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as subjective and multiple, according to various authors (Denzin & Lincoln, 1984; Creswell, 2007). The majority of researchers in this paradigm define research as value laden and recognise the possibility that it contains biases. The philosophical assumptions related to ontology, epistemology and axiology are central issues when choosing qualitative research (Creswell, 2007). The foregoing view corroborates that of Denzin and Lincoln (2000), who state that all research is interpretive and is guided by a set of beliefs and feelings about the world and how it should be understood and studied. Creswell (2009) contends that interpretive qualitative research is a form of interpretive inquiry in which researchers make an interpretation of what they see, hear, and understand. Further, he argues that the interpretations that researchers make cannot be separated from their personal backgrounds, history, contexts, and prior understandings. he reiterates that the researcher in this paradigm has the advantage of using various date generating methods to yield high quality and rich data which is representative of the participants’ perspective and can be used for triangulation purposes.
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The methodology of a project is the specification of the way in which data will be generated, coded, analysed and interpreted to enable the researcher to draw warranted descriptive, explanatory or interpretive inferences (Bellamy, 2012). Creswell (2009) contends that qualitative research is a means for exploring and comprehending the meaning individuals or groups give to human or social problem. Creswell (2009) as corroborated by Bellamy (2012), further points out that the process of research includes emerging questions and procedures, data generated in the setting of participants, data analysis, inductively building from particular to general themes, and the researcher constructing interpretation to produce meaning from the data generated. Methodology pertains to or involves how well the researcher argues from the analyses of data to draw and defend conclusions (Bellamy, 2012). Kumar (2011) holds the epistemological assumption that the main focus in qualitative research is to comprehend, explain, explore, discover, and clarify situations, feelings, perceptions, attitudes, values, beliefs, and experiences of a group of people. Therefore, the study designs are often based on the deductive rather than inductive logic, are flexible and emergent in nature and are often non- linear and non-sequential in their operationalisation.
McMillan and Schumacher (2010) further posit that a research design describes the procedures for conducting the study, including when, from whom, and under what conditions the data will be obtained. In a nutshell, the research design spells out the general plan as to how the research is set up, what happens to the participants, and what methods of data collection are used.
Moreover, McMillan and Schumacher (2010) posit that the purpose of the research design is to specify a plan for generating empirical evidence that will be used to answer the research questions. Similarly, Nieuwenhuis (2007) posits that a research design is a plan or a strategy that moves from the underlying philosophical assumptions to specify the selection of respondents, the data gathering techniques to be used and the data analysis to be done. Creswell (2012) corroborates the foregoing and asserts that research design sets out the specific procedures involved in the research process, which include data collection, data analysis and report writing. McMillan and Schumacher (2010) contend that research design is very important because certain limitations and cautions in interpreting the results are related to the design and because the research design determines how the data should be analysed.
There are various qualitative research designs. According to Leedy and Ormrod (2001), Creswell (2007) and McMillan and Schumacher (2010), there are five qualitative approaches to enquiry: narrative research, phenomenology, grounded theory, ethnography and case studies.
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In a case study research, according to the above researchers, a particular individual, programme, or event is studied in depth for a defined period of time using multiple sources of data in the setting. In addition, sometimes researchers focus on a single case, perhaps because its unique or exceptional qualities can enhance the understanding or inform practice for similar situations.
Creswell (2007) corroborates the latter assertion as he states that case study research involves the study of an issue explored through a single or more cases within a bounded system. Cohen, Manion, and Morrison (2011) argue that case study provides a unique example of real people in a real situation, enabling readers to comprehend ideas more vividly than simply by presenting them with abstract theories or principles. In addition, case studies acknowledge and accept that there are numerous variables functioning in a single case. Hence, to catch the implications of these variables requires more than one tool for data generation and numerous sources of evidence.
In alignment with the foregoing arguments, this study purported to explore the experiences of school principals as they enacted their ethical leadership practices in township contexts that have multiple challenges. Therefore, a case study research design was most appropriate, on the grounds that the principals’ ethical practices in their schools was the case that one had identified, and principals were directly involved in the enacting of ethical leadership. Post level one educators were working under the supervision of these principals and observed their daily practices; hence they also had a good understanding of how their leaders operated in their school. It was against this background that a case study research design was selected. This study was not intended to make generalisation, and the study focused on the lived experiences of school principals and the observations made by teachers. However, the use of two theoretical frameworks in this study qualified this study to generalise. Cohen, Manion, Morrison (2011) assert that case studies opt for analytic rather than statistical generalisation, and in analytic generalisation the focus is not so much embedded in a representative sample so much as its ability to contribute towards the expansion and generalisation of theory. Leedy and Ormrod (2001) posit that, in case study, a particular individual, programme or event is studied in depth for a defined period of time. In a similar vein, Creswell (2007) maintains that case study design involves exploration of a bounded system over time, through detailed in-depth data generation involving a myriad of sources of information.
