I chose to focus on roles, front stage/backstage, impression management, and definition of the situation. By using a qualitative research software, NVivo, I was able to analyze my collected data. By using NVivo, I was able to run word frequency queries, create nodes, discover patterns and connections with my collected data. Using my collected data, I created nodes for thick description, roles, impression management, and definition of the situation.

Methods: Interviews

Based on their availability and interest in my study, Rob, Adri, and Abby were the chosen participants. I conducted a total of three interviews in November 2018 with each Rob, Adri, and Abby in a public, open space and each interview ranged from 10-15 minutes. Prior to the start of each interview, participants were asked to read and sign consent forms that included the purpose of this particular study and their privacy rights. To record each face-to-face interview, I used an application called Otter. Upon the completion of all three interviews, Otter provided an automatic transcription for each of the interviews. The transcripts were then checked by myself for any possible errors and then I followed by uploading the transcripts to NVivo 12 for the coding process.

For this study, symbolic interactionism has served as the theoretical grounds for the interviews and analysis component. Therefore, three nodes were created for the concepts that are directly related to symbolic interactionism: significant symbols, roles, and looking-glass self. Word search queries for all three interviews revealed a few notable terms: school, work, time, and life.

Methods: Content Analysis

The data for my research was collected online through various media sources. I began by accessing the organization's main website and from there I came across other websites that related directly to this organization. Also, I came across recruitment, event, training, and outreach resources that were offered to the Teaching Forward employees. I found quite a few news articles about the organization and their need of morning program and after school program tutors. I used the NCapture extension to record the data from webpages. Upon completion, the NCapture data was manually checked for errors and uploaded to Nvivo for coding purposes. To better examine how the employees of Teaching Forward are influenced to pursue a career in teaching and how their jobs have affected them, I created nodes: collective action frame, diagnostic, and motivational frame.

Analysis

Ethnography

Thick Description

In qualitative research, thick description is the process of paying close attention to specific details in the environment. When doing an observation, it is often helpful to write down everything you see. It is important to write down what you are observing, while you are there, because in most cases if you wait to write down what you observed later, you will leave out certain details and it may become distorted information.

For my observations, my thick descriptions were fairly vague. At the time, I thought I did a good job of noting down what I was observing. From my observations, I saw that employees were heading in the direction of the Satellite Student Union for the professional development training and they were stopped before the entrance to clock in and grabbing granola bars and waters.

"It is 8:00 in the morning and employees are slowly coming towards the Satellite

Student Union. At the entrance they are clocking in with their supervisors, they are also grabbing granola bars, waters, fruit snacks, and fresh fruits before entering the Satellite Student Union."

This was an example of a section of my thick description from the beginning of my observation. The employees were walking toward the Satellite Student Union (SSU) slowly, as if they were tired. Once the employees were clocked in, majority of them quickly gravitated to the snack area. As I continued my observation inside the SSU, there were so many other employees already in there. Some of them were very talkative and others not so much, they were more quiet and their eyes were glued to their cell phones. It was more of the larger groups of people that sat in the same area that were talkative and laughing with each other. As I looked around the room, I noticed empty seats closest to the stage and majority of the seats in the center of the room was filled up. None of the seats had special reservations or anything. I thought this was interesting that people chose to sit in the middle in comparison to the back of the room.

Once majority of the room was filled, I observed:

"Now there is someone on the stage, making general announcements about not leaving

any trash behind, taking a selfie and using hashtags when posting it onto social media,

once they post the selfie on social media, he asks that we refrain from using on our phones during the guest keynote speaker is on stage."

I chose to highlight this specific thick description from my observation because even as adults and someone tells you not to engage in something (using cellphones while the keynote speaker is on stage), adults still break the rules. I think this was very interesting to see as an adult myself. Moving to the second part of my observation:

"The group started heading back to the SSU for their lunch. There was a DJ playing upbeat music, booths offering employees resources, food and drinks. The individuals seemed to be more relaxed and awake compared to when I first saw them in the morning.  There were bright colored balloons, tents, t-shirts."

