Abstract
M.Ed. (Educational Psychology)
To improve teacher-parent partnerships, continuous communication between all
individuals is essential. The most effective form of communication between parents
and a teacher is the parent feedback meeting. Therefore, this study aims to
understand the content and organisation of Trans-Disciplinary Team parent feedback
conversations and its influence on the process of collaboration.
This study was motivated due to the need to better understand Trans-Disciplinary
Team parent feedback conversations. It also aims to contribute to the gap in
literature, as it is essential that teachers, therapists and psychologists understand
these interactions and the role it plays in collaboration in attempt to effectively
address barriers to learning within a LSEN school context.
As this is the study of the interactions of a Trans-Disciplinary Team parent feedback
conversation, it follows an interpretivist qualitative paradigm within an
ethnomethodological research design. This enabled me to provide a detailed report
and discussion on data that was captured within its natural setting. It also provided
insight into the social nature of the activity and ultimately into the actions of the
participants. Data was collected through a video-recoding of an annual Transdisciplinary
Team parent feedback conversation. A verbatim transcription of this
recording was analysed. Content Analysis provided an extensive analysis of the
transcription to identify the conversational topics of discussion. Conversation
Analysis provided a more in-depth analysis of the participants‘ conversational
interactions.