ABSTRACT
When I was teaching in a school in New Zealand I was interested in finding ways to make chemistry more interesting and relevant. After a period of trial and error, I realised that familiar themes and contexts engaged the children I taught, but I wanted to know how the use of these themes and contexts influenced the children’s ability to learn chemistry. I explored the potential of teaching a conceptually difficult chemistry topic through the use of various contexts. I had my research questions mapped out fairly early. After reading various journal articles and texts, I identified data collection strategies that involve pre-, post-, retrospective and introspective interviews, classroom observation, pre-and post-surveys and tests, materials and class work analysis. Despite having those data collection strategies in place, I was still in a quandary when it came to how to analyse this data. And as a scientist, I was used to collecting and analysing data and then sharing my analysis and conclusions with the scientific community, holding up my analysis and findings for peer scrutiny. So if I were to collect and analyse classroom data, what would I need to do to ensure that my findings were valid, trustworthy and stood up to scrutiny?
