DISEÑO DEL SISTEMA DE CONTROL

Having identified a School of Skills in the Western Cape and the population with which to conduct this study, the researcher sought ethical clearance from the Senate Research Ethics Committee of the University of the Western Cape. This was followed by permission from the Western Cape Education Department WCED, and then the school management team of the school under study focus. Information on the nature of the study, the participants and the conditions for participation were made available to these authorities. Participants were also provided with information on the study (the name of the researcher, the institution where the researcher is registered as a Masters's student, the purpose, and the conditions of participation) including that participation was voluntary. The participants were assured of the confidentiality of the information. The participants in this study were reassured of their privacy (anonymity) and confidentiality and that their names or the name of the school would not be mentioned in

59 the report of the study. Parents had the right to refuse to participate in this study. Therefore the participants were fully aware of their rights in this study, their rights were communicated to them in writing and in verbal communication, and they consented to the participation of this study. The researcher communicated with the parents that no raw data would be shared with anyone other than the researcher and the supervisor. Floyd and Fowler (2009:166) state that all who have access to the data or play a role in the data collection are committed to writing to confidentiality.

Participation in this study was voluntary. The ethical issues that needed to be addressed before this study was conducted were addressed, according to Babbie and Mouton (2005: 519-528) and are described below.

Informed consent to research:

The researcher of the study took into consideration the guidelines related to informed consent in research provided by Babbie and Mouton (2005, p.529). The participants of this study were informed that no one besides the researcher and the study supervisor would have access to the raw data, not even the school. Participants were informed that the raw data in hardcopy form would be stored in a locked cabinet with access only to the researcher. The electronic data would be stored in a file that is password-protected on the researcher’s computer. Participants were also informed that all data would be destroyed after a period of 5 years post the completion of the Master's study. Participants were also informed about the intended research outputs in the form of a Master's dissertation and the possible publication of articles in academic journals.

Voluntary participation

Babbie and Mouton (2005, p.521) state that participation in the research study consumes the time of the participant; therefore, no one should be forced to participate. These authors further state that the norm of voluntary participation goes against the number intended by the researcher. Therefore, in the current study, the researcher had intended for a larger group of participants but only a few were willing to take part in this study. Fraenkel and Wallen, (2008, p.54) elaborate on this point by stating that the researcher ought to respect the rights of individuals to refuse to participate in the study or to withdraw from participation in the study at any time.

60 No harm to the participants

According to Babbie and Mouton (2005, p.522) “Social research should never injure the people being studied, regardless of whether they volunteer for study or not”. This meant that the participants of the current study were not be endangered because of their participation in this study. Towsend and Wallace (2017, p.7) state that the participants might experience the risk of harm if the researcher breaches the anonymity ethic. In this study, individual participants were explicitly informed that their responses in completing the questionnaires, even the negative ones, would not be shared with the school under any circumstances. In any case, anonymity in participation ensured that individual participants could not be associated with a specific questionnaire specimen.

Anonymity and confidentiality

The identity of the participant must be fully protected from any form of exposure that might endanger the participant. According to Babbie and Mouton (2005, p.523) in a confidential survey, the researcher may be able to identify the person’s given responses but, may not publicly do so based on the essential promises, meaning the researcher may be able to identify the respondent for research purposes but may not expose the respondent’s identity as this would be a breach of contract. According to Towsend and Wallace(2017, p.6), anonymity is a key consideration in research particularly when the information is to be shared outside the research team. The participants in this study remained anonymous since numbers were allocated to questionnaires instead of names. Floyd and Fowler (2009:166) also state that in cases where a name is used or address of the participants is indicated, this information must be removed and replaced with a code identity number as soon as possible. The questionnaire for this study did not even require the names or the address of the participants.

Deceiving subject (misleading topics)

Deceiving or misleading information should be considered as harmful and ethical considerations try to guide against harm to participants of research studies. In the current study, the researcher did everything possible to ensure that information to participants was not misleading (Babbie & Mouton, 2005, p. 525).

61 3.9 Conclusion

This chapter presented the study's aim and objectives and also discussed the research methodology. The discussion covered the different elements of the research methodology including the: research paradigm, research approach, research design, population and sample of the study, the data collection methods, data analysis, reliability and validity, and the ethical considerations. The next chapter presents the study findings and discussion of the findings.

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CHAPTER FOUR

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION OF RESULTS

This chapter presents the results of the study, which entails the following: the biographical information of the participants, the attitudes of parents towards parental involvement in the education of their children at the school of skills, the forms of parental involvement at the school of skills, the influence of the parents’ marital status in parental involvement, the impact of different kinship relations on parental involvement, the influence of parents’ educational attainment on parental involvement, and the challenges encountered by parents at the School of Skills on parental involvement . The summary of the results is presented towards the end of the chapter.