ABSTRACT
A common challenge faced by researchers employing qualitative methods is that general approaches to research and analysis do not come ‘oven-ready’. There is a need to form a defensible personal interpretation of the nature of a particular research approach and to think through carefully how this understanding can then be translated into action. Another challenge is posed by the range of approaches that is now available to a qualitative researcher, for example, grounded theory, discourse analysis, critical discourse analysis, narrative enquiry and ethnographies. Each of the approaches in the preceding list also can be seen to have distinct variants and to be marked by internal debate rather than representing a homogenous set of epistemological and ontological assumptions and agreed research procedures. How does one make a choice that is well principled? These two challenges are likely to be particularly acute when one explores a lessestablished field of study where there are no well-trodden paths of analysis to follow. This chapter sets out how, in a current study, we have wrestled with these challenges to find approaches that were fit for our immediate research purposes and well-tailored to capture the patterns and forms of meaning that became visible in our body of data. The study examined the discussions between an experienced tutor, Pauline Sangster, and ten students training to be teachers of English that took place after these students had given a lesson (at different points during their training year). It involved close analysis of transcripts of the talk in these individual sessions by Pauline Sangster and Charles Anderson.
