EL SECTOR DEL TRANSPORTE

Fouche and Delport (2002: 79) outlined the definition of qualitative research paradigm in its broadest sense as “the research that elicits participants’ meaning of experience or perceptions”. Additionally, Creswell (2009: 175) argues that “qualitative researchers prefer to study the world as it naturally occurs, without manipulating it.” In other words, the researcher was expected to suspend his prior knowledge about the implementation of student support services at the NUST-COLL regional centres and focus on the views provided by the participants. This was done through the interviews with the regional coordinators and the open-ended section of the student questionnaire. McMillan and Schumacher (2010: 23) support the naturalistic view of the qualitative methodology thus, the qualitative research approach is deepely rooted in the philosophy of empricism which uses unstructured approach to obtain information. It focuses on the naration of expereinces and present the findings in a descriptive manner. The findings are normally in the form of words which must be explored with different methods to achieve a deep understanding. In other words, qualitative research uses verbal descriptions to explain complex phenomena from the participants’ view such as needs and expectations of the distance students.

McMillan and Schumacher (2010: 320) further assert that qualitative research aims to understand social phenomena from the participants’ point of view by describing problems as presented and the collection of data is done in a setting that is sensitive to the participants. In the context of this study, the reality to be studied, namely which existing SSS at NUST-COLL regional centres had been responsive and how they could be improved, included students’ subjective experiences. This is a characteristic of an interpretive paradigm, which aims to explain the students’ subjective reasons and meanings that lie behind their interaction with various SSS. As Matee (2009: 171) puts it: “The main interest here is therefore in the meanings that people have constructed and how they make sense of their world and the experience they have in the world”. Furthermore, the regional coordinators described the problems experienced during the implementation of the student support services at the NUST- COLL regional centres. It was, therefore, of paramount importance that the

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researcher attempted to understand the “complex world of lived experience from the point of view of those who live it” (Mertens, 1998: 11).

This study sought the understanding of the students with regard to the provision, effectiveness, and perceptions of the student support services at NUST-COLL regional centres. It should be noted that the researcher was guided by the characteristics of qualitative research as highlighted in Table 4.2 below.

Table 4.2: Characteristics of qualitative research

CHARACTERISTIC DESCRIPTION

Natural settings Study of behaviour as it occurs naturally Context sensitivity Consideration of situation factors

Direct data collection Researcher collects data personally and directly from the sources

Rich narrative description Detailed narratives that provide in-depth understanding of behaviour

Process orientation Focus on why and how behaviour occurs

Inductive data analysis Generalisations are induced from synthesising gathered information

Participant perspectives Focus on participants’ understanding, descriptions, labels and meanings

Emergent design The design evolves and changes as the study takes place Complexity of understanding and

explanation

Understandings and explanations are complex, with multiple perspectives

Research paradigm Constructivist and interpretivist

Source: Adapted from McMillan and Schumacher (2010: 321)

Based on the characteristics given in Table 4.2, the researcher acted as an observer in the setting that was to be studied, either as the interviewer, the observer or the person who studied, described, decoded, translated and analysed documents to find meanings of naturally-occurring phenomena in the social world. The researcher is

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working for the NUST-COLL regional centres and believes relevant and effective implementation of support services at the regional centres is of crucial importance. Additionally, engaging with the regional coordinators, the researcher submits that it would develop a qualitative understanding of how SSS are implemented in the context of different regional centres.

According to Creswell (2009: 175) and Stake (2010: 15), qualitative research enables the researcher to become the primary instrument for data collection in order to acquire the desired depth of understanding. In other words, the researcher moves closer to the people whose experiences he seeks to understand in a face-to-face situation, and becomes immersed in the situation and the phenomenon being studied through interviewing the participants and making the interpretations and recording of what transpired (Creswell, 2009: 175). Furthermore, Bazeley (2007: 2) clarifies that qualitative methods are chosen in situations where a detailed understanding of a process or experience is wanted and the needed information is in non-numeric form. Information provided by the students helped the researcher determine the nature of student support services’ implementation at various COLL regional centres. Additionally, the researcher is a curious learner who comes to learn from and with research participants (Hoberg, 1999: 83). The researcher chose qualitative inquiry as it placed emphasis on understanding through looking closely at participants’ words, actions and records. The recommendations were made based on the responses and proposals that were provided by the regional coordinators during the interview sessions as well as from the open-ended questions of the student questionnaires.