A work-based support programme for teachers in the Department of Education and Sport Development, North West Province.

Abstract

Given the proliferation of challenges facing teachers in the current South African educational dispensation, this mixed methods study investigated the support needs of, and intervened in, the challenges being faced by teachers in the North West Department of Education and Sport Development (NWPDoE). In many respects, teachers painted a bleak picture with reference to poor infrastructure provisioning, large-scale learner indiscipline, disengaged parents and a general lack of proper functioning of their schools. Researchers and various institutions concurred that there is an urgent need to address the teachers’ concerns. The goal of the study was to design and develop a work-based support programme for teachers affected by workplace challenges in the Department of Education and Sport Development, in the North West Province. In order to achieve this goal, Intervention Research (IR), which is a sub-type of applied research, was adopted. The study was guided by Steps 1 to 3 of the intervention research process proposed by Fraser, Richman, Galinsky and Day (2009). These steps allowed the researcher to determine the workplace challenges confronting teachers across the NWPDoE. Based on these challenges, materials for a prototype work-based support programme were developed and later tested for efficacy. The programme design was underpinned by two theoretical frameworks, namely the Maslow’s Theory of Needs and the New Public Management Theory. The study adopted the concurrent embedded mixed methods design in which both qualitative and quantitative data were collected and analysed separately, before drawing meta-inferences from the results. For Step 1 of IR, the qualitative phase adopted the collective case study to solicit in-depth views from the key informants (i.e., school principals) regarding teachers’ workplace challenges. Non-probability sampling (specifically purposive sampling) was implemented to recruit the key informants (n = 16) from all four educational districts in the North West Province. Data were collected through focus group interviews. Furthermore, a survey design, as the quantitative research design of Step 1 of IR, was used to obtain more information from the teachers in order to further understand the challenges confronting teachers in the NWPDoE. By means of a stratified random sampling, 281 teachers were recruited to complete a group-administered questionnaire. Teachers were recruited from 29 ordinary public schools within the NWPDoE in the Bojanala district. The triangulated findings suggested that teachers were confronted with innumerable workplace challenges and were into nine malleable mediators to be addressed through a work-based support programme for teachers. The malleable mediators were as follows: work overload, learner indiscipline, lack of parental involvement, dissatisfaction with the physical working environment, social welfare issues, financial difficulties, immigrant learners, teachers’ own shortcomings and lastly, negative psycho-social reactions. The design and development of a work-based support programme (i.e., a programme manual) formed Step 2 of the IR study. The programme manual was based on providing strategies to deal with the identified malleable mediators. Finally (in Step 3 of IR), the programme manual was evaluated through the pilot test. The pilot test was implemented at two different ordinary public schools situated in the Moses Kotane area of the North-West Province. Both qualitative and quantitative data were concurrently collected for the purpose of holistic evaluation. For the qualitative phase, the collective case study design was implemented where two groups of 10 teachers were recruited, through purposive sampling, from two different public schools. This qualitative data were collected from the experimental group by means of focus group interviews before and after participants were exposed to the programme manual. For the quantitative phase, the comparison group pretest-posttest design, was adopted. A sample of 20 participants was recruited in which one group (experimental; n = 10) participated in the work-based support group intervention, and the comparison group (n = 10) did not. Both groups completed the Affectometer 2 (AFM 2) (Kammann & Flett, 1983) individually at the pre- and post-test level. Based on qualitative data, it was found that after exposure to the programme manual, participants indicated that they were made to feel that they were an important part of the education system. They also reported that they had gained the necessary skills to enhance a healthy work-life through self-modification of thought and behaviour. Furthermore, participants reported that they were becoming more open to embracing interventions and opinions from other support services so as to address various workplace challenges. Based on the quantitative data, the results of the AFM 2 revealed a statistically significant difference for positive affect (PA) between pre-programme scores and the post-programme scores in the experimental group. For the comparison group, the test was not significant. This is an indication that the programme manual had a positive effect on the experimental group, albeit not for the other two constructs measured by the AFM 2, i.e., negative affect (NA) and psychological wellbeing (PNB). The work-based support programme seems to have enabled teachers to cope with and manage their workplace challenges. Recommendations from the current study inform the refinement of the programme and effectiveness evaluation (i.e., Steps 4 and 5 of the IR).