Explicación del flujo de fondos, incluyendo:

In social and behavioural sciences, research methodology defines the overall research process and is predominantly classified into qualitative and quantitative research methods. The dominance of these two research communities has resulted in a series of debates and disputes about supremacy that have lasted for more than a century (Johnson & Onwuegbuzie, 2004). The debate is understood to be philosophical in nature rather than methodological (Teddlie & Tashakkori, 2009; Krauss, 2005). This can be attributable to the influence and

84

implication of researchers’ philosophical lenses (or assumptions) that is guiding their research processes (Bryman, 2015; Sale, Lohfeld, & Brazil, 2002).

As a result, mixed methods research emerged as an alternative to the dichotomies of these two traditional research methods (Teddlie & Tashakkori, 2009). However, qualitative and quantitative research methods should not be perceived as rigid dual oppositions (Creswell, 2014) but as a representation of dissimilar ends on a continuum (Johnson & Onwuegbuzie, 2004), where mixed methods research is construed to be situated somewhere in the middle of that continuum (Johnson & Onwuegbuzie, 2004; Teddlie & Tashakkori, 2009).

In order not to confuse the logic of justification with research methods (Onwuegbuzie & Teddlie ,2003), it is not the intention of this section to reignite or engage in any paradigm debate but to provide a plausible premise for the mixed methods research as adopted in this research. As explained in Chapter 1, the main aim of this research is to explain the in/consistency between home and work regarding recycling behaviour. As a result, the decision to select a mixed methods approach for this research is informed by the researcher’s background coupled with the nature of this research including the research problem, aim, and its objectives. These further resulted in the selection of pragmatic philosophical assumption guiding mixed methods research that can ensure the in-depth (depth and breadth) investigation of recycling behaviour in UK workplaces.

4.2.1 Qualitative Research

In contrast to quantitative research, qualitative research often adopts a narrative, interpretive, descriptive, and/or naturalistic (Denzin & Lincoln, 2011) approach to understanding social realities. Qualitative research is associated with inductive (Bryman, 2015) or abductive (Teddlie & Tashakkori, 2009) reasoning whereby data rather than existing theory or models dictate the entire research process. This is the approach adopted in this phase of the research where data rather than a theory guides the research process although existing theories are considered when developing the research’s conceptual

85 framework. The rationale is to generate a theory or theoretical model (inductive logic) and/or hypotheses (abductive logic) that can be verified through the quantitative phase of this research. This provides an opportunity to develop a proximal relationship with the research data (see Sandelowski, 2000) by immersing deeply into the research contexts. In other words, the researcher steps into the research participants’ natural world (workplace) to understand or make meaning out of their lived experiences (waste recycling).

In support of the pragmatic assumptions underpinning this research, the approach in this phase allows an in-depth investigation of recycling behaviour through the interpretation of research participants’ views (see Creswell, 2014). That is, the investigator gathers specific data about recycling and constructed its meanings using the research participants’ perspectives. Therefore, emergent rather than pre-determined (Bryman, 2015) questions that are generic and involve detailed descriptions of recycling are adopted to guide this process of inquiry (Morgan, 2007). Consequently, the intention of this qualitative phase is to achieve quality (depth) rather than quantity (breadth) of study. Therefore, the process is exploratory to gain an in-depth understanding and to make sense of people’s subjective views of recycling behaviour (Bryman, 2015; Teddlie & Tashakkori, 2009) to inform the subsequent quantitative design.

4.2.2 Quantitative Research

Researchers within the quantitative research community primarily collect and analyse numeric data and are most likely to subscribe to a positivism/post-positivism worldview (Teddlie & Tashakkori, 2009).

Using quantitative research, different design options are available for a researcher and may include correlational research, survey research, experimental research, and quasi- experimental research (Teddlie & Tashakkori, 2009). These research options highlight the quantification of data collection and analysis that may involve a deductive approach (see Figure 3 above) and attempts to explain social phenomena using natural sciences’ norms and

86

practices. Although data quantification is understood to be a major and unique attribute of quantitative research method, a deductive approach and objectivist position further differentiate the approach from other research methods (Bryman, 2015).

This approach allows researchers to use theoretical concept(s) or theory(s) to formulate hypotheses which are verified with empirical data collection and analysis (Hennink et al., 2011). However, testing for reliability, validity, generalisation or replication can be time consuming, ambiguous, difficult and may be less important in social settings compared to natural conditions (Bryman, 2015). On the other hand, selection of an appropriate research design can enhance the reliability and validity of this research by collecting and analysing high quality data.

Although quantitative research is receiving continuous criticism for its claims of objectivity, its strength lies in its ability to quantify research problems and generalise the findings to a wider population (Hennink et al., 2011). As a result, a large amount of data is expected using a web-based survey and analysed through statistical approaches in order to identify prevalence, relationships, and patterns in the sample data (Bryman, 2015). While a quantitative approach could trivialise, distort or ignore meaningful psychological or social phenomena; it may complement (such as generalisation of findings) an interpretive approach (for instance, perception of people on recycling behaviour) if appropriately deployed (Westerman & Yanchar, 2011).

This complementary approach is used in this research by designing a web-based questionnaire survey using the findings from the literature and that of the qualitative interviews to inform the quantitative phase.

4.2.3 Mixed Methods Research

So far, this research has clearly identified the distinction between qualitative and quantitative research in terms of philosophical assumptions and research methods. In practice, the division may be fuzzy, suggesting that ontology, epistemology, and methodology

87 assumptions may overlap (Bryman, 2015) across different methods in a study. In other words, a single study may incorporate several data collection approaches either within a research method (a large sample survey collecting narrative data) or across different methods (such as a study including both qualitative and quantitative elements).

Therefore, qualitising (which is a process of converting quantitative into qualitative data) and quantitising (which involves converting qualitative into quantitative data) analytical approaches can be adopted (Bryman, 2015; Teddlie & Tashakkori, 2009). In addition, social scientists can address a social problem using multiple or different methods (Denzin, 1970). Therefore, mixed methods research is a process of inquiry that employs intellectual and practical combinations of multiple strategies, different assumptions, and methods (Johnson et al., 2007) within a single study (Creswell, 2014). The process taken in this mixed methods research involves a deliberate integration of qualitative and quantitative procedures at every stage of a research process.

The process involves inductive, deductive, and abductive forms of knowledge (reasoning) that can allow the researcher to generalise the findings in terms of internal and external validity (Collins, Onwuegbuzie, & Jaio, 2007). In other words, the process allows the research to achieve inference quality and inference transferability (Teddlie & Tashakkori, 2009). The pragmatic assumption in this research rejects the incompatibility assertions but posits a compatibility or pluralistic approach (Creswell, 2014; Johnson & Onwuegbuzie, 2004). This is based on the school of thought that refuted the incompatibility thesis while supporting the idea that combining qualitative and quantitative methods in a single study is philosophically (epistemologically) coherent (see Howe, 1988).

As a result, different design strategies have been developed by the proponents of mixed methods research and include basic, sequential, concurrent, multilevel, and combination of mixed methods (Teddlie & Yu, 2007) strategies. Sequential and concurrent approaches have been observed to achieve a wider acceptance in social and behavioural

88

sciences (Teddlie & Tashakkori, 2009; Teddlie & Yu, 2007), a sequential approach is adopted in this research.