In addition, case study design has been favoured for this study because, according to Creswell (2009), case studies are strategies of enquiry in which the researcher explores in depth a
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programme, event, activity, process or one or more individuals, and this seems to be appropriate for my study. Fouché (2005) and McMillan and Schumacher (2010) contend that a case study is an in-depth analysis of a single entity. Furthermore, it is a choice of what to investigate and what to identify as a single case. Similarly, a case study is an in-depth description and analysis of a bounded system. Moreover, it is an empirical inquiry that investigates contemporary phenomenon in its real-life context (Merriam, 2009). Case study involves a process, event, activity, programme or an individual (Fouché, 2005). Advancing a similar argument, Creswell (2009) states that cases are bounded by time and activity, and a researcher gathers detailed information, employing various data generation techniques over a sustained period. Case study provides a unique example of real people in a real situation, enabling the readers to comprehend more vividly than simply by being presented with abstract theories or principles. In addition, Cohen, Manion and Morrison (2011) assert that a case study can establish cause and effect, and indeed one of the strengths of the case study is that researchers observe effects in real context, recognising that context is a powerful determinant of both causes and effects, and that in-depth comprehension is needed to do justice in the case.
In planning a research design, the researcher in the quest of new knowledge and understanding cannot be shackled by discipline-specific methodological constraints (Leedy & Ormrod, 2001).
Ensuing from the foregoing argument, a qualitative case study design was chosen for this study.
Similarly, Welman, Kruger and Mitchell (2005) assert that research design is the plan that is used to obtain research participants and collect information from them. Mason (2002) asserts that, through case study, a researcher can explore a wide array of dimensions of social world, including the texture and the weave of everyday life, the understandings, the experiences of research participants, the way that social processes, institutions, discourses or relationships work, and the importance of the meanings that they generate.
Case study is a situated activity that locates the researcher in the world, and it consists of a set of interpretive, material practices that make the world visible (Denzin & Lincoln, 2003) In case study research, according to Leedy and Ormrod (2001), a particular individual, programme, or event is studied in depth for a defined period of time. Furthermore, sometimes researchers focus on a single case, perhaps because its unique or exceptional qualities can enhance the understanding or inform practice for similar situation. Creswell (2007) corroborates the latter assertion as he states that case study research involves the study of an issue explored through a single or more cases within a bounded system. Cases are bounded by time and activity and
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researchers generate detailed data using varied data generation procedures over time (Creswell, 2009). Cohen, Manion, and Morrison (2011) argue that case study provides a unique example of real people in a real situation, enabling readers to comprehend ideas more vividly than simply by presenting them with abstract theories or principles. In addition, case studies acknowledge and accept that there are numerous variables functioning in a single case. Hence, to catch the implications of these variables requires more than one tool for data generation and numerous sources of evidence (Creswell, 2009). In addition, Denzin and Lincoln (2003) advance that qualitative researchers study things in their natural settings, attempting to make sense of, or to interpret, phenomena in terms of the meanings people bring to them. Kumar (2011) opines that the case study is based on the assumption that the case being studied is typical of cases of a particular type and therefore a single case can provide insight into the events and situations prevalent in a group from which the case has been drawn. Moreover, in selecting a case, the researcher uses purposive, judgemental or information-oriented sampling techniques.
Creswell (2007) posits that the types of qualitative case studies are differentiated by their size of bounded case, such as whether these cases encompass one individual, several individuals, group, the whole programme, or an activity. Moreover, types of case studies can also be identified in terms of the aim of case analysis. Creswell (2007) categorise these cases into three variations: the single instrumental case; the collective or multiple case study; and intrinsic case study. He further outlines that, in a single instrumental case study, the researcher delves into an issue or concern, and then selects one bounded case; in a collective case study, the one issue is selected, but the researcher selects multiple case studies to illustrate the issue; in intrinsic case study the focus in directly on the case itself because the case presents an unusual or unique situation. Similarly, Cohen, Manion and Morrison (2011) mention four main case study designs: the single–case design; the embedded single-case design; multiple-case design and the embedded multiple design. This study therefore subscribes to a single instrumental case study.
The ethical leadership practices of principals and Post Level 1 educators is the issue that I want to have an in-depth understanding about. The case itself is bounded by its selection of contexts that present multiple challenges and it only uses principals in certain specific township schools.
Cohen, Manion, and Morrison (2011) posit that a single case may be part of a multiple-case study design and, by contrast, a certain data generation tool or technique may be part of cross- site case study. In addition, case studies tend to, but do not always, follow the interpretive tradition of research- seeing the situation through the eye of the participants. As Creswell
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propounds in the afore-mentioned argument, Yin (2009) in Cohen, Manion, and Morrison (2011) similarly argues that single–case design can focus on a critical case, an extreme case, a unique case, a representative case, a revelatory case to research a case un-researched. In essence, a single in-depth case study was selected here as I was able to focus in one case and to select township school principals speaking about their own contexts, which have multiple challenges. The educators were required to give their perspectives of the operations of school principals as they worked in the same context with their principals.
Denzin and Lincoln (2003) assert that, to make sense of participants’ experiences and perceptions, a researcher needs to make an interpretation of what the participant is saying and also observe carefully. Likewise, the researcher strives to grasp the intent of the participant from the inside. This affirms the notion that a research design situates researchers in the scientific world and connects researchers to specific sites, persons, groups, institutions, and bodies of most relevant interpretive materials, incorporating documents and archives. Case studies take as their subject one or more selected examples of the social entity such as community, social groups, organizations and events, to cite a few (Hakim, 2000). Similarly, the case study is the in-depth study of a single example of any phenomena that the researcher wishes to investigate (McNeill & Chapman, 2005). McNeill and Chapman (2005) posit that the case may be an individual person, a group, an event or an institution. Semi-structured interviews offer the researcher an advantage to interrogate the participants to get deeper understanding of the phenomenon under study.