Abstract
The problem with most commissioned studies is that they are
generally anchored on research protocols, guidelines and
theoretical underpinnings imposed by research grant makers
or the external Principal Investigator’s (PI) own research design
preferences. Furthermore, the problem is that researchers who
are recruited during various phases of commissioned studies have
little contribution to the overall research design, methodological or
theoretical framework of such studies. On 22-23 November 2022,
the University of Johannesburg’s (UJ) Ali Mazrui Centre for Higher
Education Studies (AMCHES) facilitated a fieldwork training and
orientation workshop hosted by the Nelson Mandela University’s
(NMU) Faculty of Education. The purpose of the workshop was
to orient institutional research teams for a commissioned study
titled: Steering Epistemic Access and Success of Historically
Disadvantaged Students in South African Universities. This
commissioned study was funded by the National Research
Foundation (NRF) and AMCHES was the principal investigator, and
it had its own prescribed research design to explore the institutional
student access and success narratives and experiences of
students from historically disadvantaged backgrounds. However,
during this orientation workshop, it became apparent to the author
that researchers recruited from the four participating universities
were raising key research design-oriented narratives that were
significant to the respective social contexts of the institutional case
studies. The research design and theoretical framework of the
entire study benefited from the inclusion of narratives describing the
institutional researchers’ own experiences and their familiarity with
the SEAS research sites. The four case study institutions were the
universities of Cape Town (UCT), Fort Hare (UFH), Kwa Zulu-Natal
(UKZN) and NMU. AMCHES held the overall ethics clearance for
the study, which had been granted by UJ’s Faculty of Humanities.
The author explored the pre-study narratives of the institutional
research teams that emerged during the orientation workshop
using a qualitative narrative analysis approach. This demonstrates
the benefit of the incorporation of researchers’ narratives and
perspectives of their lived experiences of the research site in
commissioned studies. The author argues that the incorporation of narratives of researchers’ lived experiences of the research site adds a social context and enriches
methodological approaches and theoretical framing in commissioned studies to create social relevance
beyond the grant maker or the PI’s imposed approaches.