Contexto y medio especifico de la Granja Académica Experimental

Research ethics deals primarily with the interaction between researcher and the people they study. Silverman (1993:27) states that ethics plays a major role in judging qualitative research because qualitative researchers spend a great deal of time with participants and should treat them with dignity. Hence, ethical issues relating to working with children need particular care when conducting research with them (Anderson and Marrow 2004:180 cited in Cresswell, 2008:90). The ethical issues include the need to obtain informed consent, the importance of maintaining confidentiality, being non-judgemental, respect for people‘s right to refuse to participate in the research, sensitivity to informants‘ difficulties, or giving children the choice not to discuss sensitive issues if not preferred and the need for the interviewer (or researcher) to display supportiveness, maintenance of privacy during the conversation and non-disclosure of information to other household members or classmates (Wood, Chase and Aggleton, 2006:1923-1933). The ethical practices were specifically observed or adhered to by the researcher in this study. Details of the implemented ethical practices are thus explained in the following paragraphs. 4.7.1 Gaining Entry

Gaining access to the site or individuals in qualitative inquiry involves obtaining permission at different levels, such as the organisation, the site, the individual, etc (Cresswell 2008:56). In this study, ethical approach or clearance for the project was sought on 2nd May 2012 and granted from the researcher‘s University of South Africa

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(UNISA) with the ethical clearance certificate being issued on the 16th of November 2012. Permission from the Department of Education-North West Province was granted on the 12th May 2012. The researcher was then able to contact the principals of the schools under investigation in order to request their support and cooperation with regard to the inquiry. I met with each principal individually in order to explain the research purpose and methods to be utilised.

Ethical considerations were also discussed. After clarifying possible uncertainties and questions, dates were set for me to meet with the learners who could potentially become research participants.

4.7.2 Informed Consent

Informed consent is one of the most important tools for ensuring respect for persons during research. It has been defined by Diener and Crandall (1978) cited in Cohen and Manion (2007:53), as the procedure in which individuals choose whether to participate in an investigation after being informed of facts that would be likely to influence their decisions. On the same note, De Vos et al (2005:315) defines informed consent as a mechanism for ensuring that people understand what it means to participate in a particular research study so that they can decide in a conscious, deliberate way, whether they want to participate. Informed consent is particularly important if participants are going to be exposed too much stress, pain, invasion of privacy, or if they are going to lose control over what happens (Nachmias and Nachmias 1992) cited in Cohen and Manion (2007:52). It is always necessary to get informed consent from respondents or research participants when doing research.

In this study, all the voluntary research participants were asked to sign informed consents forms prior to the interviews indicating that they understood the purpose and process of the research and that their identity would not be revealed. (See appendix O for English version and Appendix P for Setswana version). As a guideline for reasonable informed consent, the researcher gave an instruction that the participant was free to withdraw consent and to discontinue participation in the project at any time without prejudice to the participant (Cresswell, 2003:229). By so doing the autonomy of participants was guaranteed.

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This is in line with Cohen and Manion‘s (2007:52) assertion that research must take into account the effects of the research on participants, and act in a way so as to preserve their dignity as human beings. Additionally, before starting the interview, the researcher conveyed to the participants the purpose of the study, the time the interview took to complete, the plans for using the results from the interview and the availability of the summary of the study when the research was completed (Cohen and Manion, 2007:52). All this was done to avoid fears and to bring transparency to the fore.

The concept of informed consent has both a moral and ethical component and a juridical one (Van Gog and Reysoo, 2005:4). The juridical component represents the formalised form of morals and is based on principles related to rights (Dijk and Van, 2006:67). According to these authors, these rights are protection of integrity, safeguarding of privacy, openness and the right of self determination. All these ethical issues were adhered to. For example, to observe the ethical interview practices and at the same time to refrain from deceptive practices (Cresswell, 2008:52), all the process of data gathering were conducted in the home language of the orphaned children concerned which in this case was Setswana. English was also used since it is the language of instruction used at the four research sites. The researcher got the assistance of translators from Setswana subject educators because of his limitations in the Setswana language. However, extensive discussions with the translators on ethical practices were held prior to conducting the research.

