Each teacher was interviewed twice, at both the beginning and end of the semester. The
initial interviews focused on how teachers selected and used visual displays in their science
teaching. Although the questions were catered to the specific visual representations used by
individual teachers, the following questions served as a guide:
Why do you use visuals in your teaching?
What features of visuals make them ―good‖ ones?
How does the amount or type of visual used differ depending on student? the course?
the topic?
What are your resources for finding visuals to use? How do the resources available or
lack of resources available affect the visuals you use?
What are some limitations you may have experienced using visuals?
How would you describe the quality of visuals in your textbook? How do you think
students make use of illustrations in their textbooks?
How were the visuals used for classroom decoration selected?
In the final interviews, teachers were asked to reflect on the use of visual representations over
the course of the semester. Specifically, probing questions were asked about the use of visual
in the lessons observed by the researcher. Each interview lasted between 25-35 minutes.
Brief notes were taken during the interview and all of the interviews were audio taped.
Shortly afterwards, the interviews were transcribed.