Procedures and Methods for Case Study B

This case study examined how the strategic application of human resource factors can positively influence teacher attraction and retention in WA schools. The objective was to examine why people are attracted to / or remain in the teaching profession and how the SHRM implementation could positively influence attraction / retention outcomes. The entity of concern for this case study was teachers in WA secondary and primary schools.

Multiple data gathering and a multiple participant case study approach was used. This approach relies on the descriptive nature of case studies (Merriam 1998) so information from a wide variety of sources, view points and from a variety of ways can be gained. The research design for Case B was three-pronged, as depicted in Figure 3.1. This case incorporated face-to-face in-depth interviews, electronic in-depth interviews and an electronic survey. The participants were drawn from principals and human resource managers / officers, retired teachers and serving teachers respectively. This approach is supported by literature, for instance;

about the case, which may be collected and analysed using a number of methods. In fact the use of a variety of types of data and analysis can be said to be a key feature of the study method as the sheer variety of data and types of data analysis would offer a ‘rich’ description of the case” (Veal 2005: 170).

Furthermore Yin (2003), argues that case study data gathering can range from non-structured interviews to situations where the interview entails more structured questions, along the lines of a formal survey. The survey can be part of the case study as it produces qualitative data as evidence, although this approach has been a subject of some debate. Despite the underlying philosophical differences separating qualitative and quantitative methods, several researchers see the benefit of combining these paradigms within a research stream or even within a single study. They argue that coupling the methods can provide a more complete picture than each methodology achieves alone (Bryman 2006; Shah and Corley 2006). Furthermore Yin (2003), suggests that in certain case study situations, the interview entails a formal survey, which could be used to produce additional data as part of the study.

This multiple method-participant design strategy was used to generate detailed and broad based information from the participants about the prevalence of teacher shortage issues in WA. The objective was to generate strategies for improving teacher attraction / retention from the perspectives of these three categories of important stakeholders. The remainder of this subsection describes the triple procedures of Case study B.

Face-to-face in-depth interview: The procedure for the face-to-face in-depth interviews followed the same procedure as for Case study A. Appendix 3.2 provides a copy of all the questions used and Questions 5 to 10 were applicable to Case study B. The data were coded into themes and analysed with the NVivo software, using a cross- case analysis instead of detailed descriptions of each individual site because the focus was not the individual sites, but teachers across the sites. The cross-case synthesis looked for recurring patterns, singularities, or variances and confirmation of how these were affected by specific local and contextual variations as recommended in literature (Dey 1995; Merriam 1998). The findings from this set of interviews are presented in Chapter 4 and contain recommendations for improving teacher attraction and retention.

Electronic in-depth interview: Electronic interviews of some recently retired teachers, which sought their perspective on issues affecting teacher attraction and retention and the role of SHRM, were carried out between June and August 2006. The retired teachers fall under the Typical or Atypical criterion suggested by Veal (2005). These teachers provided a different and very useful perspective, as they represented a typical set of successful teachers who had completed their career and left the profession by natural attrition, even if they had taken early retirement. Because they had remained in teaching until retirement, the assumption was that they would be more willing to participate, and have the time to do so. In addition, since they were no longer employed in the formal school system, they could offer relatively unbiased views.

This procedure involved an electronic advertisement for respondents on the WA Retired Teachers’ web page. An electronic version of the questions was lodged on the

Murdoch University website and interested respondents accessed the questions via a hyperlink. Answers were typed online and sent directly to the researcher’s e-mail address by an automatic web-e-mail trigger. These questions are also attached in Appendix 3.5. The questions were divided into two sections; Section A contained the interview questions and Section B asked for demographic data.

The questions focused on what attracts people to teaching, why teachers leave and what strategies could improve the attraction/retention problems. Open ended and closed questions were used respectively to help generate qualitative and quantitative data that was used to rank some aspects of the questions. Five retired teachers responded - see Table 3.4.

Table 3.4: Retired Teachers Interview Participants and Response Dates

Participant Code Date of Response

Metropolitan Region Remote

RT01 29 June 2006 Yes Yes

RT02 30 June 2006 Yes Yes Yes

RT03 30 June 2006 Yes

RT04 3 July 2006 Yes Yes

RT05 3 August 2006 Yes Yes

Retired Teachers E-Indepth Interview s

School Location Experience

While five is a small sample size, the major goal was to enrich and support the data obtained across the Cases. In addition, the combined experience of the participants covers all the areas of the research interest as the combined sample had experiences in subject areas where there are teacher shortages (Mathematics, Science, LOTE),

contained both male/female genders and had worked in all three locations (metropolitan, regions and remote).

Electronic survey: The third data gathering method used in Case Study B was an electronic survey amongst serving teachers in the public school sector as these are the ones currently employed as teachers. The survey of the active teachers was undertaken between July and December 2006. The survey methodology sought to generate strategies for improving teacher attraction and or retention and investigate the association, if any, between the teachers’ personal characteristics and their views on the teacher shortage problems. A cross sectional survey was chosen as it is an appropriate method for gathering data at one point in time (Ary et al. 2006). The sample was restricted to teachers in the public schools because the Delphi study found the teacher shortage issues to be most prevalent in the public school sector and these were most accessible.

The process of administering the questionnaire and electronic receipt of responses was similar to the procedure used for the retired teachers. A notice on the WA DET website invited teachers to participate in the online survey. A sample of the questionnaire is attached in Appendix 3.6. Again, questions focused on what attracts people to teaching, why teachers leave and the strategies they would recommend to improve attraction and retention. The questionnaire asked for quantitative and qualitative responses and demographic data. In all, thirty-one (31) teachers responded and the distribution of their teaching experience by location is shown in Table 3.5.

Table 3.5: Teacher Survey Respondent Spread Teacher Survey

Teaching Location Experience

Metropolitan Regional Remote

23 7 1

Given there are over twenty thousand teachers in WA, this was a very small response that could return biased results. There are a number of reasons for this that most likely relate to timing. At the time of the survey, the teaching profession and the education system in WA was the subject of much publicity and very apparent teacher disenchantment, over a Government proposal to push through an outcomes-based- education (OBE) scheme that teacher felt they were ill prepared to implement. In addition, teachers’ opinions were being canvassed in surveys by other agencies in collaboration with the Department and a separate survey on ‘Beginning teachers’ by the Australian Education Union. These prevailing circumstances may have discouraged teachers from participating in the survey.

Ary and colleagues (2006) suggest that if after all attempts have been made to improve response and response is still low, the characteristics of the respondents such as age, gender, education, socioeconomic status, etc should be compared with those of the population to establish if the respondents are representative of the population. However, given the very small response rate, it did not seem appropriate to undertake this comparison. Although the responses contained both quantitative and qualitative data, because the quantitative data set was quite small, which poses reliability problems, only non-parametric analysis with Microsoft Excel was utilised to identify percentages and central tendencies (e.g. mean, standard deviation, median). Clearly, the results of this

need to be accepted with caution, but consistency of opinions does add weight to other evidence across the Cases.

Cross tabulations were also used to see if there were different patterns among the groups and whether a relationship existed between the variables (Ary et al. 2006). The qualitative portion of the data was subjected to thematic analysis to examine and categorise the data gathered into sub-themes under each issue covered by the questions. The next section discusses the pros and cons of electronic means of data collection.