CHAPTER 8 TEACHING AND LEADERSHIP
4.3 RESEARCH DESIGN
It is appropriate that this study, involved as it is with education and leadership, should be positioned within the broad domain of qualitative research, which is held by Conger (1998) to be the cornerstone methodology for understanding leadership.
This belief is reinforced by Lemmer (1992, p. 294), who writes:
The qualitative tradition, which focuses on the in-depth, the detail, the process and the context of schooling [that] offers the educationist a valid and worthwhile research method.
Qualitative research arose from a reaction to the strictly quantitative, positivist research that dominated the twentieth century. “Human experience cannot be expressed in a context-free or neutral scientific language.” (Lemmer, 1992, p. 292)
85 Eisner (1998) describes six features of qualitative research, “each of which in different ways contributes to the overall character of a qualitative study” (Eisner, 1998, p. 32). The first of these six features involves the fact that qualitative studies are field-focused, taking place where the relevant activity evolves. In the case of this educational study, for example, the place where the relevant activity evolves is schools, where teachers relate to their pupils in the teaching and learning process. The data collection for the present study was therefore carried out in selected schools. The study describes and analyses school- based teaching-and-leading situations as they played out naturally; there was no manipulation of affairs nor were there any artificial set-ups. Similarly, the conversations between teachers took place within their own environment and were not guided or controlled by the researcher. The entire focus of the fieldwork and data collection process was on classroom life, where teachers relate to their pupils.
The second feature of qualitative research, as described by Eisner (1998), is the self as instrument. My own focused and long-term involvement with and intense interest in both education and leadership has been an important feature of this inquiry. Of importance to the quality of the outcome of this study is the researcher’s ability to be sensitive and perceptive in his work as well as be able to see beyond just looking and make sense of the situation within its context. It has been argued that the presence of the researcher him/herself is the most important instrument in qualitative research in terms of finding meaning and interpreting phenomena in any particular context (Woods, 1985; Lincoln and Guba, 1985). The fieldwork for this research was carried out by the researcher alone.
A third feature of qualitative study is that it is interpretive in format. It is interpretive in both meanings of the word, which is to say it tries to explain what is happening and it also tries to give meaning to what is being observed. The interpretive nature of the present study is fundamental to its finding answers to the three critical questions that both inform and drive it. The search for what understanding teachers have of leadership as well as how and why leadership does or does not occur has required that both forms of interpretation take place, in that what has been said, observed or noted requires explanation as well as a search for its meaning in terms of leadership lore and behaviour and its application to an educational context.
86 A fourth feature of qualitative research is its use of expressive language, where the voice of the inquirer is present in the text so as to provide that which is necessary for the reader to be able to understand the text. Both teaching and leading have a vocabulary of their own. As the researcher it was my personal construction of the interview questions, ultimately my own interpretation of the responses and the context and my own understanding of what was observed that is transmitted to the reader, who will be, in all likelihood, a student of or interested spectator to the world of education and/or leadership.
Qualitative research also pays attention to particulars so that readers can discern the very flavour of the situation and its distinctive characteristics. In transcribing the recordings of the data that was collected during the fieldwork phase of this inquiry, it became apparent to the researcher how inherently different the live interchange between human teachers is from the written transcript of that same interchange. So in order to amplify the meaning of what was recorded, a video recording was also made, through which one can see clearly the importance of tone and atmosphere, voice inflection, body and hand gestures and facial expressions in conveying meaning. Words on paper sometimes convey several different meanings, especially considering the complexities of the English language. Transcription is an especially difficult issue when it comes to observing teachers at work in their classrooms, as the classroom is a place where meaning can be variously ascribed. It became apparent to me that my responsibility as a researcher is to carefully note as many features of each situation as possible.
The final feature that makes qualitative inquiry believable is its coherence, insight and instrumental utility. Eisner (1998) posits these (coherence, insight and instrumental utility) as tests, together with consensus of effective qualitative inquiry (see below). As was discussed in Chapter 1, the current state of education in South Africa (i.e. as it is at the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century) is cause for considerable concern. The contribution this study could make to an understanding of the teacher’s leadership role is considered by the researcher to be of potentially great value to any initiatives aimed at improving the country’s education system. Every effort has been made to ensure that new insights emerge from this study and that it is coherently presented, with the focus remaining fixed on the issues of importance.
