Method: Internet as a tool for communication, information and participation among tertiary students in Namibia

5.1 General comments

I have examined the use of Internet among tertiary students in Namibia by conducting structured interviews with students organised in focus groups at five tertiary educational institutions in Windhoek. The institutions are:University of Namibia at Windhoek (UNAM), Polytechnic of Namibia (PN), Windhoek College of Education (WCE), Institute for Higher Education (IHE) and Windhoek Vocational Training Centre (WVTC).[53]

I posed detailed questions primarily about:

1. The individual student's access to Internet (how, where, why)
2. The nature of students' communication (if any) with SASU.[54]

I have also made personal interviews with representatives for Namibian College of Open Learning (NAMCOL), David Bezeudenhuit High School, local and regional media; the Namibian and Media Institute of Southern Africa, (MISA), representatives for projects where Internet is or is becoming an important component, such as SchoolNet and The Namibian Open Learning Network (NOLNet) and the NGO WorldTeach, as well as government officials. These interviews form a basis for a brief sketch concerning general and infra structural conditions for Internet communication among tertiary students in Namibia.[55]

Gitte Jakobsen and I attended the Executive Council Meeting of SASU in Windhoek in July 2001, with student leaders from most of the sub region. We jointly participated in and conducted a workshop organised by SASU concerning a communication strategy. Nine students were present at the communication workshop, four from Namibia, and one from respectively Botswana, Malawi, Mauritius, South Africa and Swaziland.

We presented a questionnaire to the representatives of the Executive Council meeting, where participants from six countries in the sub region were present. The questionnaire was sent in advance to all affiliates with e-mail access, and was in addition presented and filled in on location in Windhoek. The questions concerned communication to and from SASU, national student's organisations and of specific relevance to my study, a section about access and use of Internet.[56] These questions form the basis for an appreciation of the eventual relevance for SASU to use e-mail communication and a web site for communication purposes in the regional context and indicate if the affiliate offices can function as intermediary nodes.

5.2 Focus groups

The rationale for using focus groups in my study is based on many aspects. First, it is an optimal method to get in close contact with my target group, to meet the students face to face, which adds to the quality of the interviews.It is also a good way to meet and interview more than one student at a time. Subsequently it is a pragmatic method in the respect that I had limited time for my research period and needed to use a method that is cost and time efficient, as described by Hansen, Cottle, Negrine & Newbold, (1998).[57] In addition, when there are a few people together, focusing on a specific subject, the interaction and conversation between the group members add an extra dimension to the interviews.Individual group members can trigger ideas in other individuals, and also inspire reluctant or shy members to speak up.

As pointed out by Hansen et al, the risk is that individual group members dominate the conversation and precisely the opposite occurs, that some members become reluctant to speak in the group, or to voice an alternative idea. The role of the moderator is thus very important. Even if we rarely discussed "sensitive" issues (political or personal) in my interviews, there is still the possibility of individuals feeling shy to speak in the group situation. Some individuals may on the contrary find it easier to speak when there are some friends present rather than being alone with a stranger, the researcher.An additional risk is the possibility of group conversation drawing towards consensus. But again, since my questions in general were dealing with facts, and not with questions concerning personal opinions, I consider that risk minimal. On the other hand, if five students say they use the Internet primarily for research in connection with their studies, hypothetically, there could have been a tendency for someone using the Internet primarily to watch pornography, to not tell the truth. A reflection in connection with this concerns the fact that most students in Namibia, so far have to use Internet in public places, which makes discreet use of the Internet relatively difficult.

In some instances the conversation did turn into a discussion on political and "sensitive" matters, such as the primary task of students unions, the independence of students unions, etc. On those occasions, the students still spoke out, even though the SRC and politically elected student union leaders were present. Perhaps also the fact of my being a woman helped the female students to speak out, in the same respect, (but with opposite results), that the male students might have been reluctant to speak about matters that they considered sensitive, because of my sex. For instance, the women may have experienced a sense of solidarity in my being the moderator, a woman and a student at the same time. (I would have to use a male moderator for comparative interviews to be able to investigate this matter.)

This "interviewer bias", a phrase used by Chava and David Nachmias (1982), the personal influence and bias of the interviewer, is a disadvantage of the personal interview that cannot be avoided. In my opinion though, this is outweighed by advantages such as great flexibility in the questioning process, control of the interview situation and the increased possibility of collecting supplementary information.[58]

I did notice a tendency by the students to let the SRC leader answer my questions first. This happened when I posed questions regarding students unions. I had to make sure every individual student answered my questions by systematically going from one student to another. In general I did not notice any particular reluctance to answer my questions or any individual dominating the interviews. In some interviews of course, one or two students tended to be more talkative, but I always made sure everyone had a chance to answer before I went on to the next question, by for instance, carefully using eye contact.

