Fifth Blog - Selecting Research Design

Selecting Research Design

A qualitative research design will be used for this proposed research. Research following a qualitative approach is exploratory and seeks to explain ‘how’ and ‘why’ a particular phenomenon, or behaviour, operates as it does in a particular context. This design will be used to analyse the nature of coverage of the South African sport media in their reporting and broadcasting about the black talent in cricket over the years. This research design will be used in an attempt to explain the role the media has played in the transformation of South African cricket.

Strauss and Corbin (1999:17) defines the qualitative research methodology as “any kind of research that produces findings not arrived at by means of quantification” but produces finding arrived at from real-world setting where the “phenomena of interest unfolds naturally” not manipulated by the researcher (Patton 2000:39).  Qualitative research contributes to the way in which human conditions are understood in different contexts. Qualitative research study further contributes to the understanding of living conditions of a community or a society. Furthermore, qualitative research occurs in natural setting. It can be used to study everyday life occurrences and natural traditions or customs of a community under research through interviews and observation data collection techniques amongst others.

Qualitative research it is exploratory in its nature its helps  researchers to gain a deep meaning of a certain phenomenon in a society by asking probing questions. Accordingly, qualitative research is an explanatory research because it focuses on the why questions. For an example, qualitative research can be used to develop an explanation about why there are lack of goals scored by South African born strikers playing in the professional soccer league in South African and why international strikers playing in the professional league in South Africa score more goals.  

The research design and approach

The researcher paradigm/worldview on this phenomenon is that the South African media has not really played a great role in the decolonizing of South African cricket. Despite having black journalists reporting on cricket in the country.

Until today, cricket is still seeing largely as a white sport despite South Africa producing talented black African cricket stars like Kagiso Rabada and Temba Bavuma, Lungi Ngidi and Makhaya Ntini. After 30 years, of international cricket South Africa cannot field a team, which has more than three players of African origin in the population of more than 80% of the country.

The media as a public sphere plays an important part in any democratic society, to highlight any social injustice, however,  in three decades of representation in international cricket, South Africa is still been represented by less than 10% of black cricketers. Has the media generated enough coverage to assist the cricket fraternity to fast track the development of black cricketers in their coverage in print, broadcast and latterly online?

The researcher will use qualitative approach because this research design requires detailed observation, explanation and assumes. Past, current and future newspaper reports will be analysed and observed. The researcher will attempt to study the whole situation in order to evaluate the coverage and ensure that the conclusion and findings take account of all the related factors. The researcher will be the primary instrument for data collection and analysis. As this research involves the print, broadcast and online analysis of coverage qualitative research is appropriate because it is descriptive. The researcher is interested in process, meaning, and understanding gained through the coverage of the transformation of cricket in the country.

 The purpose of this proposed research is to understand phenomena in detail of the role the media has played in cricket transformation, the researcher needs methods for discovery of common articles or a pattern of how the media in general perceive transformation in cricket.

Advantages of this study design are that this study design will:

1.      Provides depth and detail.

2.      Through open-ended questions, the study design creates openness and will encourage respondents to expand on their responses.

3.      a detailed picture can be built up about how the media have or have not played a role in the transformation of cricket.

Disadvantages are that

1.      Only cricket correspondents will be studied: because of time and budget will not allow for bigger sample size of other society linked to cricket.

2.      White and black journalists will have different opinions which could be based on race and this could be difficult for the researcher to generalise the findings.

3.      The race issue could also make it difficult to make systematic comparisons: for example, respondents give widely differing responses that are highly subjective based on their race.

LIST OF SOURCES CONSULTED

1.     Guest, G, Bunce, A., & Johnson, L. (2006). How many interviews are enough? An experiment with data saturation and variability. Field Methods, 18(1), 24

 

2.     Gustafsson, J. 2017. Single case studies vs. multiple case studies: A comparative study: Halmstad. Halmstad University. 

3.   Hancock & Algozzine, 2017. Doing Case Study Research, A practical guide for beginning researchers: New York. Teachers College

4.     Latham, J. R. (2013). A framework for leading the transformation to performance excellence part: CEO perspectives on forces, facilitators, and strategic leadership systems. Quality Management Journal, 20(2), 22.

 Pamela Baxter and Susan Jack. 2008. Qualitative Case Study Methodology: Study Design and Implementation for Novice Researchers: McMaster University, West Hamilton, Ontario, Canada

6.    SCHOLZ R, W & Tietje, O. 2002. Embedded Case Study Methods: Integrating Quantitative and Qualitative Knowledge: London. Sage

7.      Zainal Z, 2007. Case study as a research method: Teknologi. Teknologi University.