Hi Errol.

That sounds very interesting! Does your approach have any similarities with the work of Knobelsdorf and Schulte some colleagues I have been working with in Germany? They are looking at self-biographies as a way to understand entry pathways into STEM.

There is also the work of Ulricksen and colleagues in Denmark which looks at identity and the accessible identities the students perceive in their study context. Part of their work seems to indicate that perceptions of the discipline are also strongly shaped by how people see themselves fitting into it, and contributing to it.

Contexts that offer a broad palette of accessible identity choices tend to retain more diverse student populations and have better retention. I can recommend their work.

Arnold.

P.S. I realised that we did not answer the question regarding the methods used. In our study of University students we are using semi-structured interviews, and have completed year three of data collection with a focus group activity.

Our current work looks at non-formal learning contexts. There we are taking an approach based on observation of the non-formal learning situations and activities, as well as collecting interview data from volunteer instructors and participants.

Analysis is partially thematic analysis and some data we expect to analyse phenomenographically. See the seminal work of Marton and Booth. 

I haven't looked at accessible identity. Most of my work has been completed by using semi-structured interviews and analysing using phenomenography. To some extent, I have been looking very specifically at perceptions of programming but the focus has been too narrow. I want to broaden the focus as I am now teaching a computational reasoning module where we want to go beyond the application of computational reasoning and thinking to programming.

Hi Errol,

We are trying out Kelly's Repertory Grids at the moment. Seems quite promising. But we haven't published something yet.