RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
3.2 QUALITATIVE RESEARCH APPROACH
Every research hinges on philosophical underpinnings. According to Creswell (2007) these philosophical suppositions comprise the function of values in the research (axiology), the language of the research (rhetoric), methods used (methodology), a standpoint on what reality is (ontology) and how the researcher knows what she/ he knows (epistemology). Merriam (1998:8) defines qualitative research as:
…an approach which recognises that meaning emerges through interaction and is not standardised from person to person as in quantitative research, and thus allowing the researcher to study issues in detail, without predetermined categorised analysis.
This implies that in qualitative research, meaning can only be arrived at when there is meaningful interaction between the researcher and the research participants. Unlike in quantitative research, there are no preset categories for scrutiny. This implies that in qualitative research classes for data analysis emerge during the data gathering process.
42 Creswell (2003) sees qualitative research as an inquiry process whereby researchers seek to understand a human or social problem, based on constructing an intricate, holistic picture formed with words, whilst giving a detailed report on the means of participants and carrying out the study in naturalistic set-ups. This definition encapsulates quite a number of characteristics of qualitative research. The first characteristic is that it aims at understanding a social or human problem. What this means is that, in qualitative research the researchers cannot avoid visiting the people involved for them to be in a position to understand the issue being researched on. The second aspect that Creswell raises in his definition is that the qualitative researcher builds a multifaceted and holistic image using words. This implies that the researcher has to give thick descriptions of research participants’ views in order to reach a meaningful understanding of the research problem. Third, qualitative research is conducted in the natural setting. These views are consistent with Denzin and Lincoln’s (1994:2) view that, qualitative research is “…multi-method in focus, involving an interpretive, naturalistic approach to its subject matter.”
Qualitative research is a broad approach which studies social phenomena and its diverse types are interpretive, naturalistic, ethnographic and largely critical (Marshall and Rossman, 2006).
They add that qualitative researchers draw on numerous techniques of inquiry. From this definition one can therefore say that qualitative research is an approach that involves a natural inquiry which uses non-interventionist data collection strategies to unearth the natural occurrence of events. The data is collected by interacting with the people involved.
I adopted the qualitative research approach for this research because it was the most relevant in line with its ontological, epistemological and axiological assumptions. Schulze (1999) notes that qualitative research is a multi-perspective kind of approach to societal interaction and its major aim is to describe, interpret and reconstruct this interaction with regards to the meanings that research informants append to it. As such, the duty of the qualitative researcher is to unearth the participants’ interpretations of the phenomenon under investigation. Thus, according to Creswell (2007) the qualitative research approach situates the observer in the world. This means that adopting a qualitative research for this study enabled me, as the researcher to go and get relevant information from the teachers and how they are experiencing the use of Shangani as the medium of instruction.
43 3.2.1 Strengths of Qualitative Research
Qualitative research is grounded on the naturalistic phenomenological belief that views reality as interactive, multi-layered and a shared communal experience (McMillan and Schumacher, 2006). Thus, researchers attempt to interpret reality from the informants’ viewpoint. Denzin and Lincoln (2005:3) note that “...qualitative researchers study things in their natural settings, attempting to make sense of or interpret phenomena in terms of the meanings people bring to them.” Furthermore, Strauss and Corbin (1990) say that qualitative research can be utilised to gain new perspectives on subjects where much is already known or in situations where comparatively little is known concerning the phenomenon. I have based this study on the qualitative approach because its direct source of data is the natural setting, thus, it is not founded on preconceived assumptions but on viewpoints that emerged from the data gathered from the participants. Thus, l gathered data in the field where the research participants practice the phenomenon under study (Creswell, 2007) which in turn enabled me to get authentic data to answer the research questions. As such, the study established the experiences of teachers using Shangani Language as the medium of instruction at three selected schools in Chiredzi District in Zimbabwe from their own point of view.
Qualitative researchers are the key research instruments. They collect data themselves using numerous sources of data. Creswell (2007) opines that the data gathered in qualitative research is in several forms such as documents, observations and interviews. This implies that the researcher does not rely on a single source of data thus collects data which may be comparable to establish what goes on in the setting. This is because the major intention of qualitative researchers is to enhance the understanding of a specific issue by “…bringing to life what goes on in the setting and how this is connected to broader panoply of real life” (Yin, 2005: xiv).
Creswell (2007) points out that in qualitative research, researchers begin with a worldview and the study of research problems making an inquiry on the implications that the individuals attribute to a human or social problem. This means that the qualitative researcher draws insight from what the research participants ascribe to the research problem. In addition to that, qualitative research is concerned with things as they occur, circumstances as they are constructed in the daily course of events and life as it is lived (Chisaka, 2013). Thus, researchers seek an understanding of the lived experiences of research participants in actual situations which, in turn, will enable them to generate theories based on those experiences.Gray (2014) highlights that, qualitative research is extremely contextual and the data is gathered in
44 a natural and real life setting. In this study, the experiences of teachers were better understood through interaction with the participants which in turn helped me as the researcher to interpret the meanings attached to those experiences by the participants themselves. This is because qualitative researchers study phenomena in their natural locations, endeavouring to decipher, and infer them in terms of the meanings the participants bring to them (Denzin and Lincoln, 2000). In addition to that, in qualitative research the researchers are allowed a degree of flexibility in carrying out a particular research and facilitate the examination of topics which are quite sensitive. This can only happen in cases where there is some kind of trust between the researchers and the participants.
Tichapondwa (2013) summarises the strengths of qualitative research which can be presented diagrammatically as follows:
Figure 1: The Strengths of Qualitative Research
However, the qualitative approach has its share of limitations which I am moving on to now.
3.2.2 Limitations of Qualitative Research
Whilst it is true that qualitative methods can scrutinize social issues in particular settings in substantial depth, the collection and as well as the analysis of qualitative material can be time consuming and therefore expensive (Tichapondwa, 2013). This implies that qualitative
Summary of Strengths of qualitative research
Issues are examined in depth and detail
Data collection can be done informally in a relaxed manner
which encourages research participants to take part in the
research
the research direction and framework can be revised quickly upon the emergence of new
information.
research participants interpret reality from their point of
view.
45 researchers use a lot of their time and resources in the gathering and analysis of data. In addition to that, qualitative researches generally involve relatively small numbers of research participants and as such they may not to be taken seriously by policy makers or even other researchers. For this reason of a limited number of participants, the knowledge produced may not be generalised to other people or other settings. However, in this research my focus was on understanding the circumstances or settings in which the research participants addressed the issue under investigation, not on generalising the results to other contexts (Creswell, 2007).
For this reason, this automatically places this research in the interpretive paradigm.