CHAPTER FIVE
5.5 Data Collection .1 Introduction
A researcher‟s epistemology according to Holloway (1997) is literally her theory of knowledge, which serves to decide how the social phenomena will be studied. The researcher‟s epistemological position regarding the study can be formulated as follows: data is contained within the perspectives of people that are involved in the road safety education programme either as teachers or as learners. Because of this, the researcher engaged with the participants, the teachers and the students in collecting data. The researcher used interviews, observation and questionnaires to gather data about the implementation of the road safety education programme.
Programme implementation interviews, for example, aimed to capture the perspectives of programme participants, that is, the teachers and learners associated with the road safety education programme. Woods (2000) asserts that a great deal of qualitative material comes from talking with people, irrespective through formal interviews or casual conversations. Boyd (2001) regards two to ten participants as sufficient to reach saturation and Creswell (1998, p. 113) recommends long interviews with up to ten people for a phenomenological study. This aim is based on the assumption that the social world, as distinct from the physical world, does not exist independently, waiting to be discovered. They are influenced by specific political and social discourses. So these constructions are multiple and plural, contingent and contextual (Denzin and Lincoln, 2000). The first task is to understand people‟s constructions of meanings in the context being studied, because it is these constructions that constitute social realities that underlie all human action. These mental constructs which constitute social reality are individually and socially created according to experiences and socio-cultural contexts. This, task itself is an
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interpretive one. If interviews are going to tap into the depths of reality, of the situation, and discover subject‟s meanings and understandings, it is essential for the researcher to:
to develop empathy with the interviewees and win their confidence
to be unobtrusive, in order not to impose their own influence on the interviewee
The research interview has been defined as a two person conversation initiated by the interviewer for the specific purpose of obtaining research-relevant information (Cohen et al., 2011).
Woods (2000), states that the researcher engages in „active listening‟, which shows the interviewee that close attention is being paid to what they say and also tries to keep the interviewee focused on the subject, as unobtrusively as possible. The researcher was mindful of these factors when she conducted the interviews as will be discussed in the following section.
5.5.2 Interviews
For this purpose, five teachers from the five different schools were selected for the interviews ( see APPENDIX 4). This represented one teacher from each school. Two teachers from the Foundation Phase and three teachers from the Intermediate Phase were interviewed. This is referred to as purposive sampling where the participants are intentionally selected. Purposive sampling is also referred to as judgment sampling (Gay, Mills & Airasion, 2009). The researcher selected this sample because it is believed to be a representative of a given population and because of the researcher‟s knowledge and experience of the sample. Sampling according to Newby (2010, p.
231) is effective, because it seeks to link the findings from a selection of respondents or instances to the entirety of respondents or instances. In other words the researcher ascribes to the population the characteristics of the sample. It was essential that the identified participants will be able to uncover the realities of curriculum change in implementing the road safety education programme. These participants would be able to discuss their beliefs, attitudes and perceptions of curriculum change and implementing the road safety education programme. Three schools from the rural
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areas and two schools from the urban areas were chosen (see Section 5.4.2). The researcher had chosen these schools because these schools are on the list of schools that participate in the Department of Transports road safety projects. The researcher has previously worked with these schools. In an interview like any other instance of social interaction, both individuals influence each other. As such every interview is a unique interaction however closely, the interviewer tries to obey the rules and gain clarity from her own preconceptions.
The decision to use the semi-structured interview as a data collection method was governed by both the researcher‟s epistemology and the study‟s objectives. This was also governed by the constructivist point of view of the study and the interpretivist paradigm within which this study was designed. In a semi-structured interview conducted from an interpretive viewpoint it is not the response of the interviewee to a given stimulus (a question) according to (Dowling & Brown, 2010) that is of interest, but the manner in which it is interpreted by the interviewee. The interview is an investigation of how the interviewee constructs meaning. An interview allows the individual to report on what they feel. The researcher realized that this would be a suitable research tool, considering the focus of the study. Prior to interviewing, the phenomenological researcher will write a full description of her own experiences, thereby bracketing her experiences from those of the interviewee. Patton (2002) refers to this phase of the inquiry as the epoche. The purpose of this self-examination, according to Marshall & Rossman (1999) is for the researcher to gain clarity from her own preconceptions. The researcher used open-ended questions, which did not have any pre-coded response categories, to generate as much information as possible.
Open-ended questions were, used because they encouraged a fuller response and cannot be answered with a „yes‟ or „no‟. The flexibility of interviews allows, for opportunities to solicit beliefs, attitudes and perceptions about issues relating to the implementation of the Road Safety Education Programme in the National Curriculum Statement. In-depth interviews allowed the researcher to increase her understanding of the issues involved by probing each interviewee about his or her answers. A topic guide, or also referred to as an aide memoire was, used to steer the discussion and ensure that major interests were , covered in each interview. However, it was not so restrictive that it discouraged the interviewee from raising issues that may not have occurred to the researcher. According to Turner (2010), the interview guide approach
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is the ability of the researcher to ensure that the same general areas of information are collected from each interviewee and provides more focus but still allows a degree of freedom and adaptability in obtaining information from different people.
Because different people have different perspectives, a reasonably representative picture of the phenomenon‟s occurrence and absence may emerge and thereby provide a basis for interpretation of the phenomenon (Denzin & Lincoln, 2000).
Varied viewpoints are obtained when qualified individuals with common or divergent backgrounds are brought together to explore a problem, to provide information or to evaluate the merits of a proposition. The five teachers represented qualified individuals with a common background, that is, they are all primary school teachers.
They differ in the type of schools that they work in and as individuals with their own sets of beliefs and assumptions. As a data-gathering technique, the interview has unique advantages.
According to Patton (2002), the merit of an interview lies in its conversational nature, which allows the interviewer to be highly responsive to individual differences and situational changes. Dowling & Brown (2010) concurs with this view by stating that the unstructured interview closely resembles a conversation. The prime concern of the interviewer might be to explore the world of the interviewee from their perspective and to construct an understanding of whether the interviewee makes sense of their experiences. For this study it will be about the teachers making sense of their experiences of implementing the road safety education programme.
Subsequently the analysis will focus on making sense of what the interviewee says and how they say it (Dowling & Brown, 2010, p. 78).
In areas where human motivation has revealed reasons for actions, feelings, and attitudes, the interview can be most effective. Through the interview technique, the researcher may stimulate the subject to greater insight into his or her own experiences, and thereby explore significant areas not anticipated in the original plan of investigation. The interview also does have definite limitations as a research tool.
Most important, the very adaptability gained by the interpersonal situation leads to subjectivity and possible bias. The interactions between the respondent and interviewer are subject to bias from many sources. Eagerness of the respondent to please the interviewer to seek out answers that support his preconceived notions are