Sampling Strategy and Selection of School Systems and Schools

This section describes the sampling strategy adopted for the selection of school systems and schools for participation in the survey, the introduction of the research to school systems and schools, and the emerging research sample.

4.2.2.1 Selection of Sampling Strategy

The selection of a group of elements from a larger population for a study is called a sample (Cooper & Schindler, 2014). The method used for selecting a group of individuals (sample) from a bigger group (population) who would be asked questions for estimating the prevalence of information of interest (Bryman & Bell, 2015; Kumar, 2010) is defined as sampling. A sampling frame is the complete list of all the elements included in a population from which the sample is drawn (Sanders et al., 2012, Cooper & Schindler, 2014; Walliman, 2016).

The sampling strategy stemmed logically from the research questions and objectives of the research (Teddlie and Yu, 2007). As shown in Table 3.1 (Chapter 3), the prime objective of the survey is to investigate the extent to which benchmarking is used by school systems and schools and its contribution to their performance, along with the identification of used benchmarking techniques. Therefore, the sampling frame is the list of school systems and schools using benchmarking for performance comparison and best practice learning.

The sample was drawn from a population consisting of school systems and schools using benchmarking; therefore, purposive non-probability sampling was chosen as the sampling strategy to select the sample based on specialist selection criteria (Walliman, 2016). A purposive sampling strategy was adopted to enable the researcher to select a sample to answer research questions in an appropriate manner (Frazer & Lawley, 2001; Bryman & Bell, 2015; Walliman, 2016). The purposive selection of the research sample was done due to the qualities possessed (Tongco, 2007) by the selected school systems and schools to provide the required information (Kumar, 2010).

During the time the questionnaires were developed, the researcher introduced the research to school systems and schools and shared its significance and value for them (refer to Appendix 3). The introduction of the research to school systems and schools and the emerging research samples are now explained.

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4.2.2.2 Research Introduction to School Systems and Sample of School Systems

School systems using benchmarking were invited to participate in the research by writing a blog on the Business Performance Improvement Resource website

(www.BPIR.com), which is a resource for benchmarks, best practices and business

excellence and has a number of member school systems and schools. In addition, emails were written to representatives of PISA participating school systems for the purpose of inviting them to participate in the research. The PISA participating school systems were selected: due to an expectation that they were more likely to be committed to using benchmarking as an improvement tool rather than school systems not participating in PISA assessments (refer to Section 2.4.2, Chapter 2), due to a greater number of school systems participating in these assessments compared to other assessments (refer to Table 2.3, Chapter 2), and for the convenience of obtaining their correspondence details (the correspondence details were obtained from OECD (2014)). The breakdown of sample that participated through both of these approaches is:

1 School systems participating after reading the blog = 2 2 School systems participating in PISA assessments = 18

This sampling approach increased the likelihood of obtaining participation of school systems involved in benchmarking. A non-probability purposive sampling strategy was appropriate for the selection of school systems for participation in the research as this selection was in-line with the research questions (Bryman & Bell, 2015).

4.2.2.3 Research Introduction to Schools and Sample of Schools

The selection of schools was based on the interest of schools in benchmarking and followed four paths. Firstly, principal and teacher associations existing both nationally and internationally and award winner schools were selected through a web search and were invited to participate. Next, as the researcher was based in New Zealand, a participation invitation was sent to the principals of schools in New Zealand by accessing their contact details through the website of the Ministry of Education (Education Counts (2015)). Thirdly, a blog was written and published on Business Performance Improvement Resource website (www.BPIR.com) as its members also included schools. Lastly, recognising the significance of the research, a number of school systems participating in the survey agreed to promote the school questionnaire to

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schools within their school system (refer to questions 11 to 13 of the school system questionnaire in Appendix 4). The above described sampling strategy enabled the researcher to introduce the research to schools and encourage them to participate. The breakdown of the sample that participated through each of these approaches is as follows:

1. Schools belonging to principal and teacher associations and award winners = 30 2. Schools from across New Zealand = 83

3. Schools participating after reading the blog = 1 4. Schools from participating school systems = 69

This multifaceted sampling approach increased the likelihood of obtaining the participation of schools using benchmarking. A non-probability purposive sampling strategy enabled to sample participants in a strategic way, so that those sampled were relevant to the research questions (Bryman & Bell, 2015; Frazer & Lawley, 2001). In the breakdown of the research sample presented, a very small representation of participants from the blog is observed. This is probably due to the lack of personalised communication with blog’s readers. The representatives of school systems and schools were contacted without any prior reference and their agreement for participation was obtained through an ongoing communication (refer to Appendix 3). This contact development and research awareness process spanned 3 to 4 months; in the meantime, the questionnaires were developed, refined, drafted and validated. The questionnaires were later developed in web-based form through SurveyMonkey (software for development of online questionnaire and survey).