Chapter Three - Methodology
3.1 The research methods of
the study
3.1.1 Theoretical framework
The methodology chapter reports on the various ways the
research has been carried out and presented. In order to allow an in-depth
analysis of the research questions, a case study was found most appropriate.
The advantage of this specific approach remains the fact that it offers the
researcher the opportunity to probe deeply and analyse interactions between the
factors that explain present status or that influence change or growth and it
therefore provides a ground for one aspect of a problem to be studied in some
depth (Best, J &Kahn 2003:249, Bell 2005:10).
The case study is defined as a research strategy which focuses
on the understanding the dynamics present within single settings and can employ
embedded design or better still multiple level of analysis within a single
study (Eisenhardt, 1989; Yin, 1984).
A number of 20 private school owners (entrepreneurs), 25
teachers and 25 pupils of 5 selected schools were thus chosen to focus the
study on. Researching primary education and entrepreneurship in East Africa
henceforth required specific method that would provide a better understanding
of the complexities surrounding entrepreneurship. From these perspectives, it
then sounded very obvious and relevant to find in the case study approach the
most adequate way of conducting our research considering the socio-economic
environment in which it was done.
However, this structural approach has always met severe
critics from scholars «misunderstandings» of its operational ability
to offer concrete results (Tellis 1997, Yin. Some of the most common points for
these misunderstandings are generally related to the fact that, with this
approach:
Ø The theoretical knowledge is more valuable than
practical knowledge.
Ø One cannot generalise from a single case, therefore,
the single-case study cannot contribute to scientific development.
Ø The case study is most useful for generating
hypotheses, whereas other methods are more suitable for hypothesis testing and
theory building.
Ø The case study contains a bias toward verification,
and
Ø It is often difficult to summarise specific case
studies (Flyvbjerg, 2006:219)
Nonetheless, in a response to a major point of these concerns,
namely that of the generalization in case studies, (Denscombe 1998, cited in
Bell, 2005:11) rightly points out that:
«The extent to which findings from case study can be
generalized to other examples in the class depends on how far the case study
example is similar to others of its type».
Closely related to this last aspect, our conviction still
remained that, the field of education, being very broad and extended in the
overall social sciences, needed some case studies in order to critically
analyse certain phenomenon. The motivation gearing to the massive presence of
private school entrepreneurs and the mushrooming of private schools catering
for the poor in a slum such as Kibera could only be well understood through a
case study approach.
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