The study was to be conducted in my place of work, a cross-phase (4-18) independent girls' day school, where I am the ICT Development Manager. In addition to managing the ICT infrastructure and the staff which maintain it, I also have a role in ICT-related staff development. Which appear to have tenuous connections with pupil perceptions of learning perhaps? However for me the importance of ICT in schools, right back to when I was teaching Physics in a maintained secondary school, is how it affects learning. It's not whether it helps students' motivation (studies suggest it does), nor whether it improves examination performance (jury still out), but in what ways it affects students' learning - if we understand that, we will be better placed to ensure ICT fulfils the potential it offers to improve engagement and performance. In more general terms however, if we have a better appreciation of how students view their learning, we might be better placed to provide learning opportunities which address their needs and challenge them to fulfil their potential.
So I would be asking students to capture and describe their perception of learning. I had no idea what their responses might be. I wasn't sure whether the images would have any merit. I wouldn't be evaluating responses in the light of extant learning theories. I simply wanted to know what the students thought.
A grounded theory approach seemed to best suit the needs of the study and might enable a theoretical understanding of pupil perceptions of learning to emerge from participants' experiences. Given my background in education and previous explorations of learning through earlier study, I could either choose to attempt to blank out prior knowledge and enter the field fresh, or accept what I already knew, acknowledge it and explore the extent to which any preconceptions might influence the emerging theory. Choosing the latter and favouring a constructivist epistemological approach ushered me towards adopting the social constructivist grounded theory approach advocated by Kathy Charmaz (2000).