In my research I supported an interpretive epistemological approach that emphasised the subjective meaning and understanding of human behaviour (Bryman, 2001: 13). In addition, the study was conducted from a constructivist ontological standpoint which asserts that social meaning and reality is constructed by individuals (Bryman, 2001: 18). I used a qualitative research method in order to capture students’ learning experiences in an attempt, as Tsheko (2007) calls it, to make sense of the world from the perspectives of the participants. This collaborates with Mouton & Marais’s (1996: 221) view that an important notion of the qualitative paradigm is to understand how a participant interprets the situation. In addition, Bryman (2001: 277) notes that qualitative research typically examines meaning, therefore it was an approach that supported the aim of my investigation which was to understand how part-time college students experience learning and the meaning they pertain to the experience.
I selected the case study research method because according to Creswell, Hanson, Plano Clark & Morales (2007) this method provides insight into the issue that is being researched and the case is selected in order to understand the issue. According to Bryman (2001: 47) and Welman & Kruger (2001: 21) case study research directs us towards understanding the uniqueness of a particular case in all its complexity and it is aimed at the intense examination of a single case. A case can be referred to as a limited number of units of analysis such as an individual, a group or an institution that is studied (Merriam, 1998: 27; Welman & Kruger, 2001: 183). According to the literature that I consulted the part-time adult learners enrolled in the Applied Learning programme that I interviewed constitutes a case study.
Miles and Hubermann (1994, as cited in Merriam, 1998: 27) describe a case as a phenomenon that occurs within a bounded context and if the phenomenon being researched is not intrinsically bounded, it is not a case. If there is no end, actually or theoretically, to the number of people who could be interviewed, the phenomenon is not bounded enough to qualify as a case. Examples of such bounded systems are single individuals, an institution or a programme such as the Applied Learning programme. The case study is a research approach where the researcher explores a case through detailed, in-depth data collection involving multiple sources of information like for example observations, interviews, audiovisual materials, documents and reports (Cresswell et al., 2007). Yin (2003, as cited in Cresswell et al., 2007) states that this type of research promotes an in-depth and contextual understanding of the case, which was an important consideration for this study where contextual conditions were relevant to my research.
In previous research, using learning orientations as a theoretical framework, researchers used varying methods to collect data. Ellis et al. (1971), Long (1977a), Morstain (1977), Morstain & Smart (1977), Nolen (1988) and Terenzini & Pascarella (1977) collected data from a large number of students who were asked to complete a written questionnaire. Kember et al. (2001), Kember et al. (2008), Long (1977b), Reichel et al. (1981) and Webber (2004) used face-to-face interviews to collect data from students. Lewalter & Krapp (2004), who investigated the learning orientations of students in the vocational education sector, used questionnaires to collect data. In light of my research questions and the specific case study that I selected, I came to the conclusion that a semi-structured, face-to-face interview was the most appropriate research instrument because I was able to clarify and explain questions when necessary. Participants were either Afrikaans or English speaking and they were free to choose the language used for the interviews. If participants chose Afrikaans as their preferred language the interviews were translated into English after transcription.
According to Welman and Kruger (2001: 159) personal interviews enable the researcher to ensure that all the questions are answered and that someone else does not provide the answers. The researcher is able to clarify responses that are vague or incomplete as well as explain any questions that may be unclear. As a result, responses obtained in a personal interview are of a high quality. As suggested by Welman & Kruger (2001: 189) I explained the purpose of the research to the participants at the beginning of the interview, I answered any
questions they may have had, obtained their co-operation and gave an indication of how long the interview would take. The disadvantage of personal interviews were that it was time consuming, taking into consideration not only the time it took to conduct the interviews but also the time it took to arrange appointments that suited both me and the respondent. Yet, personal interviews remained the best choice for collecting data for this study.
In this study, I wanted to investigate the learning orientations of FET college students, in particular in the context of their everyday lives and work environment. In order to do this I selected a sample of 10 students to investigate because I wanted to develop an in-depth understanding of each student’s experiences, thoughts and feelings about learning at a FET college. If I had selected more than 10 students I would not have been able to develop sufficient detail from each student although I am aware that by selecting a small sample I was unable to generalise my findings to a larger population. However, Bryman (2001: 283) states that qualitative research is not intended to be representative of a population and that this type of research strategy is more concerned with generalising the findings to theory, which was the aim of my research. Another limitation of this study was that the limited scope did not allow me to compare the Applied Learning programme in terms of my research questions to other programmes offered at the college on a part-time basis.