124 they thought the interviewer wanted to hear, since the discussion was on rather sensitive topics in a school setting where they might have felt that they were supposed to give correct answers.
Even though the participants’ views were captured as a group, it was perceived that they felt and attached different meanings to the material as individuals. This confirmed the fact that it was of absolute necessity to conduct the individual interviews, as the materials affected each in a different way. There were some indications that some disagreed with others during the group discussions, although unfortunately it was not considered ethical for the researcher to choose participants for one-to-one interviews because they were allowed to volunteer. A rotating work plan was used to make sure that all materials received maximum attention. So each discussion (per different institution) started with a different material with the concern that the discussions stretched over a long period of time and the respondents might get tired or lose interest during the course of the discussion and so deny some of the materials justice by not giving them the required or expected attention. In order to overcome this, the materials’
precedence was rotated between the institutions. So if the discussion in institution ‘a’ started with a poster, at institution ‘b’ it started with a pamphlet and at ‘c’ with a magazine, so that each material had an opportunity to be analysed whilst respondents were still fresh. As was mentioned earlier, the materials were used both as a source and a tool for data collection and analysis. Hence, Chapters five six, seven and eight were devoted to the analysis of the materials, so that the researcher’s analysis would in turn provide background information about the materials and guide the reader when discussing the student responses through comparing the findings.
125 and the reviewed literature. Each category was analysed through semiotics embedded in a communication lens, under the same themes as those used for the learners’ responses towards the key research question. Information or facts beyond interview guidelines, which were important, were also considered where relevant.
Collected data was transcribed and translated into English in the process to generate different categories, which were grouped to form independent themes for each question. It was
acknowledged that translating is an interpretation in itself, which means that some information may have been missed or misinterpreted. However, to avoid this eventuality, the interview recordings were listened to several times to ensure as accurate a translation as possible was obtained each time. For identification, learners were named according to gender and position to maintain anonymity. For example, males were referred to as Ms and females Fs. Hence, there were individuals such as M1 and F1. The position (1, 2…) was added to the
identification coding, reflecting how they happened to follow upon their initial responses to questions, but not in order of importance.
Although each respondent participated in reading out aloud the materials at the beginning of the discussions, analysis did not include looking into factors that determined whether or not the messages were easy or difficult to read such as sentence length, complexity and structure and lexical familiarity (of or relating to the words or vocabulary of a language). The analysis explicitly concentrated on the signs plus the emotional responses or reactions that indicate anxiety, joy, anger and sadness that could have had an effect on the minds of the learners.
These included: learners’ mental concept produced by both the sign and their experience of the object within their context or frame of reference (interpretant); obvious messages that they derived from looking at the picture(s) or text (denotation); essence of messages or hidden messages that they figured the text or picture(s) to be conveying (connotation); whether or not the text messages were elaborated in the picture(s) or the picture message(s) were elaborated in the text and whether or not the text and pictures complemented each other and were fragments of a general syntagm.
126 A fifteen-item interview guideline was used to explore the learners’ understanding of the materials. This guideline was divided into five different parts: a) comprehension, b) attractiveness, c) persuasiveness, d) acceptability, and e) credibility.
Part (a) inspected the comprehension to establish what messages each material conveyed. It comprised seven questions to address the following:
signs – what the learners saw when looking at the materials
denotation – the direct specific meaning of the messages that the learners understood the materials to convey
connotation – the implied meaning by a word or associated idea that the messages and pictures meant to the learners, apart from the things they explicitly name or describe
elaboration or anchorage and relay – the relationship between image and text or words and illustrations
learners’ preferences on what could be included or deleted in the materials, what they liked or disliked about the materials in order for the materials to convey the intended messages as determined through their interpretations.
Part (b) consisted of three questions that examined the attractiveness of the materials,
particularly looking at the learners’ preferences or what would make them have a closer look at the materials. This section also analysed the learners’ interpretations of what they liked or disliked about the materials as well as what they desired to be included in or deleted from these materials to convey the intended messages.
Part (c) determined the persuasiveness of the materials through emotions that the learners felt in response to the meanings they derived from these materials (their discussions which revealed particular belief systems as discourses). This was determined by asking what action(s) they understood the materials wanted them to take.
Part (d) examined the acceptability of the materials through the learners’ interpretations according to what may be offensive in Basotho culture as per the social discourses stated by the learners. In view of these discourses, learners were asked how the materials could be made to suit the Basotho culture better.
127 Part (e) contemplated the credibility of the materials through the learners’ interpretations and discourses by examining what they disagreed with in the materials and the benefits that they understood they would get by following what the materials communicated.
The significance of the materials and objects that could be used to improve HIV preventative message(s), including an outline of IEC materials in general, was examined through an
eleven- item interview guideline, which was divided into two sections. Section A focused only on the researched materials, whilst section B looked into IEC materials in general.
Collected data for Section A was presented and analysed according to the first six items that formed part of the interview guideline. This section examined the influence of the researched materials on the learners, looking at how they felt after the first focus group discussions, determining whether the materials raised any critical awareness and whether the discussions influenced their attitudes in any way towards HIV and AIDS related issues, including the meaning that they attached to the materials (connotations). Learners’ discourses were used to analyze the degree to which the materials conformed to the Basotho culture, or the learners’
understandings thereof. As already indicated, to be able to draw conclusions on the learners’
responses, the materials were first analysed from a semiotic perspective.
The data was then interpreted and discussed through verbatim excerpts from the participants in order to support the researcher’s deliberations in relation to the stated research problem, the research questions and the reviewed literature. Analysis also included the researcher’s
semiotic interpretation of the materials as a further source of triangulation and point of comparison. Even though each respondent participated in reading out aloud the materials at the beginning of the discussions, analysis did not include looking into factors that determined whether or not the messages were easy or difficult to read. The observation was, being able to read did not necessarily mean learners understood the message of the materials.
Explicitly, the analysis concentrated only on the aspects of the materials that had an effect on the learners’ interpretations of the messages (‘objects’, to use Peirce’s concept). These aspects included the learners’ mental concepts produced by both the sign and their experience of the
128 object within their context or frame of reference (interpretant). It also looked for obvious surface messages that they derived from looking at the picture(s) or text (denotation), the essence of messages or hidden messages that they figured the text or picture(s) to be conveying (connotation), and whether or not the text messages were elaborated in the picture(s) or picture message(s) elaborated in the text (elaboration). In addition, it was analysed whether or not the text and pictures seemed to complement each other and together form a general syntagm, a linguistic term designating any combination of units…which are arranged in a significant sequence (Fiske, 1990). For example, a sentence is a syntagm of words, which together carry a complete message. This was done because the study partly aimed to explore the materials’ comprehensibility to see if print IEC materials are useful or not in informing, educating or communicating HIV and AIDS issues to young adults with the aim to identifying any communication hindrances that may emanate from language-specific and culturally embedded meanings (if any).