3.4 Selection of Schools and Teacher Participants
3.4.3 Convenience Sampling of Teacher Participants
For the Isithebe study, teachers from each public peri-urban primary school were sampled using convenience sampling. Convenience sampling involves sampling participants based on availability, willingness, or proximity (Nieuwenhuis, 2019). Convenience sampling criteria to include teachers for the Isithebe study included the willingness of teachers in purposively sampled schools to participate (as participation was voluntary and informed consent was required) and the availability of teachers in each of the schools. Exclusion criteria included teachers who lacked English proficiency or were unavailable or unwilling to participate.
An advantage of non-probability convenience sampling is the convenience of finding appropriate participants at a given time or place, making the sampling process quicker and easier (Cohen et al., 2018). However, a disadvantage of non-probability convenience sampling is the possibility of researcher bias resulting from selecting participants whose responses will lead the study in a certain direction (Maree & Pietersen, 2019). As a result, it is necessary to use non-probability convenience sampling with discretion to avoid researcher
bias. To overcome the limitation of researcher bias, a DBE employee assisted with contact details of appropriate participants that the researcher did not know.I invited the principals and teachers in the chosen schools to participate in my study. At the September 2018 pre- intervention meeting, Fieldworkers explained the study’s objectives and invited teachers to participate in the intervention meeting in September 2018. Only the teachers who were willing and able to participate were selected for the sample.
Figure 3.11 provides an overview of the gender distribution of the participants Figure 3.11
Participating Teachers’ Gender Distribution
Sampled teachers manually completed photocopies of quantitative questionnaires, informed consent forms, and demographic questionnaires (see Appendix E).
Table 3.3 provides an overview of the biographical details of the participants. The participants with stars next to their participant numbers indicate teachers present at both the pre-and post-intervention data collection. The Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) Literacy report paints a national picture of 45% of Grade 4 learners being taught mostly by teachers with Post-Secondary Education (this includes a Technikon Diploma and Post-Secondary Training) and another 30% of Grade 4 learners being taught by teachers with a B Ed degree. The sample in my study mirrors these patterns of teacher qualifications, with 29 of the 36 teachers in the sample having a Diploma in Education and seven teachers in the sample having a BEd degree (PIRLS, 2016).
4 5
3
8
2
12
34
0 0
2
0 0 0
4 5 5 2
8
2
12
36
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40
A B C D E F Total
Frequency of participating teachers
Schools
Number of woman Number of men Total
From Table 3.3, it is clear that most participants were females over the age of 40, with the average age being 49.46 years (SD = 8.20), where SD denotes “standard deviation”. A weighted mean was used by executing the procedure described below.
The age categories on the demographic questionnaire were “less than 15 years”,
“between 15 and 24 years”, and “more than 24 years”. For the calculation, the following categories were used: “1 to 15 years”, “16 to 24 years”, and “25 to 42 years”. The upper value in the last category equalled 42. Given the fact that teachers typically enter the teaching career at the age of 23 (in South Africa, high school is completed at the age of 18, and it takes four years to obtain a teaching diploma/degree), and the retirement age in South Africa is 65 years of age, the most years’ experience a South African teacher can have is 65-23=42 years. Using a weighted mean, the average years of teaching experience for the sample was 18.78 (SD = 9.10). The national age patterns of teachers in this sample reflect international patterns, with 42% of learners having very experienced teachers with 20 years or more experience.
South Africa follows a similar pattern, with 40% of the teachers having 20 or more years of experience (PIRLS, 2016). Furthermore, the average teacher age for this sample was 49.46 years, which reflects both national and international patterns of an ageing teacher force with too few younger, qualified people entering the teaching profession (PIRLS, 2016).
Table 3.3
Demographic Details of the Participants
School Teacher Gender Age Home language Grade teaching Subjects teaching Teaching duration
M F English isiXhosa English isiXhosa Life
sciences Mathematics Life skills
Social Science and Technology
Junior phase subjects
Foundation phase subjects
Natural Science
Less than 15 years
15 – 24 years
More than 24 years
A
1* 58 7
2* 50 4
3 57
4 50
B
5* 53
6 43
7* 53
8 48 No info
9* 50
C
10 38
11 54
12 50
13 49
14 31
D
15* 45
16* 47
17* 53
18 No
info
19* 54
20* 53
21* 60
22 60
E 23 49
24 47
School Teacher Gender Age Home language Grade teaching Subjects teaching Teaching duration
M F English isiXhosa English isiXhosa Life
sciences Mathematics Life skills
Social Science and Technology
Junior phase subjects
Foundation phase subjects
Natural Science
Less than 15 years
15 – 24 years
More than 24 years
26 52
27 63
28 46
29* 46
30 53
31* 54
32* 52
33* 55
34 23
35* 47
36* 33
Thirty-six teachers were present at the pre-intervention data collection, 30 attended the intervention training, 21 attended the teacher-researcher meeting, 30 attended the second teacher-researcher meeting, and 20 teachers attended the post-intervention, with only 15 out of the 20 teachers being present who were also at the pre-intervention. Seven teachers sent post-test questionnaires via email, constituting 22 completed pre- and post-test questionnaires. Two teachers who were present at the pre-intervention data collection did not participate in the intervention, and five teachers who participated in the intervention were not present at the pre-intervention. Figure 3.12 provides an overview of teacher attendance throughout the intervention.
Figure 3.12
Teacher Attendance: Intervention Implementation