**6. Findings and discussion**

**5. The action research approach**

74 Contemporary Pedagogies in Teacher Education and Development

at the end of the semester.

tions to their recorded words if necessary.

The study was a three-year qualitative research and drew on a range of qualitative research methods, including participatory action research [42]. Over the period of the study, participants included 346 PSTs (all of whom participated in the compulsory in-class program, the instruction and the final evaluation survey) and 24 PSTs (from the larger group) who volunteered to audio-record their small group interactions with students in classrooms and to participate in recorded follow-up de-brief mentoring sessions and interviews. Participation in the recording of in-class interactions and the interviews was optional since it was the first session of study for the degree for these first year PSTs. Volunteer students (arranged in pairs) were purposively placed in the one school so that teacher lessons and follow-up de-brief sessions were more easily recorded. Along with the group of 346 PSTs, other participants included 16 classroom teachers and six academics, who also participated in instructional sessions at the university and the final evaluation survey conducted after the in-class experiences

Data collection periods were mainly in the first semester in each year of the study. In particular, recorded interviews, observations of volunteer first year PSTs interacting with small groups of students in classrooms and observations of these PSTs participating in de-brief mentoring conversations with their supervising teacher were conducted (see Edwards-Groves [15]). Data from the audio-recorded small group interactions between PSTs and their small group of students (24 recordings in total) were transcribed as a record of the actual discursive production of the talk-in-interaction [2, 43]. Further, each classroom teacher and pairs of volunteer PSTs were issued with a small video/audio recorder (Flip Cameras) for the duration of the study to record the classroom lessons, mentoring conversations and small-group interactions. Additionally, post-observation discussions and focus group interviews with PSTs were conducted after the in-classroom sessions were completed at the end of the university semester. These data were audio recorded and transcribed. The research was approved by the University's Human Ethics in Research Committee and according, informed consent was provided by PSTs, academics, teachers, principals, students and care-givers. Participants were sent transcripts of interviews for the purposes of validation; noting this provided them with an opportunity to verify, confirm and clarify their comments and make adjustments and addi-

Thematic analysis, as described by Braun and Clarke [44], was employed in this study since it is a useful and flexible method appropriate for a range of theoretical and epistemological approaches. Used to identify, organise, analyse, and report patterns (themes) within and across a corpus of data [44], it offers scope to develop rich and detailed, yet complex accounts of data. Specifically, in this study Braun and Clarke's six-phase coding process was used to delineate clearly established, meaningful patterns. These phases are: familiarisation with data, generating initial codes, searching for themes among codes, reviewing themes, defining and naming themes, and producing the final report ([44]; p. 16). Following this process through several iterations provides the analyst with the analytic mechanism for pinning down the Thematic analysis of the recorded debrief interview, post-observation discussion and smallgroup in-class data elicited three broad themes. Specifically, it revealed the learnings occasioned by first year PSTs about the value they placed on: first, kidwatching and critically observing talk moves in classroom lessons; second, 'actually' practising interacting with students in classrooms; and third, how they attributed much of what they had learnt about dialogic teaching to the focus on learning to listen and interact with students. These themes will be discussed in turn.
