CONSTRUCTION OF THE INSTRUMENTS

A questionnaire is a research instrument consisting of a series of questions and other prompts for the purpose of gathering information from respondents. Although they are often designed for statistical analysis of the responses, this is not always the case. A questionnaire is essentially a structured technique for collecting primary data. It is generally a series of written questions for which the respondents have to provide the answers (Bell 1999).

For many reasons, the questionnaire is the most widely used technique for obtaining information from respondents. A questionnaire is relatively economical, has the same questions for all the subjects and can ensure anonymity. While authors such as Kervin (1999) offer a very narrow definition of questionnaires (whereby the person answering the questions actually records his or her own answers), deVaus (1996) sees a questionnaire in a much wider context (namely as a technique in which various persons are asked to answer the same set of questions). A well designed questionnaire must address the research objectives.

In constructing my research questionnaire I ensured that I followed the nine basic steps: Establishing justification and the literature review, defining objectives, writing items and response scales, reviewing items, constructing general format, conducting pretest, revising, conducting pilot test and revising again before I administered it to the respondents for data collection. Constructing the questionnaire involved many decisions about the wording and the ordering of the questions, selection and wording of response categories, formatting and mode of administration of the questionnaire.

To collect the needed data from the teachers and the assistant teachers, I developed formal standardized questions. I used a five point likert scale with a gradation of five levels for each question ranging from

45 strongly agree (1), agree (2) neutral (3) disagree (4) and strongly disagree (5). The Likert scale provides great flexibility because the descriptions on the scale can vary to fit the nature of the question or statement.

3.5.2 INTERVIEW SCHEDULE

I also constructed a focus group interview schedule for collecting data from the learners. This served the purpose of cross validating the quantitative data from the teachers’ questionnaire. The question format was open- ended but following the research objectives and aims and lining up with the teachers’ questionnaire items in order to triangulate the results.

3.5.3 OBSERVATION SCHEDULE

To reinforce on validity and reliability, a classroom observation sheet was constructed. The primary advantages of using observational methods are that the researcher does not need to worry about the limitations of self-report bias, social desirability, and response set as the information is not limited to what can be recalled accurately by the subjects. Behaviour can be recorded as it occurs naturally. To develop my observation sheet, I first defined in precise terms what would be observed beginning with the research problem or question and the variables that needed to be observed were ascertained. Because it is impossible to observe everything that occurs, I had to decide on the variables or units of analysis that were most important and define behaviour so that it could be recorded objectively.

3.6 SAMPLING AND PARTICIPANTS

A sample refers to the elements of the population that are selected to participate in the study (Churchill 2002). I selected the case study school on the basis of it being accessible and familiar because I am one of the intermediate phase educators at the school. Convenience sampling is widely used in research because it may be the best sampling strategy the researcher can use due to practical constraints, efficiency and accessibility (Mertler 2003). Being an “insider” in the study brought into question the issue of researcher bias. I was totally aware of this throughout the study. In order to minimize researcher bias, I ensured at all times that I adhered to the rules of research. I tried by all means to be as objective as possible in data generation and analysis. For example, I adhered strictly to what the research instruments required.

The case study school selected is a private school opened in 1992 and is situated in Gaborone, the capital city of Botswana. The school has a population of about 550 learners from pre-school to Standard 7 and it endeavours to encourage every child to be successful socially, spiritually, physically and

46 academically. There are two streams in every grade level with approximately 30 to 35 learners. There are about 40 teachers and approximately 30 assistant teachers. This school is composed of both local and international teachers and learners. The local learners are the majority forming about two-third of the whole school population. Most of the teachers are international whereas the assistant teachers are from Botswana. The school is middle class with school fees ranging from 4000 to 6000 pula per term. Living Hope School was one of the leading schools in the Primary School Leaving Certificate (PSLE) from 1998 to 2008, where nearly all the learners passed with a distinction. Of late the performance has declined just like the trend with most of the schools in Botswana. The majority of learners pass with grade B, which is a serious decline compared to the former achievements of the school. The decline of the performance is actually what has informed my research in this area and I hope the knowledge gained in this study will be beneficial to similar schools and help boost their academic performance.

With regard to the questionnaire respondents, I issued the questionnaire to all teachers and assistant teachers who had experience of teaching in the intermediate phase. There were 32 of them in total. I received 30 of the 32 questionnaires back for analysis.

The intermediate phase learners who participated in the focus group interview were selected using purposive sampling (Reis et al. 2007). Purposive sampling is used to select those participants who are information rich in terms of the phenomenon being studied. In my study all learners in the class were information rich in terms of the phenomenon studied (learner motivation). I therefore chose the first six learners on the class register. Using this method I selected six learners from each of the six classes in the intermediate phase which gave me a sample of 36 learners who participated in the focus group interview from a total population of about 180 learners who were in the intermediate phase. Each grade level had two classes and from each class a sample of six purposively selected learners participated in the interviews. Each of the sampled group from each class participated once in the focus group interview.

Purposive sampling was also applied to select the six classes in the intermediate phase for classroom observation. This was because my research was based on the intermediate level learners. All the classes in the intermediate phase level were each observed twice to validate the data.