Invitation of the Interviewees

The sampling of phase two of this study involved educational experts and religious experts in Haiti.

These key people were chosen because they were representative to opine on educational matters, RE, [and religion] issues. Here are the reasons: first, they are in direct touch with teaching RE as a subject in school, second, though they teach other subject but are affected by religious issues in the classroom, third, they are involved in religious ministry.

The sampling consisted of four RE teachers (i.e. catechism, Bible), six non-RE teachers with RE experiences in schools. These people were reached through contact person and acquaintance. The interviewees were firstly contacted via email and phone calls by the contact people. At this stage, the email described the purpose of the study and the reason for their selection and participation.

Then a phone call was given to each interviewee to self-introduce the researcher and schedule the interview. Initially the study intended to include experts from at least the three main religions (i.e.

Christianity, Vodou, Islam) present in Haiti, but it did not work as planned.

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Although many efforts were made to reach out to one Muslim leader (a Muslim expert would have been significant for this research study). My efforts included traveling to Haiti and spending almost an entire Friday at the Mosque in Port au Prince before meeting the Haitian Muslim leader directly (I was told to attend the service if I want to talk to the Muslim leader which I did). He accepted the interview invitation and provided his phone number. We agreed to undertake a telephone interview. These proved to be fruitless because the interview was declined (i.e. he was unreachable via his phone number). This explains one of the difficulties to reach potential participants. As researcher, I cannot provide a clear explanation on the Imam’s declination. I suspected it was for privacy reason since the Islam religion is new in Haiti and represents a minority of the Haitian population, it can be easily identified. Another potential participant turned down the interview right after he was told about the purpose of the interview research. According to this particular individual, religious topic is a waste of time.

3.2.4.4 Data Collection

Individual interview was undertaken through face-to-face and phone calls. Each interview varied from one to three hours’ long. Four structured questions were asked to the interviewees, [and each interviewee was asked the same questions]. The interviews were recorded through a recording tape with the interviewees’ permissions. The data collected was kept on both laptop and USB flash drive. In addition to recording, note was taken for every question and to emphasis key points from the interviewees.

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It turned out that the trip to Haiti (from 25th May 2017 to 19th June 2017) contributed to the strength of this study. It allowed me to overcome time zone difference, technology barriers (i.e.

using Skype, messenger), and cost. For examples, it became easier to find the interviewees and to schedule appointments with them. The phone interviews were more affordable than it could have been overseas. Overall, it allowed me to collect quality data.

3.2.4.5 Data Analysis

To analyze data taken from phase two of this study, the qualitative technique that was used, was thematic analysis using Nvivo 11. The analysis involved identifying interesting patterns or themes within the collected data. Therefore, the result findings are presented accordingly in chapter four.

Through this process, the data collected from the experts was transcribed, then translated from Haitian Creole to English. Thus, a considerable time was needed to carefully listening to the recorded data and matching it with the written data. Afterwards, I spent quality time to (1) make sense of each data collection; (2) to look for themes and subthemes; and (3) to report the general discoveries about Haitians’ educational and religious experts’ perspective on teaching RE in Haiti schools for a culture of peace.

The data bulk from the interview which was in Word document was imported and stored in the Nvivo software. Then I read through the data response by response using questions asked to help guide me into creating nodes on NVivo which represent the themes. For example, How RE should be Taught is one of the themes raised from the data. In this case, the title “How RE should be Taught” was chosen as a theme and placed as a node on NVivo to represent the excerpts that showed the various suggestions given by the participants on how they felt RE should be packaged

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during teaching. Reading through the data, sub-themes such as Encourage Dialogue, Taught by Experts and Encourage Tolerance, these are individual suggestions that were given by the participants on how best they felt RE should be handled in schools. So, the themes (nodes) and sub-themes (child nodes) arrived at were guided by the questions asked while some were just words or phrases that represented what was being described by the participants.

Figure 3.2.4.5 a. Columns of menu, nodes and data

After that, I highlighted and dragged excerpts falling in the various themes identified and dropped them into the relevant nodes which represent the themes. This is shown in figure 3.2.2.4b as well and was done throughout the data sources.

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Figure 3.2.4.5 b. Excerpt ready for dropping into the relevant node

Overall, NVivo shows very clearly all the data that had been coded, the sources from which excerpts had been picked from, number of sources for every particular node or theme which are all important aspects to consider in the analysis process. Figure 3.2.2.4c shows an illustration of this.

Figure 3.2.4.5 c. Theme and subthemes