Call back

3.2.1 The Research Questions

The research questions are articulated in 1.4 and are described in more detail in 2.10. Preliminary versions of these questions were derived from the early stages of the literature review and they provided the framework for initial interviews that were carried out in London in November 2005 and in Ontario in January 2006. The questions were refined as expert opinion was considered and further literature reviewed. The answers to these questions cover the issue effectively.

In planning the research it was important to ensure that an appropriate method was used for each issue explored. Consequently the planning matrix shown in Table 3-1 was used.

Table 3-1 The Planning Matrix Used to Match Issues to Methods of Data Collection

Issue to be explored Methods

Responses to the challenges and opportunities of globalisation

National policy context Documentation from institution Interviews

Factors determining and affecting responses National policy context

Documentation from institution Interviews

Organisational culture influencing the university’s response to globalisation

Interviews

Literature on culture

Role of strategic planning in institutional responses Interviews

Documentation from institution Definition and implementation of strategies responding to

globalisation

Interviews

Documentation from institution Local, regional, national and global issues reinforcing each

other in institutional responses

National policy context Interviews

Documentation from institution What strategies that respond to globalisation issues are

appropriate for the type of university and setting characteristic for the case study institutions?

Interviews

Documentation from institution How might the strategies that respond to globalisation be

adjusted for the future?

Interviews

3.2.2 The Research Design

This research was designed using a qualitative approach in order to produce answers and insights into the research questions.

3.2.2.1 Issues of Warrant

Issues of warrant are used to show the link between the claim (that globalisation was affecting universities in Ontario) and the data collected to support it. The warrant is that the data gathered from the documentary research and the case study interviews is evidence that there has been institutional change, at the universities studied, in the context of globalisation. There are both quantitative data (e.g. number of international students, incentives for international staff, government policy for visas etc.) and qualitative data (e.g. discursive terms used by interviewees describing the global approach at their university) to contribute to the warrant.

Qualitative research helps make sense of the world in a particular way. It is expanding and developing at an extraordinary rate partly due to the increased use of technology in its methods and partly due to an acceptance that in some areas of study qualitative research is the only way to understand, account for and conceptualise certain things. Quantitative research is often ‘preferred’ to qualitative research due to qualitative research’s non- repeatability. The highly quantitative ‘random double-blind’ medically based research model is considered to be the most rigorous research method available. Advocates of qualitative research recognise that there is nothing morally or methodologically superior about qualitative approaches to research (Morse and Richards, 2002). It is now

acknowledged that both qualitative and quantitative research methods have their place, strengths and purposes. The research questions in this study could not be adequately answered using quantitative methods as they are too open and the context is too complex.

It is important to note that qualitative research methods must be challenging, demanding and rigorous if they are to lead to conclusions that are defensible and useful. In

qualitative research there is a paradox between the opposing requirements of the simultaneous pursuit of complexity and the production of clarity (Morse and Richards, 2002).

In qualitative research, the research questions, data creation/collection and analysis are so intrinsically linked that it is unwise to plan one without considering the others. The research topic first needs to be located before refining it, having reviewed the literature

qualitatively, into the research questions that will lead to methodology being more easily defined. Good qualitative research is consistent: the question goes with the method, which fits data collection, data handling, and analysis techniques (Morse and Richards, 2002).

The purpose of the research helped to shape the data sources and analysis strategies that were most appropriate to ensure that the data and its complexities were preserved. Whilst planning the research, the researcher also ensured congruence in the plan so that the research worked toward answers to the questions. Principled pragmatism is knowing what questions to ask, of whom and how: it was a useful principle in this qualitative research.

A common feature of qualitative research projects is that they aim to create understanding from data as the analysis proceeds. It is extremely important to remember that freedom from a pre-emptive research design should never be seen as release from a requirement to have a research design (Morse and Richards, 2002). The issues of warrant were all addressed in this research.

3.2.2.2 Methodological Congruence

As in all research, it was important to ensure that there was a fit between the research problem and the questions, a fit between the questions and the methods, and a fit among the method, the data and the means of data handling. All of these components must mesh to make the best possible sense that responds to the research questions.

This research adopted an interpretive approach to try and make sense of what was happening in each of the case studies, using their language and insight. This means that the questions, or parts of them, may have remained implicit in order not to try to

oversimplify the problem (Morse and Richards, 2002).

3.2.2.3 Choice of approaches to design the research

The study adopted what John Creswell calls a pragmatic, fit-for-purpose research strategy – a strategy that is not committed to a particular methodology but is multi-model (Creswell, 2003). Creswell (2003, p.6) describes pragmatism as ‘a concern with applications – “what works” – and solutions to problems’. He argues that the problem is most important, not the method, and that researchers should use all approaches to understand the problem. This study used a mixed-methods approach that was consistent with the pragmatic strategy favoured by Creswell. It was, however, more situated to the qualitative than the quantitative end of the continuum as the quantitative aspects were very much in the

minority and were used primarily to give context and a framework within which to analyse the case study universities.

The empirical research was divided into three stages. Stage one used a quantitative approach to determine the policy context for HE in Ontario and Canada. Stage two used a quantitative approach to determine certain aspects of each of the case study universities such as their age, size, mission, strategic priorities etc. The third, and most important stage, adopted a qualitative, multiple case study approach in order to achieve a depth of understanding to establish the case study university’s institutional strategies and practices in response to globalisation. This allowed for issues to be probed and conclusions to be drawn in a way that would not have been possible using a quantitative approach.