ABSTRACT

In this chapter we present detailed information on the teachers who took part in the research. The information is derived from responses to the questionnaire (see Appendix II) that they completed at the end of the seven-or fourteen-day recording period. The questionnaire comprised twenty-three items designed to give information under six broad headings. These were: professional biographies (three items), professional context (four items), working conditions (seven items), teacher perceptions of obstacles (two items), teacher perceptions of time (six items) and employing authority (one item). The content of the questionnaire items was originally created from our knowledge of the research literature and following discussions with the teachers’ association which sponsored the research using Samples 1 and 2. It was tested in discussion with a small group of experienced infant teachers, and used in the pilot study in 1990. In the light of this pilot, minor changes to wording were introduced, and in 1991 three additional items (Q1P4A, Q1P8A and Q2P6) were introduced to provide information shown by the pilot to be relevant to the research.