3. Narrative Methodology: From Theory to Practice
3.6. Data Analysis Strategy
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added another layer of complexity to the data collection process. With this in mind, I was aware from the beginning that my study will focus more on the data analytical strategies. My concern about perceptions of the data set being limited turned out to be unfounded. The detailed analysis of the data from the interviews alone adequately answered the critical question. The EMIS documents provided some valuable data in foregrounding the school which was incorporated in the analysis. However, the extensive, additional data from the questionnaires that I had collected were not needed and I decided not to include this in the analysis.
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feelings/emotions and rationale for their actions. These responses, nuances, tone, emphasis, etc were useful indicators in helping to understand what was in the transcripts.
I looked for more than “what” was said by looking at “how” and “why” it was said. The purpose of narrative analysis was to produce a “story” from the transcripts. I did this in several stages. In the first stage, I reviewed the transcriptions of all the interviews with the principals. Tables 9 and 10 detail the review of specific groupings of questions of the interview schedule and its implications for deeper analysis.
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Table 9. Interview Schedule 1: Implications for Analysis
30 Integrated Quality Management System (IQMS): instrument used to evaluate educators
31 Further Education and Training (FET) Act refers to the new classification system of schools with grades 10 -12
INTERVIEW SCHEDULE 1 Order of questions
asked No: Categories of questions:
Questions based on …..
Review of data after interviews:
Implications for analysis?
1.
Background of the principal.
1.1 Bio details of principal Story of the principal: Biographical influences
1.2 Teaching career, influences, history Story of the principal: Biographical influences
2.
Desirable education systems (ideal) (Thoughts, beliefs,
ideas based on experience and understanding etc)
2.1
Desirable education systems.
Purpose of education, Desirable schools, desirable role of principal.
Experiences of leadership. While questions were philosophical, answers were based on experience at own schools. Relation between philosophy and practice of leadership
2.2 Present experience of principal’s role, especially in decision making.
Experience of leadership.
Link to point 7 2.3
Definition of a good principal:
attributes, leadership style and influences.
Understanding of leadership.
Link influences to point 1.2 3.
Education Policy
3.1
Education Policy:
- formulation - implementation
- South African Schools Act:
admission policy - School evaluation policy
(IQMS)30 - FET31 policy
Role of policy in leadership
4.
Transformation
challenges 4.1
Transformation challenges in general and in individual schools. Role of principals
Identification of emotions and determination of personal levels of preparation for leadership in the context of change
5.
Specific school analysis
5.1
Leadership challenges at individual schools
Identification of priorities
compared to what takes up most of the time of principals
5.2
Grade 12 pass rate:
Indicators of school success, improvement of pass rate
Experience of pass rate as an indicator of school success
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Table 10. Interview Schedule 2: Implications for Analysis
After the review of the interview schedules and of the transcriptions of the interviews, the data was re-organised interviews as indicated in the tables above. This was the first stage of the analysis. In the second stage, the transcriptions were again reviewed to identify themes in the data. The data was re-organised again using themes as the organising principle. For reference purposes, I coded themes alphabetically. As explained earlier in this chapter, I used Gee’s construct of “idea units’ to code the different “ideas” that were grouped under each theme. I coded the idea units (A1, A2,
32 Education management information system (EMIS) which provides detailed statistic information of the school
INTERVIEW SCHEDULE 2 Order of questions
asked No: Categories of questions:
Questions based on …..
Review of data after interviews:
Implications for analysis?
6.
Personal factors 6.1
Attributes, aim, feelings, commitment level
Emotional leadership. Link to 4.1.
Emphasises focus on the
“principal”. Relation between emotions and rationale for leadership practices 7.
Leadership practice:
Decision making processes
7.1
Leadership style
Different types of decision making Role of principal
Leadership versus management
Correlation with leadership theory, focussing on the context of leadership
8.
Admissions 8.1
Policy
Process at individual schools
Relation to race /desegregation issues. Correlation with EMIS32 statistics
9.
Curriculum issues.
9.1
Grade 10 : subject selection Grade 11 : condonations
Grade 12 : number of exemptions at grade 12 level
Relation to pass rate. Correlation with EMIS statistics
10.
Extra-curricular activities
10.1
Participation by race Relation to race and desegregation issues
11.
Learner diversity 11.1 Diversity: challenges Relation to race and desegregation issues
12.
