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To ensure trustworthiness and reliability in research, it is extremely important to take careful decisions at all stages of research and particularly at the time of selecting and finalizing sample size and type. The design and specifications of the sample and procedure strengthened the findings of case study. Purposive sampling as recommended by Cohen et al. (2007) has been applied in this research, as the cases were selected keeping fitness for purpose in view

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and in order to access the “knowledgeable people” (p.115). Each case in this research was selected on the basis of a few parameters and characteristics, in accordance with the theoretical framework, scope and aim of this study. The role of different stakeholders with a focus on context, moral purpose and agency within five principles of LfL was the underpinning factor for the justification of purposive sample selection. This sampling strategy is often used in qualitative research to select the cases based on specific purpose, type, context or criterion in mind. Researchers try to select the participants and samples in a purposeful manner to best understand the social phenomenon (Bryman, 2008). Being a non-probability form of sampling, generalization to a population remains confined and difficult (Bryman, 2008; Cohen et al., 2007). There are two main sampling strategies being probability or non- probability sample (Cohen et al., 2000). In my research, a limited number of schools were being accessed so it belonged to a non-probability sample. I used a cluster sampling method since the schools are widely dispersed across the country making it difficult to access all of them within a specific period of the study (Cohen et al., 2000). This method is widely used in small scale research.

Pakistan is a big country where education is provided by public and private education providers:

“Where private providers play an important role in the education system, they may or may not receive public funding; and they may or may not be required to meet certain standards such as the provision of a set curriculum or the professional and academic training requirements for their teaching staff. Pakistan is an example of a country that has both public and private sector educational institutions, which has a larger proportion of its youth attending private

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institutions than in many other countries. As a result, it is important for Pakistan to obtain comprehensive data from both of these types of schools on a regular basis, to ensure that policy development is based on knowledge of the entire education system” (Lynd, 2007: p. 24).

In addition to being able to have knowledge of practices from both sectors, it is considered important to include representation of public as well as private sectors in this research, that explores the concept of LfL that appreciates diversity of context and its impact on agency and purpose within the procedures linked with leadership and learning. Moreover, the pilot study highlights that leadership is understood differently in these two sectors. It is considered important to include both sectors so that the study may contribute knowledge for future researchers and policy makers in the relevant areas within Pakistan and in other countries with similar conditions.

The schools were selected in three different cities being Lahore, Islamabad and Faisalabad. The reason behind this selection was that these cities have slightly different societal culture and environment which might have influence on the environment in school. Lahore is a big metropolis where people come from all parts of Pakistan, and has a rich evolving mix of different cultures that has an impact on teaching, learning and leadership style and ability of all involved. Faisalabad is a big industrial city where the mobility rate is not very high and has a well-established culture of its own. Islamabd is the capital of Pakistan and has a population mix of both local and people from in and out of Pakistan. Public and private sectors mark

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clear divisions of two types of schools in Pakistan which have different rules and regulations. It was decided to include voices from both sectors. The inclusion of private and public schools in this project is considered important as it became prominent during the pilot study that the scope and understanding on the meaning of leadership and learning is practiced and understood quite differently in public and private schools. In public schools, it appeared to be more about roles and quantifiable results. It helped me and others interested in this area to find the differences linked with the concept of leadership other than the material infrastructure and resources. The inclusion of schools from different areas and from the public and private sectors made this study of potential importance to the leaders, teachers, researchers and policy makers in the field of education in Pakistan.

The population was six interviews with the headteachers, thirty interviews with the teachers, sixty questionnaires among the students, and sixty among parents in each of the six schools besides documentary analysis that comprises of one academic/school calendar, school activity calendar, log book, newsletters and five lesson plans in every school (Table 4).

Schools Location Interviews

Carried out Questionnaires received back from 60 parents/ per school Questionnaires received back from 60 students/per school Documents Reviewed Public School 1 _Lahore Headteacher (Male) 5 Teachers (Males) 51 53 5 Lesson Plans,

School Log Book, School Development Plan,

Calendar Public School 2 _Faisalabad Headteacher (Male) 5 Teachers (Males) 49 46 5 Lesson Plans,

School Log Book, School Development Plan,

Calendar Public School 3 _Islamabad Headteacher (Female) 50 53 5 Lesson Plans,

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5 Teachers (Females)

School Development Plan, Calendar, Newsletter Private School 1 _Faisalabad Headteacher (Male) 3 Teachers (Males) 2 Teachers (Females) 55 54 5 Lesson Plans,

School Log Book, School Development Plan,

Calendar, Newsletter Private School 2 _Islamabad Headteacher (Female) 3 Teachers (Male) 2 Teachers (Females) 43 47 5 Lesson Plans,

