Analyzing the experiences of university students is an essential way of understanding the social context of higher education. This paper focuses on the following two research questions:
- What are the lived experiences of university students in Ghana as they relate to social development skills in higher education?
- What are the lived experiences of university students in Ghana surrounding decisions to leave or stay in schools?
As with any research question, a valid study design is crucial for getting a good answer. Overall, both qualitative narrative inquiry and qualitative systems theory could fit as a methodological framework, and even though the latter would require some adjustment, it would be a better choice due to its causal focus.
Each approach mentioned above would work for each of the questions because they are both solid frameworks for qualitative research. A narrative inquiry would be a good fit because it focuses explicitly on the lived experiences as retold by the participants, so there would be little need for adjustment (Byrne, 2017). Qualitative systems theory could work as well, but it would require some changes to research questions. As is well known, systems theory looks at phenomena as shaped by the interaction of interdependent factors (Hiver et al., 2021). Therefore, using it would require a change in research questions to inquire about the specific reasons involved. The resulting research question would be as follows:
- What are the factors that affect Ghana university students’ social development skills in higher education?
- What are the reasons that affect Ghana university students’ decisions to leave or stay in schools?
This change would make both research questions fit with the qualitative systems approach.
Although the qualitative systems theory approach would require an adjustment of research questions, it is arguably the optimal approach to answering them because it would enable a more specific focus on causal factors involved. This approach would guide the data collection with an explicit emphasis on the actual reasons that impact the students’ decision-making. The data collection method would be in-depth individual interviews with university students of different years. Then the findings would be integrated and systemized in order to identify patterns and tendencies. The systems theory is the optimal choice because it focuses on the causal mechanisms within complex social systems affected by numerous interrelated factors (Cash et al., 2017). Universities are definitely such systems, and students make their decisions based on multiple co-dependent factors. For example, the decision to leave or stay and study may be impacted by the student’s economic prospects, personal and family issues, academic performance, potential career prospects, etcetera. Since the qualitative systems theory approach would allow answering the research questions with attention to this complex contest created by the interdependence of multiple factors, it is the best choice.
To summarize, the qualitative systems theory approach, as compared to narrative inquiry, would be the optimal way to proceed with the two research questions present. Admittedly, it would require an adjustment of both questions, while the narrative inquiry would hardly necessitate any alternation in this regard. However, the strong side of qualitative systems theory is that it focuses on the interrelation between the numerous co-dependent causal factors within complex systems. Since universities are such systems, and the students’ decisions and experiences are undoubtedly informed by numerous factors at once, qualitative systems theory would be a preferable approach.
References
Byrne, G. (2017). Narrative inquiry and the problem of representation: ‘giving voice,’ making meaning. International Journal of Research & Method in Education, 40(1), 36-52.
Cash, B., Hodgkin, S., & Warburtin, J. (2019). A transformative approach to systems theory in caregiving research. Qualitative Social Work, 18(4), 710-726.
Hiver, P., Al-Hoorie, A. H., & Larsen-Freeman, D. (2022). IRAL – International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching, 60(1), 7-22.