Sampling Procedures

3.3.2.1 The sampling frame

A sampling frame is an objective list of the population from which the researcher can make his/her selections (Denscombe, 2007). It should contain a complete up-to-date list of all those who comprise the population of the study. For this study, OVC registers were obtained from the Basic Education Assistance Module (BEAM) registers at the Ministry of Education, Art Sport and Culture (MoEASC) district offices and the Social Welfare Office to match and authenticate data on the prevalence of OVC in the CHHs in Chipinge District. Four schools, each with a dense OVC population were purposively selected as the target population and the researcher pseudo-named them schools A, B, C and D because some of their learners were to participate in the study if selected. The purposely selected double orphan group came from both rural and urban CHHs, with more coming from the rural sector because Chipinge is just a district with only two (2) urban and thirty two (32) rural secondary schools.

From this sampling frame, a sizable representation was purposively selected to come up with an accessible population from the four secondary schools representing the highest prevalence of OVC living within CHHs. The sampling frames for this study encompassed, in addition to the list of OVC attending schools in Chipinge district, the headmasters of the selected schools, the District Education Officers, the Social Welfare Officers and the lists of teachers. Both groups were purposively sampled from the frames.

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The researcher ensured that the sampling frames obtained for each set of participants was not outdated so as to provide the most authentic data needed for the study (Denscombe, 2007). Authorization to access participant‟s lists was obtained from the Chipinge District Administrator‟s office under the Local Government Ministry (Appendix 5) and MoEASC(Appendices 2, 3 and 4) as main responsible authorities for all learners including OVC. Thus the sampling frames appeared as indicated below.

Table 2 (a): OVC sampling frame in the four Selected Secondary Schools

School Gender and Totals Paternal Orphans Maternal Orphans Double Orphans A Male (M) :223 Female(F) :211 71 84 93 77 59 50 B M : 217 F : 242 78 96 86 74 53 72 C M : 217 F : 218 88 95 79 83 50 40 D M : 237 F : 205 76 87 91 75 70 43

OVC Details from Chipinge District MoEASC (March, 2012)

Table 2 (b): Stakeholder Sampling Frame School /Station and Stakeholder’s

Designation

Male female

School A:Teachers +Headmaster 22+1 40 School B:Teachers +Headmaster 24+1 19 School C: Teachers +Headmaster 23+1 25 School D:Teachers +Headmaster 32+1 23 MOESAC : Education Officer 3 1 Social Welfare Department Officers 3 2

Stakeholder details from Chipinge District MoEASC (March, 2012)

3.3.2.2 The Sample and Sampling Procedures

There are several sampling procedures used to draw a representative or unbiased sample from a population. Whilst quantitative researches make use of random, systematic, stratified, cluster and multi-stage sampling procedures, this qualitative study used purposive sampling (Chilisa and

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Preece, 2008). This qualitative research used non-probability sampling methods which were centered on discovering facts more than testing a hypothesis (Leedy and Ormrod, 2010). This phenomenological case study employed purposive sampling in order to extract a working sample beginning from the target OVC population to an accessible population of double orphans.

In the first instance the researcher had planned to utilize purposive sampling procedures (non- probability) only, as is the norm in qualitative enquiries (Leedy and Ormrod, 2010; Desai and Potter, 2010; Babbie, 2010; Cohen et al, 2011 and de Vos, 2011) but the large turnout in each accessible sample necessitated randomization at each of the four schools. The dilemma was on how to eradicate bias and allow each double orphan noted at each of the four schools, an equal opportunity to be selected for the study (Macmillan and Schumacher, 2010). The researcher was aware from the review of literature that orphaned and vulnerable children, easily noticed instances of unfair treatment (Foster, 2003; Nyamukapa and Gregson, 2004).

Because the researcher had an idea of the number of children she was to work with, she then decided to employ the technique of randomization at each school in order to end up with five percent (5%) of the OVC from the available OVC stratum at each school (Cohen et al, 2011). Concealed „Yes‟ and „No‟ papers, amounting to the number present at each school, were placed in a small bucket, shuffled and picked by each OVC. There were five „Yes‟ papers at each school which amounted to 5% of the OVC that the researcher required as representation from each school. The other lot of „No‟ papers represented the rest of the OVC identified in the accessible population (Macmillan and Schumacher, 2007), but were eliminated by randomization and did not participate in the rest of the study. The randomization was repeated at each school and 20 OVC made up the study sample as demonstrated in figure 6 below.

