RESEARCH PARADIGM, APPROACH, DESIGN, AND METHODOLOGY
3.6 DATA COLLECTION INSTRUMENTS
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In addition, directors and board members have a broad view of the centre’s operations. They are involved in a variety of activities, such as strategic planning, programming, financial management and staff oversight.
Furthermore, directors and board members are often in charge of the centre’s overall success and long-term sustainability. They are in charge of maintaining high standards of care and education, making sure the centre is compliant with regulations, and maintaining good relationships with the parents and community. Excluding other ECCD stakeholders allowed the study to focus more on the specific challenges and responsibilities facing directors.
In addition, directors and teachers have different roles and perspectives of the centre. For example, while the role of directors and board members focuses on leading and managing the centre, teachers’ role focuses on the care and education of the children. Excluding other ECCD stakeholders such as teachers would help the study to more accurately capture the specific management practices and challenges facing directors. The researcher also felt that inclusion of other stakeholders could potentially lead to a more diverse range of responses and perspectives in the study. Therefore, to ensure consistency and focus on the findings, the study excluded other important ECCD stakeholders.
The data collection instruments and data analytic techniques are discussed in subsequent sub- sections.
81 3.6.1 Interviews
Interviews are widely acknowledged as a regularly powerful qualitative data-gathering strategy used by qualitative researchers to gain an in-depth understanding of a particular phenomenon (Brinkmann & Kvale, 2015; Owen, 2014). In addition, Corbin and Strauss (2015) view interviews as the most appropriate data-gathering method frequently utilised to gain insight into the practices of individuals and the sense they make out of them.
The researcher was convinced that the interview method was most suitable because it enabled the researcher to interact with the research participants and obtain detailed information on how they perceive the effectiveness and efficiency of their application of basic management principles. The researcher gained knowledge based on the interviewees’ explanations of their experiences in natural settings (Creswell & Creswell, 2018). Interviews generated direct quotes from the participants about their feelings, beliefs, practices, opinions, experiences, and skills.
Specifically, the data collection strategy used was personal individual semi-structured interviews conducted telephonically. Two sets of interview protocols were developed one for ECCD directors and one for selected board members. The interview questions were based on the research questions (see Annexure H). The interview process involved interaction between the researcher and participants (Castillo-Montoya, 2016). Before the fieldwork commenced, the researcher sought permission and informed consent from the Director General of Ghana Education Service and selected ECCD directors and board members. Consent letters were given to the participants, which they signed and returned to show their acceptance to participate in the study voluntarily. Due to the outbreak of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19), interview appointments and all interviews were conducted via telephone.
The interview format had an introduction phase, a main interview phase, and a closing phase. In the introduction stage, the researcher reassured the participants of the confidentiality of the data, informed them of the study’s aim, and sought permission to record the interviews. The main part of the interview involved biographical questions followed by in-depth questions in the interview guide based on the application of basic management principles, challenges the participants face, and how they think those challenges could be resolved. The interview comprised open-ended and
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probing questions to obtain comprehensive information on how ECCD directors and board members understand their managerial functions and how these functions influence their ECCD centre management efficiency and effectiveness. Clarifications were sought from both parties when necessary. Participants were given enough time to think and respond to the questions adequately.
The researcher complemented the audio recordings with field notes during the interviews. The interview with ECCD directors lasted between 45 and 60 minutes, and those with board members were between 30 and 45 minutes. ECCD directors were interviewed first, followed by the board members. The ice-breaker interviews were followed by some followed-up interviews for further clarifications during data analysis. Interviews were conducted in August, September, and October 2021. All the audio-recorded interviews were transcribed verbatim and analysed.
3.6.1.1 Justification for using interviews
The researcher found interviews to be the most appropriate research instrument in this study due to the following reasons:
i. Semi-structured interviews provide a flexible way of gathering data, allowing the researcher to get various and in-depth answers to the questions.
ii. The interview method permits the researchers to use probes to explain unclear answers or seek elaboration of partial responses.
iii. Open-ended questions allow interviewees to express and clarify what is most relevant to them.
iv. The interview protocol utilised in this study will guarantee full coverage of all the important parts of the study.
v. The use of open-ended interviews ensures flexibility in data collection.
vi. Interviews allow the interviewer to create comprehensive data due to interactions with participants.
vii. Interviews can create in-depth accounts of the event being explored.
viii. In-depth interviews allow the researcher to interact with interviewees, mutually dialogue to access their experiences and settings, and probe for clarification when in doubt of any issues during the discussion on the subject matter being explored.
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ix. Interviews permit the enquirer to be an active participant and generator of data, allowing for verbatim recording of answers.
x. Semi-structured interviews are most suitable for topics that demand open-ended questions and explanatory responses.
xi. Interviews permit body language cues to be observed and interpreted; accordingly, the information obtained can be validated for genuineness.
3.6.1.2 Limitations of interviews
The interview method of data collection has some inherent limitations that the researcher attempted to minimise. Firstly, the nature of the researcher’s questioning can be influenced by the researcher’s prior knowledge and bias, questioning style, and how responses are heard.
Consequently, the researcher controlled his own biases, choice of vocabulary, and cultural norms to avoid imposing his views on the interviewees’ beliefs. The second limitation of the interview method is that the researcher cannot observe the participants directly in their daily activities. The researcher is therefore denied the opportunity to observe the participants’ previous experiences, which would allow the researcher to gain more insights into participants’ ethnographical contexts (Jones, Torres & Arminio, 2014).
