Comunidades de Actinomicetos

Of a total of 54 Ecuadorian universities, 51 were considered for this study. Three universities were excluded because they were exclusively postgraduate universities; therefore, Article 124 did not apply to them.

Geographically, Ecuador has four regions: the Highlands, the Coast, Amazonia and the Galapagos Islands. Universities are located in three of these regions, with the exception of the Galapagos Islands in which there is only satellite university campus. The number of universities differed from region to region as follows: 27 universities in the Highlands, 23 in the Coast and only one in Amazonia. The capital city, Quito (Highlands region), has 13 universities, and the economic capital, Guayaquil (Coast region), has 11 universities. Both cities have the highest number of universities in the country, with a total of 47% of Ecuadorian universities being located there.

With regard to category, universities are ranked from ‘A’ to ‘D’, where ‘A’ represents the best universities and ‘D’ the lowest ranking. As shown in Table 6, the distribution of universities based on their category varies across regions. In terms of their funding, Ecuadorian universities can be categorised according to three types:

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(1) Public, which are fully funded by the state

(2) Co-funded, which are partly funded by the state and students’ fees (3) Private, which are entirely funded by students’ fees

*** = Public HEIs ** = Co-funded HEIs * = Private HEIs

Numbers in bold represent the highest numbers

Table 6. Distribution of universities according to category, location and type

Table 6 shows the distribution of universities according to category, location and type. Only one university is located in Amazonia while the rest of the universities are located in the Highlands. The highest number of universities belong to Category ‘B’ (22 universities), and the majority of these are public and located in

Highlands Coast Amazonia Total Category A 1 *** 1 *** 0 *** 2*** 0 ** 0 ** 0 ** 0** 1 * 0 * 0 * 1* Total 2 1 0 3 B 7 *** 2 *** 1 *** 10*** 5 ** 1 ** 0 ** 6** 4 * 2 * 0 * 6* Total 16 5 1 22 C 3 *** 4 *** 0 *** 7*** 0 ** 1 ** 0 ** 1** 4 * 6 * 0 * 10* Total 7 11 0 18 D 0 *** 6 *** 0 *** 6*** 1 ** 0 ** 0 ** 1** 1 * 0 * 0 * 1* Total 2 6 0 8 Total 27 23 1 51

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the Highlands. The majority of universities from category ‘C’ are found in the Coast, which also has the highest number of universities in the public category ‘D’. The Highlands and Coast regions have three types of universities. The highest number of public universities are located in the Coast region, while the majority of private universities and co-funded universities are located in the Highlands. In Table 7, universities are grouped according to category, geographic location and type. Once the universities were organised according to these different strata (see Table 7), stratified random sampling was used to select one university per stratum. Stratified random sampling means that a ‘sampling frame can be partitioned into groups or strata’ and, through random sampling, a ‘sample within each of the strata’ can be chosen (Levy and Lemeshow, 2008:121).

In this study, one university was selected per stratum. In strata with more than one university, an on-line tool (randomizer, http://www.randomizer.org/form.htm) was used for the selection of universities. In the strata with only one university, that institution was selected. Based on universities’ characteristics, there were 18 different strata; hence, the selected sample for this study consisted of 18 universities (see Table 7).

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N. of universities Category Geographic location Type Strata

Coast Highlands Amazonia Public Co-funded Private

1 A X X 1 1 A X X 2 1 A X X 3 7 B X X 4 2 B X X 5 1 B X X 6 4 B X X 7 2 B X X 8 5 B X X 9 1 B X X 10 3 C X X 11 4 C X X 12 5 C X X 13 5 C X X 14 1 C X X 15 6 D X X 16 1 D X X 17 1 D X X 18

Table 7. Universities’ strata based on category, location and type

Table 7 shows the distribution of 51 universities from three Ecuadorian regions, including category and type. The number of universities refers to the number of institutions within each stratum (there is a total of 18 strata). The geographic location and type of universities are marked ‘X’ within each stratum. The number of universities in each stratum varies, with the highest number being seven public universities located in the Highlands region, and the lowest number being one, which is located in Amazonia.

Once the universities were selected, the next step was to administer the survey questionnaires. In order to identify the respondents for the survey questionnaires, I employed a non-probability sampling. This means that the respondents were intentionally selected from each of the sample universities. This sampling method

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was selected because EFL teachers and students needed to comply with certain criteria in order to be able to answer the questionnaires. For example, EFL teachers needed to have been working in the selected university for at least 3 years and students needed to have been studying in the language centres for at least 18 months. It was felt that this length of time would have allowed the participants to experience any changes regarding EFL language policy in their institutions. Had probability sampling been used, there would have been the possibility that respondents would have been selected who did not possess sufficient experience and information to accurately respond to the survey questions regarding institutional responses to Article 124 and its implementation, due to their having spent inadequate time in their universities’ language centres. Once the universities to be surveyed were identified, the intention was to secure the collaboration of 18 universities, and within each university the participation of all Directors, 15 EFL teachers and 15 students. In practice, however, it proved impossible to achieve 100% participation among the 18 universities or the EFL teachers and students. Further description of the respondents to the survey is provided in the quantitative data analysis section.