Teacher Learning in a Community of Practice: A Case Study of ...

collection. He questions whether concentration on the spoken word actually distorts the
understanding ofthe cultures that researchers seek to describe.
As my relationship with the teachers developed, they willingly allowed me into their
schools and classrooms I knew that I was 'in' or as Walford (2001:85) describes it,
"...the natives had built me a hut." With increased access, I realised that there was no
need for the second interview as the field notes supplanted interviews as a source ofdata
collection. Most research is actually more interested in what people do than what they say
they do (Walford 2001). In the case ofclassroom research, 'what they do' may well
include spoken language, but it is spoken language in a particular context ofongoing
naturally occurring classroom activity. What people say when they are interviewed
should be treated with extreme care. According to Delamont (2002), interviews can
produce data quickly, but they are different from, and inferior to, proper observational
fieldwork. The important issue to consider is that of 'fitness for purpose', namely, what
method is most suitable to achieve the desired objective.
The nature ofthe interview is an unusual affair in that the socially accepted rules of
conversation and reciprocity between people are suspended (Walford 2001). The
interviewer selects the topic to be covered. The views ofthe interviewee are taken to have
lasting importance, to be recorded for future analysis. There is a strong irony in the way
that" '" so much modem qualitative research relies on tape recorded interviews as a main
data source, for qualitative research ...grew in part in reaction to positivistic and
experimental research that once held sway" (ibid.:89). Experimental methods are
castigated as setting up unreal situations, yet within qualitative research, many
researchers construct strange and artificial situations called 'interviews' and often use the
results ofthese situations as the core oftheir writing.
What people tell us in interviews is often not to be trusted. People unconsciously take the
interview opportunity to reconstruct a desirable or preferred identity (Walford 2001).
Identity is created rather than revealed through narrative. Because life is uncertain, people
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