Contexto nacional

SELECTION OF THE SITE OF STUDY

One of the main aims of this study is to investigate the relation between school culture and teachers' job satisfaction and organizational commitment in a New Zealand secondary school. The site of study needs to be chosen according to

its suitability and feasibility for investigating the research questions. The researcher

set himself certain criteria for choosing the site for study as follows:

1 . S ince one of the main objectives of the present research was to study the effect of the school culture on teachers' work attitudes, the school chosen for study should ideally have a long history, a well established tradition and a strong school culture.

2 . I n order to examine the effect of school culture on teachers' job satisfaction and organizational commitment, the chosen school should have a dedicated and highly motivated staff who are satisfied with their jobs and highly committed to the school .

3 . The principal is playing a crucial role in leading the school and in shaping and sustaining a strong culture . Thus, the school chosen for study should be led by a highly regarded principal who is a strong leader of the school.

4 . The school chosen should also be regarded as a "good " school among knowledgeable persons (Mitchell and Willower, 1 992) by having a good reputation for excellence and a good record of student achievement.

5 . As the ethnographic approach planned for the study would be time­

consuming in terms of fieldwork, the school chosen for study should be within reasonable access of the researcher's home and place of work so that the researcher can be present on-site frequently (Edwards, 1 986) .

Having visited several schools with these criteria in mind, Alice Girls' H igh School was chosen as the site for this study . It is a public secondary school for girls in a provincial city in New Zealand. It has a long history of more than ninety years and is one of the earliest established state high schools in the city . The

school is served by dedicated and well qualified staff with good social and collegial relationships.

As the Education Review Office reported, the students of Alice Girls ' High School are well presented, polite, enthusiastic, motivated to succeed, self confident

and self assured with high levels of achievements and examination results which

demonstrate that students at Alice Girls' High School achieve well above the

national norm.

The school is also led by a highly regarded principal, Miss Cooper, who

has been a senior professional officer in the New Zealand Education Department for some years and also played key roles in the reform of education administration in New Zealand. Miss Cooper has also gained a number of awards for her outstanding services to education.

With these characteristics, the school is best suited for the purpose of the present study in seeking to understand the culture of a good school and its effects

on teachers ' job satisfaction and organizational commitment.

GAINING ENTRY TO THE SITE

As Edwards ( 1986) pointed out:

Gaining entry for the study was of crucial importance as it would lead to the establishment of the relationships which would be a cornerstone of the planned research.

(Edwards, 1 986: 1 74)

Therefore, the phase of gaining entry to the site of study was carefully planned and executed .

Once the school has been chosen as the site of the study, the researcher

made an initial approach to the school by making a telephone call to the school principal expressing his wish to carry out the research at the school . An appointment was made for the researcher to meet the principal at her office. At this meeting, the researcher explained to the principal the nature of the intended study . This was followed by a discussion on the means of data gathering and timing of the study. The principal expressed her interest in participating in the study and asked the researcher to prepare a written proposal of the study for seeking approval from the Board of Trustees.

A written proposal (Appendix A) was prepared and presented to the staff and members of the Board of Trustees of the chosen school ; outlining the nature and intent of the study , means of data gathering, the timing of the study and reasons underlying the choice of the school for the study in order to gain permission from the Board of Trustees for the researcher to undertake the study at the school .

In order to gain trust and support from all parties concerned during the

process of the study, the researcher mad� the following guarantees:

1 . The study would be carried out in an unobtrusive way and causing no disruption to the functioning of the school or any events taking place at the school .

2. All information obtained and its source will be treated confidentially and will not be passed from one person to another.

3 . Fictitious names o r code numbers will be used to preserve the anonymity of the school and the people involved so that neither the school nor any individual involved will be identified.

The proposal was discussed in a staff meeting and the written proposal was put on the notice board in the staff room for two weeks. Further comment and suggestions were invited from the staff. After this period of consultation, the proposal was discussed in a Board of Trustees' meeting and approval was granted by the Board for the researcher to undertake the proposed research at the school.

EARLY ORIENTATION AND MAPPING THE FIELD

Scott and Eklund ( 1 979) emphasized the importance of early orientation before data gathering in the fieldwork programme:

Two procedures precede any data taking. The first is orientation of the subject and as many other persons in the environment as are likely to be present during observations . . . . During this phase, the observer goes into the habitat and behaves exactly as he or she will during the actual recording . . . . The purpose of these activities is exactly what is implied in the title, to adapt the subject and others in the environment to the presence of the observer and to reduce the effects of that presence to as near zero as possible.

(Scott and Eklund, 1979 : 9- 1 1 )

Shortly after the written approval (Appendix B) was granted, the fieldwork programme started at the school in the second term of 1 993 . Before the data

gathering stage of the fieldwork programme, the researcher spent a month or so at the school -- moving around, attending school assemblies, being in the staffroom and talking with people in order to find his way around the school .

Trust and

Besides "adapting " the subject to the presence of the observer (Scott and

Eklund, 1 979), this orientation stage of the fieldwork programme also served the purpose of making the researcher known and accepted by the participants.

