Methodology refers to a theory of knowledge and how we research complex, multiple realities, as opposed to epistemology, which addresses how we come to know these multiple realities. Henning (2005, p 3) maintains that epistemology and methodology are interdependent, one being the philosophy and the other the practice. Methodology, in this context, refers to specific methods and techniques that were used to elicit data to enable the understanding of the phenomenon: how college lecturers experienced the post- apartheid educational reforms in their personal and professional lives.
4.4.1 Life history methodology
This study adopted a life history methodology. Using this methodology, the study has drawn on narratives of the experiences of college lecturers with regards to how they have experienced post-apartheid education reforms in their lives and work. The study used life histories to elicit how they interpret, understand and define their college context in relation to transformations that have happened in their institutions.
Life histories provide knowledge about how people being studied experience and make sense of themselves and their environments (Cassel and Symon, 1994). For me this meant that life history as a methodology befits the study because the participant’s own story is valued and he or she gets an opportunity to talk about the effects of change over a period of time and historical events as they unfolded from the past to the present. This is a methodology that has an advantage of focusing on participants’ biographical change and social history of their life-span that other methods do not have.
Faraday and Plummer (1979) state that:
The life history technique documents the inner experiences of individuals, how they interpret, understand and define the world around them. The focus of life history is paramountly concerned with the subjective meanings of individuals (p 785).
The choice of life-history methodology lies in its ability to capture unique details and its focus on ‘the meanings that people attach to their experiences’ (McAdams, 1993, p 11).
Cohen et al. (2007) feel that these unique details may be critical to understanding the phenomenon being investigated.
Goodson and Sikes (2001) state that, since its early use in documenting the life of Wladek Wisniewski, by Thomas and Znaniecki, the life history approach has been increasingly embraced by many sociologists and other researchers working in the humanities.
Life history as a methodology aims to reconstruct the life history of individuals, by focusing on the story of a participant as told and expressed by the person herself or himself. The technique falls under the genre of narratives and provides researchers with a written picture of ‘real people in real situations struggling with real problems’ (Dhunpath, 2003, p 50).
Nelson (1992) argues that there needs to be further distinctions between a ‘total life history’ and a ‘focused life history’ (p 169). He reasons that the former attempts to capture the full span and depth of an individual’s life in detail, while the latter focuses on specific dimensions of that person’s life. Without denying that a teacher is part and parcel of social, historical, cultural and political contexts and that his or her sense of self is
‘socially grounded’ (Nias, 1996, p 294), a larger part of the study was ‘focused life history’, as the main focus was on TVET college lecturers’ work and career lives. A researcher cannot deal in depth with all aspects of participants’ life histories in one study, due to time constraints and practicability of data management, as long transcripts pose the danger of one losing focus.
Although there are debates challenging the ‘fetishness about the certainty and objectivity of knowledge and the quest for the universal truths’ (Dhunpath, 2000, p 174), life history is useful in educational research, as it provides insights into both the subjective and personal dimensions of lived experience of participants (Babbie and Mouton, 2001). I
believe that this methodology was relevant for this study because it gave college lecturers an avenue to air their own viewpoints. Molteno (1984) points out that:
If we accept that our insight into education is best achieved by trying to understand how life is seen by those living it rather than by accepting uncritically perspectives of those administering the system, we have to begin listening more systematically to teachers (p 8).
It cannot be denied that life history is participant-centred and unapologetically subjective.
Hatch and Wisniewski (1995) argue that ‘life history requires a historical, cultural, political, and social situatedness in order to avoid the romanticisation of the individual and thus reproduction of a hero narrative which reifies humanist notions of the individual as autonomous and unitary’ (p 117). As a result, the phenomenon was not studied in isolation of other people and related contextual factors, hence the adoption of a non- individualistic approach, as espoused by Norbert Elias, through his interrogation of concepts of ‘figurations’ and ‘habitus’, which put emphasis on the interwoven nature of human relationships.
