Successes and challenges of the diary method

The analysis presented here examines the diary' method’s success in capturing routine and forgettable, micro-level data toward the research questions, as well as the challenges which were encountered in acquiring this data.

Capturing the routine and forgettable

The first analysis of the diaries consisted of a simple counting of the recorded interactions of each participant. This count, an analysis similar to that used by' Swim et al. (2003), enabled an understanding of the frequency of occurrences for individuals in a specific time period. Table 12.2 shows how many times each participant interacted in English off campus during the six-week period.

In this study, the diary method facilitated an accurate understanding of how often each participant spoke English off campus, a finding on which other analysis built. Arguably, it is not possible to gather this information through an interview or questionnaire administered long after conversations have ended. In this way, the diary' method made possible the capturing of the everyday, routine and forgettable in the language lives of international students.

The interactions recorded in the diary entries were then analysed for the field, tenor and mode according to their components summarised in Table 12.3.

The analysis of the register of the conversations recorded in the diaries revealed the nature of English-speaking activity' of each of the participants as well as the quality' of connection that they experienced within those interactions (Groves,

Table 12.2 Number of interactions by participant (all names are pseudonyms)

* Number of interactions during a three-week (Jahira), four-week (Médina), or five-week period (Aamina).

Table 12.3 Analysis categories

Source: adapted from Eggins and Slade (1997); Halliday (2009); Mohan (1987)

2015; Groves, Verenikina & Chen, 2016). The findings from this analysis offers a more detailed understanding of participation than what existing studies have provided. Previously, international students’ experience of participation has been described generally as withdrawing, separating, being excluded, or involving themselves in an enclave of co-culturals (Edgeworth & Eiseman, 2007; Paltridge & Schapper, 2012). Similarly, acculturation research labels community' involvement in a general way - through the four acculturation strategies: assimilation, integration, separation and marginalisation (Sam & Berry, 2010). A new perspective and more detailed understandings on the phenomenon of international student participation in local communities was afforded by the method used in this study, that is, the solicited diary'.

These benefits could not have been possible without the time and effort given to the research by the participants. With a diary' study, that contribution can often be considerable. The following section discusses the burden of the diary study on the participants and how this impacted the quantity and quality' of data.

The burden of diarising and implications for the research

In designing the study, the researcher took much time to consider how to successfully fulfil the research aims without overburdening the participants. A time frame of six weeks was chosen as being long enough to capture the required data and achievable for participants to maintain the required motivation to participate. Eight of the ten participants maintained their diaries into the sixth week. Aamina finished hers at in the fifth week and Jahira only kept the diary' for 13 days after the initial interview (see Table 12.4). Three weeks after commencing the diary study, Jahira attended a meeting with the researcher and had filled in the diary for some of that period. At the second meeting, however, Jahira had not completed any more of the diary. The researcher took this as an indication that Jahira did not wish to participate any longer and did not schedule a third meeting with her.

Interview conversations were used by the researcher to maintain motivation and encouragement for the participants to complete their diaries as fiilly and regularly as possible. Most of the participants attended two or three of these meetings during the diary keeping phase. One participant, Medina, did not fill out her diary' in between the first and second interview conversations (i.e. weeks three and four) of the study as she had been away on holiday. In an attempt to move beyond the lapse in record keeping, the meeting provided the researcher with an opportunity' to encourage Medina to continue keeping her diary', which she did, for the next two weeks. The interview conversations were successful at avoiding attrition and motivating this participant to re-engage with the project and contribute further data to it.

Table 12.4 Diary completion

Respondent fatigue and commitment to keeping a diary was a challenge for the project which resulted in less data for three of the female participants (Aamina, Medina and Jahira) than was hoped for by the researcher. The possible reasons for this are twofold. Firstly, due to their traditional roles and responsibilities, Saudi women are kept ven' busy with the domain of the home in addition to their studies (Groves, 2015) and probably have less time to attend to their diaries. Secondly, the data collection with the male participants took place 12 months after that of the females and the researcher was able to achieve a better response and participation rate in the second round as a result of learning from the first. Specifically, the researcher learnt to be more confident and direct in asking the participants to maintain their diaries accurately and fully and imparting the importance of that for the research.

A second issue for this study was related to the data recorded in the diaries. Analysis of the diaries began with cleaning of the data and exclusion of irrelevant records. Most of the diaries had good levels (71-87%) of relevant entries. However, Haydar, Raabia and Jahira’s diaries contained high levels of irrelevant entries, that is, entries that were not of interest to the study (44%, 87% and 50%, respectively). These were excluded from analysis (see Table 12.5). Table 12.6 provides some examples of irrelevant diary’ entries.

The main problem with the diary entries was the inclusion of on-campus interactions. Although the researcher thought that she had made the directions for diary' completion clear, looking back at the printed instructions included with the diaries and the participant information sheet, this was not so. There was actually' no written instruction to include only' off-campus events, only instructions given verbally by the researcher. Fortunately, in this study, the inclusion of extra, irrelevant entries had little impact on the data as they could be excluded however, participants should be given clearly written printed instructions about what to include in their diaries to complement verbal instructions. Clearly written instructions to participants might

Table 12.5 Diary entry relevance

Table 12.6 Examples of irrelevant diary entries

Recording the routine and forgettable 185

reduce the likelihood that irrelevant records are recorded in diaries, the burden of diary completion on participants and any unnecessary' time spent by' researchers in the analysis phase.

The following section draws on the analysis to recommend a series of approaches and techniques which might guide future researchers in the use of the diary' method and enable the potential of the method to be maximised.