Is personality overlooked in educational psychology? Educational experiences of secondary-school students with introverted personality styles

Figures & data

Table 1. Details of research participants.

Participant	Pseudonym	Age	School Attended	School Year	McCroskey Scale Score
1	Martha	15	1	10	27 (Moderate)
2	Alexis	15	2	10	36 (High)
3	Richard	13	2	8	28 (High)
4	Katherine	14	3	9	25 (Moderate)
5	Victoria	15	2	10	26 (Moderate)
6	Kevin	12	2	8	20 (Moderate)
7	Johanna	11	2	7	24 (Moderate)
8	Lanie	14	4	9	21 (Moderate)
9	Gina	14	2	10	31 (High)
10	Meredith	14	5	10	21 (Moderate)
11	Jenny	11	5	7	23 (Moderate)

Table 2. Overview of superordinate themes and subthemes from reflexive TA.

Superordinate Themes	Subthemes
The puzzle of exploring our identity	Growth and change We’re all unique individuals
The complexity of the social world	Feeling at odds with societal expectations Understanding our preferences as social beings
Should we be more extraverted?
Experiencing participatory pressures in school	Feelings of discomfort associated with participation Teachers’ responses to participatory attempts Learning to cope with participation
Living with others and not in a vacuum	Friends as allies The modulating impact of others on the context
The physical environment: Friend or foe?	The presence of others heightening environmental challenges Finding restorative niches
A roller-coaster of anxiety-related emotions
The key impact of relationships	Are we invisible? The not so accepting response of others
School can (also) be a positive context for growth
An interpersonal touch	Please understand who I am Taking the time to build supportive relationships
Relieving the pressure by providing choice
A quiet and calm environment

Table 3. Broad areas of participants’ descriptions of introversion.

Positives	Negatives
Enjoy spending time alone Quietness A choice over social interactions/how to spend free time Context-dependent Diversity of presentation Friendship preferences (smaller groups) Positive academic presentation Good sense of humour	Social interaction experienced as draining Shyness Difficulties with confidence Moody Plain Dull More studious More reserved

Table

Stage of reflexive TA	Steps undertaken by the researchers
Familiarisation with the data	Transcribed the interviews. Read and re-read the data in an active, analytical and critical way to ensure familiarisation.
(2) Coding	Adopted a complete coding approach. Generated codes for all features of the data which might be relevant to the research question. Collated all the codes and relevant data extracts for subsequent analysis.
(3) Generating initial themes	Examined the codes to identify larger patterns of meaning across the dataset. Identified candidate themes using visual mapping as an aid. Reviewed and revised the candidate themes.
(4) Developing and Reviewing themes	Checked candidate themes to ensure their consistency with the story of the dataset and relevance to respond to the research question. Refined the themes by merging, splitting or discarding.
(5) Refining, defining and naming themes	Developed a rich, interconnected and logical analysis for each theme. Named the themes in an evocative, concise and informative way.
(6) Writing up	Presented the findings from the analysis. Weaved together the analysis narrative and data extracts. Contextualised the findings in the existing literature base.