Pruebas descriptivas

Trustworthiness deals with how researchers persuade their audiences including themselves that the findings of an inquiry are worth paying attention to (Babbie & Mouton, 2001). Lincoln and Guba (1985) in Polit and Beck (2008) suggested four criteria for developing the trustworthiness of a qualitative inquiry; credibility, dependability, confirmability and transferability.

3.7.1 Credibility

Credibility refers to the confidence in the truth and interpretation of the data (Polit & Beck, 2008). In this study, credibility was achieved through prolonged engagement with participants (Morrow, 2005). This was compounded by triangulation of different methods (document analyses, in-depth interviews and focus group discussions) and informants (Curriculum developers, UWC postgraduates, supervisors of postgraduates and students of UWC postgraduates).

3.7.2 Dependability

Dependability refers to the stability (reliability) of the data over time and over conditions (Polit & Beck, 2008). This was achieved through an in-depth methodological description to allow the study to be repeated (Shenton, 2004).

3.7.3 Confirmability

This standard is concerned with proving that the data represent the information participants provided rather than inquirer imaginations (Polit & Beck, 2008). Confirmability was achieved through triangulation to reduce effect of researcher bias and through audit trials.

76 3.7.4 Transferability

Transferability refers to the extent to which the findings can be transferred to or employed in other settings or groups (Polit & Beck, 2008). To this effect, the researcher endeavored to provide sufficient contextual information so as to make the study transferable to other settings.

3.8 PROCEDURE

After approval of the research study by the University of the Western Cape Senate, Higher Degrees Committee as well as the ethical permission to conduct the study from the Senate Research and Study Grant Ethics Committee (Apendix K), the researcher invited potential participants via e-mail and telephonic contact to participate in the study. Informed consent procedures were followed. All participants were served with consent forms and information sheets in person or via e-mail. To ensure the authenticity of participants, some records of postgraduates were retrieved from the university and contact was made with PhD foreign students at UWC who represented all the four target countries for the purpose of collecting the names and contact details of potential participants such as email addresses and phone numbers. The PhD students provided the researcher with contact details of Research Ethics Committees and UWC Physiotherapy Master’s postgraduates in their respective countries. All UWC PhD students conducted data collection part of their Master’s programmes in their respective countries; hence they were familiar with ethical requirements in those countries and advised the researcher accordingly. The researcher then contacted the graduates and selected focal point persons from among them, based on their location in that particular country. The role of the focal point person was to help with more information regarding ethical clearance, contact details and workplace locations of the potential participants and also direct the researcher to other participants who might have been missed by the PhD students at UWC. Thereafter, ethical clearance was sought from participating institutions and appointments were made with the participants upon clearance.

77 3.9 ETHICS STATEMENT

The researcher used the American Psychological Association (APA) ethical principles and standards (Cozby, 2006). The ethical principles address general principles relating to beneficence, responsibility, integrity, justice, and respect for the rights and dignity of others. Ethical approval was sought from the Research Ethics Committee of the University of the Western Cape and from the ethics committees of all the countries involved (Appendices L, M and N) except Rwanda. The researcher used telephonic interviews and Skype calls for some Rwandese participants, while those pursuing PhD studies were interviewed at UWC hence there was no need for ethical approval. To ensure protection of participants and voluntary participation, consent was sought from participants to have the discussions recorded, in the case of in-depth interviews and focus group discussions. Participants were assured of confidentiality and their rights to refuse to participate or withdraw at any time. Numbers instead of participants’ names were used during interview sessions to ensure anonymity. The data will be kept under key and lock for five years after the results of the project have been published before it would be destroyed.

3.10 REFLEXITY

Reflexivity is the process of examining both oneself as researcher, and the research relationship. This entails a continuous reflection on the research process and being aware of how the researcher and object of study affect each other mutually in the research process. In the current study, reflexivity involved thinking about how pre-existing understanding of the UWC Master’s programme was constantly revised in the light of new understandings and how the research process and outcomes were affected by the same.

The research process was a great learning experience for the researcher, whereby initial presuppositions were challenged right from the beginning of data collection and analysis thereby informing constant changes in the question composition of data collection tools. Initially, the researcher was unaware of the context informing the development of the UWC Master’s programme until the UWC BSc (Hons) and Master’s programme official documents were reviewed and interviews were held with the curriculum designers of the programme. The documents from which I mined data were incomplete and fragmentary, while some like the BSc (Hons) and Master’s programme curricula were not accessible. In many cases, the documents were uneven, with extensive information on the UWC Physiotherapy undergraduate programme

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and relatively little on the BSc (Hons) and Master’s programme. A clear distinction between the BSc (Hons) and Master’s degrees was also missing in the CHS annual reports. Nevertheless, documents were useful in providing information necessary for the development of the UWC BSc (Hons) and Master’s programme theory. Apart from providing contextual richness in the research, documents were particularly useful in pre- and post-interview situations. In that regard, I used data culled from documents to check interview data and vice versa. Documents supplied leads for asking additional, probing questions. Therefore, as incomplete and uneven as they were, the reviewed documents augmented the interview data and thus served a useful purpose. The diverse sources of data gave a more complete picture of the context of the UWC BSc (Hons) and Master’s programmes than would have been given by a single data source. The triangulation of data sources in effect, countered threats to trustworthiness such as researcher bias and respondent bias.

