Browsing by Author "James, Megan"

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    A survey of doctoral supervisors in South Africa
    (UNISA Press, 2015) Mouton, Johann; Boshoff, Nelius; James, Megan
    South African universities receive a direct monetary reward for the number of doctoral graduates produced. As a result there has been a steady increase in numbers in recent years (from 977 in 2004 to 1 878 in 2012), with obvious implications for doctoral supervision. Against this background a web-based survey of 331 doctoral supervisors at South African universities was conducted in 2011. The findings are discussed with reference to four themes: the burden of numbers, the nature of the doctorate (PhD), screening and selection of doctoral candidates, and supervisory styles. The main conclusion is that many doctoral supervisors in South Africa conduct their supervision under less-than-optimal conditions. Increasing student numbers, demands for constant monitoring and accountability, the pressure of throughput rates and efficient completion together with moderate-to-poor quality students, have resulted in a situation where doctoral supervision has become a challenging and highly stressful undertaking.
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    The validity endeavour
    (Stellenbosch : University of Stellenbosch, 2010-03) James, Megan; Prozesky, Heidi E.; University of Stellenbosch. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of Sociology and Social Anthropology.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Qualitative and quantitative research implies different meta-theoretical approaches to knowledge production. The former maintains a constructivist and interpretative perspective, as opposed to the latter, which exists within a realist and even positivist paradigm. Within the field of research methodology, the dominant conceptualisation of validity is based on a positivist discourse, which suggests that (social) scientific research should strive to attain an ultimate truth. This understanding of validity is difficult to achieve within a research paradigm that values the idiosyncratic world views of the participants under investigation. The introduction of CAQDAS (Computer Assisted Qualitative Data Analysis Software), however, brought with it the hope that its application would confer upon qualitative research the rigour associated with validity in a mainly positivist interpretation of the research process. The ultimate goal of this thesis is to determine whether CAQDAS can make a significant contribution to efforts aimed at validating qualitative research. The research design employed in the present study is that of a descriptive content analysis, focussing on scientific articles that not only report qualitative studies, but also make explicit reference to the use of CAQDAS, and describe validation techniques applied during the research process. Purposive sampling was applied to select 108 articles, published from 1996 to 2009, that meet the sampling criteria and that were identified through online searches of various bibliographic databases and search engines. The study investigates three predominant research questions concerned with the following: (1) the most commonly used software programmes; (2) trends in CAQDAS use over time; as well as (3) the validation techniques reported in examined scientific articles, distinguishing between techniques that are performed with and without the use of CAQDAS. With regard to the first two research questions, it was found that the three most commonly used software programmes are QSR N programmes (including NUD.IST, NVivo, N4, N5 and N6), followed by Atlas.ti and MAXqda (including the earlier version winMAX), and that there has been a general increase over iv the past 13 years (1996-2009) in the number of qualitative research articles reporting CAQDAS use. The exploration of validation techniques utilised in qualitative research, as reported in the examined scientific articles, demonstrated that the techniques are in most cases performed manually. Although CAQDAS offers many benefits, the predominant validation techniques reported can be, and still are, performed without CAQDAS. Techniques that would have been impossible without CAQDAS are based on the data display features of CAQDAS, as well as on the accuracy and consistency offered by CAQDAS in the execution of certain actions. The findings generated by this study seem to support the hypothesis that CAQDAS per se does not enhance validity, since it is predominantly utilised as merely a research tool.