Las acciones de la Unión Europea ante el conflicto venezolano (2017-2019)

Semi-structured interviews in English were conducted. During the interviews open-ended questions were posed. I used an interview guide to inform the specific questions posed to each participant. Some of the interviews were conducted in public areas (parks and streets), some in the participants’ homes and others in my office.

With regard to the interviews that were conducted in public areas, I approached potential participants based on the extent to which they appeared to possess the contextual characteristics noted in Table 6. When approaching potential participants, I first introduced myself and gave an explanation of the details of the study I was conducting. I then presented the participants with a participation letter (see Appendix A). The interviews commenced only after the potential respondents had agreed to participate in the study. When I experienced problems finding participants with the desired contextual characteristics, I used some of my personal networks to identify possible participants and I also asked existing respondents to suggest people who possibly possessed the required characteristics. Depending on the participants’ availability, I scheduled a meeting with them via email, face to face, or via a telephone call. When requesting a meeting with the participants, I introduced myself and provided a description of my study. Some of the respondents indicated that they preferred to be interviewed in my office while some respondents invited me to their homes. The interviews were usually conducted during the day and during lunch hour (12 a.m. – 4 p.m.).

The decision to conduct interviews at this time was solely based on the participants’

availability.

The interviews were digitally recorded. The informed consent of every participant was obtained before the interview commenced while pseudonyms were used to ensure the

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participants’ anonymity. Upon completion of the interviews, the digital audio file was transcribed. I also took field notes during the interviews. These field notes focused on key points of interest. The order in which the interviews were conducted is represented by the order in which the interview transcripts are numbered in Appendix C.

4.6.1 Research Instrument

The following research question was formulated: How can we explain the use and non-use of the Smart City services provided? In the interests of effective data collection, the research question was addressed by formulating the following two objectives:

1. To explain the use and non-use of Wi-Fi in the city

2. To explain the use and non-use of government e-service websites

The first research objective addresses the digital connected aspect of Smart Cities, while the second objective addresses the informated living aspect of Smart Cities. These interview objectives are in line with the research sub-questions presented in chapter 1 and are intended to answer the sub-questions which, in turn, address the central research question.

Wang (2014) identified three categories of interview questions that may be used to guide interviews. These categories include users’ experience with government websites, attitude towards government website use, and problems with government websites (Wang, 2014).

Wang (2014) used these categories to uncover core concepts and their underlying dimensions and contexts during the interviews he conducted. This study replicates Wang’s (2014) approach. The questions in the interview guide were divided into three areas of questioning, namely, residents’ experience with Smart City services, problems with Smart City services, and residents’ attitude towards the use of Smart City services. These concepts delineated areas of discussion in the interview. However, because the interviews were semi-structured, I was not limited to discussing only these issues. Topics referring to the four core concepts in Wang’s (2014) framework and their dimensions were included in the questions contained in the interview guide and they were included in the probing questions. This ensured a close link between the research instrument and the theoretical framework.

Table 7 illustrates the objectives of each research question, the main interview questions relating to each objective, and the areas discussed in the interviews. The main interview questions and the discussion areas were adapted from Wang’s (2014) framework. The main

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interview questions were divided into sections, namely, questions aimed at participants who had used Smart City services and questions aimed at participants who had not used any of the Smart City services under investigation. The actual interview guide with the probing questions is contained in Appendix A.

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In order to ensure efficient and effective management of data, the researcher had back-ups of collected data. This included hard copies of the field notes and transcripts of interview recordings. Two recording devices were used to collect data. Upon completion of the interviews, audio files were immediately saved on the researchers’ personal computer. File-names were created and pseudonyms were used for each participant.

4.8 Rigor in Qualitative Research: Tracing the Debate

According to Morse, Barrett, Mayan, Olson and Spiers (2002), rigor in qualitative research is defined as the researcher's adoption of verification strategies and self-correcting mechanisms that ensure reliability and validity in the analysis of data. Rigorous research applies appropriate research tools that meet the stated objectives of the study (Morse et al., 2002). In addition, rigorous research must be transparent and explicit, and clearly describe what has been done in clear simple language (De Wet & Erasmus, 2005; Morse et al., 2002). Morse et al., (2002) argues that without rigor, research becomes worthless and loses usefulness. Hence