Photo-voice

The photo voice data collection process occurred in three stages: the training on photo voice; the identification of pictures to use when presenting their story; and the focus group discussion. The purposively selected co-researchers were first trained in the photo voice method, the use of a camera and selection of pictures for use in their narratives. During the training, the principal researcher explained that the NEETs were to take as many pictures as possible which they could use to tell a story of their experiences from child hood and of future aspirations. This meant they were to select three pictures each that they would use to tell their life stories. After the training, there was piloting on the use of photo voice by the co- researchers. During the piloting, the co-researchers used one picture each to tell a part of their story.

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After clarifications on the presentations from the piloting, the co-researchers were then ready to go out and collect three pictures to tell their story. The co-researchers were then asked to select pictures to present their story on their educational experiences from birth, what they viewed as having contributed to who they are, and their future aspirations. They had to justify the choices of their pictures with regard to the three questions. They presented their stories in a workshop situation (focus group discussion). I facilitated the focus group discussions. There was also a recorder and a social worker present. The discussion was held in one of the offices at my workplace. Before the beginning of each session the co-researchers were offered something to eat and a moment to unwind as they shared their trip to the office with their colleagues.The discussions were recorded and then transcribed.

5.6.2 Interviews

The second stage of the data collection process was the co-researchers conducting the interviews of the ten research participants each (NEETs). This stage also commenced by training the co-researchers in interviewing skills. The semi-structured questionnaire (Appendix two) was also introduced during the training. The co-researchers were given an opportunity during the training and after piloting to make their input on the questionnaire. The co-researchers were given one week to interview two people each from their respective areas as part of the piloting process. After this, the co-researchers had thirty days to go to their communities to identify and interview ten interviewees each. The interviewees’ age distribution is presented below:

Table 5.2: Interviewees (co-researchers and research participants) age distribution and geographical locations Administrative Region Age 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 Total Hhohho 1 2 2 0 2 1 5 2 5 20 Manzini 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 2 0 4 Shiselweni 0 0 0 0 1 1 3 2 1 8 Lubombo 0 2 2 1 4 0 0 4 5 18 Total 1 5 5 1 7 2 8 10 11 50

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5.6.3 Reflective journals

The third and last stage was the focus group discussion on what the co-researchers had learnt during the study. This part of data collection focused more, although not exclusively, on the third research question: the contribution made by co-researchers to the study. The source of data was the co-researchers’ journals. After the training on conducting interviews and using reflective journals, the co-researchers recorded their reflections about their insights on their everyday experiences as co-researchers during the data collection process. As already mentioned, copies of the journal recordings were shared amongst the focus group participants and referred to as each co-researcher presented his or her reflections on the experiences of the interview process. I facilitated the discussions using a questionnaire guide (Appendix three). These discussions were also recorded and data were then transcribed.

5.7 Data analysis

In this research, I used life history design to tell the NEETs educational story in a ‘rich, in- depth details about the specific life experiences, memories and interpretations that the individuals’ told (Dhunpath & Samuel, 2009, p. 4). In this section, I present how the NEETs experiences were interpreted and analysed. Analysis in narrative inquiry uses words that are often collected as stories about the research participants (Pinnegar & Daynes, 2012). According to Dunphath and Samuel (2009), the analysis of and reporting on narratives within the qualitative orientation should allow someone who reads them to decide on the trustworthiness of the story as reported through the teller’s perspective. The analysis process in this study, therefore, involved the principal researcher and partly the co-researcher’s construction and reconstruction of the NEETs stories and interpreting them in a way that made sense of their social context.

