3. Research process
3.1. Phase 1: Preparation phase
3.1.2. Sampling
Purposive sampling was used in order to select informants who would
“best answer the research questions” (Creswell, 1994:148), in other words informants meeting certain specific criteria were “hand-picked” (Goodson
& Sykes, 2001). Sampling involved both convenience sampling, where informants were selected because of access, and self selection. However I tried to keep some homogeneity in so far as all informants had to have had a history of learning difficulty and remedial intervention. Due to the changing labels, attitudes and educational policies and practices with regard to the learning disabled child, it was necessary to select informants who were currently in the school system.
I presented the proposed research plan to staff at the two research sites in order to identify potential participants. School staff, that is the teachers and psychologist, then suggested names of learners who met the criteria and parents were contacted directly. I presented a copy of the abridged research proposal to parents and discussed the proposed research with both a parent and the potential informant. Once I had identified potential informants through this process of purposive sampling, all were thoroughly advised regarding the purpose and nature of the research and assured of anonymity and confidentiality. The ultimate number of informants was decided once presentation to parents and learners had been done and a pool of potential participants identified. The final selection criteria included:
• Confirmed diagnosis of “learning disability” by both educators and psychologist
• Ability to express themselves well – either verbally or in writing (this is discussed below)
• Diversity in the group –mixed genders, cultural diversity.
Participants were not chosen for their representativeness but so that
“uniqueness of each case” could be acknowledged (Scott, 1997:158).
The participants or informants (Cole & Knowles, 2001, Kazmierska, 2004) who were selected were children, over 11 years of age but under 18.
There were two primary reasons this age group was selected. Badian (1996) states that a definitive diagnosis of dyslexia (the term she uses), can only be made after the age of 10. Furthermore due to the nature of the study and the need for the informants to articulate their experiences (Bargdill, 2000), younger children were not included. Eakin (1999, citing Wolf) identifies the age of emergence of the “authorial self” as between 2 and 4 years of age. For each of my informants their stories start in the preschool years (age 4-5). The age of my informants at interview was important as they were old enough to understand what Polkinghorne (1988) calls narrative ordering, and have developed the ability to “organize autobiographical memories in [a] temporal framework” (Eakin, 1999:113).
One of the informants was my own child, a 14 year old female (at the outset of the study) who has a history of LD. Five other informants were selected, with 4 from the mainstream site, three of whom had spent at least two years in a remedial school previously. All of these mainstream informants were in the junior high school phase, and were 14-15 years of age at the initial interview, in grades 9 and 10. Apart from my own daughter, there were two other females and one male. A further two informants were in a remedial school in the senior primary phase, both males aged 13 and in grade 7.
During the course of the study one of these went into high school in a mainstream school. After the first interview, the other one dropped out of the study. All informants who expressed a willingness to participate were selected. I did not attempt to increase this number when one dropped out as I felt the nature of the research did not require a large sample. The relevant biographical details of each of the informants who finally participated in this research are summarized in the table below:
Informant M. H. B. S. A.
Gender F F M F M
Age at identification or diagnosis of LD
6 yrs 6 yrs 8 yrs 9 yrs 8 yrs Age through data
collection process (from initial interview to final interview)
14-16 14-16 13-14 14-15 13-14
Grade at initial interview gr.10 gr. 10 gr. 7 gr. 10 gr. 9 Grades in remedial
school/unit
gr. 2 -3 gr. 2-3 and latter half of gr. 1
gr. 6-7 nil gr. 3-4 and repeat of gr. 4
Table 1: Profile of informants who participated throughout the process
Plummer (2001) suggests rather than an ideal number of participants the time spent interviewing was important: he suggests 6-10 hours of interview data may be sufficient. Carrier (1987) in a similar study with young adults with LD interviewed two participants but does not indicate how many hours of interview data he collected from each. Gerber and Reiff (1991) interviewed nine adults with LD and collected three hours of interview data from each. Meier (1998) used a similar methodology, albeit to answer a different question, and interviewed 23 participants but only had one interview lasting between one and two and a half hours with each. Norwich and Kelly (2004) interviewed learners with what they refer to as “learning disability” but they use this term as used in the United Kingdom, thus their sample included learners who had mild to moderate cognitive impairment.
They interviewed their participants for 45-60 minutes each, on average.
Unfortunately the final research group only included White, English- speaking males and females. Two important issues must be raised at this point. The first is the apparent limitation of not having a racially diverse sample group, particularly in a country with such racial diversity as South Africa. However this is partly as a consequence of the difficulty confirming a diagnosis of LD in a child who is not being educated or assessed in her
mother-tongue. The absence of widely recognized and appropriately normed standardized tests for bilingual or multilingual learners in South Africa at the time meant that many of the learners in remedial units and schools who were not English mother-tongue speakers may well have been there as a result of their language for learning not being their dominant language or mother-tongue. This may then have impacted on scholastic performance to the point that the learner presents as LD, but this is not due to some intrinsic processing deficit as implied by the DSM –IV and NJCLD definitions of LD.
The second key issue may be related to different cultural views about the fairly invasive nature of the research (interviewing in their homes, asking for recorded journals) and even parents’ trust in me as researcher. South Africa’s long history of injustice and oppression, and the concomitant racial tension, may have resulted in barriers to establishing trust relationships across races. In other words my race may have been an issue. As a White South African I may have been perceived as untrustworthy or likely to abuse or misuse my ‘power’ as researcher. There were initially three potential participants from the Indian and African race groups identified during the process of purposive sampling. However parental consent was not given for the children to participate in the research. The critical ethical issue of informed consent is discussed below.
3.2 .Phase two: Data collection
3.2.1.Data collection process