McMillan and Schumacher ( 1 993) emphasized the importance of trust and

support from the participants for the ethnographic research to be successful by

stating that:

Gaining entry into the field requires establishing good relations with all individuals at the research site . Research permission comes without a guarantee that the participants will behave naturally before an outsider who takes field notes or that the participants will share their perceptions , thoughts, and feelings with the observer. The ethnographer' s skill is reflected in whether the participants see the researcher as an interested , respectful, nonjudgmental observer who maintains confidentiality , . . .

The ethnographer must attend to maintaining the trust and confidentiality of the participants constantly throughout the data collection period.

(McMillan and Schumacher, 1 993 :412)

In order to gain trust and support from the participants, Edwards ( 1986) suggested :

The researcher made a conscious effort to be friendly, open and interested in everything which people discussed with him and to ensure that an impression of being non-threatening was given at all times.

(Edwards, 1 986: 1 83 )

All these guidelines have been followed throughout the course of fieldwork

in order to secure trust and support from the participants. In addition, because of his personal contact with a teacher at the school, even before the start of the

fieldwork programme, the researcher had opportunities to participate in many of

the school ' s social functions such as the school production performance, music concerts, pot-luck tea-parties, and the mid-winter Christmas party for staff members and their spouses. Therefore, the researcher was known to and acquainted w ith many of the teachers at the school before the start of the fieldwork programme. For these reasons, rapport and support from the staff was gained shortly after the start of the fieldwork programme.

Another reason for the support given to the researcher for his study at the school was that the participants felt that the researcher has something to offer. As indicated in the letter of approval , the Board of Trustees, principal and staff members all expressed their keen interest in the study and they believed that the research would have mutual benefits for the school and the researcher.

As outlined in the written proposal which was presented to the staff and Board of Trustees, the researcher emphasized the importance of trust and support from the school authority and staff members for the study to be successful. The researcher also expressed his intention to build up a collaborative relationship with the staff in undertaking this study .

The researcher also explained m the written proposal that: it is

understandable and also natural that, when there is an outsider coming to the school to do a study, the people involved will easily have the feeling that they are there to be studied and scrutinized while the researcher is coming to investigate and examine them. To the best of the researcher's belief, this was not the case for this study . Instead, the school was invited to participate in this study . The school and the researcher were working together to achieve some common goals for mutual benefits . The findings of the study, hopefully, would be helpful for the

school and the teachers to better understand the culture of their own school, to work out a model to enhance j ob satisfaction and to make their jobs more

meaningful and enjoyable. As Patton (1990) pointed out:

Mutual trust, respect, and cooperation are dependent on the emergence of an exchange relationship , or reciprocity , in which the observer obtains data and the people being observed find something that makes their cooperation worthwhile, whether that something is a feeling of importance from being observed, useful feedback, pleasure from interactions with the observer, or assistance in some task. This reciprocity model of gaining entry assumes that some reason can be found for participants to engage in the research and that some kind of mutual exchange can occur.

(Patton, 1990:253)

By seeking to be accepted and seen as non-threatening, the researcher was able to establish rapport with the participants and to gain their support to undertake

his study at the school.

the Field

Apart from securing trust and support from participants during the early

orientation stage of the fieldwork programme, mapping the field also enabled the

ethnographer to acquire data of the social, spatial and temporal relationships in the

site to gain a sense of the total context (Schatzman and Strauss, 1 973 ; McMillan and Schumacher, 1 993) :

A social map notes the numbers and kinds of people, the organizational structure, and the activities people engage in.

A spatial map notes the locations, the facilities, and the specialized services provided.

A temporal map describes the rhythm of organizational l ife, the schedules, and the unwritten routines.

(McMillan and Schumacher, 1 993 : 412-41 3)

During this period of time, the researcher read minutes of Board of

Trustees meetings, staff meetings, newsletters or any other relevant documents in

order to have some background knowledge about the history of the school and to

develop an initial "feeling" of the culture of the school .

Thus, the early orientation and mapping of the field also facilitates the

purposive sampling strategies of data gathering in later stages of the fieldwork

programme, as McMillan and Schumacher ( 1 993) pointed out that:

Once ethnographers have initially mapped the field, they selectively choose persons, situations, and events most likely to yield fruitful data about the evolving foreshadowed problems. Initially, the researcher searches for information-rich informants, groups, places, or events from which to select subunits for more in-depth study . . . purposeful sampling is a strategy to choose small groups or individuals likely to be knowledgeable and informative about the phenomenon of interest.

(McMillan and Schumacher, 1 993:413)

In sum, the purposes of this early orientation stage of the fieldwork

programme were:

1 . To adapt the participants to the presence of the researcher;

2. To gain trust and support from the participants;

3 . To familiarize the researcher to the field setting;

4 . To map the physical layout of the site;

5 . To create a description of the context of the cultural phenomena or

6 . To identify the range o f possible informants or participants, events, activities and settings to be examined; and

7 . To choose the most feasible and relevant data gathering techniques and research strategies (Schatzman and Strauss, 1 973).

The writer now turns to discuss the data gathering techniques employed in the present study.