Setting and composition of groups

The setting for my interviews was, without exceptions, the educational institution of the students. This was mainly because it was easier for me to organise the interview if the location was easily attainable for the students. I am certain that the students also felt better at ease being on their "home ground" rather than me taking them to a neutral ground.

More specifically the SRC representative decided the exact location of the interview. Often it was the SRC office or a classroom that happened to be empty. In no instance did we have a representative from the school management present.

After I had decided what institutions to focus on, in the majority of the interviews I contacted the Students Representative Council (SRC) at the various institutions. Through the SRC a group of 6-8 students were asked to participate in the focus group interviews. 6-10 being the ideal number in a focus group, for all the individuals to have the opportunity to answer and speak freely, and for the moderator to easily take down the conversation. At the first interview I did at UNAM, I contacted a representative of the SRC, who in turn got a group of 6 students together and in addition participated himself and another SRC colleague, in the interview. All in all 8 students were present.

At this first interview occasion, my first reaction was connected to the fact that all the participants were male. I asked the organiser of the group how come there were no females in the group. He and some other group members claimed that women were not interested in attending meetings of this kind, and in fact did not enjoy speaking in large groups. The answer was:

"The majority of the students are women but they do not want to participate in these meetings...They are a-political and shy".

The fact that all participants were male was an interesting fact, and could imply certain conditions and characteristics of student organisation (such as SRCs) activities. It could imply that SRCs often are comprised of men and that they intend to ask their male friends to come to the interview. It could further imply that the SRCs in turn are often comprised of men because of a traditionally patriarchal culture among the majority in Namibia, where women in general may have had less access and opportunity to education and power.[60] It could also be due to an active choice made by the female students. They may choose not to participate because of frustration regarding the male dominance in student organisations and the fact that most students in political power are men, and in addition due to the fact that student organisations have failed to facilitate women participation at power levels. In a way the composition of the group echoed the implications above, as well as a gender unbalance in political assemblies existing worldwide. Words that support some of the implications above were expressed by a female student at the Institute of Higher Education:

"We don't want to hear any preach by NANSO" (Namibian National Students Organisation)

and further

:" I question the independence of various union managements."

At this interview, the Secretary General of NANSO was present, as SRC president and as respondent in my focus group at the educational institution I was visiting.In preparation of the following interviews I always asked for a balance in number between women and men.

Regarding the courses and lines of study and subjects represented by the students, I limited my selection by asking the SRC not to focus on computer and media students. I assumed that had I asked particularly for computer engineering students at the Polytechnic, it would have affected the answers concerning knowledge and access to Internet in a definite way. They may have been more acquainted with different aspects of Internet than students in general. On the other hand asking only arts or language students to attend the groups may have tilted the results in another direction. To avoid my own preconceived ideas of student access in relation to certain lines of study, (how students would answer my questions), I left the decision of the group composition to the SRC representative, except for the sole instruction of not focusing on a majority of computer/media students.

Reflections on representation

An important aspect about the composition of the focus groups concerns the issue of who is, and subsequently, who is not present, in the focus groups. Presumably, and from what I could understand at the actual interview occasion, some SRC representatives asked their friends to join in the group. This could mean that students closely connected to the SRC were over represented, and in some of the focus groups, this is the case. This is probably because of the simple fact that it is convenient and easy to ask your friends. Students who are active in SRCs also were over represented in some focus groups, but in most groups there was only one SRC representative present. One can assume that SRC representatives have a tendency towards organisational activity and subsequently towards activity in connection with studies and research. It would be easy to assume that these students also are familiar with the tools for research, for instance information technology. Presumably this could mean that the students I interviewed had a tendency towards being acquainted with IT to a larger extent than students in general.

Tertiary students in Namibia have to pay a rather high tuition fee. For instance, many students at the University of Namibia in Windhoek, have difficulties paying their fees. This means they are unable to take their exams and finish their courses in due time. At UNAM, student debt for tuition and accommodation in February 2001 amounted to 7 million Namibian dollars (about US$ 750 000).[61] The high fees also mean that a lot of young people who fail to pay the fees at all, are entirely excluded from tertiary institutions. Quite a few students are also forced to drop out of the more expensive institutions, like UNAM and Polytechnic, and may have to start studying at a less expensive institution such as the WCE and VTC.[62] The students who do attend the more expensive tertiary institutions, even if some have difficulties paying the fees, presumably come from families with a relatively solid financial background. Subsequently my focus groups largely consisted of students from the middle and upper classes of Namibian society. This fact seemed to be a precondition concerning the majority of my target group, and something I expected to be the case. I did not investigate the "class background" of my target groups, but since access to and knowledge about IT seem to correlate (see Findings and Analysis) to the two groups of institutions mentioned above, it still is worth mentioning as relevant information. Students at WVTC and WCE had less access to and knowledge of IT than students at UNAM, Polytechnic and Windhoek College of Higher Education, according to my findings.

