Research Design 1 Pilot Study

The pilot study was conducted from 9th June to 3rd August 2007 in a primary school in Nairobi, Kenya. This was an exploratory phase for the researcher to familiarise herself with what happens in the classrooms and to obtain deep insights about classroom situations. The aim was to refine the research instruments such as the questionnaire, observation and interviews. A pilot study plays an important role in foreshadowing research problems and issues. It can highlight gaps and wastage in data collection. It also facilitates broader and highly significant issues such as validity, ethics, representation and researcher health and safety (Marshall and Rossman, 2010). Smith (2007) asserts that doing pilot interviews helps in understanding oneself as a researcher and eliminates broad barriers such as mistrust of the agenda and more narrow ones like resistance to tape recorders.

The pilot study sheds light on setting aside some time in future research to practice voice recording with different research participants in order to enable them have a positive experience. The primary school follows the same curriculum as public schools. Hence not much difference would be envisaged in terms of exploring how teachers understand SEN. The pilot study enabled the determination of purposive sample units for the main research, to develop, modify and check the feasibility of the instruments and to determine how large the final sample needed to be. Although the resources, facilities and general school outlay in the pilot school displayed a somewhat better environment and surroundings than might be usual in a public school, the findings from the pilot study were not radically different from those of the main study.

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A questionnaire, lesson observation and semi-formal interviews were used for pilot data collection. Ten teachers in the pilot school volunteered to complete the questionnaires, 20 were observed in the classroom and ten were interviewed. As a result of this process, questions were revised or eliminated in both the questionnaire and interviews. For example, the format for Question 1 was revised and the school name added; Question 5 was changed to read ‘learning needs’ instead of ‘basic learning need’. Question 11 and 17 were compressed to one question, and an introduction, comments and a contact section were added on page 8. Teachers who participated were asked to sign a consent form.

Interviews were semi-structured and took place after school hours or other times depending on individual teachers’ availability. The interview questions were asked and the answers from the teachers were written by the researcher and read back after every interview for the teachers to confirm that that was a true record of the interaction. On the other hand teachers who volunteered to do the self- administered questionnaires wrote down their answers from the questionnaire. Teaching sessions were observed against an observation schedule and field notes made to record these observations. Some of the aspects observed included lesson aims and objectives, management of the learning environment, resources available and used, teaching delivery and use of learning strategies. Observations were carried out on almost all subjects; namely English Language, Number Work, Science, Mathematics, Kiswahili, Music, Social Studies, French, CRE, Languages, Number Work, Computer Studies and Physical Education. They involved teachers from Nursery, Lower and Upper Primary School.

4.9.1 Observations

Observations involve watching research participants and recording any undertakings. They may be structured or unstructured. Quantitative observations are more structured than qualitative ones. Quantitative observations are based on a hypothesis and follow detailed observation schedules. Qualitative approaches are also highly flexible (Robinson, 2002). The main intention, as mentioned earlier, was to familiarise with what happens within the primary schools. So I wanted to observe as much as I could and felt a structure would be restrictive

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(Punch, 2009). I was generally interested in exploring planning, records of work, available resources, general classroom management and most of these aspects came up in the interviews and questionnaires. I concluded that more time is required to carry out intensive observations. Furthermore, it was close to the end of the term with most teachers focussing on revision. So, after a few observations I decided to rely on the questionnaires and interviews in order to explore the SEN phenomenon in primary schools and hope to carry out detailed observations in the future.

4.9.2 Advantages and limitations of observation methods

According to Robinson (2002) people’s behaviour and actions are central in any inquiry. Where data from questionnaires or interviews from one teacher are contrasted, the details from the observations can be used to complement and interrogate their answers. For example, in cases of variances on data from interviews, information from the observations can ensure that aspects of reliability and validity need not be compromised. Hence, observations can reduce aspects of artificiality on the part of the teachers given that they are based on the performance and/or activities in the classroom.

Reliance was placed on a qualitative approach to observation without any pre-set ‘categories and classifications’ (Punch, 2009, p154). These observations allow comparisons of data among different methods; for instance, data from the different teaching methods would be compared with what was noted from the questionnaires and some critique developed while challenging and exploring the findings from the observations (Bogdan and Biklen, 2003). The observations were used to gain a general overview of teachers’ classroom practices (Punch, 2009). Although:

‘Unstructured observation, by contrast, can focus on the larger patterns of behaviour, more holistically and macroscopically, data analysis is rather demanding (Punch, 2009, p155).

The actual observations in the pilot study, however, proved unsuccessful and very limiting. Although data collected were considered relevant, the use of a semi- structured observation schedule ran the risk of excluding possibly relevant data.

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At this point, the decision was made not to use observation as an instrument for the main study. The following section discusses the preparation of instruments for data collection.