ElmCore Journal of Educational Psychology October, 2014 | Page 16

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do with a quantitative methodology (Feagin & Sikes,
1995, p. 91). This particular qualitative method,
utilized a “culturally sensitive research framework”
that helped to capture the triumphs as well as the
hurdles that high-achieving Kenyan immigrant
students faced (Tillman, 2002, p. 3).
Generic qualitative inquiry enabled the
researcher to study a phenomenon in a real world
context (Yin, 1989). The interactional nature of the
study allowed the researcher to explore not only what
happened but also why certain things happened. It was
not sufficient to just determine that Kenyan students
were doing well in education without an
understanding of why they did well as well as find out
the challenges they faced and how they had managed
to overcome them. To understand why Kenyan
students were successful, there was need to have indepth conversations with these students on an
individual basis.
In the study the researcher did member
checking after data analysis just to make sure accurate
interpretations and representations were being made.
This check provided an opportunity to the researcher
to understand clearly and represent accurately what
the interviewees intended to convey. Basically
member checking provided an opportunity to the
researcher to correct any misinterpretations. It also
provided an opportunity to the Kenyan immigrant
students to volunteer additional information which
may have been missed in the initial face-to-face
interview (Flick, 2006).
Participants selected for this research came
to the United States from Kenya on a student visa; the
participants were between 20 years and 30 years. Part
of the inclusion requirements was that they had to be
in the final year of their study at an American four
year institution. Data collection was conducted in two
steps with the first step being the survey that helped
select participants for the research. Below are the
details of the two steps that were followed.

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Step 1: Survey
As explained earlier, the initial sampling process
began with the preliminary high achieving Kenyan
immigrant student surveys that were co