During the pilot study, two headteachers and four teachers from two schools were interviewed. School development plans for the years 2008 and 2009 and school logbook, newsletter and calendars of 2009 and 2010 were analysed. Semi-structured interviews took place using the interview schedule outlined in Appendix 3, p.400. These interviews were carried out following the ethical guidelines outlined in the chapter entitled „Research Design‟. The comments from respondents were subsequently recorded and then transcribed for better analysis of the emergent themes from the comments made which then in turn informed the future study. Keeping the design triangulation in view within this small scale pilot study, documentary analysis proved to be a useful tool. It was conducted after the interviews. The frequency of events and existing situation was interpreted in terms of the scale given in the Research Design chapter. The same scale was used to make analysis in the documentary evidence.
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From the responses given about roles and responsibilities of teachers and leaders, distribution of works, and the decision-making process, it became evident that a general consensus existed among all the participants that the leaders should involve staff in the decision-making process. However, there was a difference of opinion between teachers‟ and headteachers‟ responses when it came to implementation and sharing of leadership as a routine practice in schools. Both of the headteachers said that this was a routine practice and the majority of the teachers said that it was rarely done. Headteachers defined leadership more as a role not as a capacity whereas teachers expected the leader to be a mentor who would work to maximise the institutional capacity through teamwork and creating opportunities. Documentary analysis exhibited that School B had a professional development strategy in their school development plan whereas school logbook, newsletter and calendars did not provide evidence of any professional development practices in the respective year.
Analysis of student leadership made it evident that the answers related mainly to decisions from leaders or teachers and showed a lack of depth of understanding about the concept. School Councils were present in the schools but their role was mostly around doing small administrative tasks. They were not involved in the decision making in School A. However, little evidence was found in School B of their participative role. Parents‟ role was considered important. Students‟ performance and learning was linked with their results mostly. Both the schools claimed to have a collaborative learning culture but very little was found in the documentary analysis. Teachers‟ responses show that leadership was mostly busy in administrative tasks and did not have any direct interaction with the students in classes.
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Leaders‟ responses reconfirmed this information but said that they interacted with students and kept themselves updated about classroom practices in the light of students‟ perspectives whenever possible. However, no specific format of these informal meetings or interaction was evident in the school development plan or logbook, newsletter and calendars. However, it was considered important by all to consider students‟ opinions and needs to enhance learning outcomes. The concept of learning was defined mostly in terms of students‟ performance in exams. The performance of schools which have good results in the subjects leading to good prospects in future was considered commendable. School A participants considered that students and their parents were only interested in studying the few subjects that lead to highly paid jobs. They felt that project work was considered wastage of time and money and other resources. However, the headteacher of School B told that the strategy of community involvement, projects and creating internship opportunities for students in different industries and markets, enhanced learning outcomes. Documentary analysis also supported this information as a common practice in the senior school. School A participants also agreed that there should be a well-defined policy where community, market and parents should all be actively involved in the process of learning at schools. Schools should promote a culture of learning that prepared students for real life challenges. The pilot study highlighted the importance of parents and market representatives as significant stakeholders with schools in a country like Pakistan that faces extreme economic constraints. It is considered important to include parents as part of the main study.
162 6.3 Presentation of Findings
My research project is within the paradigm of qualitative research with a case study approach. As Robson (2002) expressively emphasizes, a case study approach may not subscribe to a particular system of data analysis, however, as he recommends and according to Miles and Huberman (1994), qualitative analysis can deal with a complex network of contextual relationships and connections. I have applied their definitions of three concurrent “… flows of activity; data reduction, data display, and conclusion drawing/verification to generate, describe and analyse data” (p.10). However, I have not undertaken any data reduction and have used a six elements process to analyse data (Figure 6, p.148) as described in the data analysis part in the previous chapter. Data analysis took place throughout the research process using a constant comparison approach. In the chapter, under each research question emerging themes have been labelled with pertinent subheadings. Interviews and responses in the open- ended questions were inserted on a matrix with a coding approach to identify keywords, main and subcategories and emerging themes (Figure 8, p. 150). A summary of the findings is presented at the end of each research question. Based on the evidence and responses, terminology of most, majority, few, very few and occasional is used to present and analyse data with percentage-wise illustrations for each of the terms. The key for the terms is as shown in Table 5 (p.151) in the Research Design chapter. However, at places in the findings, data have also been described after combining two categories together, for example the majority of those who agreed and with those who strongly agreed, to have category-wise comparison, for example between those who agree and those who disagree.
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