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Research design and methodology
Introduction
In this chapter, I present detailed explanations of the research design and methodology, explaining how data were gathered through interviews, lecture observations and questionnaires to measure immediacy, clarity and credibility and how data were analysed. I also discuss the reliability and validity of the study and its constraints. Table 3.1 gives a summary of the research design and methodology followed in this study.
Before moving on to the research design, I present more information on the research paradigm and then the research approach.
Research paradigm and approach
Instructional communication, like communication, can also be based on the seven traditional standpoints of human communication, as highlighted by Craig (1999) which include; the semiotic tradition (signs and symbols), the phenomenological tradition (personal experience), the cybernetic tradition (communication primarily as information processing), the sociocultural tradition (social order as its centrepiece and sees communication as the glue of society), the critical tradition (communication as a social arrangement of power and oppression) and the Sociopsychological tradition (expression, interaction and influence). This study followed the sociopsychological tradition which accents behaviour, variables, effects, personalities and traits, perceptions, cognition, attitudes and interaction (Craig, 1999). This study explored perceptions of lecturers’ instructional communication as lecturers and students interacted with each other. The study also acknowledges that lecturer behaviour influences student perceptions, which in turn influence student learning. Craig (1999) adds that the tradition is grounded in the study of individuals, with specific focus on interpersonal interactions, influence, individual cognition and behavioural characteristics in a communication context. The lecturers in this study were investigated as individuals who have the potential to influence students’ learning positively or negatively, in their individual capacity and as a team of lecturers at the target institution. The tradition also focuses on persuasion, attitude change, message processing, how individuals plan messages, message information and the effects of messages on individuals (McCroskey & Richmond, 1996; Craig, 1999; Littlejohn 2002; Littlejohn & Foss, 2008) all of which form the basis of teaching and learning. This is in line with the primary outcome of instruction which is considered to be a change in behaviour which can be attitudinal, cognitive and social change (Richmond, 2001; McCroskey et al., 2004; Choudhury, 2005; Ferreira, 2006; Conners, 2007). This tradition has three branches; behavioural, cognitive and biological with the first two understood as the outcomes of instructional interactions between the instructor and the learners and the third as the process.
In presenting the issues from the participants’ point of view, the inquiry is ‘interpretivist’. Qualitative research is known for its interpretive enquiry (Creswell, 2009) and so I attempted to make a holistic interpretation of what I saw, heard and understood, when I observed lecturers communicating with their students during instruction. Denzin and Lincoln (2000) remind researchers that in an interpretivist research design, unlike in a positivist one, “all the problems that may arise in a qualitative study are not necessarily anticipated” (p.368). Cohen, Manion and Morrison (2011) posit that the interpretivist paradigm is concerned about the individual, which in this study is the lecturer and it focuses on the action, which is the lecturer’s communication behaviours.
This study is further approached from a hermeneutics point of view, where, as Cohen and associates argue ‘the research methodologies seek to clarify, understand and interpret the communications of speaking and acting subjects” (p. 32). This is because the focus of this study is on establishing the perceptions of lecturers and students on lecturers’ communication within an interactive instruction. This is done so as to understand the perceptions through the eyes of the participants. I did not want to “search for any empirical regularities of laws of human behaviour”(Ibid, p. 272), which Babbie and associates (2006) refer to as the ‘nomothetic strategy’ or ‘nomothetic theory’ (Littlejohn & Foss, 2008). I followed the inductive approach by being immersed in the natural setting of the participants through lecture observations. Then I described events as they occurred during the lectures, built the second order construct and ultimately created new knowledge (Bryman, 2001; Babbie et al., 2006; Nieuwenhuis, 2009a; Jansen, 2009a). There is no hypothesis tested in my study because I wanted to explore the lecturers’ and the students’ perceptions and the researchers’ observations of lecturers’ communication skills during the time the lecturers interacted with their students during instruction. I did not use any logical appeals and emotions in this study to gain knowledge because the study is not ‘rhetorical’. I also did not use any signs and symbols to elicit meaning as this would have made the study ‘semiotic’. I did not focus on my personal experiences because I did not want to make the study ‘phenomenological’ or explore any social order as the glue of society because the focus of my study was not ‘sociocultural’. In this study, I did not see communication as a social arrangement of power and oppression, since the approach to the study was not ‘critical’ (Craig, 1999).
