The researcher began collecting data in October 31, 2014 to the second week of November 2014 as the receipt of the ethical clearance certificate (Appendix H) had been eagerly anticipated. As the researcher taught four external examination writing classes she had all the time to collect data since there was no pressure from her duty station since the external examinations (Form 3 and 5) had already started. Around that time when the ethical clearance was obtained the examinations were in progress and teachers were not involved in any way in them so quite a number of them had a lot of free time thus data collection was not a hassle in any way. The appointments with the heads of departments were not disturbed in any of the three schools from the Lubombo region that were involved in the research. The same day the gatekeepers’ letters were dispatched, HODs were met as permission was granted verbally which was followed by written permission (Appendix B). The researcher then left the informed consent letters and the questionnaires with the HODs who were to hand them over to the three teachers in the school. The following day the researcher sent letters of data collection schedule to the gatekeepers. November 2-3, 2014 the researcher received the questionnaires, conducted focus group discussions then went through the teachers’ daily preparation books. The identity of the teachers as well as that of the school was not revealed as codes were assigned to both the teachers and the schools.
3.8.1 Questionnaire
Wilcox (2012) suggests that questionnaires are in print and pose the same questions to all the participants in the section. The respondents write their answers in the spaces provided. All the nine respondents responded to the same questions which the researcher had well-constructed taking into consideration the research objectives and the questions that the research had been formulated based on the objectives.
The researcher felt that the instrument (questionnaire) was appropriate to use because it saves time and is not expensive since it is easy to reach people who are spread across a wide geographic area once and for all, as you just leave them with one person identified by the school’s administration to administer them on the researcher’s behalf if the researcher cannot do that for some reason or the other. Even in remote locations, the researcher may travel there two times; the first time to leave them and if the researcher is lucky they could be filled in full on the same day, but if not they could be fetched on the following day like it happened in the case of this research, as respondents requested that they be allowed more time to familiarise themselves with the consent letter and form; and the questionnaire itself.
The researcher also opted for questionnaires because she would get a chance to explain the purpose of the study to those teachers before she gave them out or left them with the HOD. The researcher realised that she was likely to get better cooperation since personal contact would be established. This renders questionnaires as a practical instrument for data collection. According to Wilcox (2012) questionnaires are a cost-effective way of gathering information that can be kept for reference over a long period of time.
The data collection process does not last long again as compared to other data collection methods. As the researcher has already alluded to it earlier that with questionnaires you just go to the data sources once or twice, is another reason why the researcher considered this instrument. Even the time spent by some of the participants was just too minimal as none of them took more than a teaching period. Another reason why questionnaires were administered is that they may not be administered per se if the respondents are busy, the head of department in a case of a big school, or even the headteacher where the teaching staff is small in number can administer them. In this research, the researcher gave them to the HOD and in another school she was asked to wait for them as the teachers filled them. The respondents had no difficulty in responding thus validity and reliability were less affected as compared to other instruments since the respondents take their time to respond to the questions and they are under no pressure. If need be they do seek clarification from the head of department who may call the researcher for clarification on an issue that he or she cannot respond to as raised by the respondent.
Questionnaires with 16 items (See Appendix D) were administered to the team of three teachers of English in each of the three schools and their identity was not to be revealed. The questionnaires were left with the head of the English department to administer them on behalf of the researcher. That was after a letter of permission to collect data (See Appendix A) to the headteachers of the three schools had been
sent to the three schools. After receiving the responses from the headteachers (See Appendix B), the researcher then sent another letter to the schools with a schedule for data collection (See Appendix C).
That was when questionnaires were delivered together with an informed consent letter (See Appendix E) and a form for each teacher to read and understand what was expected of them during the data collection process and it also highlighted what the data collecting process entailed as the process included other collecting methods (focus group discussion and document analysis). The consent form also had an assurance for the respondents that the information they provided was confidential and that their names and their particulars would not be divulged to anyone, but would be used for the purposes of the research only. The consent letter also made the respondents conscious of the reason for carrying out the research and stated how the findings of the study will be made known to them. The researcher is optimistic that once the research has been approved by the relevant authorities at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, a copy of the research document will be availed in each of the three schools. In all the three schools the questionnaires were left with the head of the English departments and they were collected the following day.
3.8.2 How data from questionnaires were analysed
The researcher started analysing data form the questionnaires the very same day they were filled by the respondents. Since these were open-ended questions, they were analysed using content analysis as they were rich in content and detail. This was done by transferring the responses manually into a spread sheet and assigning each one of them a code for different themes; in this case the researcher had a code:
Teachers’ experiences, factors influencing the teachers’ experiences (internal and external), teaching methods that have influenced these teaching experiences. So the researcher would be checking for similarities and differences among the responses. For the sake of accuracy, the researcher went over the entries once again. After generating the codes, the researcher then assigned one category for each question on the spread sheet with responses in one column and categories in the next column so as to identify the pattern trends to easily interpret the data.
All the responses from the nine questionnaires were discussed in the subsequent chapters. It is also worth noting though that no matter how much ground the information from the questionnaire will have covered but all that information has to conform to the dictates of triangulation. It is for that reason that other collecting methods were engaged by the researcher. Those were focus group discussions with the nine respondents and document analysis whereby the researcher went through each teacher’s daily preparation book even though the daily preparation book addressed mostly the last research question (What are the teaching methods that have influenced the teachers’ experiences of task-based English language teaching at secondary school level?). The researcher had also hoped that the teachers comment about the lesson at
the end. Unfortunately that was not so as teachers commented about whether the lesson was successful or not and did not include much detail concerning their experiences in the class with regards to TBLT.