Research Site Clause Samples

Research Site. All six semi-structured interviews were conducted in Petropavlovsk and took place at the scheduled time and location suggested by participants for their convenience. Two interviews took place at the same location, to be precise, in the foundation 'Sunny Children'. A detailed description of the foundation is provided later. The next two interviews were held at the respondents' houses, and a further two interviews were conducted via telephone. Although the last two respondents initially agreed to participate in face-to-face interviews, difficulties meeting in person due to the spread of COVID-19 resulted in a decision to provide interviews via telephone. The foundation 'Sunny Children' was established in Petropavlovsk over five years ago and was initiated by two mothers who have children with DS. Respondent 1 said that via the Internet, they had known about foundations run in Russia and they were inspired by their successful experience in the area of inclusive education. Thus, two mothers of children with DS came up with the idea to create their own organisation 'Sunny Children' that aimed to support mothers who have children with DS and their children in Petropavlovsk. Once a week, children and their parents gather and their children communicate with each other, draw, dance, play, and engage in other leisure activities. In the first four years, parents were required to raise funds to ensure the functioning of the foundation. During that period, children learned to sew toys from felt which were sold at different exhibitions. Currently, the foundation has official sponsors. According to Respondent 1, the children who attend this foundation are the only children with DS who have gone on stage and danced in Kazakhstan. The mother believes that it is thanks to the hard work of their dance teacher, who teaches children with DS to dance despite their problems with balance and spatial orientation. Also, children have been engaged in drawing classes from 2017. One self-educated student comes and teaches boys and girls to draw pictures. Some children have won prizes in different competitions. Additionally, they perform doll performances accompanied by music. In her interview respondent 1 said that mothers initiated various classes and craft projects to help their children with DS to develop and interact with their peers.

Research Site. The site selected for this study is the province of West Java, and more in particular the Bandung region. West Java has probably more than any other province in Indonesia been confronted with social-environmental problems caused by land acquisition and land use in the name of development.41 As the national capital's hinterland, West Java must buttress Jakarta’s expansion and growth as a megapolitan city.42 In return, West Java is supposed to enjoy the trickle-down benefit of Jakarta’s growth, but at the same time it is extremely vulnerable to the negative effects of governmental mismanagement of land use. Pressure on land in West Java is extremely high if we consider its rate of urbanization and population density. Data compiled by the National Bureau of Statistics (Biro/Badan Pusat Statistik) reveal that West Java, covering an area of 34, 736 km² and providing homes to 39,960,869 41 Surono, head of the Subdit Mitigasi Bencana Geologi Direktorat Vulkanologi ▇▇▇ Mitigasi Bencana Geologi (DVMBG) has been quoted as saying that in 2005 West Java province suffered most natural and man made disasters from all provinces in Indonesia. He added that policy and land use conversion aggravates the probability of man made disaster. Jabar, Kawasan Paling Rawan Bencana Longsor: Musibah Terbesar Terjadi di TPA Leuwigajah, (Pikiran Rakyat, 30 December 2005). But this is not to belittle the fact that other areas have also borne the social and environmental cost of land acquisition and utilization justified in the name of development. 42 Sri Hartati Samhadi, “Dilema Megapolitan”, (Kompas, 17 February 2007): 33. people, with an average of 1,074 people/km² is the most densely populated province in the country after Jakarta.43 Bandung, the capital city of West Java, like Jakarta, expands into the surrounding areas, putting similar pressure on the existing patterns of land use. The first case study looks specifically at West Java Province and Bandung municipality and how these different levels of government have dealt with spatial planning in an unstable and quickly evolving legal and political context. This reveals much about the difficulties in formulating a working and dependable spatial plan. The choice for looking at both levels of government allows me to demonstrate what working relationship exists between them and how this influences legal and policy formulation of spatial management. The second case study is situated in Punclut, North Bandung. Control of this area, offic...

Research Site. The three schools that were selected for the study are different in terms of their internal governance. The first school (S1) is a public mainstream school, running the national curriculum as it is. The second school (S2), is a private school that runs its own curriculum, but the curriculum is based on the national standard curriculum. School S3 is a school that is funded by the government, but is allowed autonomy in terms of curriculum and some flexibility in relation to standards. The system of S3 is similar to grammar schools in the UK or charter schools in the US. Since my research is about teacher autonomy, I found it reasonable to have teachers participate from different types of schools, so that I could compare how teachers with different institutional autonomy perceive their individual service autonomy.

