ABSTRACT
This chapter is devoted to explaining and justifying the research design and method including data collection and analysis. The research is qualitative in nature, and qualitative content analysis was employed to process and analyse the primary data. The three types of primary data, namely, syllabus documents, textbooks and interview transcripts, were collected to address the two research questions: How has the Yuwen (Chinese language and literacy) curriculum been controlled and mediated by social and political domination? How have the teachers and schools responded in their teaching practices to the top-down curriculum changes?
The chapter also describes the primary data collection processes and analyses, the time frame of the syllabuses (1978–2003) and textbooks (1978–2004), the interview design and coding methods. The author also justifies the applicability of interpretative content analysis to this research. The author's intention to explore the social meaning behind the texts is elaborated, followed by an account of the more complex coding tasks (particularly for the textbook analysis), allowing space for non-frequency analysis of the text. Finally, the author argues the applicability of this type of content analysis to “public justifiability” with regard to the trustworthiness of in-depth qualitative analysis.
