Derecho a no ser juzgado en ausencia

The survey questionnaires are provided in Appendices 1 and 2. The

questionnaire administered in Kenya comprises four sections and consists of 57 open and closed questions. Several styles of questions were used, including multiple choice, checklists (allowing the selection of multiple responses) and Likert style attitude scales. The survey also included interpretive components, providing space for explanations of attitudes and actions, for example sub- questions asking, “how did you feel about that?”, and aimed to collect data on demographic and socio-economic characteristics of the respondents, including gender, income, age, education and marital status. Questions were also

included about various aspects of mobile phone use, including whether the respondent had access to or owns a mobile phone, the number and type of handsets and SIM cards owned, the number of outgoing and incoming calls, frequency of SMS sending and receipt, and average spending on mobile phone use. Administration of the final section of the questionnaire was preceded by a reminder that participation was voluntary and respondents could decline to answer particular questions. Respondents were then asked about their

communication habits and methods of accessing information, including political information, their role in the community, political activities and trusted leaders, as well as their receipt of hate-speech and pro-peace SMS, and attitudes to regulation and monitoring of mobile phone use.

The questionnaire administered in Uganda contained 42 open and closed questions covering demographic information, mobile phone ownership and use habits, preferred methods of communicating, means of accessing information during periods of crisis, and benefits and risks of mobile phone use.

10 _{As there were no available accommodation options in or near the Settlement it was}

necessary to commute there each day from Hoima: the district capital located 80km away, three hours’ drive away along poor roads. It is not advisable to drive during the hours of darkness in Uganda due to the high risk of accidents, and accordingly working hours were unavoidably reduced.

130 4.5.3.5 Limitations

The survey data collected are inevitably constrained by a number of limitations including scale, generalisability, and reliability. Examining first the scale of the survey sample, a total of 297 participants were sampled in Kenya and 194 in Uganda. These small sample sizes are insufficient to provide representative data on the populations of interest. Furthermore, the selection of a random sample was precluded by the absence of a reliable sampling frame, and the logistical considerations outlined previously in this chapter. Although the selection of a non-probabilistic sample reduces the broader generalisability of the data collected, these survey data are nevertheless valuable to inform the development of theory for this exploratory study.

Considering next the generalisability of the survey findings, the selection of public locations for the collection of survey data may systematically exclude certain demographic groups (e.g. the elderly, disabled, new mothers) from participation. Chambers (2008) acknowledges this as a recurring bias particularly affecting developing world research studies. Chambers notes, “...within villages, the poorer people may be hidden from the main streets and the places where people meet” (2008, p. 32). Another particular bias in the sampling frame concerns participants engaged in commercial activities. This is described by Omata (2012) during the conduct of semi-structured interviews with refugees in Uganda, where many interviewees were engaged in ongoing, informal business transactions which affected their participation through constant interruptions from customers. Recognising that this and similar

challenges inform participation in both the survey and FGDs, overcoming these is challenging and beyond the scope of this study, within the financial and time constraints. Furthermore, as it comprises an exploratory study, these limitations may be addressed in further extensions of the research to examine the

perceptions and experiences of these particular demographic groups.

In Kenya, the survey targets participants in urban centres previously affected by election violence, excluding rural populations from the survey sample as

election violence occurred primarily in urban areas. In Uganda, rural populations were specifically targeted through the collection of data in both urban Kampala and rural Kyangwali settlement. Logistical considerations played a part in the selection of the settlement for data collection, a common bias in research

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conducted in the developing world according to Chambers (2008). He describes how vehicular access is a critical factor mediating academics’ understanding of the developing world noting, “…overlapping urban, tarmac and roadside biases” (Chambers, 2008, p. 31) resulting from data collection privileging urban

populations and those living along major roads and excluding those living in inconvenient, inaccessible locations. Acknowledging that certain systematic biases are likely to occur within the non-probabilistic survey sample, the convenience sampling method employed in this study provided a means to access primary data in challenging conditions which precluded the use of probabilistic methods.

Another limitation of this study concerns the reliability of the data collected. As these data comprise users’ perceptions and experiences, there exist no

objective criteria against which to assess their consistency. Self-reported information about past events is inevitably subject to recall bias (Baddeley, 1979; Eisenhower, et al., 1991), which may distort the survey data collected in this study. Eisenhower, Mathiowetz and Morganstein note that,

To the extent that an individual is not able to recall the occurrence of an event or details about past events, or is affected by his or her present psychological state or

environment, the quality of the data becomes questionable. (1991, p. 128)

Eisenhower, Mathiowetz and Morganstein (1991) further argue that episodic memories, those associated with spatially and temporally situated events, are subject to three potential biases: Accuracy, incompleteness and distortion. Based on several psychological studies they argue that memories are likely to be malleable and subject to change over time. Recognising the potential of these biases to influence the data provided by participants about their experiences and perceptions of past events, the use of multiple methods

facilitates the triangulation of FGD responses with those of survey and interview participants.

Numerous potential sources of error have been identified in surveys, defined by Groves et al. as, “deviations from the true values applicable to the population studied” (2004, p. 4). Groves et al. further note that, “which questions are

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asked, how answers are collected, and which people answer the questions – all affect the quality (or error properties) of survey results” (ibid). Bias can also be introduced at several stages including survey design, data collection and data analysis. Data are said to be biased if, "in some systematic way the people responding to a survey are different from the target population as a whole" (Fowler, 2009, p. 13). The design and implementation procedures of the survey were intended to minimise bias, although inevitably some biases remain. Participants may not answer honestly for a number of reasons, including interviewer effects. While the use of local research assistants may mitigate these risks in part, there remains the potential for ethnic and political differences to inform interpersonal dynamics and introduce bias into the data. Recruiting educated, literate, experienced survey administrators is essential for the

effective conduct of social research in settings where insurmountable language or cultural barriers prevent the direct collection of data by the researcher. However, these essential selection criteria may preclude the recruitment of equal numbers of male and female survey administrators and translators. While this methodological challenge may be commonplace, it is rarely acknowledged by other field-based studies (Gill, 1993). This gender imbalance may introduce an additional source of interviewer bias: Study participants may respond differently to male and female administrators, both in terms of response rates and in the content of the responses they provide.

Further reflections on the challenges and limitations associated with the survey administration are provided in Chapter Seven.