Social justice is a national priority that emerges in various education policies. In research already done, it seems that teachers' conceptual understandings (their knowledge, perceptions and values) of social justice is an unexplored field. Teachers’ conceptual understandings of social justice will have an effect on at least one of the following aspects: the manner in which their teaching-learning activities are developed; how their classroom discipline is maintained; and how their knowledge about and for social justice will be transferred to learners. John’s (a PhD student of the North-West University) doctoral research set out to measure teachers' conceptual understandings of social justice to determine how this effects their teaching and development of teaching-learning activities.

 

RESEARCH PROCESS

To measure teachers' conceptual understandings of social justice, John obtained teachers viewpoints by administering a self-constructed questionnaire. To construct the questionnaire, he conducted a literature review to determine key determinants of social justice and based the questionnaire items on the literature review. Closed Likert-scale items were formulated as questionnaire questions.

 

500 teachers from 20 high schools in Johannesburg, from the Gauteng North district of the Gauteng Department of Education, were sampled employing the simple random sampling method. Before he commenced with the research, permission was obtained from the principals of each high school. After the teachers completed the questionnaires, John consulted the statistical consultation services at the North-West University to assist with the analysis and interpretation of data.

 

1. Identify the specific research design (research approach) used. Motivate your answer with examples from the scenario. 2. identify the specific strategy of inquiry (research strategy used). Motivate your answer. 3. Formulate the research question. 4. Formulate the purpose of the research. 5. What sampling method was used? 6. What data collection method was used? 7. Identify what common ethical principles the researcher in the above case study complied with. And explain how these were complied with 8. What common ethical principle(s) did the researcher NOT adhere to?