3.4 Procedures prior to data collection: Obtaining ethical clearance and authorities’
permissions; Identifying the case studies and unit of analysis; Preparing the case study protocol
There were several procedures prior to data collection and these are described in the subsequent sections.
3.4.1 Ethical clearance
According to Babbie (1979, p. 57) „clearances‟ from several authorities are the ethics and politics of doing research when involving people and organisations. This researcher was required to obtain an ethical clearance from the University of Canterbury‟s Human Ethics Committee (HEC) prior to fieldwork or data collection and to uphold the five ethical principles (http://www.canterbury.ac.nz/humanethics). One of the main concerns of the Committee was that some of the proposed participants for the survey were „minors‟. This concern was addressed to the HEC by informing that prior to data collection, a consent letter would be gained from the school principals, considered responsible for their students. Similar concerns with regard to other respondents were answered by ensuring these participants, before taking part, would receive a project brief (or information sheet) and would sign a consent form that ensured the confidentiality of their responses (unless they agreed to be identified in the study). Examples of the HEC approval letter, consent form and project brief are included in Appendices 2, 6 and 8 respectively.
3.4.2 Malaysian authorities‟ permission
Also given due consideration were the institutional procedures for conducting a study in Malaysia. Babbie (1979) considers this a political aspect of research (p. 71), and contends that it deals with authorities‟ judgements about the research. In the process of data collection and prior to an intensive work in the field, this researcher had committed almost a month of research time to gaining permission from the Economic Planning Unit (EPU) under the Prime Minister‟s Department to conduct the survey and interviews in Malaysia, i.e. the intensive field work. This requirement was made known to this researcher by a colleague who had completed her field work using similar approaches, i.e. survey and interviews, but in a
66 different field of study. Malaysians attached to organisations located outside the country who wish to conduct research in Malaysia are required by the Government of Malaysia to gain EPU‟s permission to conduct the research. This procedure also applies to foreign nationals intending to implement research in Malaysia. The procedure for obtaining this permission can be viewed at the following link: http://www.epu.gov.my/undertaking. The letter of permission from the EPU is included as Appendix 1.
EPU requires that researchers gain consent from other authorities considered relevant. This researcher also submitted a general enquiry through e-mail to the Kementerian Pelajaran Malaysia (the Ministry of Education Malaysia) (MOE) at its Website on http://www.moe.gov.my. Upon explaining the intention of the research and attaching a copy of the permission letter from EPU, this researcher subsequently obtained a consent (via e-mail) from the Ketua Sektor Penyelidikan dan Penilaian (Head of Research and Evaluation Sector), to conduct the research, and this is listed under Appendix 3.
The third government authority‟s permission was obtained from Jabatan Pelajaran Negeri Selangor (JPNS) (the State of Selangor Education Department). This requirement was made known to this researcher by one of the school principals that had been contacted earlier. A telephone call, followed by a letter explaining the intentions of this research, were lodged to JPNS. This researcher also attached copies of the permission letter issued by the EPU and of the e-mail from the MOE. The approval was gained from JPNS soon after. JPNS also requested a copy of this study upon its completion. The duration taken for initiating, acting upon and following up with the various local authorities relevant in the process of data collection was approximately a month.
3.4.3 Applying the case study approach: Identifying the case study nominees, the units of analysis and the case study protocol
A case study can be defined as „an empirical enquiry that investigates a contemporary phenomenon within its real-life context, especially when the boundaries between phenomenon and context are not clearly evident‟ (Yin 2003, p. 13). A two-case study design can also apply the case study method. The difference between single and more than one case study is the rationale behind each approach (Yin 1994). Whereas the former is concerned
67 with the unique aspect of the case, e.g. meeting the conditions for testing a theory, the latter is concerned with replication (Robson 2002; Yin 2003).
The two-case study approach was used in this study to predict similar or contrasting results based on a theoretical framework (Yin 2003). In the process, replication or duplication of the findings was sought for the findings to be considered robust (Robson 2002; Yin 2003).
Replication
states the conditions under which a particular phenomenon is likely to be found i.e. a literal replication as well as the conditions when it is not likely to be found. (Yin 2003, p. 47)
In addition, the case study approach was considered appropriate to describe and explain the research topic, i.e. the role of local based environmental NGOs in promoting recycling, and how they initiated/implemented the related programme – within its context. Thus, as has been suggested, a how question of a situation or case can apply the case study approach to enable description and an explanation of the case(s) being studied (Yin 1994, 2003).
