Interviews with teaching staff bring further understanding of the education practices at IUG

eTraining FinPal project team organised and conducted four focus group interviews with IUG teaching staff in January 2018. The aim of the interviews was to collect qualitative data about learning, teaching and educational development at IUG. The qualitative data enrich the previously collected survey data and together they contribute to better understanding of the situation at IUG, provide basis for development of the training programme, and provide material for joint research publications.

Participation in the interview was voluntary and more than 35 members of the IUG teaching staff expressed their interest in participating in the interview. Almost half of them expressed a wish for the interviews to be conducted in English. In order to maintain the representativeness of the sample, the project team selected 18 participants in four group interviews. Two interviews were conducted in English and two in Arabic.

The interviews were organised in IUG premises moderated by researchers from UTA via video conference. The IUG project team contacted the participants and arranged all the practical and technical matters related to the interviews.

During the interview, the participants were asked to share their opinions and experiences, and to discuss about learning, teaching, and curriculum development at IUG. Valuable data about education practices at IUG were gathered through the interviews, and the project team is grateful to all participants for their contribution.

The group interviews were video- and audio-recorded for the purpose of transcription. All the responses will be anonymized during the data analysis and dealt with confidentiality. Data is solely used for eTraining FinPal project purposes.