My interest in this study was on voicing the educational experiences of out-of-school youths whose voices had been previously ignored and their ideas taken for granted or not considered at all in decisions concerning their lives (Marsh, 2009). As opposed to the reductionist approach to analysis with ‘the intention to fix the deficit without sufficient attention’ paid to issues surrounding the youth being categorized as NEET (Dhunpath & Samuel, 2009, p. 20), the data analysis process for this study began as soon as I engaged the research participants in the co-construction of the interpretation of their lived stories. From the very first engagement the participants were made aware of their role as contributors to what would be their educational experiences: the ‘iterative’ process of data analysis (Dhunpath & Samuel, 2009, p. 12). The co-construction started when the research was introduced. The explaining of the

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purpose of the study not only prepared the co-researcher’s mind-set for the meaning making process but also for their participation in collecting the ingredients (data) to use when making meaning. This was evidenced by the adaptation of the questionnaire and the further explanations on certain research participants’ experiences during discussions by the co- researchers. The co-researchers’ abilities to clarify issues indicated that the participants sought clarification during the interviews. As the researcher, I probed for better and in-depth meaning of the NEETs’ experiences during the photo voice presentation and focus group discussions. The co-researchers also probed the participants’ responses during the interviews. This process further demonstrates the co-construction of the meaning of the NEETs experiences by the researcher and the research participants. This is consistent with the emic as opposed to the etic perspective of analysis.

Data analysis was done in three stages. The first stage was the data transcription. The qualitative orientation to data analysis and the co-construction of move from positivist towards interpretivist does not authorise the researcher to speak for the participants; instead it emphasizes the importance of their voices in the analysis and reporting. The next stage of data analysis was the construction and writing of the co-researchers’ stories presented in Chapter Five. The traditional presentation of stories ‘as a single, neat, unfolding trajectory in which the actor acts consistently’ has been challenged (Dhunpath & Samuel, 2009, p. 30). Guided by the qualitative orientation within the interpretivist paradigm, I used the co-researchers’ stories which were presented in their own voices.

The stories were first transcribed by the social worker who was part of the focus group discussions. Having another person to do the transcriptions provided me with an opportunity to reflect further when reading them. The reflection not only enabled me to probe further when the co-researchers validated their stories for trustworthiness but also assisted me in seeking coherence in the co-researcher’s accounts (Dhunpath & Samuel, 2009). For coherence, I considered issues that ensured the stories’ relevance to the co-researcher’s social context and personal realities. For instance, the co-researchers’ body language, emotions, use of mother tongue and physical presentation were highlighted in the stories presented. The coherence issues responded to the in-depth understanding of the NEETs educational experiences as presented in Chapter Six.

The social worker also transcribed the narratives from the questionnaire and focus group discussions. I then checked the transcriptions. All these transcriptions, including the co- researchers’ stories, were subject to thematic content analysis (Rule & John, 2011). They

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were first coded and later, themes were generated from the codes. The themes that were used in the analysis emerged from the data rather than being determined before the data collection. The generated themes are presented in Table 5.3 below.

Table 5.3: Themes generated from the research transcriptions

Themes on educational experiences and attitudes of out-of-school youths

Themes on the contribution of co-researching in the study

- age distribution and geographical location;

- family background;

- educational access and progression; support system;

- training;

- societal expectation; - future aspirations.

- In-depth understanding of being NEETs;

- creation of a dialogic space within the research process;

- co-researchers’ empowerment and learning about conducting interviews; - the value of informal learning in

addressing the situation of being a NEET.

As informed by the interpretivist paradigm, the study was not on hypothesis testing as in most empirical research, but was negotiated with the co-researchers and participants. The unit of analysis was the youths’ educational experience.

According to Dunphath and Samuel (2009), analysis of narratives such as life stories, can include numbers or statistical analysis. Besides coding and generating themes from the narratives, I also solicited the services of a statistician to analyse the structured questions using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS). SPSS is a data analysis tool that gives the frequency responding to each question (Gert, 2017). I also used the tool to cross tabulate between two fields with the purpose of finding the relationship. The analysed data enriched the discussion of the themes in Chapters Seven and Eight.

