DATA MANAGEMENT AND ANALYSIS

Data management is concerned with the systematic treatment of data after it has been obtained from its sources (Polit & Beck, 2016: 531). Such treatment is intended to allocate a quality assurance mechanism to the qualitatively and/ or quantitatively obtained data, and to ensure that such data is not contaminated but remains in its raw state throughout the data analysis stages.

For the qualitative data obtained through the semi-structured focus group interviews, the selected research participants’ responses were secured by means of the audio recorder, which served as an authentication mechanism for the verbatim capturing of the researcher’s conversations with the interviewees. The entire proceedings of the focus group interview sessions were captured without any meddling (digital or otherwise) on the part of the researcher. All ethical protocols undertaken prior to, and during the focus group interview sessions ensured that the participants’ anonymity, privacy, and confidentiality were respected. After the focus group interviews, the researcher was the only person who was privy to the record of these interviews.

For the quantitatively obtained data of the questionnaires, the researcher ensured that she personally collected these questionnaires from the respondents. Similar to the semi-structured focus group interviews, no persons were privy to any unauthorised access to information contained in the questionnaires. Finally, the researcher subjected the editor of the manuscript to an agreement-in-principle, that no aspect of this entire research report was to be divulged to anyone, including persons involved directly or indirectly with the study.

4.4.1 Data Analysis

The primary goal of data analysis is to organize, to structure, and to allocate meaning to the data that has been collected (Polit & Beck, 2010: 463). The usefulness of data analysis is influenced by the extent of effectiveness to which the research process and

“The worth of all scientific findings depends heavily on the manner in which the data was collected and analyzed [researcher’s own bold italics]” (Babbie & Mouton, 2001:

563). It is on the basis of the research instrument’s efficacy that the reliability and validity of the study could be determined. Data analysis, therefore, provides a context for the standardization of monitoring, evaluation, and quality assurance to the accumulated or collected data in the study.

In this study, the interview-based data was both thematically and descriptively analysed according to recurrent individual themes accruing from the verbatim statements of the participants and the researcher’s own field notes (Bryman 2014:

336; 339). The redundant information was not considered in instances where the nature of the response did not address any significant aspect of the questions posed.

Statistical analysis was relied on for the meaningful interpretation of the responses and statements accruing from the questionnaires. The mixed-methods approach of the study implied that the combination of qualitative and quantitative data collection occurred concurrently, with the thematic coding (classification or categorization) of the data taking place at the same time as the description and interpretation of the self-same data. Inferential statistics were helpful insofar as the association and frequencies of variables was concerned. Such an orientation enhanced the exploration and description of the phenomenon of drug abuse by learners in schools, as well as the regularity or frequency according to which the phenomenon has manifested itself (Creswell, 2009: 15; Burns & Grove, 2011: 77).

4.4.2 Measures of Trustworthiness

Measures of trustworthiness are quality assurance mechanisms or strategies for the overall management and integration of both the data analysis processes and scientific rigour of the study (Holloway & Wheeler, 2010: 303). According to Kumar (2011: 172)

“trustworthiness in a qualitative study is determined by four indicators – credibility, transferability, dependability and confirmability – and it is these four indicators that reflect validity and reliability in qualitative research”. On the other hand, the quantitative variants of ensuring trustworthiness are: validity, reliability, and objectivity.

4.4.2.1 Credibility/ Internal Validity

Credibility/ Internal validity refers to “the degree to which an instrument measures what it supposes to be measuring” (Polit & Hungler 2010: 246). The credibility or internal

validity of a study also establishes the degree of agreeability between the research instrument and the study’s findings/ results. Such agreeability establishes confidence in the findings themselves.

In this study, internal validity was established by the consistent adherence to the same thematically connected variables being measured by the same research questionnaire. The questionnaire items were primarily concerned with determining whether or not reasonable proportionality exists between school health nurses’

numerical availability and the magnitude of drug abuse. Additionally, prolonged engagement, peer debriefing, and member checking were utilised in order to establish the credibility of the study.