Learner leadership 12.1
Learner leadership: status and Challenges
Principals’ experiences of leadership in relation to stakeholders
13.
Governing Body issues
13.1
School Governing Body: roles and responsibilities
Principals’ experiences of leadership in relation to stakeholders
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B1, B2, D4, etc) to refer to specific parts of the data during the analysis. As the themes came from the data and represented a broad landscape of what was on the minds of the principal, I called this version of the data “mindscapes” while acknowledging Sergiovanni’s (2001) use of this term, albeit differently . The themes in the mindscapes and their respective coding (A to I) are represented in Table 11.
Data as MINDSCAPES
Coding THEMATIC CUTS
A
Biographical influences: Background of the principals, Why teaching was chosen as a career?
What influences principals understanding of leadership?
B
Philosophy / Ideology of education: Desirable education systems, role of principal in desirable education system, views on school evaluation, comparison of desirable education systems to present system
C
Leadership: Definitions of good school principals, role models, personal attributes, aims, feelings
D
Leadership practice: Present role of principal, leadership style, decision making, leadership and management, school governance, student leaders
E Educational policy and leadership
F Transformation challenges at schools and leadership G Specific circumstances of each principal / school
H Leadership experiences in the context of admissions and desegregation Issues
I School efficiency: Grade twelve pass rate, standards and school success Table 11. Mindscapes of Principals
The data as represented as mindscapes provided a necessary and comprehensive thematic description of leadership. However, my aim is to explore principals’
experiences of leadership and the analysis of the mindscapes has to be extended beyond this thematic analysis. This represents the third stage of the analysis. I did this by imposing another thematic analytic framework based on the definition of leadership on the complex mindscape of each principal. This framework was derived from the literature review chapter in which I demonstrated that leadership is typically composed of three main components, namely the person, context and practice. These three components are inter-related and dependent on each other. To impose this analytic
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definition on the mindscapes meant reconstructing the mindscapes to develop stories representing principals’ experiences of leadership using the typical definition of leadership. I called these stories “reconstructed career narratives”. In the process, I relied on the analysis represented in the first stage (review of interview schedules) and the second stage (data as mindscapes) to interrogate the empirical interview data yet again to develop sub-components of leadership in the reconstructed career narratives. Table 12 represents these sub-components of leadership.
Data as Reconstructed Career Narratives Components of
leadership based on typical definitions of
leadership
Sub-components of Leadership
Leadership:
The Person
Becoming a teacher
Definition of a good school principal Role models
Personal attributes Aim / vision Emotions Leadership:
The Context:
Macro (Department /Policy) and micro
(school site)
Contextual factors
Education Policy (formulation and implementation) Transformational challenges
Principal’s appointment status Leadership over time
Leadership:
The Practice
Desirable education systems Leadership style
Leadership and management Decision making
Student leaders
Grade ten course selection
Equity and desegregation issues: Learner admissions Efficiency and standards issues: Grade twelve pass rate Table 12. Data as Reconstructed Career Narratives
Since the focus of the study was on the principal, the reconstructed career narratives had to represent the data as the “principal’s stories”. Informed by Fairclough’s (1989) framework, I celebrated the voice of the principals by writing the stories in the first person. To be “true” to the principals’ voices, I represented their stories in their words as far as possible. I used Gough’s (1994) concept of factionalised stories to develop a single story for each of the principals from the different interviews put together (This is
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represented in Chapter 5). I presented the stories (reconstructed career narratives) in a similar format while being aware of the uniqueness of each story. Not all stories fitted neatly into my format and it was not my intention to make them do so. The original transcripts captured every utterance, pause and even common sounds made during the responses (e.g. uhmm, er, um etc). Since I had abandoned the idea of using linguistic narrative analysis, the transcripts had to be “cleaned” to represent the data as a story. I attempted to keep as true to the data as possible, making limited editing choices. These choices were made only where it was necessary for the “spoken” word to be presented as it was intended. I retained the conversational tone of the stories. The conversational style may not necessarily be the best grammatical style for academic writing but this is deliberate to reflect the uniqueness of each principal’s narrative.