Research designs can be classified according to empirical (primary and secondary) and non-empirical studies, where primary data refers to data that the researcher has collected during the study, as opposed to secondary data which is data that already existed at the time of the study (Babbie et al., 2006). This study was based on primary empirical data which the researcher collected through interviews, questionnaires and lecture observations, suggesting that multiple methods were used. Research designs can also be classified according to data sources; numeric data (numbers, statistics, test scores and physiological measures) and textual data (documents, texts, conversations, interview transcripts) (Ibid) and in this study, I used both numeric (questionnaires) and text (interviews, observations) data. The research questions that this study attempted to answer, required that data be gathered and analysed through both qualitative (interviews and lecture observations) and quantitative methods(questionnaires), hence I followed the mixed methods approach (Creswell, 2006b; Ivankova et al., 2009; Creswell, 2009) in conducting this study. Several labels have been used to refer to this approach, such as ‘multitrait / multimethod research’ (Creswell, 2006a), where several quantitative methods of data collection are used in a single study; ‘integrated’ or ‘combined’ methods because two forms of data are blended together; ‘quantitative and qualitative methods’, which acknowledges that the approach is actually a combination of two methods; ‘hybrids’ ; ‘methodological triangulation’ which recognises the convergence of quantitative and qualitative data; and ‘mixed methodology’ which acknowledges that it is both a method and a philosophical worldview (Creswell, 2006b, p. 102).
There are several designs for mixed methods research: triangulation, embedded, explanatory and exploratory (Creswell, 2006b; Ivankova et al., 2009; Maree et al., 2009; Creswell, 2009; Borrego et al., 2009; Migiro & Maganyi, 2011). In this study I chose to use a triangulation mixed methods design where I used both qualitative and quantitative methods of data gathering and analysis sequentially as I collected qualitative and quantitative data within the same period, in one study, in order to contrast and compare the different findings to produce well-validated conclusions (Ivankova et al., 2009; Borrego et al., 2009). While many researchers use the quantitative and qualitative methods sequence, I followed the qualitative and quantitative methods sequence because I wanted to establish the ‘self- perspective’ of the lecturers, which I later triangulated with the ‘other- perspective’ of the students and my observations. In mixed methods designs, qualitative and quantitative data collection can be given equal or unequal weight in a study (Creswell, 2006a). In this study, I followed a Triangulation Convergence Design where the qualitative and quantitative data were conceptualised, designed and implemented independently.
The two methods were of equal weight for the purpose of corroborating the findings. I also extended the qualitative data collection methods and used two strategies of qualitative data, interviews and two phases of lecture observations. The quantitative method entailed the use of questionnaires. Therefore, the sequence of data collection and analysis was then in three phases: qualitative (interviews) – quantitative (questionnaires) – qualitative (lecture observations).
Creswell (2006b) warns that “it is not enough to simply collect and analyse quantitative and qualitative data; they need to be ‘mixed’ in some way so that together they form a more complete picture of the problem than they do standing alone” (p.7). The challenge often associated with this research design is in how the different sets of data would be compared with each other and what to do if the two sets of results do not agree (Ibid). In this study, the mixing of the methods happened by analysing the data sets separately and then I compared and contrasted the three sets in the discussion. Figure 3.1 presents a summary of the procedure followed during the mixed methods research design.
Methodology
Research conducted in the field of instructional communication used predominantly one method of data gathering, questionnaires, to explore lecturers’ communication skills during instruction (Baringer & McCroskey, 2000; Richmond, 2001; Richmond et al., 2003; Rocca, 2004; Poque & Ahyun, 2006; Zhang et al., 2007). I wondered if the findings or results in these studies would have been the same if other methods of data gathering were used. It is against this background that I chose to explore perceptions of lecturers’ instructional communication holistically, by using different methods of data gathering in one study so as to corroborate the findings and the results in the end and also to increase the validity and reliability of the study.