In the first phase of the data collection process, the researcher learnt about the socio-political context within which the UWC Master’s programme was developed and the resultant implementation challenges that followed. Learning about such a historical background of both the University of the Western Cape, and the UWC Physiotherapy programme in particular, caused a great shift in the researcher’s presupposition that the UWC Master’s programme should have been operating like other Master’s programmes, because it was a Master’s programme in the first place. The historical background of UWC and the Physiotherapy Department in particular was compounded by the ‘new’ knowledge of the historical background of Physiotherapy education in Africa and this changed the researcher’s assumptions a lot and brought illumination that influenced the research process and outcome. In regard to the UWC Master’s programme, the researcher learnt that UWC sought to offer learning opportunities to diploma-trained Physiotherapists from the whole of Africa but mostly from SADC and East Africa because of lack of training institutions in those regions of the African continent. This according to the curriculum designers was meant to upgrade diploma-trained Physiotherapists first to a one-year BSc (Hons) and then to a one-year Master’s in order to prepare them for university employment with the long term goal of introducing Physiotherapy training opportunities at degree level and ultimately increasing the number of Physiotherapists with competencies in research, evidence-based practice and community based rehabilitation skills.

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Following the first in-depth interview with one of the curriculum designers, the researcher reflected on the findings and generated questions from the same for subsequent interviews with other curriculum designers in order to have a more comprehensive construction of knowledge. Thus, the researcher had to include more questions on the preparatory BSc programme rather than placing more emphasis on the Master’s programme alone.

The work-place supervisors of the UWC Master’s postgraduates also brought a new light to the data collection process and outcomes of the research. The initial intent of the researcher was to focus on the competencies of the UWC postgraduates from the perspective of their workplace supervisors. It was however brought to light that the workplace supervisors’ construction of knowledge on the performance of the UWC postgraduates involved more than knowing their competencies. The workplace supervisors highlighted attributes that make graduates employable and skill sets expected of a graduate. Furthermore, some workplace supervisors brought to light challenges of conferring a BSc (Hons) status on a candidate with a diploma and how the work- place supervisors struggled to conceptualise and employ candidates with BSc (Hons) status straight from diploma, without first possessing a first degree. These preliminary findings influenced the entire course of data collection and outcomes. In addition, the preceding interviews with curriculum designers, employers and postgraduates necessitated the need to include other stakeholders in the sample frame, such as UWC lecturers and students of the UWC postgraduates in Kenya and Zambia. Informed by the philosophy of constructivism, the researcher sought to include more truths and realities to the findings in order to shape research outcomes through data corroboration.

The process of reflection on findings during data collection also informed inclusion of additional data collection methods such as focus group discussions to cater for students of UWC postgraduates in Zambia and Kenya as well as telephone interviews for Rwandan participants. On the UWC postgraduates, it was realized that not all postgraduates worked in universities, for example, in countries like Zambia and Kenya, the majority of the postgraduates worked as academics while in Tanzania, all UWC postgraduates but one worked as Physiotherapy clinicians, hence the interview guide was revised to capture areas more relevant to their context in order to aid their construction of knowledge in regard to the impact of the UWC programme in that country.

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The reflection process necessitated the refinement of the research title highlighting the need to give equal weight and attention to clinical practice rather than focus on impact on research outputs as originally intended. To this end, the researcher appreciated the practice of reflexivity throughout the course of the research process and thus afforded the researcher, the opportunity to create an environment that fostered co-creation of knowledge regarding the impact of the UWC Master’s programme on clinical practice and research in SADC and East Africa.

3.11 CONCLUSION

In this chapter, the researcher has described the relevance of qualitative research to the current study, particularly explorative descriptive qualitative methods such as in-depth interviews and focus group discussions. The researcher highlights the merits and demerits of qualitative research as well as the steps undertaken in this study to ensure trustworthiness of the research and ethical considerations. Further, an in-depth description of the research settings and population is rendered to enhance the trustworthiness of the study. In addition, the use of multiple data collection methods and sources has been substantiated. The researcher also presented data analysis steps taken in each phase of the research study.

For the sake of clarity, the findings of the current study are presented and discussed systematically. The subsequent chapters represent the four steps in the CIPP evaluation model in the context of theory-based evaluation. Chapter 4 describes and discusses the context and input evaluation phase of the UWC Master’s programme. Chapter 5 deals with the implementation process from the perspective of UWC postgraduates and Chapter 6 focuses on programme outcomes and impact from the perspectives of the work-place supervisors of UWC postgraduates, UWC postgraduates and students of the postgraduates, and Chapter 7 presents the summary, proposed model and evaluation recommendations.

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