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STUDY ONE Additionally, my former students were also contacted and asked to participate in the interviews. Based on snowball sampling, all these participants were then asked to find other secondary school students who could potentially participate in the interview study. Ihe selection of schools was mainly based on the few initial participants, but attention was paid to evenly choosing learners from secondary schools both in Budapest and other major towns across the country to enrich the data and ensure maximum diversity of participants. Altogether 12 participants were recruited for Study One, and there were 6 female and 6 male participants in the study. Table 7 summarizes the most important information about the background of the participants, and participants are referred to by pseudonyms to ensure anonymity. Besides indicating basic demographic data, participants’ age, gender, grade, and the types of schools they attend are also described. Participants’ foreign language skills are also listed, and the order of languages reflects the chronological order in which the students started to learn each foreign language. The first two are compulsory, and the third languages, where relevant, are chosen as extra foreign languages learned either in high school or privately, e.g., ina language school or through a private tutor, etc. Finally, Table 7 also includes the length of their learning English. 4.2 THE INSTRUMENT AND THE PILOT PROCESS The interview guide was designed based on Corbin and Strauss’s (2015: 78) approach, which may be summarized as “having insights as well as being tuned into and being able to pick up on relevant issues, events, and happenings during collection and analysis of the data.” This approach was chosen for a simple reason: as opposed to Glaser and Strauss (1967), who claim that qualitative inquiries should be conducted in a manner where the researchers have no previous expectations in terms of the results of the investigation and where themes and patterns emerge naturally, Corbin and Strauss (2015) point out that research is always conducted in a manner where researchers have at least a few ideas on the phenomenon in question. For the validation of the research instrument, Prescott’s (2011: 21) steps were used; however, only the relevant steps were used in the validation process of this research instrument: 1. Review of the literature on EE activities 2. Self-reflection and brainstorming 3. First draft of the interview guide 4. Expert judgment and the expert-reviewed draft 5. Pilot interviews * 67°