4.4.2 A critique of life history as a methodology
Life history, like other qualitative methodologies, is not without limitations, faults and flaws. Firstly, interviewing may be a lengthy process, because the focus may be limited to only a specific part of a participant’s life, but the questions are open ended and this is not easy to control. Still on the interviewing process, Miller (2000) stresses that oral history interviews facilitate recalling of information and incidents through a process of cross-referentiality, as the participant goes back and forth in the account, trying to make linkages between different types of events and incidents in their lives. As the account includes incidents that happened in the past, the memory of the participant is crucial.
Some of the facts may not be remembered, some may be distorted, while others may not be true. Other participants may sift the information given and say only what appeals to them. Mthiyane (2007) confirms this, by mentioning that failure of memory, retrospective editing, self-justification, rationalization and myth-building are some of the criticisms levelled against life history as a biographical research.
Other criticism pertains to representativeness, reliability and validity of data elicited and interpreted by the researcher. According to Cohen et al, (2007) the biggest criticism of the life history methodology involves the analysis and interpretation of the data gathered.
Plummer (1983) considers that life history data lacks representativity, as cases dealt with are atypical. He adds that unless an explicit relationship could be drawn on a continuum of representativeness and non-representativeness, the sample cannot be claimed to be representative. If the sample is not representative, then generalisability of such data becomes questionable. Cohen et al. (2007), argues that ‘the researcher need not always adhere to the criteria of representativeness’, as each case is unique (p 257).
The issue of reliability and how it was dealt with in this study will be discussed later in this chapter. It is worth mentioning, however, that it relates to how researchers deal with the potential sources of bias resulting from the research. One such source of bias arises from the interviewer’s attitude, opinion and tendency to seek answers that support his or her prejudgments (Powney & Watts, 1987, Cohen & Manion, 1989). Powney and Watts explain that interviewer bias will arise if there are inconsistencies in the way that questions are asked. But Cohen and Manion (1989) counter that, in less formal interviews, the researcher has freedom to change the way questions are sequenced and can also paraphrase them.
Life history involves the subjective perspective of the interviewee. This one-sided nature of the interview raises many questions with regards to validity. Validity refers to the ability to represent the informant’s subjective reality as a true reflection, as the informant presented it (Plummer, 1983). Although Goodson and Sikes (2001) argue that ‘life history involves a collaborative approach in which the informant is, in essence, a partner, a co-worker without whose cooperation and active involvement any study cannot proceed’ (p 73), the information that the participant gives is not easy to substantiate and verify. The interpretation of the findings by the researcher is subjective and distortions are highly possible. Flick (1998) advises that data can be validated through
‘communicative validity’ and that this can be achieved by arranging other meetings with the participants, to give them an opportunity to verify the content. In this study, all transcribed versions of oral history interviews were sent to participants to double-check the correctness of facts.
With regards to the generalizability of data, Cohen et al. (2007) cautioned that the goal of qualitative research is not that of generalizing, but rather the ability to gather in-depth and rich data. Chilisa and Preece (2005) confirm this when they discuss context sensitivity.
They point out that ‘the purpose of research in qualitative research is not to generalize findings, but to describe each setting in its uniqueness; leaving the reader to decide whether what is described is transferable to other settings’ (p 142). Berteaux (1981) explains that if generalization is the goal, then the researcher needs to take several life histories from the same set of socio-structural relations. If the data supports other data and reaches saturation point, this can make for a strong body of evidence which can enable generalizations to be made. Twelve TVET college lecturers from different backgrounds participated, but proving generalizability of the findings was never part of the plan in the present study.
In spite of all the criticism discussed above, there is still wide acceptance that oral history as a biographical research methodology is valuable in understanding human phenomena (Miller, 2000; Cohen et al., 2000), as it attaches importance to experiences and knowledge of individuals and meanings attached to personal life experiences.