Therefore, a mixed methods triangulation case study proved to be the best method to answer the research questions. The use of both qualitative and quantitative data gathering and analysis methods to answer the research questions, afforded me the opportunity to increase the validity and reliability of the study as multiple data sources and data gathering instruments were employed, providing a holistic view of perceptions of lecturers’ immediacy, clarity and credibility during instruction. It is against this background that this study followed the mixed methods approach. Mixed methods research, like any research approach, has its set of procedures to follow in collecting, analysing and mixing the qualitative and quantitative data within a study (Creswell, 2006b; Ivankova et al., 2009; Borrego et al., 2009; Migiro & Maganyi, 2011). I now explain how I integrated the procedures for mixed methods research in this study.
Rationale for applying a mixed methods approach
Mixed methods research is viewed as a procedure for collecting and analysing data using multiple methods by combining qualitative and quantitative strategies within one study, providing room for contextual interpretations (Creswell, 2006a; Ivankova et al., 2009). My choice of this method was influenced by the fact that I wanted to elaborate on the qualitative findings with subsequent quantitative method (Ivankova et al., 2009), within one study and also because using one data gathering strategy appeared to be inadequate in answering the research questions. Another reason is that when the qualitative and quantitative methods are used together, they complement each other by offsetting the weakness of each. This approach provided me with a more comprehensive evidence for studying the research problem, by providing me with a supplementary data set, than if I had used either qualitative or quantitative research separately (Migiro & Maganyi, 2011). To achieve this, I collected both text data and numeric data within the same time frame. I did this by first establishing lecturers’ perceptions of their own communication behaviours during instruction, through in-depth interviews which is qualitative text data.
Secondly, I established the students’ perceptions of their lecturers’ communication behaviours, through questionnaires (quantitative numeric data) and thirdly by establishing the researchers’ observations through lecture observations (qualitative text data). All three were triangulated.
Dedication
Acknowledgements
Abstract
Table of contents
List of addenda
List of tables
List of figures
List of abbreviations and acronyms
Declaration of authorship and copyright waiver
1. Preview of the study
1.1. Introduction
1.2. Rationale
1.3. Research questions
1.4. Contextualising the study
1.5. Key concepts clarification
1.5.1. Instructional communication (IC)
1.5.2. Instructional competence
1.5.3. Lecturer / educator / instructor / mediator/ teacher
1.5.4. Perceptions
1.5.5. Student / learner
1.6. The scope of the study
1.7. Research design and methodology
1.7.1. The sample, participants and research site
1.7.2. Ethical considerations
1.7.3. Data gathering
1.7.4. Validating the data
1.8. Data analysis
1.9. Possible constraints of the study
1.10. Organisation of the study
1.11. Conclusion .
2. Review of literature
2.1. Introduction
2.2. Instructional communication (IC)
2.3. The General Model of Instructional Communication (conceptual framework)
2.4. Instructor immediacy
2.4.1. Liking/affiliation
2.4.2. Conflicting messages
2.4.3. Power
2.4.4. Verbal immediacy
2.4.5. Nonverbal immediacy behaviours
2.5. Instructor clarity
2.5.1. Oral clarity
2.5.2. Written clarity
2.5.3. Content clarity
2.5.4. Process clarity
2.6. Instructor credibility
2.6.1. Audience attitude and credibility
2.6.2. Caring / goodwill .
2.6.3. Character / trustworthinessq
2.6.4. Instructor competence in communication
2.7. Instructional competence
2.8. Conclusion
3. Research design and methodology
3.1. Introduction
3.2. Research paradigm and approach
3.3. Methodology
3.4. Anticipated constraints of the study
3.5. Conclusion
4. Data analysis and interpretation
4.1. Introduction
4.2. Perceptions of lecturer immediacy
4.3. Perceptions of lecturer clarity
4.4. Perceptions of lecturer credibility
4.5. Conclusions about the lecturers’ instructional communication
4.6. Reflection of instructional competence
4.7. Conclusions about the lecturers’ instructional competence
4.8. Chapter conclusion
5. Conclusions, limitations, significance, implications and recommendations of the study
5.1. Introduction
5.2. Overview of the study
5.3. Conclusions
5.4. Limitations of this study
5.5. Significance and implications of the study for higher education
5.6. Implications and recommendations for higher education
5.7. Recommendations for further research
5.8. Chapter conclusion
References
Addenda
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