As the nature of the research questions prompted open inquiry and a phenomenologist approach (Creswell, 2009; Dörnyei, 2007; O’Leary, 2017) towards the practices of instructors who are experts of technology inclusion in their teaching practices, a semi-structured interview guide was prepared. Semi-structured interviews have several core questions that are asked from each participant, but allow the researcher to ask follow-up questions, should an interesting theme emerge during the interview process (Dörnyei, 2007). The development was also preceded by consulting relevant literature, taking into consideration the results of the main learner and the pilot instructor questionnaires as well as piloting the instrument.

 

Apart from the interview guide, three additional documents were prepared. The first one was a short, to-the-point recruitment message that could be sent for future participants detailing the topic, aims and expected length of the interview. The second was a consent form that reassured participants of their anonymity and the possibility to opt out from the research process at any given time as well as asking for their consent to be recorded. The third one was a short introduction that was read out to the participants before the interview started, but after a few minutes of icebreaking conversation.

 

3.4.2.1 Piloting the Instrument. Administration of the interview was preceded by a pre-pilot and a pilot phase. The pre-pilot involved two fellow researchers and were mainly concerned with the wording and organisation of the interview questions. One of the researchers was one of the supervisors of the researcher, and the second a fellow PhD student. The questions were expert reviewed to flow in a logical order as well as to meet the requirements put forward by Dörnyei (2007) and Friedman (2012); yes/no questions were not included in the guide, too technical questions were reworded, and complex questions were broken down to smaller units (Dörnyei, 2007). The interview guide was piloted with the involvement of two technology expert teachers. The pilot interviews lasted for 30 and 42 minutes, and the length of the interviews was used to signal how long the interviews would take for prospective participants. The pilot also made it possible to test the three accompanying documents of the interview guide: 1) the recruitment email, 2) the short introduction to the participants before the interviews began, and 3) the informed consent form. Following the pilot, no major revisions were necessary for the core interview schedule.