EL GOBIERNO COLOMBIANO FRENTE AL CONFLICTO (2002 – 2010)

3.5.1.Key informant interviews

The key informant technique draws from ethnographic research approaches, but is a valuable tool for research in other social science investigations. Marshall (1996) reviews the technique, as well as the advantages and disadvantages to be considered by the researcher adopting this approach. Key informants are defined as those who “as a result of their personal skills or position within a society, are able to provide more information and a deeper insight” (Marshall, 1996, p. 92). The informant’s role in the community of study is the key criteria for eligibility, although Marshall (1996) notes that knowledge, willingness, communicability and impartiality are also important factors to be considered in selecting key informants. The main benefit of adopting a key informant approach is the quality of data that is able to be obtained from one source, in a short period of time, as well as the level of community knowledge that informants are able to share. Potential disadvantages of this approach include poor selection of informants which does not yield the data sought, or difficulty in status and relationship between the researcher and the key informant. Key informants may not always represent the majority view of the community, and may have personal agendas, which need to be

considered in subsequent analysis (Marshall, 1996).

A key informant method was chosen for this study as a means of capturing institutional knowledge that would not be available from the other participants in the study. In adopting Rogoff’s (2003) planes of analysis as the framework for this study, it was important to select a research method that enabled access to data in the institutional plane. Interviewing key informants was seen as an effective way to attend to the institutional domain in a meaningful and valid way. These key informants would be able to describe the policies and procedures that govern practicum assessment within the institution, as well as provide understanding of the rationale for these decisions.

3.5.1.1.A general interview guide approach

Patton (2002a) defines three possible approaches that may be adopted in a qualitative

interview: the informal conversational interview, the general interview guide approach and the standardised open-ended interview. For the purposes of the current study a general interview guide approach was adopted. In this approach the researcher outlines the set of topics to be explored in the interview in advance, but the order of the interview, and the wording of questions is not specified. The interviewer makes decisions during the course of the interview in response to the way the interview unfolds. The strengths of this approach are that

established topics provide a systematic framework across participants, while still allowing flexibility and responsiveness to the individual. Key areas can be identified, and potential gaps anticipated (Johnson & Christensen, 2012). These authors also highlight that this approach allows interviews to remain “conversational and situational” (Johnson & Christensen, 2012, p. 200), which was seen to be valuable in the context of the current study.

3.5.2.Surveys

Phase Two of the study made use of an online survey to access the population groups of student teachers, associate teachers and teacher educators in each institution.

Hewson and Laurent (2008) summarise the key benefits of using an online survey over

traditional methods. Time and cost-effectiveness, as well as the opportunity to quickly access a large and geographically diverse population are seen as key advantages. Online surveys may foster increased candour due to the anonymity and perceived distance of the online format, and also reduce social desirability effects. Hewson and Laurent (2008) further suggest that online surveys may empower participants who may not be as open in other research methods. The functionality of data collection and analysis tools with the online survey programme was also a key factor in choosing this approach within the current study.

There are some acknowledged limitations to online survey methods. Vehovar and Manfreda (2008) state that invited participants may choose not to participate at all, may complete a selective range of questions, or may terminate the survey at any point without completing. Attracting participants through email invitations can also be problematic, as invitations may not be delivered correctly, or may be treated as spam. Recipients must also see the value in the study in choosing to follow the link. Response rates are likely to be higher when surveys targeted to specific groups (Vehovar & Manfreda, 2008).

3.5.3.Case study

Verschuren’s (2003, p. 137) description of case study is useful in justifying the choice of case study as an appropriate methodology to respond to the complexity of practicum assessment. He states:

A case study is a research strategy that can be qualified as holistic in nature, following an iterative-parallel way of preceding, looking at only a few strategically selected cases, observed in their natural context in an open- ended way, explicitly avoiding (all variants of) tunnel vision, making use of analytical comparison of cases or sub-cases, and aimed at description and explanation of complex and entangled group attributes, patterns, structures or processes.

A case study design was selected for Phase Three of the study as a means of capturing data at the actual point of practicum. The other phases encouraged participants to reflect on and report their prior experiences, whereas this phase was more immediate. A case study design allowed for multiple points of data collection within the one case. This design was also

adopted as a means of bringing the assessment of practicum to life, providing a forum where a story could be told and a tool by which the study could capture some understanding of the

way in which the relationship between the participants was enacted and experienced (Tight, 2010). The case study was the final piece of the triangulation structure, allowing consideration of how the experiences of the case study triads affirmed or challenged the policies and

practices identified in the institutional key informant interviews, and the self-reports of assessment experiences generated in responses to the survey.

Yin (2003) suggests that the case study design may be conceptualised along two dichotomous dimensions: single- or multiple-case; holistic or embedded. For this purposes of this research, a multiple case design has been adopted, albeit with only one case from each institution, and is embedded, in its selected focus on the assessment process, rather than the entire practicum.

One of the criticisms levelled at case study research is concern over generalisation of individual cases to larger population groups. In conducting a case study, there is no intent to generalise, but rather to enhance the exploratory and illuminatory nature of this study. Stake (1995, p. 8) argues that “the real business of case study is particularisation, not generalisation”. In

selecting only one case study from each institution there was the potential for criticism as to representativeness – would that one triad reflect the experiences of others? Whose voice and experience would be privileged (Diefenbach, 2009)? However, it can be argued that the multi- phase approach taken, and in particular the online survey phase, serves in some way to mitigate such concerns.

3.5.4.Triangulation of research methods

Triangulation refers to “convergence and corroboration of results from different methods when studying the same phenomenon” (Johnson & Christensen, 2012, p.439). In utilising a range of methods within a multi-phase study, the intent is to support triangulation of data. The following three chapters present the results of the study phase by phase, but in Chapter Seven, results across all three sets of data are examined as a whole in answering the research

question and responding to the research objectives. Discussion in Chapter Seven addresses triangulation, in considering the way in which the findings of each phase corroborated or challenged each other. Triangulation is seen to support the credibility of the research findings, as a measure of validity in qualitative research (Toma, 2006). Each phase of the study offers a different perspective of the assessment of practicum; institutional, personal and relational, and triangulation offers the potential to consider alignment or dissonance in the data.