For qualitative researchers, reality is constructed in a social sense. The goal of the qualitative researcher in the IC paradigm becomes to search for an understanding and
87 knowledge of what has been constructed over time and in many places. In this study the goal is to search for an understanding and knowledge of the development of both leadership and education as phenomena and of how they interact with one another. There may well be many ‘truths’ that could offer answers to this search. Firestone (1987, p. 16) claims that the aim of qualitative research is to come to an “understanding of the life-world of the individuals or groups studied from their own frame of reference.” In the present study this means understanding teacher leadership within the context of the schoolteacher and his/her role in teaching schoolchildren.
Qualitative research demands that the researcher interact with the researched. It places “a high premium on the idiosyncratic, on the exploitation of the researcher’s unique strengths” (Eisner, 1998, p. 169) and it accepts that the researcher’s viewpoint will affect the research process. Lemmer (1992, p. 292) posits qualitative research and the investigation of social reality as the study of the products of human activity “that could not be separated from the thoughts, values and sentiments of the investigator.”
In qualitative research the emphasis is on the “skill, competence, and rigor of the researcher in the field” (Patton, 2002, p. 14). This placed enormous responsibility on me as the researcher, but it also presented me with the opportunity to exploit all my years of experience in and passion for those two conceptualisations that are brought together in this study.
4.3.1 Connoisseur and critic
“That aesthetic game of the eye and the mind played by these connoisseurs.”
(Pablo Picasso, 1881-1973)
Education and leadership are both specialised subjects. Research in these domains requires a level of understanding about the disciplines as well as the procedures and processes that they involve. Eisner proposes that the researcher should be a ‘connoisseur’ in his/her subject, someone “who has the experience and skills to understand the subtle, and not so subtle, aspects of a situation; aspects that would be completely hidden to an observer who is not a connoisseur” (Willis, 2007, p. 163). “Connoisseurship is the means through which we come to know the complexities, nuances, and subtleties of the world in which we have
88 a special interest” (Eisner, 1998, p. 68). In the context of this study, the researcher is an experienced teacher as well as a life-long student of leadership. As such, I draw on a connoisseur’s experience and skills in conducting this research.
When we are functioning as connoisseurs, it is important to focus our attention on two targets: one of these is the events themselves, the other is what those events do to our experience.” (Eisner, 1998, p.
183)
The word ‘connoisseur’ is derived from the Latin word cognoscere, which means ‘to know’. It is most commonly used to refer to one who has the necessary experience to appraise and interpret (i.e. one who is ‘a competent judge’ or ‘a critical judge’). It is not intended to summon up the image of a select or privileged few, but rather of one who is likely to be highly perceptive within a particular domain. These are the attributes that I have attempted to bring to bear in this inquiry; I play the role of critical and competent judge in two arenas where I have spent a great deal of my working and recreational years.
The connoisseur needs a vehicle if he/she is to make judgments that can serve as a platform for expression so that the research might prove useful in the matter under judgment. “For connoisseurship to have a public presence, we must turn to criticism, for criticism provides connoisseurship with a public voice” (Eisner, 1998, p. 85). The critic discloses what the connoisseur has realised. Dewey (1934, p. 324), in Art as Experience, famously provided comment regarding the role of criticism: “The aim of criticism is the re-education of the perception of the work of art.”
The Eisner Model advocates the job of the connoisseur and critic for the sake of effective educational research. This study, in its function of ‘reporter’ to the reader, serves the
‘critical’ function of offering up the expert material that has been assembled on both education and leadership. Use has been made in this study of ‘thick description’, which seeks to utilise detailed, rich descriptions. Detailed descriptions are therefore provided by the researcher of how the teacher-respondents experience the phenomenon of leading a class and also of what the context of those experiences is. “Thick description is an effort aimed at interpretation, at getting below the surface to that most enigmatic aspect of the human condition: the construction of meaning” (Eisner, 1998, p. 15). Such thick
89 description has been particularly valid to this study, given Denzin’s (1989, p. 83) portrayal of thick description as “description that does more than record what a person is doing”; it goes beyond the facts and facade, presenting “detail, context, emotion and the web of social relationships that join persons to one another.”