Compared to the morning, the group looked more alert and less tensed up. There was loud, upbeat music played by the DJ. Looking around I saw a lot of resourceful booths for the employees. Through my observations, I saw that the organization cared about their employees. You don't see it often where organizations or companies are offering their employees useful resources such as, weekend jobs, discounts by showing their ID badges, and access to a food bank. There was far more social interactions observed in the afternoon in comparison to in the morning time observation. Food and drinks were served and I saw groups of people increasing from only 4 people to 8 or 10 people. Looking over my thick descriptions, I can say that could've gone more in-depth with my descriptions of my observations.

Roles

The following node that I created was roles. During my observation, I failed to mention any of the roles that I observed. I realized this after I had finished my field notes, so they were not included. Briefly, some the roles that I observed were employees of the organization, friends, co-worker, administrators, spectators, keynote speaker, photographer, sound technician, and audience. Unfortunately, due to the lack of fieldnotes on the roles I was unable to analyze this using NVivo.

Impression Management

Impression management is when we try to shape how others view us. In my observations, I did see this happening between a group of people that I sat next to.

"One person said that they dislike coming to these staff development days and it's pointless and a waste of their time. The person next to them sort of just chuckled and looked away. Next to me there is a younger male and female employee, they are talking about their plans for the rest of the weekend. The male said that he has plans to go out to a friend's house and there will be booze. He invites the young lady and she says that she will let him know."

From the quote mentioned above, the person who said attending the staff development days was pointless and a waste of their time, made that comment in hopes that the others around them would have agreed. Instead, the person next to them chuckled and looked away. As an outsider looking into this situation, it was not something you would expect to hear from an employee of an organization of this size. I don't think the comment affected those who were surrounded by the person who made that comment.

Another example of an impression management that I observed was during the second observation during the lunch/social hour. There were groups of people who waited in line for their lunch and stayed to eat their lunch with others. I overheard a few people who said:

"I don't want to wait around in a long line for  and eat around people I don't even know, when I could just go somewhere else with just you guys."

This is an example of an impression management because the few people who said they wouldn't wait for lunch only to eat it with people they don't know were hoping this comment influenced their friends around them. In a sense, they were initiating the thought of "follow the leader".

Definition of the Situation

The last node that was created for the ethnography was the definition of the situation. In my observation there were great examples of the definition of the situation observed. When the employees were told:

"to refrain from being on cell phones during the guest keynote speaker is on stage. Supervisors were walking up and down the aisles to make sure no one was on their phones or being disruptive to others."

Through the definition of this situation, employees were given a set expectation on how to behave. In the sense that they should not use their cell phones while the keynote speaker was on stage. As well as, employees should not cause a distraction to those around them. Even with supervisors walking up and down the aisles, that did not stop the group that I was observing.

Interviews

I found that the analysis for the interview portion was much easier than the analysis of the ethnography portion. Like I mentioned, I lacked a thick description in a lot of my field notes from the observations. However, for the interviews I was prepared with an interview guide. For the interview analysis, I have created the nodes: significant symbols, roles, and looking-glass self.

Significant Symbols

The first node that I created for my interview section was significant symbols. I chose significant symbols as the first node because throughout all three interviews, I noticed the value and importance that was placed on school. As Rob mentioned during the beginning of his interview:

Reference 1: 0.96% coverage

"I attended high school in Madera. And then from there, I attended college and played

baseball in San Diego. I went there for about two semesters. After that, I did not continue

with my scholarship for baseball, and I came back home and I ended up going to Fresno

City College where I received my associates degree and then from there, I transferred

over to Fresno State, my overall goal was to become a teacher. And then from there, I wanted to become a principal."

Adri she stated in her interview:

Reference 4: 0.33% coverage

"I work for a nonprofit organization. We work with school districts and we hire future

teachers to work in the education system."