3.6.2 Document analysis
Records in the form of documents can generate extensive data with high trustworthiness (Wach, Ward, & Jacimovic, 2013). Unlike observations and interviews, document analysis generates effortlessly obtainable data devoid of participants’ manipulation (Wood, Sebar & Vecchio, 2020). In addition, using document review does not require responses from participants that can pose issues of misinformation on the event being explored. The use of document analysis as a data collection strategy provided both contextual and background evidence to the study, enabling the researcher to use the data from documents reviews to triangulate with interviews by cross- checking and verifying facts during the interviews process (Wood, Sebar & Vecchio, 2020).The researcher in this study also utilised official records from ECCD centres to authenticate the information obtained from the interviews.
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The centre directors’ consent was sought telephonically before requesting official documents through email. These documents included head teachers’ handbooks, ECCD curricula and standards, Early Childhood Care and Development Policy (2019), Early Childhood Education Policy Framework (2020), meeting minutes, reports, and performance improvement plans (see Annexure I). ECCD directors were requested to sign and stamp all documents for authentication.
The contents of these documents relevant to this study were analysed.
3.6.2.1 Justification for using document analysis
In this study, document analysis was utilised to triangulate the interviews because of the following reasons:
i. Document analysis allows researchers to select rather than collect data, making it less time-consuming and more efficient than surveys.
ii. Document analysis appears to be less costly than surveys and other methods because it has been collected already for the researcher to evaluate the quality of its contents.
iii. Besides, the researcher’s personal biases do not influence the data collection process when using the document analysis method because documents cannot react to feelings and expressions as the case may be during interviews. This implies that reflexivity is typically not a problem in utilising documents for research purposes.
iv. In addition, when using document analysis, the researcher’s presence does not influence the phenomenon being studied, making it suitable for repeated reviews.
v. Inserting precise names, making references, and giving particulars of events make qualitative researchers adopt document analysis as the most preferred data collection method (Yin, 2018).
vi. Finally, because documents cover an extended period, many events, and many settings, they provide broad coverage (Yin, 2018).
3.6.2.2 Disadvantages of document analysis
Despite the numerous advantages of document analysis, the following limitations are associated with its use, which the researcher guarded against.
i. The documents may be falsified, incorrect, and unobtainable, affecting the research outcome’s trustworthiness.
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ii. Records may be complicated, poorly kept, and incongruent, and obtaining them could be frustrating.
iii. The main limitations of document analysis as far as this study is concerned were availability and accessibility as the researcher was limited to only available and accessible documents such as policy documents and some official records such as budget.
Some documents were intentionally blocked from being accessed, making retrieving difficult.
iv. The purpose for which some documents are prepared may differ from a particular study’s intended aim and cannot help answer the research questions.
v. An incomplete gathering of documents can lead to a biased selection, making it difficult to obtain detailed information on the organisation (Yin, 2018).
To overcome the above limitations, the researcher adopted techniques such as document authentication or verification to obtain useful documents related to the study. Documents should be regarded as located products rather than immovable and unchanging, and are created in a social environment and are always to be viewed as shared social products. Thus, deciding how documents are used in controlled environments, that is, how they function, should be the focus of any qualitative research. In adopting document analysis as a data collection tool, the researcher would observe the relationship between document production, consumption, and content (Owen, 2014). Furthermore, document analysis is usually triangulated with other qualitative instruments to enhance the trustworthiness of the research outcome. To minimise the limitations posed by document analysis, the researcher used more appropriate documents that can generate information to answer the research questions. In addition, in choosing the documents for this study, the researcher confirmed their existence, usefulness, and accessibility and ensured that ECCD centre authorities authenticated them. Also, the researcher considered the primary aim of each document, the context in which it was prepared, and its expected users. Finally, throughout the study, the researcher was conscious of being a subjective interpreter of the contents of the documents, so efforts were made to ensure that the data analysis and interpretation processes were transparent and vigorous to enhance the trustworthiness of the findings.
The techniques used to analyse the data from the interviews and document review are explained in the subsequent sections.
86 3.7 DATA ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION
Creswell and Creswell (2018) argue that qualitative data analysis techniques may include familiarisation with the data before the analysis phase. In analysing the data collected for this study, the researcher used a thematic analysis technique to analyse the interview data and a content analysis technique for document analysis. The research followed the following procedures for analysing qualitative data, as suggested by Creswell and Creswell (2018):
i. The researcher transcribed all the audio-recorded interviews word for word directly following the interview process to maintain the interviewee’s style and form of expression. Common emerging ideas were noticed and analysed, which directed modifications to the interview questions for the rest of the interviewees.
ii. The researcher used QSR Nvivo 20.2 software to develop a codebook and data analysis matrix, which assisted in identifying code frequencies and basic themes.
iii. The researcher then examined all the interview transcripts and documents collected and wrote down broad ideas in the margins of the data analysis matrix table. This was done on all the key and minor topics, which were subsequently condensed as codes.
iv. The researcher formulated codes and categories by examining the most descriptive words.
v. The categories were condensed to arrive at basic and broad themes. Data reduction techniques of using categorisation and coding allowed for detailed descriptions and interpretations of interview participants in a more convenient way and were also used as the foundation for arriving at the findings and conclusions of the study.
The following section discusses the measures adopted by the researcher to ensure the trustworthiness of the study’s outcomes.