The Connoisseurship Model of Inquiry (CMI) is described by Willis (2007, p. 300) as
“probably the best known and most widely used holistic approach to qualitative inquiry in education.” Eisner (1998) has suggested that there are seven fundamental premises including CMI in the interpretive research paradigm; these have been quoted below for the compilation and interpretation of data in this study:
1) There are multiple ways of knowing about the world.
2) Human knowledge is not discovered but is rather constructed.
3) The way humans communicate their understanding influences the message they send.
4) Intelligence is required for any form of human communication.
5) When humans select a form of communication they influence not only what is said, but also what is understood.
6) Multiple methods of research make studies more complete and informative.
7) Epistemology and politics both determine forms of human communication in the context of research.
In this study interviews and discussions with practising educators as well as observations made of them while they educate have allowed for the voices of those involved in the classroom-based teaching and learning process to create the sought for understanding and insights called for by the critical questions of the study (see chapter 1). It is the teacher’s own perceptions, knowledge and behaviour regarding the phenomenon of teacher leadership within the ‘real world’ setting of a teacher teaching a class of pupils that is fundamental to this study. Teachers’ experiences, world-views and insights contribute towards as well as create that understanding.
4.3.2 Ontology, epistemology and methodology
Those who adopt one particular paradigm over another will most likely hold particular views that informed that decision. These views will relate first of all to the ontology of the
90 chosen paradigm. A certain paradigm will be chosen depending on the researcher’s answers to questions like: What is the nature of reality? What is known about this reality?
What kind of person is this being? What are the metaphysics or first causes of all existence and knowledge? The researcher’s views will also relate to the epistemology of the paradigm (i.e. “the philosophy of knowledge aiming at understanding truth”) (Taleb, 2008, p. 20). The researcher’s views will furthermore relate to the theory of the method or grounds of knowledge (i.e. What is the relationship between the researcher and the world of what is known? Is the researcher’s view of reality shared by others?). Finally, these views will lead to the selection of methodologies for the research. In order to make a choice in this, the researcher will ask him/herself questions such as: How is one to set out to do what has to be done? How does the researcher gain knowledge of the world? How does one come to know the world we inhabit “congruent with those perspectives?”
(Mertens, 1998, p. 13).
“The IC paradigm assumes a relativist ontology (there are multiple realities), a subjectivist epistemology (knower and respondent co-create understandings) […] and a hermeneutic, dialectic methodology” (Lincoln and Guba, 2000, pp. 21 and 158). Proponents of Critical Realism and Critical Theory (such as the British philosopher Roy Bhaskar) reject the relativism and idealism within interpretivism. Critical Theory argues that interpretivism produces localised, isolated and temporally specific knowledge in which all points of view are seen to be equally valid (Neuman, 2000). It also claims that too much emphasis has been placed on people’s ideas, and not enough on the deeper, more enduring social structures that precede, shape and delimit events and experience. In this sense, interpretivism is seen to be just as much at risk as is positivism of uncritically reproducing the social order, including its oppressive aspects (Bastalich, 2009). This serves to caution those researchers who plan to undertake an analysis within this paradigm, where the voices of respondents are heard and considered amidst the realities of historical development and the accumulated wisdom of those who have busied themselves in the arenas of the topic interpreted.
The introduction and the literature review (see Chapters 1 and 2) provided a mosaic of opinions and conceptions on the topic of leadership, on the purposes of education, and on perspectives of how others think about the ‘real world’ (reality) and how these matters operate in conjunction with one another. The world of the twenty-first century abounds in
91 complexities and ambiguities, particularly as concerns opinions on leadership, and these are open to many interpretations, only some of which may be correct.
The realities we seek come to us in the forms of myths, paradigms, world views, cultures and belief systems, all of which serve a purpose. We learn from philosophy that the world provides a number of explanations for its problems, all of which can exist side-by-side.
This is the ambiguity of understanding life. (Koestenbaum, 1999, p.
70)
The data gathered for this study was solicited using a variety of methods, including observation, interview and film stimulus exercise, all of which involve discussion with subjects. This data is interpreted according to the specialised contexts of education and leadership.