Reference 5: 0.25% coverage

"I currently am attending Fresno State. My major is child development. And I plan to be

a teacher."

When asked about her background, Abby stated the following:

Reference 6: 0.15% coverage

"I'm in college, 22 Finishing my last year at Fresno State. I'm a Liberal Studies major."

It was evident to see that each of the participants in my study shared a common goal and they all valued completing a higher level of education, in order to accomplish their long-term career goals. Because without the completion of a high level of education, the participants would not be able to obtain their teaching credential.

Roles

The next node that was created was roles. During the interviews with Rob, Adri, and Abby I wanted to them to go into detail about their role working with Teaching Forward. Prior to the interviews, I explained the definition of roles to each participant. Some of the participants understood the term meant and others did not. When Rob was asked about his roles with the organization, he had a very in-depth answer about his roles.

When asked what roles he takes on, Rob replied:

"my new position with this nonprofit organization, I hold multiple roles. I am a trainer, I

travel around the Fresno county region, and train multiple school districts. I'm a

supervisor for over 20 school sites. I supervise about 200 individuals."

By the answer Rob gave, it's clear that he takes on quite a few different roles just in his workplace. He did not share the roles he takes on in his personal life.

When asked what roles she takes, Abby replied:

In her personal life: "I'm a girlfriend, I'm a little sister. I'm a big sister. And I'm a Nina to a little one and a cousin and a granddaughter." In her work place, she says "I'm more of a role model."

In my interview with Adri, she compared her role as a tutor and to her new role that she recently got promoted to, which was interesting to hear the difference of her job responsibilities. She went into detail about her responsibilities in the classroom setting and the different types of classes she taught to students to match their interests.

"I was responsible for a class I had about 20 students that I was with every single day.

And I was responsible for tutoring them with their homework, if they had, you know, if

there were struggling or had any questions. And then I was also responsible for running a class that just included, you know, various things like art, dance, just different classes that I was interested in, as well as the students."

In addition to her responsibilities in a classroom setting, she also shared her job responsibilities after promoting from a tutor to an assistant site lead.  

"Whereas now I am more so in charge of like discipline, and just making sure that staff

members that are with students that have classrooms are, you know, do what they're

supposed to do. So I have a little bit more authority with this position."

Looking-Glass Self

During all three of the interviews, I asked the question along the lines of  "Do you consider yourself an approachable person?" Then purpose of this question was to probe and see how each participant saw themselves and how others see them. For Adri, she replied:

"I would think so, I try to always, you know, what positive and have a smile on my face.

And so, I would think that I am."

When Abby was asked, if she considered herself to be an approachable person, she replied with an answer that took me by surprise. She mentioned that others see her and think that she's always mad, but in reality, she is happy (most of the time).

"Yes, sometimes just because sometimes I look like I'm really mad, but I'm not. And I'm

actually a very happy person. For a majority though. I do feel like I'm approachable."

I followed up with the question, "Do you feel like you are judged by people?" Her reply was:

"Yes. I felt like a lot of people do judge me. And they're like, Oh, you seem so mean. But I

don't think I am. They got to get to know me first."

I can empathize with Abby in this given situation. More than often society does "judge a book by its cover" and they don't even know the person. It's sad to see this is still happening in society. If society would give everyone a chance to get to know someone before they make a quick judgment, I think the social environment would be much better.

Content Analysis

For my content analysis, I created the nodes: collective action frame, diagnostic frames, and motivational frame. The analysis part was a bit difficult because some webpages had a lot of useful information and others not so useful. I came across YouTube videos, but there were no comments. So I did not include that as a source. Instead, I used other affiliated websites to the organization and found online reviews about the organization. After I found the sources I used NVivo and Ncapture to analyze the collected sources.

Collective Action Frame

I ran a word frequency query for collective action frame and this is what was projected.

