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The research design is aimed at eliciting truthful responses from public school principals, educators and parent governors as they express their experiences on this arguably additional core responsibility and how it impacts on their ability to manage their schools effectively. This is accomplished by generating data via interviews and document analysis with public school principals, educators and parent school governors. The selection of participants and sites proved to be of paramount importance.
According to Cohen, Manion and Morrison (2007; 100) the quality of a piece of research stands or falls not only by the appropriateness of the methodology or instrumentation but also by the sample that has been adopted. Many constraints such as cost and time, to name but two, make it impossible to obtain information from the entire population. This brings about the need to obtain data from a smaller group – this smaller group or subset of the entire population is referred to as a sample. This research study opted to make use of non-probability sampling – purposive sampling – the researcher deliberately (purposely) selects a particular section of the wider population to include in or exclude from the sample [Cohen, et al (2007; 110)].
For the purpose of this study the target population is school principals, educators and parent members of school governing bodies managing ordinary public schools in the Pinetown Education District of which nine schools were purposively selected – the power of purposive sampling lies in selecting information-rich cases for study in-depth – [Patton (2002; 53)].
The composition of the research sites is depicted in the tables below:
| Table 7: Research Sites per School Type | ||||
| Primary | Secondary | TOTAL | ||
| Circuit B | 1 | 2 | 3 | |
| Circuit C | 1 | 2 | 3 | |
| Circuit D | 1 | 2 | 3 | |
| TOTAL | 3 | 6 | 9 |
| Table 8: Research Sites per Funding Status | ||||
| Sec 20 | Sec 21 | TOTAL | ||
| Circuit B | 1 | 2 | 3 | |
| Circuit C | 0 | 3 | 3 | |
| Circuit D | 2 | 1 | 3 | |
| TOTAL | 3 | 6 | 9 |
| Table 9: Research Sites per Gender | ||||
| Male | Female | TOTAL | ||
| Circuit B | 6 | 3 | 9 | |
| Circuit C | 5 | 4 | 9 | |
| Circuit D | 6 | 3 | 9 | |
| TOTAL | 17 | 10 | 27 |
| Table 10: Research Sites per Race Group | |||||
| African | Coloured | Indian | White | TOTAL | |
| Circuit B | 9 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 9 |
| Circuit C | 0 | 6 | 0 | 3 | 9 |
| Circuit D | 6 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 9 |
| TOTAL | 15 | 6 | 3 | 3 | 27 |
The choice of a constructivist approach to the research study obviates the need for the sample (research sites) to be representative of the demographics of the Province of KwaZulu-Natal. Rather the selection of research sites was based on “information-rich” cases.
Permission to conduct the interviews in public schools with principals, educators and parents was sought from the Pinetown Education– which was duly granted.
Principals, educators and parents of research sites granted permission for them to be interviewed and permission to record the interviews was obtained prior to the commencement of the interview.
Neuman (2006; 00) explains that research has an ethical-moral dimension in that the researcher has the moral and professional obligation to be ethical even when the researched are unaware about ethics. The basic principles of ethics in research are that the ethical responsibility rests with the researcher and include:
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