CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 3.1 INTRODUCTION
3.3 POPULATION AND SAMPLING
activities. The focus of this study therefore was to capture this process of interpretation. As Babbie and Mouton (2001) suggest, in order to achieve this, the study should focus on the views and interpretations of the participants. They argue that the ideal situation is for the qualitative researcher to study events as they occur, rather than having to reconstruct them in retrospect.
In this study, it was necessary to reconstruct certain IP activities such as training, monitoring and evaluation in retrospect. This was because the study was undertaken after these activities had been completed by the participants. The participants were therefore requested to reconstruct what had taken place some time before. Such reconstruction could only be achieved through self-reporting, which entailed the use of questionnaires but mainly qualitative interviews. I therefore had to ask participants questions that prompted them to provide an indication of change that they had experienced. Babbie and Mouton (2001) view such questions as attempting to ascertain causality ‘after the fact’. They concede that the information gathered in this way is not as reliable as information gathered through systematic and independent observations. This was one of the limitations of this study which will be discussed in section 3.7.
of the SGB, normally, the chairperson from each school. These change agents worked with 6000 other teachers who did not undergo any training at the 500 primary schools which participated in the IP.
3.3.2 Sampling procedures for the questionnaires
According to Gay (1981), the sample should constitute 10% of the population in a survey research, and 20% if the population is less than 500 subjects. In this study the sample was ten percent (10%) of the participating SGBs, teachers, and principals since the population was more than 500 subjects.
The type of sampling for sampling schools was determined by the delivery or implementation structure of the IP. The IP structured the delivery of its professional development services according to geographic subdivisions referred to as training zones and school clusters. The school cluster consisted of 5 schools in geographic proximity. Although the school was the basic organisational unit for the implementation of the IP, the school cluster represented the smallest unit for inter- school collaboration, networking and mutual support. In view of this, I decided to use cluster or multi-stage sampling. This involved identifying naturally occurring group units and then randomly selecting some of these units for the study. This is followed by a selection of the participants in the study from the sampled clusters (Baker, 1988;
Robson, 1999; Babbie & Mouton, 2001; McMillan & Schumacher, 2001). Thus, since the schools were already grouped into clusters, one cluster was chosen on a random basis from each district. This meant that 10 clusters (5 schools in each cluster) were selected. Therefore the schools in the sample were found by multiplying the number of clusters by the number of schools in each cluster as indicated below:
10 clusters x 5 schools = 50 schools
The sample was calculated by multiplying the number of change agents in each school by the number of school as shown below:
As mentioned earlier, change agents from each school included the following:
SGB member = 1 Principal = 1
Mathematics teacher = 1 Language teacher = 1
Science &Technology teacher =1 Foundation phase teacher =1 ________
___6____
The total sample was:
50 schools x 6 people = 300
The 300-person sample included 50 SGB members, 50 principals, 50 Mathematics, 50 Language, 50 Science and Technology and 50 Foundation Phase teachers. However, problems were experienced with the SGBs as will be indicated in chapter 4.
Most of the schools sampled were in the OR Tambo District Municipality, located in the former Transkei, which is the poorest part of the Eastern Cape. (See Figure 1.2).
3.3.3 Sampling for the interviews
As mentioned in section 3.1, in phase two of the study, I conducted interviews with role players. All of them came from one cluster of schools. This subsection explains how I selected the particular cluster that served as a research site for qualitative data collection.
Hitchcock and Hughes (1995) argue that although qualitative researchers usually have smaller numbers of respondents or informants, they need to research them in greater depth than is possible when using questionnaires. Nevertheless, they need to undertake some form of sampling. In doing this, they need to focus on obtaining as natural and representative a picture as possible. Some form of sampling serves to help the qualitative researcher to at least attempt acceptable levels of representativeness.
For interviews I used convenience sampling which involves choosing the nearest individuals or people who are readily available and accessible to serve as respondents (Cohen & Manion, 1994; McMillan & Schumacher, 2001; Punch, 1994). According
to McMillan and Schumacher (2001), the researcher must describe convenient samples carefully to show that, although the subjects were not randomly selected, their characteristics match those of the population or a substantial portion of the population. In this study, I made an attempt to select schools in one cluster in one district in terms of my knowledge of the educational and socio-economic levels of the communities in which the school clusters were located. To gain sufficient knowledge that could guide me in the choice of the sample, I began by having frequent discussions with one of the trainers in one of the regions in which I was to undertake the research. Secondly, before the study began I had participated as a fieldworker in the administration of two of the evaluation instruments in some of the schools in the evaluation conducted by Joint Education Trust (JET) in 2002. Thirdly, the questionnaire data that I had already collected and analysed showed most of the common characteristics of the schools such as qualifications, and experiences of teachers as well as infrastructure. This, together with my knowledge of the OR Tambo District Municipality district, gave me an idea of the variations in the contexts in which the IP was implemented. Based on the knowledge referred to above, I collected the data for this PhD study from one cluster of five schools that are within an estimated radius of 8-10 km from one another. I selected the schools because of their proximity to where I reside and work. The furthest of these 5 schools is 31 km from Mthatha (single journey). Although there where other cluster of schools which were the same distance from where I live and had the same characteristics, I preferred this cluster because I was acquainted with four of the principals and some of the teachers, and the roads were better than to other schools. I conducted in-depth interviews with the five (5) principals of the five schools forming the selected cluster, three (3) teachers from each school who participated in the IP training workshops (key teachers-K), 3 teachers who had not attended the training (non-key teachers (NK) from the 5 schools forming the one cluster of 5 schools under investigation.
Altogether I interviewed 15 key teachers and 15 non-key teachers. The principals assisted me in choosing the teachers. The principals maintained that they were choosing those teachers who were serious about their work and thus would have been more committed to the IP activities. Two (2) of the 15 key teachers were males and 13 were females as indicated in Table 3.1-3.11 below. Only one of the 15 non-key teachers was a male and 14 were females.
Sample for interviews was constituted as follows:
5 schools x 1 principal = 5 5 schools x 3 key teachers (K) = 15 5 schools x 3 no-key teachers (NK) = 15 8 schools x 1 SGB member (SGB) = 8
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I used code names to identify the respondents in the study to ensure anonymity. The principals were referred to as Interviewee P1- P5, the key teachers as K (1-15) and non-key teachers as Interviewee NK (1-15), and the SGB members as SGB (1-8) as shown in the tables below. The tables below, tables 3.1 to 3.12 show the types of schools, the age groups of all the participants, the teaching experience, the experience in the particular schools, the position held and the number of years the position has been held. The schools included four junior secondary schools (JSS) and one senior primary school (SPS) (see glossary of terms). I have included this information because I believe that it influences the views that will be held by each participant.
Further discussion of this will follow in chapter 4.
Table 3.1: Principals
Principal 1 Principal 2 Principal 3 Principal 4 Principal 5