School Log Book, School Development Plan with Calendar, Newsletter

Private School 3 _Lahore Headteacher (Female) 1 Teacher (Male) 4 Teachers (Females) 52 47 5 Lesson Plans,

School Log Book, School Development Plan,

Calendar, Newsletter

Table 4: Sample Description of the Main Study

The questionnaires were administered through the schools. In the beginning, permission to access these schools was requested from The Regional Director of the private school system and Secretary/Director Public Schools, Punjab, through a letter to allow access to the public and private schools to participate in the study. Physical resources are considered a very important factor to determine the quality of learning outcomes by some of the teachers and school heads in public schools in Pakistan (Javed, 2005). They consider that if the schools have similar resources in public and private sectors, the performance could be at the same level. Therefore schools were selected on the basis of certain similarities in terms of student population, number of staff, physical resources like building and infrastructure, for example playground, labs, computer labs, geographical location and level of the school (secondary) so that the concept of LfL may be analysed in context of the schools without any major differences in terms of resources. In Pakistan, most of the secondary schools are single sexed

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in the public sector whereas the private sector has co-education as well as single sexed schools. The schools were selected without any gender differences in view. However, consideration was given to their geographical location. All of the schools were selected from the bigger cities of Pakistan: Lahore, Faisalabad and Islamabad. The selection of the schools was made considering their catchment areas, number of students and level of school. Secondary schools with a minimum of five hundred student strength were selected. Time selected for the interviews was from September to April as the public schools in Pakistan follow an academic year which begins in April. Punjab is the most populated province of Pakistan. Schools were selected from three big cities: Lahore, Faisalabad and Islamabad. Sixty questionnaires were distributed among students in each school in the main study. As per the teachers‟ and headteachers‟ responses in the pilot study, it was also decided to include parents‟ perception as well in the main study, so sixty questionnaires per school were distributed among parents. In order to include students‟ voice, data was collected from high schools as it is considered that the senior school students may be able to participate with a maturity of thought and perception about the leadership and learning. Thirty teachers in the main study and four in the pilot study were interviewed. Five teachers from each of the six schools were interviewed during the main study. Participants (teachers, students and parents) were selected through school administration after seeking permission from the senior management (Appendix 1, p.395). In every school, one teacher was a newcomer in the field with less than two years of experience and the others with at least six years of experience. It helped in understanding to what level and extent co-operation, induction and professional development of newcomers and those working in that school takes place. Six headteachers in the main study and two in pilot study were interviewed.

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5.7 Access

Access to the practitioners was considered an important issue that may have a direct impact on the entire project. The selection of schools is a difficult decision for the case study. Access to the schools was obtained through proper channels. Permission to access these schools was obtained from The Regional Director of the private school system and Secretary/Director Public Schools, Punjab.

Headteachers were contacted well ahead of time to ensure their availability. Sometimes leaders are reluctant to give free access to the staff and particularly to their students and parents. The situation in my case was very encouraging as all of the six schools agreed to participate in the study. Working with different universities and training institutes in my previous roles, I have noticed that a culture of research is developing in educational institutions in Pakistan with a focus to improve learning. Moreover, working with a big private education system in Pakistan which owns almost two hundred schools in Pakistan and five different countries in the world, I found it easy to access different private school leaders from the same and some other systems (their identities cannot be revealed keeping the ethical issues in view, and these are referred to as Private School 1, 2 and 3 in the main study). However, the leaders of the schools had no direct link with the researcher other than belonging to or knowing the system in which the researcher worked. Most of the public schools also participated without any reluctance. However, almost all of the schools were reluctant to allow direct access to students and parents, therefore questionnaires were administered through the school. The distribution of questionnaires was made through the

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headteacher‟s office and that also maximised the return response rate contrary to the postal questionnaires that usually have a low return (Robson, 2002; Cohen et al., 2007). Using emails for parents was not a good option as not all parents in Pakistan have access to the internet or use emails. The questionnaires were distributed after the round of interviews was completed. The BERA (2004) code of ethics was followed before accessing the participants.

5.8 Ethics

Research is a form of disciplined inquiry with its core principles and structure aiming to “contribute to a body of knowledge” (Busher and James, 2007: p.106) “as carefully and as accurately as possible” (Pring, 2000: p.143). The process must follow a framework based on some code of practice or ethics establishing a commitment to honesty (Sammons, 1989). “The understanding of ethical conduct by a researcher is central to this framework. Ethics embody individual and communal codes of conduct based upon adherence to a set of principles which may be explicit and codified or implicit, and which may be abstract and impersonal or concrete and personal” (Zimbardo, 1984 cited in Cohen et al., 2000: p.58). The role of researcher is very important in qualitative research in the context of the process and the outcomes of the research. The process of data collection and data analysis in qualitative research involves continuous reflexivity and self-scrutiny (Pyett, 2003) to maintain a balanced and unbiased stance of the researcher. Personal reflexivity helps determine one‟s personal values and beliefs whereas epistemological reflexivity helps analyse and refine the research questions, design and methodology in terms of the objectives of the research. Creswell (1998) cautions that within a study, role and close distance between the researcher and the

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participants may have implications for bias. It is therefore considered central to maintain a neutral, non-assertive stance during the entire phase of data collection and analysis. Efforts were made to ensure that participant schools should not have any former familiarity with the researcher. As Denscombe (2003) argues, personal identity and acquaintance with the researcher may contaminate the data with biases.