Table 5.4 summarizes the research design by linking the research questions to sources of data, methods of data collection, instruments and data analysis.

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Table 5.4: Summary of the research methods and sources of data

Research Question Source of data Data collecting

Method

Instrument used

Analysis

1. What are the educational

experiences and attitudes of the out-of- school youth in Eswatini?

50 Interviewees Interviews Semi- structured questionnaires Narrative Statistical 5 Co- researchers’ words and photographs Photo voice Focus group discussions Instructions, cameras Focus group schedule Narrative Narrative

2. How have the out-of-school youth’s educational experiences and attitudes contributed to them being NEETs?

50 Interviewees Interviews Semi- structured questionnaires Narrative Statistical 5 Co- researchers words and photographs Photo voice Focus group discussions Instructions, Cameras Focus group schedule Narrative Narrative

3. How and what do the youth contribute as co-researchers through the process of conducting this research? 5 Co- researchers Focus group discussions Semi- structured questionnaires Journals Narrative 5.8 Trustworthiness

In the qualitative orientation to research, trustworthiness is often used instead of validity as a measure of the integrity of the research (Rule & John, 2011; Teddlie, 2009). Trustworthiness is used as an assessment of the extent to which an inquirer can persuade audiences that the findings are worth paying attention to (Guba & Lincoln, 1985, cited in Teddlie, 2009, p. 26).

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As opposed to quantitative research where issues of validity, representativeness, and reliability underpin the quality of data, in qualitative research trustworthiness ‘is achieved by giving attention to the study’s transferability, credibility, dependability and confirmability’ (Rule & John, 2011, p. 107). In this study the issue of transferability as opposed to the dominant term, generalizability, was achieved by providing in-depth descriptions of the youths’ experiences, within their context (Eswatini; rural and urban setting). Credibility is measured by whether or not the in-depth descriptions provided may allow a reader to consider if the youths’ experiences are similar to youth’s experiences in other contexts (ibid.). For dependability and confirmability, the co-researchers verified the content of their transcribed stories through the triangulated use of multiple sources and methods. Furthermore, there is the disclosure of the whole research process as discussed below: the researcher’s positionality, ethical consideration, and research limitations.

5.9 Researcher positioning

Besides being the principal researcher in this study, three of my other positions might have had an influence on the research. As an adult education practitioner with many years of experience working with out-of-school youth in Eswatini, I had extensive insight into their problems. This was useful in helping me to conceptualize and design the study, and to relate to the participants, but I made sure that I did not impose my own assumptions on the data that came from the participants. As a senior manager and a mature woman who was old enough to be their mother, there was a concern on participants’ freedom to share their life stories. This was addressed in that, before each session started, there was time for small talk and sharing of refreshments between the researcher and the co-researchers. By the time we got to discuss business, the co-researchers were relaxed and sharing their ideas freely. The time difference between their arrival and the sharing sessions was also an advantage in that many of the participants ended up confiding in me about their general life concerns.

5.10 Ethical considerations

Ethical considerations entail how I have dealt with issues of consent, participation, power relations between the researcher and the researched, emotionality, and neutrality (Dunphath, 2012). Research participants (co-researchers and interviewees) made an informed decision to participate in the study. They were informed about their rights to participate and withdraw at any point of the research process. The co-researchers and interviewees were also assured of confidentiality of the information they would share. Confidentiality included assuring them that pseudonyms were going to be used and that the data collected were to be kept safely for

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five years before disposal. Based on their understanding of these explanations, the co- researchers and interviewees signed a consent form (Appendices Four and Five). Parental or guardians consent forms were signed for youths below eighteen years (Appendices Four and Five). According to Bird (n.d.), life stories can uncover or resurrect a distressing past which may render it empowering or exploitative. In this study, I engaged the services of a social worker who was prepared to address emotional distress during the focus group discussions. For ethical considerations, ethical clearance was sought and obtained from the College of Humanities at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (attached in Appendix One).