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Figure 6: Double Orphan Representation in the Four Schools through Stratified Random Sampling

Efforts were made to reduce gender bias by purposively picking a proportional representation of each gender as reflected in figure 6 (3males and 2 females in schools A, C, D and 2 males and 3 females in school B). Since this was a qualitative enquiry, the researcher needed to get a small and manageable group (Smith, 2007; MacMillan and Schumacher, 2010) of OVC from the defined population of OVC and stakeholders.

For the lot of stakeholders, purposive sampling was quite easy to implement because the populations were small as noted on the sampling frame shown in table 2(b).

Research authorities such as Cohen, Manion and Morrison (2011) contend that purposive sampling is a key feature of the qualitative research and it allows the researcher to hand pick ideal cases to be included in the enquiry mainly on the basis of the researcher‟s judgment of the typical characteristic of double orphanhood sought within the study, hence some authorities call it judgmental sampling (Rubin and Babbie, 2010).The sample was hand-picked because the

• 5% of113(70M+43F)OVC •5% of 90 (50M+40F)OVC •5% of 125(53M+72F)OVC •5% of 109(59M+50F) OVC School A=3male+2female OVC School B=2male+3female OVC School D=3male +2female OVC School C=.3male+2female OVC

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researcher knew the specific OVC group that could produce the most valuable data. As propounded by Denscombe (2007), the researcher centered her sample selection on double orphans which allowed her to obtain critical points within the research problem. These were characteristics that displayed extreme cases of OVC in CHHs that helped to answer the major research question at hand. Being purposive, the procedure remained economical and fully informative up to until the full set of participants was obtained.

Sidhu (2003) advises that purposive sampling can be considered as a form of stratified sampling in that the selection of the cases for study is governed by some criterion that act as a secondary control and so the researcher ensured that selected cases were OVC from CHHs. The criterion was suggested after having noted practices of OVC in and outside their classes. In an endeavor to carefully determine the most appropriate sample characteristics, the researcher identified a criterion (Maree, 2007) that was most important and purposeful from the accessible population in order to extract a sample of 20 double orphans.

The criteria entailed being a double orphan, residing in a CHH and aged between 14 and below 18 years. The researcher purposively picked on double orphans since most of these were the ones who were found to be residing in CHHs and were experiencing unique learning and cognition hardships emanating from being orphaned. Orphaned households headed by either a mother or a father (maternal and paternal) were purposively left out because the orphan in here seemed not to suffer the same degree of challenges faced by the former because at least they still had an adult care-giver unless the caregiver was also terminally ill. The single caregiver issue, however, was not the major direction followed by this enquiry.

Since purposive sampling was controlled by the investigator, it became easier and more manageable because the researcher knew her objectives and was able to judge whether the selected group was representative enough for the detail needed. In doing so, unnecessary variables were omitted thus saving on time and costs (Sidhu, 2003).

To try and extract an even much richer data, the researcher considered implementing a further variation of purposive sampling i.e. the extreme and deviant case sampling (Teddlie and

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Tashkkori, 2007; de Vos et al 2011 and Cohen et al, 2011) by picking up only double orphans who were not staying with their extended family members ever since the death of their parents. Perhaps these would come up with even more hidden orphanhood experiences unlike double orphans in extended family homes. The selected double orphans provided issues on the topic in question which were of wider concern to the OVC population.

The researcher also believed that the sample of double orphans represented a „knowledgeable people‟ (Cohen et al, 2011) of those that were experiencing the effects of orphanhood on their own learning and cognition hence calling the enquiry a phenomenological case study. By working with OVC experiencing the orphanhood crises, strong and rich data was obtained.

The total double orphan sample came to twenty (20) purposefully selected OVC resembling the four secondary schools where more OVC attending school from CHHs had been noted. The total number of participants was thirty four (34), comprising twenty (20) OVC/double orphans, eight (8) teachers, four (4) school heads, one (1) Education Officer and one (1) Social Welfare Officer. Each one of these participants was vital for a number of reasons as was discussed earlier in this section of the descriptive phenomenological case study.