4.4.2.1.1 Prolonged engagement

Prolonged engagement was established by spending sufficient engagement time with the research participants in order to fully understand their perspectives and experiences in respect of the role of the school health nurse and school health programmes in the prevention and management of the scourge of drug abuse in schools by learners (Polit & Beck, 2012: 739).

4.4.2.1.2 Peer debriefing

Peer debriefing was applied by means of the researcher’s engagement with experts on drug and substance abuse, as well as research methodology professionals in order to check for any gaps or shortcomings that may have been overlooked by the researcher throughout the study’s development and eventual execution (Strydom, 2005: 67).

4.4.2.1.3 Member checking

Polit and Beck (2012: 733) assert that member checking is the most important method for validating the credibility of a qualitative study. Member checking will be employed to provide feedback to all the relevant stakeholders after the preliminary research report has been drafted. Member checking will ensure that the study’s findings truthfully and objectively reflect the participants’ reality and life-experiences, and not the researcher’s

preconceived ideas.

4.4.2.2 Dependability/ Reliability

Dependability/ Reliability refers to the degree to which the research instrument has achieved clarity, stability, consistency (Polit & Hungler, 2010: 242). In this study, reliability was maintained by means of the audit trail, reflexivity, and bracketing.

4.4.2.2.1 Audit trail

Documentary evidence was kept of all the stages of the entire research process, in order that readers and other researchers undertaking similar studies may be able to trace all steps and decision processes of the current study (Brink et al., 2012: 181).

4.4.2.2.2 Reflexivity

Throughout the entire study, the researcher precluded (self-monitored) her personal feelings, preconceived ideas, values, and experiences from the research process and during her engagement with the participants/respondents (Brink et al., 2012: 181). The self-monitoring process further enabled the researcher to completely exclude (bracket) any previous assumptions she may have held on any aspect of the study, particularly on the research participants themselves.

4.4.2.3 Transferability/ External Validity

Transferability/ External Validity refers to the extent to which the findings of the current study could be applied to other studies under similar conditions as those that existed in the original study (Brink et al., 2012: 181). The researcher provided an exhaustive account of the research milieu and its dynamics, in order to enable the reader and other interested parties or researchers to determine whether or not the results accurately represent the objective reality as presented by the research participants and respondents.

4.4.2.4 Confirmability/ Objectivity

Confirmability/ objectivity premises on the extent of independent confirmation, corroboration, or verification of the study’s results or findings as a true account/

reflection of the collected data (Kumar, 2011: 172). The researcher ensured the study’s confirmability by exercising maximum objectivity and neutrality throughout the study. The researcher did not at any stage prejudice the research participants by imposing her own worldview as that of the research participants (Holloway & Wheeler, 2010: 303). Both during the literature review and empirical phases, the researcher engaged with practitioners and experts in the fields of school health, as well as drug abuse by learners in particular.

4.5 CONCLUSION

The main purpose of this chapter was to present and discuss the approaches and processes by means of which the evidence of the study was generated. In this regard, the chapter provided the initial practical aspects to test (prove or disprove) the theoretical premises of the role of school health nurses in the prevention and management of drug abuse in schools.

It is worth mentioning that the focus of the study is largely on the role of school health nursing in the context of drug abusing learners. However, issues surrounding the sensitivity of involving drug abusing learners - rather than any form of reluctance on the part of those learners - made it difficult for their inclusion in the study. A school health nurse, educators and other suitably trained healthcare practitioners were involved as respondents (for questionnaires) and participants (for focus group interviews) in the study. The latter situation did not in any way compromise the integrity of the data or engender any sampling error, since the researcher’s simple non-probability sampling ensured that these respondents and interviewees were afforded the same chance of involvement in the study, despite that such involvement could not be known or predicted prior to the study’s undertaking. The following chapter (Chapter Five) presents the actual analysed evidence itself in the form of visuals such as graphs and tables.