Only two nominees were chosen, and their status as some of the early pioneers in initiating community waste programmes was a prime consideration from a case study perspective, due to the resource- and time-constraints faced by this researcher and the criteria of selection applied. The two cases were carefully selected to serve the specific purpose of inquiry (Yin 2003, p. 47; Robson 2002). Thus, the two-case study nominees were chosen based on the following five criteria: establishment and registration as an environmental NGO for more than five years; non-profit orientation; initiation of and continued support for a recycling or SWM programme; collaboration with the local authorities; and having a base in the study area.
The first case was the environmental NGO Global Environment Centre (GEC) and its SMART Ranger programme, which facilitated a waste recycling programme with several urban schools. This case is described in Chapter 4. The second case was the environmental NGO Treat Every Environment Special (TrEES); its efforts in raising waste awareness were more varied. It is described in Chapter 5.
68 3.4.3.1 Units of analysis
In case study strategy, it is important to identify the unit of analysis, as doing so defines the limits of data collection and analysis (Yin 2003). The „units of analysis‟, part of most research design, refers to the „what or whom‟ we study (Babbie 2005, p. 95). The unit of analysis can also be an issue or concern, e.g. level of participation in a social activity (Babbie 2005; Grinnel & Unrau 2008; Yin 2003). The unit can also be determined by the purpose of the study (Babbie 2005) and by research questions (Sekaran 2003). Studying the units of analysis can help researchers identify the relevant information about the units being analysed (Yin 2003), thus helping to answer the research questions (Babbie 2005). For this study, each case, i.e. the environmental NGO chosen, runs several environmental awareness programmes, such as for the conservation of mangroves, lakes or forest. However, the unit of analysis is each environmental NGO‟s effort at promoting, to the general public, recycling as a sustainable waste management strategy. In this research, the first case study‟s target audience was urban school students, while the second case study‟s focus was urban school students and charity homes for the handicapped and hypermarkets.
3.4.3.2 The case study protocol
Prior to data collection, a „case study protocol‟ was prepared (Yin 2003). This is a form of guide to the researcher for conducting the fieldwork, and is an attempt to increase aspects of reliability of the research (Robson 2002; Yin 2003). In the incidence that several research assistants are involved in data collection, the protocol or guidelines can help these investigators focus on the general agreed rules. This is imperative when there are more than one case being studied or the data are to be collected by several researchers (Yin 2003). In this study, however, this researcher was the sole data collector and there were two case studies involved. The protocol was relied upon for guidance when interviewing respondents.
The protocol questions are „reminders‟ regarding the information that needs to be collected and the reasons behind them (Robson 2002; Yin 2003). According to Yin (2003), generally the case study protocol includes an overview of the project (e.g. its objective and issues), field procedures, case study questions for collecting the data, and a guide for the report.
The case study protocol prepared for this study included a brief summary of the project and the case study questions. Background information about the project, a list of the issues being investigated and a copy of the letter from EPU regarding government permission were included. The inclusion of the questions to be queried was to „keep the researcher on track‟
69 (Yin 2003, p. 74) during the interviewing. The questions essentially formed the structure for the questioning. Field procedures included making a schedule of the data collection and alerting to uncontrollable factors such as the interviewees‟ schedules and availability. The list of interview questions is included as Appendix 10.
3.4.4 Designing the questionnaire
In this study, one of the main research questions is concerned with identifying what urban school children perceive to be NGOs‟ involvement in promoting recycling and raising waste awareness. The objective was also to explain what factors significantly influence the children‟s recycling participation in schools. The questionnaire survey instrument was considered an appropriate means for querying and enabling an insight into these aspects.
Respondents were requested to „tick‟ the best response to each query using a Likert type scale of „1‟, which represents a „Highly Disagree‟, to a „5‟, which represents a „Highly Agree‟
response (refer also to Chapter 6 under Section 6.1). This approach would enable analysis to complement the qualitative findings obtained from the two case studies in which the NGOs selected were involved with SWM programmes in schools.
The questionnaire was designed to minimise biases and to ensure a high level of appropriateness (Babbie 1984; Sekaran 2003), taking into consideration key factors suggested by Sekaran (2003): wording of the questions; principles of measurement, e.g. codes and scales; and general appearance of the questionnaire. The questionnaire was piloted on four teenage urban Malaysians. This alerted the researcher to the need to modify some terms unfamiliar to the teenagers, and allowed the gaining of some sense of the time needed to answer the questionnaire.