4.8 Data Reporting

The process of reporting the data did not aim to group all the beliefs of one individual together. Instead, the aim is on grouping the beliefs based on the codes, patterns and themes. This means that the data are reported as excerpts. In the course of a discussion, a teacher might have revealed numerous beliefs some of which might relate to different topics. Such beliefs may therefore be reported in different sections under different categories. In some cases, it was necessary to report only part of a sentence in order to focus on particular beliefs. Every attempt was made to ensure the integrity of the individual’s comments and beliefs in spite of the fact that only parts of comments might have been reported and in spite of the fact that many beliefs are not presented in the context of the discussion in which they were generated.

Every effort was made to ensure the anonymity of the participants. Therefore, names of places or persons which might serve to attribute a comment to a particular individual were replaced by fictitious names. In cases where reference was made to a country or continent and where the reference is significant in terms of the meaning, the place name was not changed if it did not appear to compromise the identity of the participant. In cases where the identity could not remain anonymous in spite of changing the names of the place or person, the data were discarded.

In relation to gender, use of "his/her" was avoided. Teachers are referred to instead with the feminine "she" or "her". Also in terms of the reporting, it should be noted that teachers’ discussion postings often contained errors. Logan (1995) reminds us that e-mail correspondence is often less formal that other forms of written correspondence. Errors are noted with a "sic". However, missing accents, in the case of the French postings are not noted with a "sic". While some participants were able to make use of the computer’s capacity to transmit accents, others were not. Some participants asked of others that they expressly not use accents because their own e-mail software did not support them and because they had difficulty reading them.