When analyzing my sources, I was able to find quite a few statements from the organization's web page that was a possible solution for the recruitment for future educators:

Reference 4: 1.17% coverage

41% of TF have committed to becoming educators

Reference 5: 1.36% coverage

31% of TF have expressed interest in becoming educators

Reference 6: 1.56% coverage

The average TF earns more than 1,400 hours of classroom experience

Reference 7: 1.65% coverage

The average TF earns 100 hours of professional development and training

Reference 8: 1.33% coverage

More than 300 TF are now teachers in California schools

Given that these statements were found on the organization's website, I do not know how accurate the statistics are. Although, the examples of collective action frames mentioned above do sound promising that TF are committed to becoming educators and they are gaining the necessary experience through the classroom, professional development, and trainings offered by the organization.

Diagnostic Frame

When analyzing the gathered sources, I came across quite a few issues that fall under the node diagnostic. Diagnostic framing is when there is an issue and it's been identified by either the organization or an outsider. I also ran a word frequency query for the diagnostic frame.

As you can see on the world cloud, students had a weighted percentage of 4%. Those who left reviews said:

"Misbehaved students"

"The students are sometimes disrespectful."

"I didn't think that management did a good job at providing training on how to work with

students in certain situations"

" As a college student working with high school students, I felt I did not always know the proper way to communicate about how to get their club idea moving forward."

Those who left reviews didn't feel well equipped with the proper training on how to work with the students in certain situations and even on how to communicate with the students.

Motivational Frame

Through analyzing my sources, I was able to gather information that best explained motivational framing. Motivational framing is when institutions or individuals outside of the institution give others reasons and insight as to why individuals should get involved with the organization.

The following statements are just a few reviews that I found to be relevant and solid examples of motivational framing.

Not everyone may have the same experience with this organization, but one individual's review says:

"Working for TF has molded me into the person I am today. They worked with my school

schedule and taught me how to be selfless. It's always about the students!"

Another individual mentioned that this job with the organization has taught her patience and to be calm.

"This job has taught me how to be extremely patient and calm. My co-workers were amazing and so is my boss. The best part is to see the change you make in these children's lives."

This individual says that being able to work with children on a daily basis was the best part of her job. Her students made her feel better and she assisted younger children with the basics of reading and writing.

"Being able to work with children on a day to day to basis is probably the best

part of the job. The children instantly make you feel better. A few days a week I help tutor children around age 5 or 6 with learning basic reading, writing and math skills."

The reviews mentioned above were just a few that I found to be motivational to anyone who is interested in gaining experience before stepping into the education field. From my analysis of the reviews, I can conclude that this organization has a lot oh happy employees and that the employees are gaining actual experience that will prepare them for their future careers.

Conclusion

"Attracting and keeping quality teachers in California classrooms is a constant

challenge. With about a third of the teaching force nearing retirement, the Center for the

Future of Teaching and Learning estimates that California will need an additional 100,000 teachers over the next decade."

Retrieved from: https://www.cta.org/

In conclusion to my research, the particular organization that I chose to study were very welcoming and friendly from the moment I met them. I feel confident that I was able to collect all the necessary data that was needed. Although, like I mentioned previously, I wish I would've taken better detailed field notes. I feel like they lacked in-depth details about the observations. I found that the data collected through the observations and interview recordings,  were easily analyzed through NVivo allowing me to organize and store all my data. NVivo was an overall great software to use to analyze and store all of my collected data. Overall, this research project has taught me, as a student researcher, that it's best to go into an interview with a guide and not to just "wing it." It's quite difficult to go into an interview with an unfamiliar far and ask them questions on the spot for fifteen minutes without awkward pauses in between.

Lastly, I am so grateful for the participants that made themselves available to me for interviews for the purpose of my research. The participants were all so genuine and passionate about their jobs. It was so rewarding to see how much they smiled while talking about their future goals of becoming an educator. They all had the same vision in mind for the students and community that they serve!

 

 

 

 

References

 

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Stryker, Sheldon. "Symbolic Interaction Theory." Montgomery, Rhonda J.V. and Edgar

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