However, I do acknowledge that I have been working in sphere of education in different capacities for more than seventeen years. I am still working with one of the largest private education systems in Pakistan and have been working as a consultant with the Directorate of Staff Development, Government of Punjab that is a teacher training institute for the public schools in Punjab, so there may be a chance that some of the respondents may consider me an insider. To this extent, I feel that it is very difficult to keep oneself completely aloof from the ethos and context of same field in which the subject and the object of research are located (Scott and Usher, 1999). Therefore, the researcher‟s role can be defined as in between the insider and outsider researchers. According to Morrison (2007: p.32) reflexivity “is the process by which researchers come to understand how they are positioned in relation to the knowledge they are producing”. Hammersley and Atkinson (1995: p.19) assert that one should “abandon the idea that the social character of research can be „standardised out‟ or avoided by becoming a „fly on the wall‟ or „full participant‟”. This argument makes the role of a researcher who is professionally and culturally an insider very clear. This self-awareness and positioning in relation to the intended research is useful for producing critical, systematic and skilful accounts (Morrison, 2007). Special attention, however, was given at the time of

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sample selection, that the participating schools should be the ones where the researcher has not been involved in any capacity. Further to this, to minimise the effect, the design triangulation and a mixed method approach proved to be useful. The chosen design permits for a larger number of participants to be included through questionnaires, rather than interviews, at a particular point in time that “has the attraction of anonymity, non-traceability and confidentiality for respondents in it” (Cohen et al., 2007: p.207). Moreover, documentary analysis of a period of two years also added depth and clarity to the data.

Work of many researchers highlights the importance of ethical considerations in any type of research (Butler, 2002; Shaw and Bryderup, 2008; Dominelli and Holloway, 2008). BERA (2004) is a reference point for the community of researchers from all over the world who want to conduct any research in the UK completely or partially. It is expected to inhabit and exhibit a culture of ethical awareness, ensure ethical approval before the commencement of the research, and demonstrate awareness of the ethical issues and their consideration throughout the research. Confidentiality and anonymity of the participant data is given high priority (BERA, 2004). Participants are given the entitlement to privacy, confidentiality or to withdraw at any stage of the research. The present research was undertaken in Pakistan and was submitted in the UK for an international audience. The data is collected from Pakistan. The ethical guidelines of BERA (2004) and those followed in Pakistan are reviewed and followed. The code of practice contains similar requirements in both countries. Confidentiality, anonymity and consent to participate and right to withdraw are available to the participants in the research. Bailey (1996) comments:

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“Ethical researchers need to inform those in the study whether the research is anonymous, confidential or neither. Research is anonymous when the researcher is unable to identify the participants in the study. In a confidential study the researcher knows or could know the identity of the participants but does not reveal who they are” (p.11).

So, all of the participants who participated in the questionnaires are free to maintain privacy and complete confidentiality was offered to them. Consent was obtained with respect to all of the methods employed in the study to collect data (Appendices 1,p.395, 7, p.409 and 8, p.411). The participating schools were given the codes as follows:

 School A (Pilot Study)

 School B (Pilot Study)

Schools in the main study were given the following codes:

 Private School 1  Private School 2  Private School 3  Public School 1  Public School 2  Public School 3

Headteachers and teachers are also given a number from 1 to 6 in participating public and private schools as per the order they were approached. A request letter was sent to all the prospective participants before starting the fieldwork (Appendices 1, p.395, 2,p.398 and 6).

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The case study methodology constitutes the research where the researcher worked in close or direct contact with the children and young people. Being in the list of vulnerable groups (BERA, 2004), the consent was obtained from all of the participating students, staff, school heads and parents of the students before collecting any data. Students and their parents were not accessed directly. Questionnaires were used for them which were administered through the headteacher‟s office and returned in sealed envelopes. These envelopes were given with the questionnaire. The interview timings were finalised at the convenience of the participants. Interviews were tape recorded besides taking field notes. The interviews were transcribed. The raw data will remain with the researcher for three years after the completion of the research study. None of the documents were taken out of the school premises, however, notes were made on observation in accordance with the research questions.