Research Site. As secondary analysis was applied to the 2018 PISA data, therefore there is no specific study site. In fact, a multi-stage cluster sampling design was used for sampling schools in Kazakhstan. Schools, and, subsequently students, therefore, were drawn from urban and rural areas across the country (▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇, 2018). Thus, this study takes into account the vast majority of schools in the territory of Kazakhstan and reflects a representative sample of 15-year-old students.

Research Site. This research study was conducted in one of the specialized schools of Astana. According to the IB organization (n.d.) there are only three schools in Kazakhstan which follow the IB Diploma Programme. The selected school is one of the three schools following the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme curriculum, which include World History subject.

Research Site. The chosen school is a private school in central Kazakhstan that runs a flexible curriculum relying upon the national standard curriculum. Since my research is about teacher professionalism, I found it reasonable to have teachers from a school that has been providing value-based education for over 30 years. A distinctive feature of this school is that it has two sectors: an elementary school that serves grades 1-6, the language of instruction is Kazakh. There is also an in-depth study of the English language. Grades 7 to 11 is served by the high school sector. All science subjects are taught in English. As I have worked at this school, I knew that it places huge emphasis on teachers' professionalism and promotion of values such as autonomy, integrity, justice, fairness, ethical and moral disposition, excellence, and high standards for professional pursuits. Therefore I decided to select this school as my research site (see Appendix 2 for permission letter).

Research Site. The research was conducted at a specialized school for gifted students in the North of Kazakhstan, where students study from Grade 7 to 10. Any student may have a possibility to study at this school only after successful going through the procedure of competitive selection to win the grand of the first President. According to the curriculum, in grades 7 to 10, the number of the English language lessons constitutes five academic hours a week. The school was a convenient research site since the researcher had been working there for six years and had an easy access to school stakeholders involved in the study. The instrument chosen for data collection was a paper-and-pencil questionnaire, which contained seven sections. The first section consisted of a number of general questions concerning students’ age, gender, grade, and length of studying at the school (Appendix 1). The next five sections included a selection of items from five widely used scales to measure general language classroom anxiety and language anxiety on specific language competences, including reading, writing, listening and speaking. Those included:

Research Site. This section explains the choice of the research site. The study was conducted in the current workplace of the researcher in order to study her own school. ▇▇▇▇▇▇ calls this research “backyard research” (2011). According to ▇▇▇▇▇▇ (2011), currently novice researchers often choose “backyard research” (p. 41) as this provides the researcher with relatively easy access to a site. Conducting research within the researcher’s own school context is useful for the professional development of the researcher as he/she studies his/her own professional context (Glesne, 2011). Such sites are often called convenience sites because access to the site is easier and access to participants can occur efficiently (▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇, 2012). The research site of this study was one NIS school in Kazakhstan. Teachers of this school are mostly encouraged to work collaboratively by NIS school teacher’s attestation rules (2016) in order to grow professionally and therefore they are more engaged in collaborative activities. This means that these teachers are able to think and reflect on the topic that the researcher was interested in. According to competence requirements for teacher attestation, teachers are supposed to collaborate for professional learning (Attestation Rules of NIS teachers, 2016). This also introduced potential research biases which were managed in the data analysis process and will be discussed in the section on the measures of research quality below. According to ▇▇▇▇▇▇ (2011), a researcher needs to get official agreement on gaining access to the proposed research site (p. 58). The Principal of the school where the research took place received a Letter of Invitation (Appendix 1) to request access to teachers at the school to participate in this study. This letter consisted of brief information about the study such as: aim of the research, significance of the research, plans and methods. The principal gave a verbal agreement to conduct the research in the school.

Research Site. ‌ The data was collected at one school for gifted and talented students in Kazakhstan. While there is plenty of research on bullying, there is very little that focuses specifically on the academically talented. The present study focuses on how prevalent PVRC bullying is among academically gifted students in Kazakhstan. Due to ethical permissions, this research only collected data from Year 12 students who have already reached the age of 18 years. The selected research site is a private school for academically talented youth with a focus on teaching science subjects. The school is well-equipped technically, and has laboratories and a library with a wide range of materials. There are approximately 200 teachers and 750-800 students.