5.3 Personal interviews

I have made personal interviews with representatives for Namibian College of Open Learning (NAMCOL), David Bezeudenhuit High School, local and regional media, the Namibian and Media Institute of Southern Africa, representatives for various IT projects such as SchoolNet and NOLNet as well as government officials and the NGO World Teach. (See appendix for detailed list).

All my interviews were made at the location of the respondents, with the exception of a few telephone interviews. The rationale behind personal interviews as a research method is in many ways similar to the rationale behind the focus group interviews, i.e. advantages such as personal interactions with the respondents makes the time spent with the respondent "information intensive" by great flexibility in the questioning process, control of the interview situation and the increased possibility of collecting supplementary information due to, for instance, spontaneous reactions on the part of the respondent and a question leading to unplanned, but interesting, associations.[63]

5.4 Questionnaire and communication workshop

Gitte Jakobsen and I were invited to participate in the four-day Executive Council meeting of SASU in July 2001. As a part of the meeting we presented a communication strategy workshop organised by SASU. Together with ten student leaders we discussed the future SASU communication strategy. In short, the rationale behind the communication workshop was to define target groups, content and use of suitable media for information and communication in relation to the SASU objectives. Gitte Jakobsen conducted the workshop, except for the part involving Internet communication, which was led by me.

It is worth noticing the fact that all EC members present were men. Since the EC members are elected nationally, they were all politically elected representatives and as such naturally eligible meeting participants. I observed that the composition of the EC badly reflected one of the objectives of SASU activities, namely gender equality.[64] I was informed by an EC member that one reason for the imbalance was that women chose not to be elected at EC level, though were very active politically locally at the universities. For instance, a representative from Zimbabwe, where confrontations between students and the authorities at the campuses took place at the time of the EC meeting, claimed that:

"Girls are the most active in supporting the students' demonstrations at the university campuses"

The most important question remained unanswered, namely why women in general "choose" not to participate actively in students issues also on an organised political level or in leading positions. It is very important, according to me, that "gender" turns out to be much more than a politically correct term on paper, or simply affiliated with "women issues" often left for women to administer.

At the Executive Council Meeting of SASU we presented a questionnaire regarding communication that was completed by nine students present at the workshop. The questionnaire had in addition been sent in advance to all affiliates with e-mail access. The communication workshop constituted the last workshop on a four-day workshop intensive meeting, and the students were rather tired at the time. Still all nine students present actively participated in the workshop and filled in the form, four from Namibia, and one from respectively Botswana, Malawi, Mauritius, South Africa and Swaziland.[65]

Since my focus and interest concerned factual situations rather than questions of attitude (even though students certainly have various perceptions about access to Internet in the same context, as described below) a questionnaire was quite effective in finding out the basic facts. The questions concerned communication to and from SASU, national student's organisations and, of specific relevance to my study, a section about access and use of Internet in the various affiliate contexts.

These questions and answers form the basis for an appreciation of the eventual relevance for SASU to use e-mail communication and a web site for communication purposes in the regional context and indicate if the affiliate offices can function as intermediary nodes.

54 Appendix II

55 Appendix III

56 The EC is comprised of one representative from each member country of SASU.

57 Hansen Anders, Simon Cottle, Ralph Negrine & Chris Newbold (1998) Mass Communication Research Methods, London: Macmillan Press Ltd, p 258

58 Nachmias, Chava & Nachmias, David (1982) Research Methods in the Social Sciences London: Edward Arnold Publishers Ltd, pp 192-193

59 Ibid, pp 268-70

60 Jönsson, Catharina & Laskar Pia (eds.) (2000) Kvinnor i Namibia. Stockholm: Afrikagrupperna

61 The Namibian, February 7, 2001

62 A student in my focus group at Windhoek College of Education claimed he had to stop his studies at UNAM because of the high fees. I also met youngsters who had to interrupt their studies, to work for a period to earn money for the continuation of their studies at a later date.

63 Nachmias, Chava & Nachmias, David (1982) Research Methods in the Social Sciences London: Edward Arnold Publishers Ltd, pp 192-193

64 A review was commissioned by Ibis in 1999. During the review various SASU affiliates were interviewed and they agreed on the need for SASU to emphasise gender perspectives. "Some affiliates prefer that the number of delegates to SASU workshops and congresses be increased and that 50% of delegates should be women". Vally, Salim (1999) Review of the Southern African Students' Union. Prepared for Ibis-Wus Denmark and SASU.

The EC is comprised of one representative from each member country of SASU.