RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODOLOGY
4.2 Methodological choices
A research design may be called many things, such as "a pattern, order, or arrangement of all the activities in the research journey (Gough, 2000:4) or 'plan', 'structure' of the investigation that is used to obtain evidence to answer research questions (Schumacher and McMillan, 1993:31). The research design describes the procedures that are to be followed in conducting the study and responds to such questions as 'when?' 'To whom?' and 'under what conditions?' the data would be obtained. In this section I explain the procedures that I followed in obtaining evidence that would provide answers to the following critical research questions:
• How have changes in education policy impacted on the principal's management practices?
• How and why do principals in rural secondary schools manage them the way they do?
Paradigms used to look at the issues under investigation are explicated, so are the methodology and methods explained. Paradigms are crucial for understanding and choosing methodologies. For this study, interpretative paradigms are central to the methodology used. Different experiences and
personalities of principals lead to different personal interpretations of what is happening around them, even when they reside in the same community. In order to understand how principals relate to and make meaning of the reality in which they live, I saw it as important to gather data without disturbing the normal course of events for the participants in their natural settings. Since there is no one single objective reality that the inquirer seeks to find, and also there is no one correct way of accessing that reality, the researcher and the researched work together in the co-production of reality. To be able to do that, using participants' language becomes important (Kirk and Miller, 1986).
Different authors use different categories to classify major research paradigms For example, Terre Blanche and Durrheim (1999) postulate three paradigms, namely, positivist, interpretive, and constructionist, while Connole (1993, cited in Gough, 2000) mentions four: empiricist, interpretive, critical and deconstructive/post structural. Guba and Lincoln (1986: 109) provide a set similar to Connole's (1993), with Empiricism/Positivism, Constructivism and Critical theories.
Table 2. Terre Blanche and Durrheim's research paradigms Terre Blanche and Durrheim's (1999) research paradigm
Positivist Interpretive Constructionist
Table 3. Connole's research paradigms Connole's (1993) research approaches
Empiricist Interpretive Critical Deconstructive/Poststructural
Tables 2 and 3 above indicate the extent to which Terre Blanche and Durrheim (1999) and Connole (1993) view various approaches to research. These tables also show the differences between the two authors. Terre Blanche has collapsed
what Connole (1993) has kept separate and he has called it, critical and deconstructive/post structural research, into one category, and he calls it, 'constructionist' (Gough, 2000: 9).
The choice of paradigms is guided by what the research seeks to achieve.
Positivists and empiricists aim to predict, control and explain, while interpretivists/constructivists aim to understand, and reconstruct. Methodologies too are influenced by the aims of researchers. In this study for instance, interpretivist and critical methodologies were more suitable than positivist ones because of the purposes and aims.
For an interpretivist design such as this one, the researcher is a vital instrument (Marshall and Rossman, 1994: 59). The researcher is fully involved as an instrument of data production. The 7 was there' element in the portrayal of the picture of the phenomenon being studied is part of the design. On this issue, Marshall and Rossman state that:
Her presence in the lives of the participants invited to be part of the study is fundamental to the paradigm. Whether that presence is sustained and intensive as in ethnographies, or whether relatively brief but personal, as in in-depth interviews studies, the researcher enters into the lives of the participants (1994: 59).
Human bias can never be underestimated, nor can the notion of objectivity.
Wolcott (1995: 165) cautions researchers to guard against bias rather than deny it, because as he sees it, the researcher's values and theories stimulate the inquiry, and sustain it. That is why he advocates what Erickson, (1984: 61;
quoted in Wolcott, 1995: 165), calls "disciplined subjectivity". Duell-Klein (1983 cited in Cotterill & Letherby, 1994: 109) refers to the same process of guarding bias as "conscious subjectivity", while Coe, (1994: 21) calls it "consensus" or
"intersubjective agreement". While these concepts are different, they are related, together exploring the researcher's role in interpretive research.
People's behaviours and lives are seldom simple, linear and organised in any rational way. Rather, they are complex, unpredictable and messy, and therefore
"the researcher has to look at different places and at different things in order to understand a phenomenon" (Henning, Van Rensburg and Smit, 2004: 20). To be able to do this requires a research design that allows open-ended approaches, with opportunities for deep analyses and reflection. Also, as part of the development of a democratic South Africa, the study aimed at giving the 'voice' to rural principals to 'speak' and to express their own reflections about their experiences of transformation, and how transformation was impacting on the way they were managing their schools. The most appropriate method to use was informal conversation and participant observations because their flexibility allows issues outside the pre-planned agenda to emerge and to be discussed, (Singh, 2000).
The suitability of a conversational approach is not without risks though. Shallow or deeper probing depends on individual skill. Added to that, is a danger of allowing the respondents to set the pace and the depth of discussion. Research paradigms and philosophical beliefs are theoretical frameworks, not rules on which the research process runs. The researcher always has choices to make about what is best for the study in the complex interaction of himself, the conversational partner, their purposes, and the research questions. The demands on the researcher are that he must have the flexibility and skills to work in different ways with different people and settings.