英语论文网

e the reasons for this? These are the questions that I want to begin investigating and if and why there is motivation is to address performance gaps within the team. If motivation were high and performance gaps filled I would take this to indicate a more integrative co-principalship (type III) and if low a split task or supported co-principalship (type I or II respectively).

4. Research question

My research question is: “What are the opinions, perceptions and attitudes of administrators to the extent to which roles were shared and performance gaps filled in a four-person co-principalship ream?”

In this context I am defining “co-principal” as ‘someone who shares a similar hierarchical senior positional leadership with others and where each co-principal has a wholly or partly differentiated job description’.

5. Research strategy

As a past event, the research options are limited. Triangulating methodologies is not possible nor is opportunity for primary raw quantitative or qualitative data to be collected through participant observation or measurement. The detailed opinions of participants needs to be ascertained so I believe that the collection of qualitative data through survey methodology will be the most appropriate approach.

Interviews and questionnaires are common types of survey research instruments. Patton (2002, p.353) indicates that ‘The standard fixed-response item in a questionnaire provides a limited and predetermined list of possibilities.’ However, questionnaires will not be suitable for the introspective responses I seek. As Lofland (1971, p.7) states, ‘To capture participants 'in their own terms' one must learn their categories for rendering explicable and coherent the flux of raw reality.’Interviews will therefore be my data collection method and consequently I will only collect qualitative data.

6. Research Design

Bassey (2007, pp.142-155), in summarising the works of others, essentially defines my investigation as a case study, so by selecting all four co-principals I effectively sample the entire research population. (I had considered the Director and Heads of Faculty and if I were looking at the effects of the co-principalship on the school they would form part of the larger sample.)

Small samples require higher participatory responses and Jennings (2004, p.221) rates only the face-to-face interview response as high relative to other survey methods (although highest in implementation time and relative costs) while Anderson (1998 p.168) claims ‘few respondents refuse to be interviewed, leading to 100 per cent response and good validity for the sample interviewed,’ (while also pointing out more difficulties compared with other forms of survey). This is the trade off between breadth and depth as Patton (2002, p.244) puts it,

‘There are no rules for sample size in qualitative inquiry. Sample size depends on what you want to know, the purpose of the inquiry, what's at stake, what will be useful, what will have credibility, and what can be done with available time and resources.’

Making this a focus group, a one-to-many face-to-face interview, would not be useful in this investigation as the ‘explicit goal of focus group research is to extract the range of perceptions and alternative viewpoints that people might