No. of schools in Region
4.4 INTERVIEWS
4.4.1 RATIONALE FOR THE USE OF INTERVIEWS
In order to triangulate the data obtained from the questionnaire and to seek greater depth to the issues surrounding educator post provisioning, the researcher considered interviews to be the ideal data gathering tool. Owing to the fact that questionnaire data tends to be
‘thin’ by offering more breadth than depth, interviews were helpful in the sense that it
helped the researcher to gather more information on specific items in the questionnaire which was worthy of closer scrutiny. Gilham (2000:10) contends that the positive feature of interviews is the richness and vividness of the data that it turns up. It enables one to
‘see’ and to understand what is reflected rather than more abstractly in other kinds of data such as statistical summaries.
The researcher was of the view that by posing open-ended questions to selected informants, the informants could be encouraged to express their opinions to the questions.
Further, by asking supplementary questions (probes), informants could clarify or extend their responses.
4.4.2 INTERVIEW INFORMANTS
Two sets of interviews were conducted. The first set of interviews was conducted with nine principals from ordinary public secondary schools. The second set of interviews was conducted with three union officials who are provincial negotiators serving on the staffing committee of the KZN ELRC.
4.4.3 SELECTION OF INFORMANTS
In selecting the informants for the interviews, the purposive sampling technique was used. Purposive sampling according to Bertram (2003:12) means that the researcher makes specific choices about which people to include in the sample. The informants selected, however, do not represent the wider population, namely, all ordinary public secondary school principals in KZN or all union provincial negotiators in KZN. Bertram (2003:71) contends that the selected respondents simply represent themselves.
The principals that were selected as interview informants were selected on the basis of convenience. Convenience sampling simply refers to choosing a sample which is easy for the researcher to reach (Bertram 2003:71). All nine principals were from the eThekwini Region of KZN and were selected in terms of the following criteria:
• Three principals were selected from poorly resourced schools.
• Three principals were selected from schools that had a mediocre level of resources.
• Three principals were selected from well-resourced schools.
In terms of the selection of union officials, three provincial negotiators who serve on the staffing committee of the KZN ELRC - one each from the South African Democratic Teachers Union (SADTU), the Association of Professional Educators of KwaZulu-Natal (APEK) and the Suid Afrikaanse Onderwys Unie (SAOU) - were selected.
4.4.4 NATURE OF THE INTERVIEWS
In terms of interviews the main dimension of difference is the extent to which the interview is structured and the degree to which the interviewer is allowed to ‘lead’ the content of the interview. The researcher was of the view that a structured interview would be too restrictive in the sense that one has to adhere rigidly to a pre-planned interview schedule without having the freedom to prompt and probe further or encourage the informant to elaborate or reformulate a given response. Given this limitation, the researcher opted for both semi-structured and unstructured interviews as data gathering tools because of the latitude it offered the researcher in the use of probes and prompts in order to obtain depth into the issues on educator post provisioning.
The semi-structured interviews were used in interviewing principals. The researcher considered this type of interview suitable for interviewing principals because although it has more structure it is very open in style (Gilham 2000:7). Based on the responses of principals from the questionnaire the researcher developed a set of questions (see interview schedule – Annexure E, page 274) which were put to the nine principals.
Unstructured interviews were used in interviewing the three union officials. A single question (main question) was posed to each of the three union officials (see Annexure F, page 275). Thereafter, probes, prompts, and follow-up questions which pursued the implications of answers to the main question were asked.
4.4.5 TRIALLING OF INTERVIEW QUESTIONS
Possible interview questions for the semi-structured interview were trialled with senior members of the management staff at a secondary school. This exercise enabled the researcher to:
• Get some sort of feel for the interview process.
• Determine which questions were key questions.
• Ascertain questions that needed rethinking.
• Make decisions as to questions that need to be omitted.
It was not possible to trial the question of the unstructured interview owing to the small population size in terms of union provincial negotiators serving on the staffing committee.
4.4.6 ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS
Prior to the commencement of both the unstructured and semi-structured interviews the informants were briefed on the purpose of the study and were assured that any information furnished by them would be used solely for the purposes of research. Further, they were assured that neither their names nor the names of their schools or unions would be quoted.
4.4.7 ANALYSIS OF INTERVIEW DATA
The nine semi-structured interviews and the three unstructured interviews were audio tape recorded. Each interview was then transcribed verbatim. After the transcription process the researcher had to engage in minor editing in order to increase the readability of the transcript. The transcripts were then subjected to qualitative content analysis by identifying key substantive points in the transcript and then grouping them into themes and categories.