Additionally, all the instructions/activities/processes that were used in data gathering were designed as child sensitive, age appropriate and child participative wherever possible (Donald and Clacherly, 2005:139). In all such cases, the in-school orphaned children‘s feelings about the causes of their parents‘ death or other past life events with their deceased parents were not probed as it would be overly intrusive and therefore unethical to do so. Instead, the researcher focused on the educational challenges these children experience and the necessary educational support they think they need to overcome or minimise the academic, emotional, behavioural and social aspect to enhance their efficacy in learning or schooling. This was done so that interviews could end on a relatively positive note. Such age appropriate qualitative research practices carefully tailored for children had multiple benefits

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including increasing children‘s participation and providing invaluable research insights to enhance the intervention (Schenk, 2009:101).

On the other hand, the moral ethical component of informed consent is mainly based on two principles, autonomy of a person and the beneficence (Van Gog and Reysoo, 2005:87). The later principle means the researcher must ensure that participants receive maximum benefit from the research while being sure to do no harm (Schenk, 2009:101). In this study, the possible benefits included providing educational and other essential support to the in-school orphaned learners through the designing of a supportive psycho-educational programme catering for their identified educational needs. Furthermore, by implementing the designed psycho-educational programme at the schools (research sites), support to the orphaned children will continue after the end of the research. Thus, the findings and the designed programme can be applied to the orphans‘ school setting and used to make meaningful change in how they deal with the phenomenon that the case study involves. That is, it might enhance the process of positive behavioural and attitudinal changes, good study skill practices, problem solving skills practices to mention but a few.

Lastly, as a member of staff (educator) at one of the research sites, the researcher made himself available once a week every Wednesday afternoon from 14:00 to 16:00 to render assistance to struggling in-school secondary school orphaned learners, especially in the learning area he teaches (i.e. English First Additional Language). The researcher also acted as an advocate of these learners and brought their academic educational needs to the attention of the School Based Support Team members, or social workers and other subject educators in order for these learners to be treated with the respect which they deserved.

4.7.3 Anonymity of Participants

Another ethical practice is that of protecting the anonymity of participants. Creswell (2008:231) indicates that there are three ways to do this. One way is by masking names of individual participants. The second way is by assigning pseudonyms to individuals and their home members and the third way is by choosing to withhold descriptions that would lead to the identification of participants and sites. In this study, the researcher used pseudonyms to protect the participants‘ identities and so

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ensured confidentiality. The research sites identity was also protected by being named school a, school B, school C and school D. By so doing the anonymity of participants and research sites was protected. To conclude this section, I would like to agree with Merriam (1998:219) cited by Mendelowitz (2010:135) who highlighted that although researchers can draw on ethical guidelines and regulations, ultimately, the responsibility of producing an ethical study, ―that has been conducted and disseminated in an ethical manner rests with the individual researcher‖. In this study my own values and ethics guided me to do the moral and right thing.

4.7.4 Post Research Relations

The researcher informed both the area office manager of Taledi and the district director of Dr Ruth S Mophati district that a research report would be made available at the area office and district level for reference. The researcher also informed participants that he would give them feedback on his findings when the study was completed.

4.8 Conclusion

In this chapter, the qualitative research methodology was discussed. It was noted in the discussion that the research followed the instrumental case study design. The five categories of research participants at the four selected research sites in Ipelegeng community were purposively and randomly sampled. The data collection techniques of semi-structured interviews, observations and documentary analysis were also discussed. The research ethics as well as how validity and reliability of the study was ensured were also discussed. The next chapter focuses on the reporting, analysing and interpreting of the research findings. In the following chapter, namely chapter 5, the researcher will report on the findings obtained from each of the research instruments used during the study. From these findings, the behavioural patterns of orphaned learners will be created so that conclusions can be drawn from such findings and recommendations made on the design of a psycho-educational programme.

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5.0 Chapter 5: A Report Analysis and Interpretation of Research