In pursuit of the central objective of the study, the plan was to draw participation from three- level stakeholders involved in the implementation of the programme: the ministerial level (main policy actors), the teaching body, and the student body. Hence, the MoE, teachers, and students were my intended participants for the study. The rationale was to gather in-depth data from the categories of participants mentioned above with different perspectives for data triangulation and rich insights into the processes and impact of the FSHSP. However, as already mentioned in chapter five, participation at the ministerial level proved to be a daunting one. I only managed to have a brief informal phone discussion with one of the MoE officials. However, the information gathered via that discussion was inadequate to contribute meaningfully to the study.
On this premise, I acknowledge that the impact of the missing data from the MoE was quite detrimental. First, the study was unable to ascertain perceptions of policymakers and key implementers concerning the progress and the significant successes of the FSHSP as far as student empowerment is concerned. Second, the inability to access participants at the MoE also denied me access to relevant policy documents that would have shed valuable light on the state of empowerment under the programme. The plan was to unravel the documented facts on students' performances (examination statistics) and living and learning conditions under the
free SHS programme. However, this plan was curtailed due to my inability to access the MoE.
The only found online policy document detailed the core objects of the FSHSP.
7.6.2 Negative Impact of the Covid-19 Pandemic on the Study
Another significant limitation of the study is the research constraint posed by the upsurge of the Covid-19 pandemic. I must admit that the Covid-19 pandemic hampered the study from optimising its full potential. Research at the higher education level has considerably been affected since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic (Marinoni, Van’t Land, & Jensen, 2020).
Marinoni et al. (2020:32), in the IAU global survey report, reveal how scientific researches have completely stalled or are in the danger of not being completed at as much as 80% of higher education institutions around the world (424 universities from 109 countries) mainly due to the cancellation of international travel for researches.
My study in this regard could not prove immune to this threat of Covid-19 on research. First, due to stringent travel restrictions imposed by the Norwegian government, the initial plan of travelling to Ghana for the research could not materialise. This limitation greatly affected the planned design of the study, and hence, the quality of data garnered in that light. I ended up having recourse to online data collection techniques as a substitute for the already planned in- person face to face interviews and focus group discussions.
7.6.3 Challenge of Conducting an Online Research
I wish to acknowledge that the challenge of conducting online research as a novice was intensely felt and inadvertently affected the quality of my data. First and foremost, gathering and managing data via online research instruments seemed a little bit cumbersome and eventually got messy at a point. As mentioned in the methodology chapter, I had no option but to relinquish my planned focus group discussion (FGD) at a point in the research. Although I managed to set up an FGD meeting with some of the participants with the help of my contracted research assistant, the meeting did not pan out as expected. The entire discussion was poorly moderated and recorded. As a result, I struggled to keep up with discussions as an online observer. In a nutshell, I found this unfortunate situation very disappointing due to my earlier optimism and excitement of running an online focus group discussion. Extant literature projects online focus group discussion of having a “considerable potential of gathering high-quality data within a relatively short period of time from respondents who are unable or unwilling to engage in traditional group discussions” (Tates et al., 2009:8). However, I only succumbed to the weakness of having an online focus group discussion and thereby opting for participants to provide written responses to open-ended questions.
Against this background, the study admits that data garnered through the written responses to open-ended questions were not the best. The data were much fraught with lots of ambiguities due to how superficial they were as well as several contradictory responses. This situation made analysis and interpretation a very daunting task. First, on data ambiguity, some of the written responses lacked explicit meanings. In some cases, they provided leads on certain situations without detailed descriptions of what happened. This can give room for misinterpretations. For example, with a question like: How do you see the knowledge and skills acquired after every term of tuition? Hilda, for instance, responds: “It was not enough but okay”. With this particular response, it carries a double meaning. On the one hand, the participant sees some gaps in knowledge and skills acquisition, that is, “not enough”; on the other hand, knowledge and skills acquisition is okay. In such a situation, it is tough to ascertain the exact picture of knowledge and skills acquisition as perceived by the participant. Furthermore, the study recorded lots of short and vague responses such as “YES”, “NO”, “MOST”, “NOTHING MUCH”, “NO ONE”, etc., from participants without vividly recounting their individual experiences under the FSHSP. Unfortunately, due to the nature of the data collection tool, I was unable to delve into such responses with follow up questions, which affected the quality of data garnered.
Second, on the issue of contradiction, there were lots of inconsistencies in some of the participants’ responses. For example, Griselda responds to the question – “How do you perceive the quality of tuition being offered under the free SHS programme?” – that: “Generally, it is effective”. However, she continues to comment that the “Free SHS has helped her not to rely on anybody for her development” in response to the question: How have the free SHS related challenges affected your personal development (skills and knowledge acquisition) as a student?
Again, this makes interpretation very difficult because it seems there exist some tuition gaps that forced Griselda not to rely on anyone for her personal development. Meanwhile, she had already claimed tuition was generally effective, and hence, the contradiction.
In sum, by putting on these challenges in perspective, it would have been quite beneficial to interact with participants in person in order to control some of these challenges tied to the nature of the research (remote online research).
7.6.4 Generalisability and Transferability of the Study
The limitation of generalisability is tied to the study's research approach (qualitative approach – case study). In principle, qualitative studies, especially case studies, have limited leeway to make generalisations beyond cases to wider populations (Yin, 2003; Punch, 2014). This is because “since the findings of a qualitative project are specific to a small number of particular
environments and individuals, it is impossible to demonstrate that the findings and conclusions are applicable to other situations and populations” (Shenton, 2004:69).
First, the findings and conclusions drawn by the study cannot be generalised to reflect the state of student empowerment under the current FSHSP across the nation (the wider population).
However, it is worth noting that it was not the intention of the study to make generalisations beyond the study findings to the wider population, that is, student empowerment under the FSHSP across the nation. According to Denzin (1983 cited by Punch, 2014:122), generalisation should not always be the objective of all research projects. In this light, the study intended to rather understand the complexity of the research phenomenon within the specified scope or context of the research and make suggestive propositions that can be assessed for their applicability and transferability to other contexts (Punch, 2014). For this reason, the study only made suggestive interpretations by using words and phrases such as “seem”, “seemingly”, “may indicate”, “appear to”, etc. to acknowledge the absence of generalisable data. However, by ensuring that these propositions can be assessed, applied and transferred to other similar contexts or studies, thick descriptions of setting, contexts, participants, actions, and situations have been provided and operationalised throughout the study (Yilmaz, 2013).
Furthermore, regardless of the absence of generalisable data, some theoretical interpretations have been generalised from the empirical findings to the theories (confirming theoretical assumptions) employed by the study through analytical generalisation (a level of generalisation) (See Gibbert et al., 2008; Punch, 2014).