Adapting and merging methodologies in doctoral research

Abstract

This article describes how research methodologies were modified and integrated during the doctoral research conducted by the first author under the supervision of the second author. The research project concerned trying to understand why teachers do or don't use Jeliot, a program animation system designed to facilitate teaching and learning of introductory programming by automatically generating a dynamic view of a program's execution. The research was initially carried out using a modification of the framework of phenomenography, in order to uncover the ways of experiencing Jeliot. One result was a category of dissonant teachers who were enthusiastic about Jeliot but did not use it. To understand why, we used the theory of planned behavior (TPB) from social psychology to connect attitudes to behavior. The results were integrated back with the phenomenographic categories: we defined profiles of TPB scores that corresponded with categories of experiencing. These were used to predict the behavior of teachers from their TPB scores. The results highlighted the importance of perceived behavioral control in a teacher's decision to use the animation system.

Keywords:

• phenomenography
• theory of planned behavior
• visualization
• Jeliot
• attitudes
• perceived behavioral control

Notes

1. These categories are somewhat different from the original ones described in Ben-Bassat Levy and Ben-Ari (2007); they were modified as the result of discussions with other phenomenographers.