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approach, where qualitative and quantitative approaches were used to collect data in the same study, to facilitate a deeper understanding of fourth-year psychology students’ IL learning experiences, as well as enriching the research and making it more inclusive and reliable (Sales
& Pinto, 2011:248). By using both qualitative and quantitative methodologies, this study aimed at leveraging on strengths and minimizing weaknesses of both methods (Johnson &
Onwuegbuzie, 2004:14, 18; Creswell, 2009). Having adopted the pragmatist paradigm, this study ably applied a mixed methodologies approach, since the choice of methodology depends on the approach that best addresses the research questions (Creswell, 2009:10-11). Various authors, including Howe (1988), and Tashakkori & Teddlie (1998) have insisted that pragmatism is the best paradigm for use with a mixed method approach.
Qualitative methodology captured the participants’ accounts of meaning, perception or phenomenological experiences (De Vos et al., 2011: 65, Babbie & Mouton, 2001:53).
Conversely, the quantitative methodology captured statistical and numeric data describing participants’ characteristics, attitudes and opinions.
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design, is sequential, but begins with qualitative data collection and analysis in the first phase and builds to the quantitative data collection and analysis. For the embedded design, the researcher collects and analyzes both quantitative and qualitative data in their traditional designs and adds a strand of either data to enhance the process, as may be appropriate.
This study employed the convergent parallel design. The researcher collected both quantitative and qualitative data during the same phase of the process. Interviews with lecturers and librarians were done more or less at the same period as students were filling in questionnaires.
It was also the same time that documentary evidences were collected. Analysis of both data strands were done separately and the results were mixed during overall interpretation of particular aspects of the study. Quantitative data was the first to be analyzed, followed by qualitative data. The analysis of documentary evidence was done last. During interpretation, results from all the three sources that touched on a particular issue were consulted.
4.4.1 Case Study Design
This study adopted the case study design which enabled the researcher to gather data that adequately addressed the research problem, as guided by the research questions. Use of case studies as research designs was popularized by Glaser and Strauss (1967), in their work on Grounded Theory. Several authors agree that the case study is not a method, but rather a way of investigating a phenomenon in its context, choosing what to be studied (Mugenda, 2008:92;
Yin, 2013:4; Thomas, 2011:9). According to Simons (2009:21) a case study is:
An in-depth exploration from multiple perspectives of complexity and uniqueness of a particular project, policy, institution, programme or system, in a ‘real-life’ context.
It is research based, inclusive of different methods and is evidence-led. The primary purpose is to generate in-depth understanding of a specific topic (as in a thesis), programme, policy, institution or system to generate knowledge and/or inform policy development, professional practice and civil, or community action.
Yin (2009:18) defined a case study as “an empirical inquiry about a contemporary phenomenon (e.g. a “case”), set within its real-world context, especially when the boundaries between phenomenon and context are not clearly evident.” Still on definitions, Thomas (2011:23) defined case studies as:
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analyses of persons, events, decisions, periods, projects, policies, institutions or other systems which are studied holistically by one or more methods. The case that is the subject of inquiry will be the instance of a class of phenomena that provides an analytical frame with an object – within which the study is conducted and which the case illuminates and explicates.
The above definitions emphasize the particularity, uniqueness and complexity of real-life situations within which research takes place. The focus is on a unit, or sets of units that are the source of data to be collected. It enables an in-depth, holistic study of a phenomenon. Babbie (2007:298) described the purpose of case studies as either descriptive or explanatory, seeking to understand a phenomenon or providing a basis for the development of a general theory.
Case study is inquiry that is based or focused on one or more cases. The understanding of ‘a case’ enhances the comprehension of a case study. Yin (2012:6) defined a case as “generally a bounded entity (a person, organization, behavioural condition, event, or other social phenomenon), but the boundary between the case and its contextual conditions, in both spatial and temporal dimensions, may be blurred.” Thomas (2011:12-13) expounded on the definition of “a case”, by observing that it is what is ‘bounded’, a particular instance or happening and the set of events that surround it. This definition brings the aspect of peculiarity and chance, meaning it cannot be a representation of the whole. Thomas discussed a case as an argument, reasoning that a case study is all about finding the rationale of one thing as it relates to another, and so involves justifying one’s conclusions and reasoning.
Multiple case studies involve more than one case and, like the single case approach, can be either holistic or embedded. Holistic designs include single units of analysis, while embedded designs include more than one unit of analysis per case. Yin (2013:61) observes that multiple case designs have great possibility of direct replication, with conclusions from the cases being
“more powerful than those coming from a single case.” Evidence from multiple cases is generally considered to have more weight, compared to that from a single case. The present study adopted the embedded multiple-case design comprising lecturers, librarians and students as units of analysis in each case.
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In the selection of the case study design, the present research was guided by, among others, the understanding that case studies are generally good in presenting the uniqueness of the object of an inquiry, which makes them best suited for in-depth investigation of the phenomenon (Simons, 2009: 23; De Vos et al., 2011). In addition to offering uniqueness, the case study is “a frame that offers the boundary to your research” (Thomas, 2011:21). It gives the demarcation for the study, stating the direction and extent you want your study to cover, irrespective of the methods used to do the study. A researcher is able to see the completeness of a phenomenon under inquiry in a case study, because it allows looking at the phenomenon from many different angles. In addition to the above advantages, George and Bennett (2005: 19) observe that case studies also have potential for achieving high conceptual validity through their contextual approach and have the capacity to address casual complexities compared to other designs.
This study found the case study design appropriate, because the cases gave an excellent representation of the IL scenario in Kenya, as provided by the two major categories of Kenyan universities, private and public. There were 22 public universities and 17 private chartered universities in Kenya at the time of conducting the research. The cases chosen for this study were the first two public and two private universities to be chartered, and those offering psychology to undergraduate students, as presented on the commission’s website (Commission for University Education, 2014). Since only 8 of the 39 universities offered psychology programmes, a selection of four was considered sufficiently representative. Selected cases represented the oldest universities among the public and private, assuming that the older ones were likely to have more established programmes. Different times were set for data collection from each case depending on availability of the informants.
The case study design also allowed the researcher to conduct in-depth interrogation of the phenomenon in the selected cases, leading to information that adequately addressed the research questions. Having adopted the mixed methodology, the use of case study design was found appropriate, as (Yin, 2003) observed, because it allows both qualitative and quantitative data collection. Since this study sought to investigate the information literacy learning experiences of fourth-year psychology students, this design was chosen as it agreed with Mabri (2008:215), who observed that a case study was an important design for investigating people’s experiences and perceptions. In their study of teaching and learning of information literacy in
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some selected universities in Malawi and South Africa, Chipeta, Jacobs and Mostert (2008) used the multiple-case study design with LIS lecturers, students and library staff being the units of analysis in the various universities. The study revealed that IL was taught as a module at the University of Zululand and as a course at Mzuzu University, and only offered as part of a Library Orientation programme at the Durban University of Technology. Similarly, a study by Kavulya (2003) on challenges facing IL in Kenyan universities investigated four cases and concluded that there was need to build on existing IL efforts by establishing joint faculty and librarian initiatives in IL curriculum design and implementation.