Abstract:
The purpose of this study was to investigate the social factors that affect the
acceptability of the Enviro Loo sanitation technology in schools. The study adopted
the anti-positivism theory. Phenomenology school of thought was used as one of the
three schools of thoughts as marked under Anti-positivism.
The qualitative research method had its foothold in the fact that social factors, as a
human activity, occurs in a particular natural and social environment. Utilising the
qualitative research design, the researcher focused on describing and understanding
the social factors that influence the acceptability of the Enviro Loo sanitation
technology at schools.
The study utilised an interview guide to collect data. The advantage of this is that it
allowed the researcher to probe and ask for clarification of some answers as given
by the respondents
The population of this study comprised 35 secondary schools in Limpopo Province
that benefited from the implementation of the Enviro Loo sanitation technology
system during the 2010/11 financial years. Non-probability sampling was used. The
method used to select the schools was convenience sampling as a non-probability
sampling technique where subjects are selected because of their convenient
accessibility and proximity to the researcher. This is because the researcher was
bound by time, money and workforce and because of these limitations, it was almost
impossible to randomly sample the entire population.
Three sets of focus groups were used as sample, namely; the Provincial Sanitation
Task Team (PSTT), School Governing Body (SGB) and Leaner’s Representative
Council (LRC). All groups were gender balanced and members participated
voluntarily.
Nvivo was utilised to analyse data. The audio recordings from the digital voice
recorder were transcribed, translated into English, typed into word and thematic
analysis was used.
