Artículo 81, inciso tercero de la Ley Orgánico de Servicio Público

When this research study was first conceptualised, it was my intention to conduct teacher practice observations in a selected Grade R and Grade 1 class of a local school. While initial informal indications for participation were positive (and hence my research proposal focused on a case study school) unfortunately, when approached to request access to the school, the Head of Department and Principal declined. The motivation behind their refusal to participate involved the following range of aspects:

 The Grade 1 teacher was in her first year of teaching Grade 1, and they felt that the added pressure of having an external observer present in the classroom would not be conducive to her professional growth trajectory, and may impact on the

relationship she was building with the children.

 Secondly, the Grade R teacher had accommodated another Masters student in her classroom during the first term of the year. This unfortunately created a host of discipline issues amongst the learners as the presence of the researcher appeared to disrupt their routine. The school did not want to risk experiencing these challenges again.

 Overall, the timing was inappropriate, and the school’s dedication to providing quality education to their learners took precedence over the opportunity to contribute to this research.

As a result of the above, and my sense that other schools with whom I had less of a

relationship with would similarly decline, and on the advice of my supervisor, I redesigned my study as outlined below.

Due to the intended purpose of this study, as well as the socio-cultural framework used, a qualitative interpretive methodology was chosen. In order to minimise disruption and pressure on teachers, my investigation focused on Grade R and Grade 1 teachers of six local schools, and included questionnaires designed around issues of learning dispositions and

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their understandings thereof, coupled with the collection of exemplar learner reports. The teachers were asked to supply either a strong learner’s report and a weak learner’s report, or a strong, middle and weak learner’s report.

The unit of analysis for this aspect of my research is teacher’s responses to questions coupled with teacher report writing practices, in order to ascertain what is prioritised in terms of promoting productive learning dispositions (in the form of learners’ reports), as well as how these perceptions are translated into their assessment practices, through report writing.

In order to analyse thoroughly the policy context in which this work unfolds, my first research question focused on document analysis of all relevant Curriculum documents as well as all supplementary assessment strategies. This contextual analysis provides the essential backdrop against which teacher data must be interpreted and enables answering the question of the extent of congruence between policy and stated practices in relation to learning dispositions in these grades.

4.2: SAMPLING

The South African Numeracy Chair (SANC) project at Rhodes has worked over the past few years to improve the quality of teaching and learning of mathematics. As part of this overarching goal, the project has established a teacher support network called the Numeracy Inquiry Community of Leader Educators (NICLE). From their website: “NICLE is based on a partnership between in-service teachers, staff in the Chair and key partners of the Chair. Together this community will meet regularly and work together to address each of the objectives of the chair from a classroom practice based perspective.” (SANC, 2013).

The participating teachers within this NICLE community were from local schools, several of which had a Grade R class attached to their school. The teachers in NICLE range from Grade R to Grade 6 teachers, although the majority are Grade 3 and 4 teachers. Several of these teachers were approached by myself during a NICLE session and invited to obtain permission from their schools to participate in regard to my new research design, i.e. the filling out of questionnaires and granting of access to exemplar learner reports. Several teachers

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indicated a willingness to approach their Grade R and Grade 1 colleagues to gauge interest. Following this, I invited schools and teachers to participate. See Appendix C for a copy of the permission letter, as well as the questionnaire.

Thus through the relationship already built between these schools and SANC through the NICLE project, I found five schools who were willing to participate. [Seven NICLE schools were contacted, however, one declined and one failed to respond to communication]. One of the teachers from the sample schools is involved in the NICLE projectas a regular

participant. The other teachers had colleagues involved, and principals who knew the project and the facilitators at SANC.

The sixth school is a local private school not involved in the NICLE project. However, the school was approached in order to provide a wider scope of sample, and as I have a good relationship with the school. The teachers and schools in this study are thus an opportunity sample. My range of schools includes:

School A: Quintile 22 School B: Quintile 4 School C: Quintile 3 School D: Quintile 5 School E: Quintile 5 School F: Quintile 4

“Quintile 1 is the group of schools in each province catering for the poorest 20% of learners. Quintile 2 schools cater for the next poorest 20% of schools, and so on. Quintile 5 schools are those schools that cater for the least poor20% of learners. Poorer quintiles have higher targets than the less poor quintiles” (DBE, 2004, p. 8)

2

The quintile system is “a mechanism for redistribution related to non-personnel funding, laid out in the

National Norms and Standards for School Funding (DBE, 1998), and categorises schools into one of five

quintiles based on their level of poverty” (zenexfoundation, 2013, p. 1).

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As Descombe (2007) points out, as a social researcher, it is almost impossible to collect relevant data from everyone in a category, so the alternative is to collect evidence from a “portion of the whole” (p. 13). The six schools above were chosen as they provide a ‘probability sample’ in that they are a “representative cross-section of people or events in the whole population being studied” (p.13). The cross-section is afforded by including schools from Quintiles 2 to 5; with different Languages of Learning and Teaching; and represents both the Government and the Independent Sectors. There are no Quintile 1 (the poorest) schools represented within the NICLE project.

The teachers themselves are also from different backgrounds, with different levels of

qualification and experience. The final criteria in selecting these six schools was the fact that all of these schools have established Grade R classrooms and have offered this grade for at least one year – ensuring that any data gathered will not be affected by complications often encountered when first introducing a new programme.

The analysis tools selected, as discussed in chapter 3 above, were derived from the relevant literature reviewed (expanded with emergent data) and use a combination of tabled

representation of data, coupled with discussions around significant aspects uncovered.