This study adopts the axiological assumption that refers to the role of values in research. According to Guba and Lincolin (1998), the researcher admits the value-laden nature of the research in a qualitative study and proactive report of his/her values or biases as well as the value-laden nature of information from the field. Guba and Lincolin (ibid) conclude that values in inquiry have pride and place – they are seen as ineluctable in shaping enquiry outcomes.
Carr and Kemmis (1998) say critical social research requires the critical investigation to begin from the inter-subjective understanding of the participants of a social setting, to those participants with a programme of education and, therefore, an action designed to change their understanding and the social conditions. Critical research can be best understood in the context of the empowerment of individuals. Inquiry that aspires to the name “critical” must be an attempt to confront the injustices of a particular society or connected sphere within society. Research thus becomes a transformative endeavour, unafraid and unembarrassed by the label "political", and unafraid to consummate a relationship with an emancipatory consciousness.
Whereas traditional researchers cling to the guardrail of neutrality, critical researchers frequently announce their partisanship in the struggle for a better world. Traditional researchers see their task as the description, interpretation or re-animation of a slice of reality, whereas critical researchers often regard their work as a first step towards a form of political action that can redress the injustices found in the field site or constructed in the very act of research itself. Horkheimer (1972) put it
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succinctly when he argued that critical theory and research are never satisfied with merely increasing knowledge (see also Giroux, 1983, 1988; Quantz, 1992).
3.11.1 Transparency as part of research project
Research in the critical tradition takes the form of self-conscious criticism – self-conscious in the sense that researchers try to become aware of the ideological imperatives and epistemological presuppositions that inform their research, as well as their own subjective, inter- subjective and normative reference claims. Thus critical researchers enter into an investigation with their assumptions on the table, so no one is confused concerning the epistemological and political baggage they bring with them to the research site. Upon detailed analysis, these assumptions may change. Stimulus for change may come from a critical researcher's recognition that such assumptions are not leading to emancipatory actions. The source of this emancipatory action involves the researcher's ability to expose the contradictions of world of appearances accepted by the dominant culture as natural and inviolable (Giroux, 1983; McLaren, 1989, 1992a, 1997a, 1997b).
3.11.2 Relationship between researcher and researched
In a study by Sematle (2005) it is indicated that, on the epistemological assumption, qualitative researchers interact with those they study, whether this interaction assumes the form of living with or observing informants over a prolonged period of time or actual collaboration. The researcher's or investigator's observe rational role shifts from that of an "outsider" to that of an "insider" during his or her stay in the field (Guba & Lincoln, 1998).
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Carr and Kemmis (1986), in the same study, explain the relationship between the researcher and the researched as collaborative relationships in which the "outsider" becomes a "critical friend" helping "insiders" to act more wisely, prudently and critically in the processes of transforming education.
3.11.3 The role of language
Sematle (2005) and Guba and Lincolin (1998) state that if the research is based on rhetorical assumption, the qualitative investigator uses specific terms such as credibility, transferability and confirmability. Sematle (2005) notes that words like understanding, discover and meaning form the glossary of emerging qualitative terms. The language used by the qualitative researcher becomes personal, literary and based on definitions that evolve during a study rather than being defined by the researcher at the beginning of a study. Definition of terms is not extensive in the qualitative study, because the terms as defined by informants are of primary importance.
Sematle (2005) uses Guba and Lincoln to conclude that in critical theory the transactional nature of inquiry requires a dialogue between the investigator and the subjects of the inquiry, that dialogue must be dialectical in nature to transform ignorance and misapprehensions into more informed consciousness (Guba & Lincoln, (1998).
3.11.4 Implications of researcher's relationship with researched
and the role of language in collection and processing of data in this research
One of the aims of an analysis is to describe both data and the objects or events to which the data refers. Descriptions of meaning are the bases for
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the analysis, and are done by the researcher. By so doing the researcher gives meaning to the data in relation to the researched phenomenon. The role of the researcher in qualitative analysis refers particularly to awareness of bias and preconceived ideas, since assumptions may conceal the evidence of the data. Significantly, as Dey (1999) argues, "the danger lies, not in having assumptions, but in not being aware of them". Dey (ibid) also refers to the fact that "qualitative analysis is usually concerned with how actors define situations, and explain the motives which govern their actions". In analysing these, the researcher wants to ensure that this relates to the intensions of the actors involved.
As this study is aiming at opening space for the dominated discourses, marginalised, disadvantaged, oppressed and disempowered people of South Africa, it has adopted the qualitative approach known as CEQR by
Mahlomaholo and Nkoane (2002) (see Chapter Three on
Instrumentation). Due to the utilisation of the qualitative paradigm, the researcher has employed and operates within the limits and under the guidance of the Critical Emancipatory Theory, which is used as the framework of the study. Consequently the researcher had to use Meulenberg-Buskins's FAI which is compatible with critical theory and qualitative research. The FAI has its basis and origins on critical theory. These circumstances cause the researcher to become part of the research project.
This is based on the following notions:
1. Research fundamentally involves issues of power.
2. Traditional research (positivistic) research has silenced members of
the oppressed groups.
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One implication of this argument is that a critical researcher can no longer assume that he/she writes up his/her script in an antiseptic, distanced way. Reason (1994) argues that reflexivity has become central to the qualitative critical project, demanding that the complex interplay of a researcher's own personal biography, power relations and status, interactions with participants and what is written be examined. Furthermore, all enquiry is embedded in power relationships and privileged knowledge. To support Reason's argument, the researcher in this study comes from the dominated discourse and has first-hand experience of using learning guides while teaching in an NPDE and ACE programme at university. The learning guide was compiled at the main campus and handed to him as a teaching tool. No other material would be used to help learning guides. Tests and memoranda came from the main campus. The researcher and the researched are both the subjects in this study. The researcher can, therefore, not be regarded as neutral in collecting and analysis of the data.
3.11.5 Thin boundary between researcher and researched
Mahlomaholo and Nkoane (2002) assert that the researcher in CEQR should not be a visitor who is aloof, but should become more human and involved, should be an empathetic listener, should come closer to the researched to the extent of becoming one of them. In the analysis of data the researcher did not project any assumptions or meaning into the data, but gave meaning as related by the respondents on the studied phenomena. The storage of all records is the key to successful and meaningful data analysis in a qualitative study. Schurink (1999) suggests three types of storage and retrieval of information:
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2. Background files (links between data).
3. Analytic files (new material)
Systematic arrangement of these files in the form of coding is a helpful way of prompting, understanding, and organising our insights on subject positioning. This puts the researcher in an advantaged position where he/she is able to open up our understanding of the positioning of learning guides as their positioning is fundamental to the discourses and invoke in various ways the subject positions of this group at the centre of knowledge production, not only by telling their story, but by being listened to and acknowledged as an existing part of the whole, without which the "truth" or knowledge cannot be complete, that any knowledge disregarding this "part" is half dead and half alive and, therefore, hegemony.