Derecho canónico

This section deals with data analysis, protection and storage. In an attempt to get the sense of relationship that exists between trust and obedience of members of the public and the police, different themes emerged that relate to the research questions.

4.5.1 Data analysis

What guided my choice of themes from the data was not the frequencies of the themes identified but their relationship to the research questions (Braun and Clark, 2006). My initial plan was to make use of NVivo in the analysis, but due to a lack proper grasping of the dynamics involved, I ended up using manual thematic analysis as is common in qualitative research (Braun and Clark, 2006). In this process, I printed out the transcripts and coded them

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using a pencil to mark the themes as they appeared. Although this required a lot of labour and time; it was also a method that allowed me to be more immersed in the data and to identify the tone of each theme as it was raised by the participants. In connection with my philosophical orientation, I

understand that meanings are formed through interaction and are

contextually produced as they are shared among members. I answered the research questions I wanted to answer, but I was also interested in what arose out of the data. I was attentive to the flexibility of responses and to the wider range of opinions which emerged and sought to be aware of emerging themes (Noaks and Wincup, 2004). The responses were clustered into themes related to each specific research question. The process of data transcription took a lengthy period of two months.

Before I began the thematic analysis, I listened to the recorded responses to get used to some of the vocabulary and tone of the responses. I also revisited the fieldwork diaries to get a sense of what was expressed through body language. I then read through the transcripts line by line, noting down themes as they appeared in the data. For example, if a participant openly spoke about the collection of money by the police from a motorist, I would note this down as the cause of ‘distrust’. At the bottom of each page, I would then note down the main themes in that passage of conversation. From this initial detailed analysis, I looked again at the sub-themes that had emerged and collated them into wider themes that would help me address the research questions.

During the focus group discussions and some of the interviews, some

participants used pidgin English while others used conventional English. Pidgin English is used by Nigerians as a means of informal transaction and informal organisation. During the analysis, some of the responses in pidgin English were translated into more conventional usage to allow better understanding by the reader. But where it was important to retain the original phrase, in order to convey a message to the reader, these are given as spoken.

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4.5.2 Data protection

The data on personal information was maintained securely in a locked

cabinet. All the transcribed information was held in a password protected file on my computer in my office. When analysing the data, I use de-identified data with codes, kept in the locked cabinet file. All the research documents (such as consents forms and fieldwork diaries) were stored and locked in my office pending the completion of my PhD. After five years they can be

destroyed according to the University of Glasgow, College of Social Sciences’ Ethics guidelines.

4.5.3 Conclusion

The major objective of this chapter is to illustrate the range of

methodological approaches that guide my research. The chapter examined the nature of the relationship between my research and my wider

philosophical orientation. The main research question focussed on exploring the factors that might shape ‘trust’ in the police. Understanding the causes of trust, and how they relate to peoples’ experiences, can only be unearthed through qualitative enquiry. This approach provided a useful understanding of the research questions and the themes that could give an explanation beyond what was not conceived prior to the research. With the use of this technique, considerable freedom exists to discover information which the research participants were willing to share. It allows for probing, and it allows the participants to also dictate the direction of the dialogue (Lanier and Briggs, 2014).

This chapter has illustrated and examined various personal, intellectual and practical issues that shaped my research, including the choice of location, methodology, sampling and recruitment. I have attempted to explore public experiences of the police and understandings of trust in the formal justice system in Abuja, Nigeria through empirical study. I adopted qualitative

methods for this research because they provided an in-depth understanding of individual and group opinions and allowed participants to express their views

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on a range of issues, especially some issues which were not anticipated when the study was designed.

Ethical issues were adhered to throughout the whole research processes. Participants were informed that their anonymity and confidentiality would be protected by ensuring that any information provided will be used only for the study. There were some achievement using these methodological orientations in general, I was able to gather a good body of information about what

citizens of Abuja perceived as trust in the police and how it shaped their perceptions through personal contacts and get reactions directly from such contacts.

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