Reuben Bihu

Qualitative data analysis is a critical phase in qualitative research. One of its cornerstones is the coding process. Deductive and inductive codes are generated for breadth and depth exploration of the research topics, respectively. Deductive coding bases on ‘a priori’ of codes to which segments of texts and transcripts are assigned. Inductive coding begins with data, making segments and categories, and generating relevant codes. It is concluded from this analysis that both the deductive and inductive coding often occurs in a qualitative data analysis process. Areas of further investigation are recommended.

Questionnaire surveys dominate the methodological designs in educational and social studies, particularly in developing countries. It is conceived practically easy to adopt study protocols under the design, and off course most researchers would prefer using questionnaire survey studies designed in most simple ways. Such studies provide the most economical way of gathering information from representations giving data that apply to general populations. As such, the desire for cost management and redeeming time have caused many researchers to adapt, adopt and apply the designs, even where it doesn’t qualify for the study contexts. Consequently, they are confronted by managing consistent errors and mismatching study protocols and methodologies. However, the benefits of using the design are real and popular even to the novice researchers and the problems arising from the design are always easily address by experienced researchers

The COVID-19 pandemic ushered in fundamental alterations that triggered social and economic crises. Unfortunately, the spread of the coronavirus likewise caused a dramatic disruption in the delivery of education services worldwide. As a response, many countries had to implement various safety measures such as nationwide lockdowns and school closures. The consequences of the pandemic were recognized in the teaching and learning processes as well as adjustments in the practices of administration and management of education services. As the largest educational disruption in human history, the pandemic signified a demand for an emergency preparedness, response, and recovery mechanism (EPRRM) contingency plan that may assist the education machinery in continuing the services despite emergencies and crises. This chapter reviewed the literature on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic to draw a roadmap on how to develop an education EPRRM contingency plan by merging three core processes: learning, teaching, and administration.

The purpose of this study was to find out how decentralization of the education system influenced the autonomy of the heads of public secondary schools. Quantitative research approach was adopted with a questionnaire survey design. Questionnaires with closed-ended and open-ended questions were administered to the heads of the government owned secondary schools. It was found that: the autonomy of the heads of secondary schools before decentralization was higher than their autonomy after decentralization; the political influences and the higher authorities' professional interventions affected the autonomy of the heads of the devolved secondary schools in decision making with high magnitudes; the political influences had the relative negative effect while the professional interventions had the relative positive effects; and decentralization of the education system imposed more negative improvement than positive improvement on the autonomy of the heads of the devolved secondary schools in decision making. The heads of the schools suggested for: the government to grant them more power and respect in decision making; close monitoring of schools in decision making by education stakeholders in a meaningful way; and making clear legal limits of the obligational responsibilities of the school management. The study recommends that the heads of schools should be granted more powers to run the schools through clear lines of responsibilities, than the prevalent situation. Furthermore, it is important to establish best decision making approaches in secondary schools.

One of the methods deployed by constructivist paradigm is unstructured interviews method which allow for detailed professional conversation between a researcher and participant(s). This paper presents literature survey data on interview process, opportunity and difficulty of using the method in professional collection of information from human subjects. In this paper, the methodological opportunity is an inclusive connotation for strengths and advantages of using unstructured interviews which can benefit researchers using the method, and difficulty is a connotation for weaknesses and disadvantages of using the method, posing limitations researchers have to address. There are numerous strengths and advantages of using unstructured interviews method as the weaknesses and disadvantages posing challenges to researchers are. However, the methodological opportunity of using unstructured interviews method outweighs its difficulty.

Students move from one stage to another in moral ethics development through experiential, academic, and planned ethics learning. Nevertheless, as they move to public HLIs, it becomes inevitable to face a dilemma for moral choice because universities operate and function under value-free education policy regardless of the discipline of study. Through the ethnographic review of the literature, the authors have discussed the implications of "moral ethics" on students' behavior management; the relevance of students' ethical standards to public university cultures on first-time entrance; students' response to new public university cultures on retention overtime through "academic freedom;" African students' appraisal of their initial "moral values" on first-time entrance in public universities; future possibilities to learning with new cultures geared by "globalization" in the African context; and observations for implementations of ethics education and training. Authors recommended that moral and civic education should be included in higher learning curricula and that the faculty be aware that facilitating an environment for students' development in ethical decisions is part and parcel of teaching and learning. Therefore, professors need to think about how to accommodate a diversity of students' ethical perspectives to guide the first entrant into university culture.