CHAPTER FOUR Methodological Roadmap
4.9 Ethical Considerations
Ethical considerations are the procedures that have to be followed by the researcher to make sure that the rights of participants are not violated. In this regard I ensured that I treated my participants with respect and dignity (Thomas, 2010). Orb, Eisenhauer and Wynaden (2001) posit that it the responsibility of the researcher to inform the participants about their rights. In this regard, I informed all my participants regarding their rights to informed consent, privacy, confidentiality, anonymity pseudo-names, non-pressure voluntary participation and full disclosure about the research study.
4.9.1 Gaining official access to schools
As a researcher representing the University of KwaZulu-Natal, I had to apply for ethical clearance. I thereafter applied to the Provincial Department of Education of Kwazulu-Natal for permission to conduct this study. Both institutions granted me permission to pursue this study.
I submitted these documents to all SGB partners that I intended to interview regarding the
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dynamics of school partnership. It was brought to my attention that these documents were important. Some participants such as P-1(FP) and SS-6 (TP) were very frank that with the presence of these documents they were in possession of they were made to feel at ease to express their lived experiences. Therefore, I gained access not only to schools, but also to the participants.
As a result, principals as gatekeepers of their schools were very co-operative. They played an important role in persuading some participants, especially site stewards who at the initial stage seemed to be reluctant to share their lived experiences. According to Cohen, Manion and Morrison (2007) potential participants can deny entry or reaching out to other participants for reasons known to them. I was impressed to hear four principals reporting that they had prior meetings with relevant participants encouraging them to participate fully in this study. The most common reason was that the study of this nature was for the good cause in seeking dynamics that impede positive school partnerships. With these acquired documents, I was granted permission to conduct this study. Winning the hearts of school principals was not enough, hence, I had to get the informed consent from the identified participants, which I discuss hereafter.
4.9.2 Informed consent
Sin (2005) defines informed consent as an action where the researcher provides the participants with adequate and detailed information about the study. The purpose is to afford participants an opportunity to make an informed, rational and voluntary decision to participate or not to participate in the research. I therefore, informed my participants about the purpose, nature of the study, duration, essence of their participation, data generation methods, and audio -recoding to be involved. I noticed from their facial expression and body language that immediately when I mentioned audio - recording, they did not feel comfortable. Kvale and Brinkman (2009) point out that in the informed consent phase, it is important to start by mentioning aspects that would alleviate fear. To address this fear, I thereafter gave all the participants assurance that there would be confidentiality, privacy and anonymity. As soon as they heard these words, some of them then verbalised that they had been worried because they did not want to be cited.
4.9.3 Confidentiality
According to Wartenberg (2010), the idea of confidentiality is founded on the premise of autonomy and respect. Confidentiality basically, means data collected from participants will not be disclosed to anyone without the participant’s permission. It also means the researcher has to make certain that findings are not presented in a way that individuals would be
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identifiable. Kaiser (2009) further regards confidentiality as a moral obligation for a researcher not to disclose generated data to anyone. I therefore, endeavoured to treat all shared information by the participants with strict confidentiality. To address this aspect of confidentiality, I sought consent from the participants. The names of the District Office and Ward were not revealed.
Furthermore, I used the pseudonyms for schools and the participants. I referred to schools as FP, TP, RP, TH and MH. I coded school principals as: P-1, P-2, P-3, P-4, and P-5. For the SGB chairpersons, I used these codes: CP-1, CP-2, CP-3, CP-4, and CP-5. Lastly for teacher - union site stewards I were known SS-1, SS-2 up to SS-12. These pseudo - names and codes also assisted in maintaining the participants` privacy and anonymity (Kvale & Brinkmann, 2009).
4.9.4. Privacy
According to Lewis (2015), it is important for a researcher to allow participants privacy. This scholar posits that such privacy symbolises that the researcher respect the participants.
Wartenburg (2010) asserts that participants’ right to privacy need to be encouraged. This encouragement is essential because it shows that the researcher respects the participants’
autonomy, welfare, and self-determination. It was one of the reasons that I opted for the individual face to face interviews. I further used different venues and times to interview the participants. I assured the participants that their names, identities, and generated information would not be revealed to anyone. I also stored the tape recorder in a safe place where nobody would have an access to. The purpose was to ensure the participants’ privacy, confidentiality and anonymity. It was vital to emphasise confidentiality, privacy and anonymity to the participants because it eased their minds. Most of these participants were happy when they heard that their participation in this study was on voluntary basis.
4.9.5 Participants’ voluntary participation
The essence of voluntary participation in a research study is that participants participate voluntarily (Malindi & Machenjedze, 2012). Cardenas and Carpenter (2008) also affirm that indeed the participants are permitted to accept or refuse at any time. Regarding this study, I stressed to the identified participants that it was not compulsory for them to be part of this study. I repeated several times that they were at liberty to exercise their rights to participate in this study or to withdraw at any time. Hence, it was this emphasis which encouraged the participants to voluntarily agree to be part of the study.
Although the participants were eager to be part of the study, I had noticed that during the early stage of interviews, some participants were very shy. To ease and calm them from anxiety I
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kept on emphasising words such as confidentiality, privacy, anonymity and voluntary participation. Gradually, I gained their confidence and won their hearts. Some of them confessed that they had research phobia until they began to trust me. Dewey and Zheng (2013) attest that it is of cardinal importance for the researcher and participants to have mutual trust.
It was because of this mutual trust that doubts vanished. Hence, this resulted in them not only being willing to be part of the study but to be active participants. Johnson, Avenarius and Weatherford (2006) contend that it imperative for participants to be active participant. They further argue that this active involvement of the participants usually adds value to the research study. This mutual trust between the participants and myself benefitted this study. The highlight was when the participants from all schools actively came up with suggestions regarding the enhancement of school partnerships (see Chapter 6, section 6.7.1).
Apart from my reiteration of confidentiality, privacy, anonymization, and mutual trust, I further informed and updated the participants regarding the data I had collected. I afforded them the opportunity to review the preliminary results. Birt, Scott, Cavers, Campbell and Walter (2016) posit that this is another way of ensuring that participants are involved from the beginning to the end of the research. He points out that this is the method to assess the credibility of the results. This is what we call “member checking”. The results are returned to participants to verify that the collected data reflect what the participants shared with the researcher.
All the participants expressed satisfaction and admitted that the generated data reflected their verbatim experiences. I gave them assurance that I would keep them informed once the completed document is available and obtainable from the Supervisor, the University and myself should they wish to peruse through it. Therefore, there was a high level of trust, teamwork, team-spirit, transparency, collaboration, participation, respect and honesty that prevailed between the participants and myself. This atmosphere worked well for this research study because we all moved together to the next stage of data generation, with a record of understanding.