Exploring methodology for data collection for research on Teacher Resilience

This paper establishes the methodological approach used to examine teacher resilience in the face of systemic changes at primary school level in the five school years from 2016 – 2021 from the perspective of a novice researcher. During this time primary schools experienced a rapid introduction of curricular and policy changes and even the most experienced of staff explored new contexts during the unprecedented move to remote teaching and leading, due to public health measures introduced at the height of the Coronavirus pandemic. This paper outlines the multi-site case study favoured by the researcher which was conducted across six schools. In this study, the researcher sought career wide opinions from teachers and principals on what influenced or hindered their capacity to be resilient during the past five years of teaching and leading in primary schools. This combined a questionnaire in phase one with a semi-structured interview at phase two with a triad of participants from each of the case study schools (namely principal, special education teacher (SET) and mainstream teacher). Participant recruitment, data collection instruments and challenges faced by the researcher are discussed alongside ethical considerations.