8.2 Data Sources

The principle sources of data used for this chapter are interviews, questionnaires and observation of teaching in the colleges, but procedures and coverage varied between the sites, with the most detailed studies coming from Lesotho and Malawi (see Stuart, Kunje and Lefoka 2000). A questionnaire was administered to representative samples of tutors in selected teacher training colleges (TTCs): four colleges in Ghana, two in Malawi, and the Lesotho National Teacher Training College (NTTC). This asked for personal data, qualifications and teaching experience; their views on the curriculum and on students; perceptions of the good teacher and of how the college strives to produce them. Most questions were closed, though a few asked for individual views, and respondents were invited to agree or disagree with a number of statements.

In Lesotho and Malawi semi-structured interviews were carried out with a smaller sample of tutors, drawn from the main subject areas and balanced for age, gender and qualifications. These interviews were intended to follow a modified life-history format with multiple meetings (see Kelchtermans 1993), but time and resources did not permit this, so only one hour-long interview was carried out with each subject. In Malawi most of the interviewees (20) were also observed teaching. In Lesotho, observations were separately negotiated with eight tutors. In Trinidad and Tobago eight tutors from the colleges were interviewed about their teaching, some of whom were also observed (George, Worrell et al 2000); in Ghana nine tutors were studied in a similar way (Akyeampong, Ampiah et al, 2000). Other contextual data on the colleges were gathered from documents and from observations during fieldwork, enabling some triangulation of the findings to be carried out.