Prescripciones en cuanto a la Ejecución por Unidad de Obra

To identify teachers who would be willing to participate in this study, three kinds of negotiations were carried out. First, seeking permission from the District Education Offices, head teachers and teachers themselves.

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Initial contact was made to the education director of the Bongo District through telephone; first, to introduce myself and second to know what was expected of me to gain access to teachers in the district to conduct my study. This was done while I was still in the university preparing to return to Ghana for my fieldwork. Informally, my request was granted. However, the director asked for a formal letter from my university for documentation in the District Education Office. This was done upon my return to Ghana with an introductory letter from The Graduate School (attached as Appendix A). Coincidentally, the director for the Bongo District Education Office happened to be the former Human Resource Manager for the Nabdam District Education Office, who I happened to meet during my master’s study. I took advantage of this previous contact and relationship with him in negotiating access (Silverman, 2011).

Similarly, access to carry out the study in the Nabdam District was sought through the formal letter from The Graduate School. In both districts, I attached an introductory letter, which outlined my professional background and experience, the nature and purpose of my research and the support I expected from the district (attached as Appendix B and C). In both districts, I received written consents to proceed with my field work with teachers (attached as Appendices D and E). After granting me permission, the director of one of the districts offered to help me to identify possible deprived rural schools that I could involve in my study. This offer was politely declined as I was aware this could compromise confidentiality of participants. Negotiating access in both districts was relatively easy perhaps because of my background.

The first thing I did after receiving the permission from the District Education Offices was to make rounds of the various locations of circuits with rural and deprived schools. Such initial rounds were useful as I was able to identify and familiarise myself with the routes and locations of schools. This information also helped me to plan my movements around the schools, in terms of time and resources. I made a rough sketch of a map of the locations of schools to help me in this direction. Actual visits were then made to schools. In every school that I visited, first, I met the head teacher, in some schools it was the assistant head teacher, and explained the purpose of my visit to the school. I gave a copy of the letter from the respective District Education Office and my own introductory letter

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which outlined my professional background and experience, the nature of my study and how I wanted teachers to be involved (attached as Appendix F). Where permission was granted, I proceeded to ask for the information of all teachers in the school in order to decide who to select. The information included the classes that they were teaching (whether upper or lower in the case of the primary level), qualification, number of years of teaching and whether they were trained or untrained teachers. All these variables were necessary to ensure a balance in the selection of participants.

Like the case with one of the district directors, in some schools, the head teachers or assistants themselves offered to help me by suggesting some teachers I could involve in my study. Again, these offers were politely declined. I explained that I had criteria for selecting teachers and that I would prefer to contact teachers directly. This was also important because participation in this study was voluntary, so I did not want potential participating teachers to feel they were being coerced to participate because of recommendation by the head teacher or assistant. Moreover, I was mindful of other potential dangers associated with the use of third parties to contact potential participants. While third parties may be familiar with potential participants, they can hardly explain the nature and purpose of someone else’s research as well as respond to any questions that potential participants may ask (Seidman, 2006). They may, thus, be helpful for gaining access but should be used as little as possible to make actual contacts with potential participants. Following this reminder, I decided to contact potential participating teachers myself. Fortunately, I expended little time and effort in getting head teachers to grant me permission, except in situations where they were genuinely busy in performing school activities such as conducting examinations for pupils and filling in School-Based Assessment forms as my visit coincided with the end of the first term for the 2016/2017 academic year.

Next, I met the selected teacher and explained the nature of my study and the kind of participation I expected of him or her. I gave a copy of my introductory letter, which explained my professional background and experience (see Appendix G). I attached the participants’ information sheet and consent form and allowed some time for the teacher to read (see Appendices H and I). The purpose of doing all these was to give them as much

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opportunity as possible to enable them to make an informed decision on whether or not they would like to participate. Here, also, I did not have difficulties getting teachers to consent to participate. In most schools, I got feedback from selected teachers on the same day agreeing to participate. Two reasons could account for this. First, maybe my professional background acted as a catalyst; and second, it could be that teachers were keen for their voices to be heard.

I then collected the contact numbers of selected teachers, so I could keep in touch with them and remind them of my appointments with them. Although I did not need more than one teacher in each school, I spoke to another teacher in the same school so that in case the selected teacher was unable or decided later not to participate in the study, I could turn to the second teacher to replace him or her. This proved to be a good decision as in one school the selected teacher could not honour the appointment. He had to travel to his former school to collect his certificate and would be absent from school on the week I was supposed to visit his school to observe him and conduct the interviews. I had to turn to the second teacher.