Researching Teachers' Professional Identity: A Sequential Triangulation

Abstract

This article describes the design of a study that involved junior high-school teachers in Spain. The study investigated the professional identity crisis the teachers faced as a result of an education reform, which affected their work environment. The identity biographical narrative approach was adopted as the theoretical framework (re)presented in the life stories told by the individuals. Ten biographical interviews were conducted and each interview was analyzed separately (using vertical or diachronic analysis) and, through content analysis, in a transversal perspective (horizontal or synchronic) with the categories which were determined as identity components. As a result of the transversal analysis a protocol guide was created, which was used as the basis for the discussion groups. By means of a sequential triangulation (MORSE, 1991), the ideographic and personal dimensions of the interview enabled us to have a detailed report which was later enhanced by the group perspective. According to the classification by STAKE, this research can be considered a collective case study by means of eight focus groups. URN: urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs0501125

Keywords

• teachers' professional identity
• sequential triangulation
• biographical-narrative research