Authenticity

According to Bryman (2012:393), authenticity in qualitative research involves the following issues:

 Fairness – the research should fairly represent different viewpoints of the population

 Ontological authenticity – the research should help the population to understand their social world better

 Educative authenticity – the research should teach other members to appreciate the perspectives of other members in their social world

 Catalytic authenticity – the research should have an influence on members to the possibility of changing their circumstances

 Tactical authenticity – the research should empower members to take action in their social world

To ensure authenticity, the investigator went back to some of the healers and shared with them on what was captured and allowed them to make further comments. This allowed the investigator to together with the continuous discussions that the investigator is having with some healers, gave the investigator some leverage to interpret what the traditional healers have contributed with authority. Authenticity is closely linked to credibility which was

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discussed under trustworthiness in the preceding subsection, and is concerned with the correct interpretations of lived experiences of the healers.

3.9 Data analysis and presentation

In qualitative research, data is collected to describe details about people, actions, and events in their lives (Neuman 2011:507). The data collected for this study was in the form of text from document analysis, interview transcripts and audio recordings obtained during interviews as well as notes made during observation. Neuman (2011) highlights that to analyse data means systematically organising, integrating, examining while searching for patterns or themes among specific details.

According to Ngulube, Mathipa and Gumbo (2015) thematic analysis is a method for identifying themes and patterns of meaning across a dataset in relation to a research question. Thematic data analysis procedures are related to qualitative methods and are generally suited for hermeneutic (interpretive) phenomenology (Ngulube and Ngulube 2017). The following are steps in thematic data analysis that can be applied in a phenomenological study as outlined by Ngulube and Ngulube (2017):

 transcribing the interviews;

 taking note of items of interest;

 coding across the entire data;

 searching for themes;

 reviewing themes by mapping provisional themes;

 checking for relationships among themes; and

 defining and naming the themes.

In this study, interviews were conducted in Tsonga, Venda and Pedi then answers translated to English during transcribing. The investigator listened to the recorded tapes from the interviews and transcribed them from tape to paper while translating them to English. The notes taken by the research assistant during interviews were compared to the data obtained from tapes and necessary adjustments made where necessary. The data were grouped according to each theme emanating from the objectives of the study. This means that all responses addressing a particular objective were grouped together. A similar approach was taken to data collected through observation and document analysis. The data obtained from document analysis and observations were integrated and grouped thematically with the data obtained from interviews in an effort to answer the research questions.

90 3.10 Ethical considerations

In both qualitative and quantitative research, researchers face ethical issues that surface during data collection in the field and in analysis and dissemination of research reports (Creswell 2007:174). Welman, Kruger and Mitchell (2005:201) discuss four ethical considerations to which a researcher should pay attention to: Informed consent, right to privacy, protection from harm and involvement of the researcher. Bryman (2012:135) also highlights four main areas about ethical principles, which include:

 whether there is harm to participants;

 whether there is a lack of informed consent;

 whether there is invasion of privacy; and

 whether deception is involved.

The UNISA Policy on Research Ethics (2007:18) also explains that all studies must be conducted ethically at all times and the rights and interests of all participants must be protected at all times. The following are examples of moral principles of the research involving human participants (UNISA Policy on Research Ethics 2007: 9):

 Autonomy (research should respect the autonomy, rights and dignity of research participants);

 Beneficence (research should make a positive contribution towards the welfare of people);

 Non-maleficence (research should not cause harm to the research participants in particular or to the people in general); and

 Justice (the benefits and risks of research should be fairly distributed among people)

Therefore, in this study, an ethical clearance was obtained from the department of information science ethics review committee (see Appendix B). Each interview participant was informed as to who was conducting the research, why they were invited to participate, that participation is voluntary and are free to withdraw anytime, and that anonymity and confidentiality will be maintained at all times.

For data collected through observation, permission was granted by the mentor after consulting with the mentee. The investigator informed them that anonymity and confidentiality will be ensured and they were free to withdraw at any time. All pictures taken during observations were shown to the trainees and they had no problem with them being included in the document, however the investigator protected their identities by severed the faces on the

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pictures that were used. Again names and pictures that appeared on the certificates that were analysed were hidden so that the identity of the participants was not revealed.

For document analysis, all sources consulted were acknowledged to avoid plagiarism. The ethical clearance, consent letter, standard operating procedure for research ethics risk assessment, as well as the ethics researcher’s acknowledgement form are attached in the Appendices B and C.