I gave these stories back to the principals for “member checking”. Since it was two years since the interviews were conducted, most of the principals indicated that aspects of their experiences of leadership may have changed, but that the stories as written were accurate of their experiences at the time of the interviews. Two principals requested grammatical changes to their stories because they preferred a written (rather than a spoken) “style” of their stories. Three of the principals had no problem with the way their stories were written up. One principal did not respond to the request to review the stories. After many attempts, this principal’s response was that he had been very busy and that he felt confidant that I would represent his story accurately. All the stories of the principals are presented as reconstructed career narratives in Chapter 5. These stories are “narrative analyses” and represent principals’ descriptive understandings of leadership.
Descriptive understandings of leadership had to be analysed further, especially in relation to the context of change as required by the critical question. Therefore in Chapter 6, I changed the focus of the analysis to the context of change in the experiences of leadership. The context of change in this study revolved around three issues namely, the pass rate, desegregation and democratic school governance. In this way, I moved from narrative analysis to analysis of narrative. I also moved from individual stories to
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cross-case analysis and foregrounded my voice as the researcher. There were two levels of analysis at this point namely;
• Level 1: Understandings of leadership in relation to theoretical framework (theories and context of change)
• Level 2: Influence of biographic factors on understandings of leadership
Finally, the implications of these “analysis of narratives” for hypothesising principals’
understandings of leadership in the context of change had to be considered.
In this study, the multi-level analytic strategy depended on the integration of the analytic framework with the theoretical and conceptual frameworks. Table 13 summarises the components of these frameworks.
Framework No. of
levels Components
Theoretical
framework 2
• Context of change: Pass rate, desegregation, democratic school governance
• Theories of leadership Conceptual
Framework 1
• Definition of leadership: 3 components of “Person, Practice and Context”
Analytical framework Narrative Methodologies
2
• First as theory to develop analytic tools
• Second as practice to mesh together theory, data and analysis
Narrative analysis:
Purpose: to produce descriptive understandings of leadership of
individual principals
3
• Review of interview schedules
• Thematic cuts to represent data as mindscapes
• Descriptive analysis to represent data as reconstructed career narratives (case studies) Analysis of narratives:
Purpose: to produce theoretical understandings of leadership of
all the principals
2
• Understandings of leadership in relation to the theoretical framework
• Influence of biographic influences on principals’
experiences of leadership leading to the main findings of the study (cross-case analysis)
Implications of new theorisation
3
• How can Principals’ experiences of leadership be theorised?
• How will the new theorisation relate to existing leadership theories? Are there gaps / silences, correlations, contestations etc? (Theoretical level)
• What implications will the new theorisation have on Principals’ understandings of leadership at a methodological and contextual level?
Table 13. Integrated Frameworks of this Study
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In this study, the analytical, conceptual and theoretical frameworks are multi-layered and integrated ( refer to Table 13- page 104). While there are other (more dominant) ways of analysing the data within a narrative framework, the analytic framework used in this study is also coherent within the narrative framework. Due to the broad framing of the critical question, the study had to be delimited in some way to develop a suitable analytical framework. Before data collection, delimitation of the study was done by:
synthesising the broad definition of leadership into its components of person, practice and context (refer to Table 6); and limiting the context of change to issues of the pass rate, desegregation and democratic school governance. Additionally, the inclusion of selected criteria of questions (refer to Table 7) was due to my familiarity with the specifics of each school (as an insider researcher). During data collection, the narrative approach allowed for open-ended questions and the opportunity for principals to lead the discussion and ask questions. This resulted in thirteen different categories of questions (refer to Table 10). Not all principals answered all questions. This was part of the narrative methodology where the interview schedule was used only as a guide and not as a checklist. After data collection, narrative methodologies were used to develop thematic cuts. These were based on selected categories (from the interviews) to develop mindscapes (refer to Table 11). Analytically, these mindscapes were intended to “talk back” to the critical question. However the broad critical question had two foci namely:
the definition of leadership; and the context of change. Therefore, in order to be coherent, the mindscapes had to “talk back” to both foci. Firstly, the mindscapes were re-integrated with the pre-determined components of leadership (person, practice, context –refer to Table 12) to develop reconstructed career narratives (in Chapter 5).
Secondly, the mindscapes were used in cross-case analyses to explore deeper understandings of leadership on relation to the context of change (pass rate, desegregation and democratic school governance). In the cross case studies, the findings are accompanied by the use of flowcharts. Flowcharts are not commonly used in narrative methodologies but flowcharts are used in this study with the sole intention of enhancing the narrative explanation by acting as visual aid. It is also not intended to detract from the narrative orientation of the study.
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