Analysis of Policy documents

The first research question of this study concerns the exploration of the key themes of quality criteria that are captured in the policy documents. ECCE policy documents in this study include Extract of Early Childhood Education from the National Policy on Education (FRN, 2004; NERDC, 2013) and Quality Assurance Instrument for basic Education in Nigeria (FME, 2010).

Starting with policy document analysis (see Section 4.5), Qualitative Content Analysis (QCA) combined with Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) methods were employed. According to Schreier (2014), QCA is a qualitative method of data analysis that identifies, analyses and reports selected aspects of a research material that only relate to the overall research questions and support an argument. Similarly, Hsieh and Shannon (2005) admit that QCA is a method used to analyse textual data, which can be in verbal, print or electronic form, through subjective interpretation, by the process of coding and identifying themes or patterns. The authors explore the use of QCA following three approaches: conventional, directed and summative, in a health-related study. This study has chosen this method because it is easy to identify contextual meanings in research materials and then categorise and interpret them. According to Mayring (2014), the hermeneutical approach to QCA, as enshrined in a constructivist theory, embraces a dialectical synergy between researcher’s preconceptions and text interpretations. Moreover, the author

maintains that QCA also looks at the linguistic context of the text, thereby incorporating the Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) as a method that was also used for this study. This does not really signify the use of two methods per se, as CDA is an aspect of content analysis, as explained by Gee and Handford (2013:1), as well as Fairclough (2013:10), as the study of the meanings given to language and the actions carried out when language is used in specific contexts.

Kiersey (2009) argues that CDA in policy analysis answers ‘how questions’ in a bid to understand the evolution of social realities and meanings, exploring “how, what and where” meanings come from. The author further maintains that a critical discourse analysis of policy documents pays attention to the social, cultural and political climate in which the documents were created, alongside a meticulous textual analysis of the linguistic properties of each text in order to discern the underlying ideology of the discourse. My analysis explored meanings embedded in written texts emanating from policy makers. Thus, the study looked at the contextual and linguistic meanings underlying ECCE policy documents.

Although QCA shares some features with CDA, the basic difference between them lies in the manner in which each one of them looks at the content of the research text. For instance, QCA adopts a systematic process of examining relevant aspects of a research material. In this way, Scheirer (ibid) maintains that the reliability of the data analysis is ensured, because researchers’ expectations and assumptions are eradicated. On the contrary, CDA explores the linguistic meanings within research texts of a particular cultural context, which according to Fairclough (2014) vary according to time and place. I

therefore considered both approaches relevant to the understanding of values, intentions and meanings of ECCE policy documents in a developing economy and multi-cultural contexts like Nigeria.

Hence, I agree with the arguments of Schreier (2014), Hsieh and Shannon (2005) on QCA, as well as Fairclough (2014) and Gee and Hanford (2013:1) on CDA, which upholds these approaches as qualitative data analysis methods. Fairclough (ibid) suggests that CDA embraces a trans-disciplinary approach, which I observed in the field. There was the interference of economic, health and political issues in understanding stakeholders’ construction of quality education for children.

Essentially, policy analysis for this study adopts Schreier’s (2014) eight basic steps in QCA, which are (a) deciding on a research question (b) selecting material (c) building a coding frame (d) segmentation (e) trial coding (f) evaluating and modifying the coding frame (e) main analysis and (g) presenting and interpreting the findings while also juxtaposing frameworks within the studies conducted by Kiersey (2012) and Fairclough (2014) using CDA. Table 9 below shows the phases of the combination of QCA and CDA analyses used for this study.

Table 9: Steps in QCA and CDA for the study

Steps involved QCA CDA

Identifying a social problem

Deciding on a research question Selecting a research topic and formulating research questions Analyse relations between research texts and contexts

Selecting suitable amount of material

Selecting relevant texts in relations to social and political structure

Familiarisation with text

Reading until relevant concept is encountered

Reading and re-reading the text, noting the writing styles

Building coding framework

Generating main category and sub category

Collating categories that relate to themes and sub- themes

Segmentation Applying categories to the entire material in a consistent manner

Reviewing coded themes and sub-themes

Trial coding Applying categories of coding to materials in order to pilot it.

Not applicable

Evaluating and modifying the coding frame

Examining the results of trial coding in terms of consistency and validity

Not applicable

Main Analysis _{All relevant aspects of research} material are coded

Ongoing textual analysis- use of NVIVO if applicable Presenting and

interpreting the findings

Presenting the report in the form of coding frameworks, quotes, continuous text, and text matrices, examining the results for further data exploration, patterns and co- occurrences of selected categories.

Relating themes and subthemes back to the research questions.

Source: Adapted from Schreier (2014) and Kiersey (2012).

Since the focus is to explore the key themes of quality care, learning and development and how they relate to socio-cultural values within the Nigerian

context, the policy document analysis did not involve trial coding and the use of Nvivo.