Analysis of narratives

The data from five principals, five groups of staff members, five school board groups and five groups of parents are presented in this section. The responses of three male principals and two female principals to questions asked in an interview and to a separate questionnaire given to each one were gathered in order to construct their experiences with their school boards. The responses of five different groups of staff members to questions in an interview and to separate questionnaires given to each one were gathered to construct their experiences with the school boards of their individual schools. The responses of five groups of school board members to questions in an interview and to separate questionnaires given to each one to ascertain how they viewed their work, preparedness for governance and their need for skills were gathered to construct their experiences as school boards. Finally, the responses of five separate sets of parents to questions in an interview and to a questionnaire given to each one regarding their experiences with the school board of their respective schools were gathered to construct their experiences of their school boards.

Semi-structured, open-ended questions were administered personally, and semi-structured, open-ended questionnaires were also hand delivered personally. These types of questions were preferred because they allowed the respondents the freedom to respond as they wished.

Furthermore, the data obtained would be of greater benefit than if the questions had been structured and closed-ended. I used themes that emerged in order to analyse the data. These themes formed the basis of the findings of this dissertation.

Groenewald (2004, 17) makes a very valid observation when he cautions against the use of the word ‘analysis’ because of its connotations of phenomenology. His argument is that the term analysis means breaking into parts! This, he says, means that the observable facts would be lost, and therefore the word explicitation should rather be used. This implies an “investigation of the constituents of a phenomenon while keeping the context of the whole” (2004, 17).

Qualitative methods aim to understand the what, how and why of the particular phenomenon being researched. They look at the attitudes and lived experiences of the subjects or

respondents who relate the narratives. Therefore, before one considers an analysis or

explicitation, Guest, Macqueen and Namey (2012, 30-31) suggest that one considers several questions. These questions include:

What is the practical purpose of the analysis?

What is the analytic purpose?

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How is the analysis connected to the research question(s)?

How large is my data set?

Which data should I use for a particular analysis?

Who is the audience for my analysis, and how will members judge the process and subsequent findings?

The answers to these questions will become apparent as I proceed.

5.2.1 Research questions

At this stage I repeat the research questions because the analysis will be closely linked to the questions. The analysis should, in the process, answer the research questions and provide the storyline for narrative inquiry.

The first set of questions relating to ineffective boards is: What is the nature and extent of the problems experienced by the school boards? What can be done to help the school boards play a more active role in school governance? What kind of training will equip school boards to function more effectively? The first argument that emanates from these general questions is:

existing problems experienced by school boards in Adventist schools, primarily a lack of capacity-building programmes and training, have contributed to poor and ineffective school governance.

The second set of general questions relate to training is: Are the school board members willing to undergo training in areas where they lack expertise? Are the board members willing to sacrifice time for continuous training in order to gain the expertise they lack, and so equip themselves to carry out, effectively, the functions and responsibilities of a school board member?

The second argument is that school board members are willing to sacrifice time for continuous training in order to gain the expertise they lack, and so equip themselves to carry out the functions and responsibilities of the board effectively.

It is the purpose or objectives of the study that provide the narrative. The narrative is the thread that should hold all the themes together as they are integrated in the analysis. So, you must know what you want to find out, what you want to convey and how you are going to convey the constructed information.

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5.2.2 Objectives of the study

I mention the objectives here again, since it will help to guide the narratives as the data is constructed into texts that will give meaning to the inquiry and the outcomes of the analysis.

The first objective of this study was to create an awareness of the functions and responsibilities of school boards. Secondly, to determine where their lack of expertise lay; thirdly, to determine what kind of continuous training was necessary to equip individuals for their work as board members; and fourthly to determine the time and effort members were willing to sacrifice in order to learn to function effectively.

5.2.3 Data analysis

This section presents data taken from five different schools. A single respondent and three groups of respondents provided sets of data for each school. In each school I interviewed the principal as a single respondent. Each principal also received a questionnaire to complete. I also interviewed groups of between five and ten staff members of each school, groups of between five and ten board members of each school, and groups of between five and ten parents of each school. Each staff member in the group, each board member in the group and each parent in the group was given a questionnaire to complete.

After completing the transcription of the interviews I used the software package RQDA to code them and then constructed themes from the data. I collated all the questionnaires in each

specific group and, using the same software package, coded the questionnaires and then constructed the themes that emerged. (See Appendix B for Interview Questions and Appendix C for Questionnaires.)

In the case of the interviews, I took each question separately and collated the responses from each school under a specific question. The respondents from each school were asked the same questions in the interview. So, I took question 1 and wrote down the responses from schools A, B, C, D and E. I did so for each question. I applied this procedure to the principal, staff

members, school boards and parents of each school. Similarly, I took the questionnaires and collated all the responses, and then applied the same procedure. In the case of the

questionnaire, I took the first question and collated all the responses from the staff of school A to question 1 and put them together. I then proceeded to do the same for each school. What I now had were responses to question 1 from each staff member who participated, and from each school placed together. I proceeded to do this with every question in the questionnaire. I

applied the same procedure to the principals and other groups of respondents from each school.

(See Appendix D for responses to Interviews and Appendix E for responses to Questionnaires.)

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Using the same RQDA software program, I constructed a diagrammatic representation of the main themes and the codes that went along with each theme.

I will now proceed to the analysis, integrating the questionnaires with the interviews. Themes that emerged, and which formed the basis of the findings for the narratives of the principals, include experiences in relationships with the board, how the principals experienced the functions and responsibilities of the board, the need for training, experiences in fulfilling the vision and mission of the school, performance assessment, experiences that led to specific issues of concern, and how the principal experienced the input from the higher organisation.