Los factores explicativos

The qualitative research will consist of semi-structured, in-depth interviews and a focus group. The justification and rationale are outlined below.

3.6.1: Semi-structured interviews

In social research there are many types of interviews, and the most common are unstructured, semi-structured and structured interviews (Dawson, 2002, p.28). Semi-structured interviews may be used in either quantitative or qualitative research (Brinkman and Kvale, 2009), but are mainly used in qualitative research. This method is most appropriate as the audience will have been specifically targeted, the information obtained will be relevant to tourism education and, because it is partly structured, it will allow the research findings to be compared. Semi- structured interviews will provide the freedom to explore the views or opinions of the tourism sector representatives in more detail and have been chosen because they can yield a better and more in-depth understanding of the requirements of the sector for tourism education. This is in

interviews face-to-face with experts, as outlined in Figure 3.5. Since the sector representatives’ time is limited, this will allow the researcher to prompt for responses within a framework of questions that will be more objective. Sector representatives with experience and an overall understanding of the workforce in industry will be interviewed in this respect, because they are in a good position to propose what the sector needs in terms of educational content. All interviewees will be informed well in advance, permission sought and arrangements for the interviews made (APPENDIX I). The research process will be audio recorded to allow the interviewer to remain focused during the interview process, the method will be tested beforehand and interview questions will be piloted with representatives from the sector to ensure they are understood and can gather the required subject data.

Interviews undertaken with the students will also be semi-structured and, considering that these respondents are less scholarly in their approach, questions should use language that is meaningful to them, with an emphasis on simple, direct and jargon-free statements. Ensuring that language is appropriate for respondents is critical to obtaining respondent cooperation and interest, as well as valid research data. Again, to avoid possible problems the questions will be piloted with a small number of students and finalised according to the feedback. The testing procedure will serve to correct the wording of the questions and, if necessary, redesign the layout of the interview. The questions will be prepared in both English and Turkish, because students and sector representatives may not be able to express their views clearly in English.

Semi-structured interviews have been selected rather than structured or unstructured interviews because structured interviews are rather fixed and inflexible in obtaining the general views and opinions of interviewees, while unstructured interviews are too free and prevent the researcher from controlling the research, which is prone to go off topic. The conversations consequently waste the time and resources of all concerned. The interview method as a whole is preferable, as it is able to communicate directly with people who are likely to have an interest

on the topic, and who can be contacted again during the progress of the research. This would be difficult to achieve with other forms of methodology such as observation or surveys, because the contact and discussion with representatives is limited, and a relationship could not develop, limiting the research. Moreover, surveys and observational methods are usually better suited to quantitative research, so restricted in their scope for this research.

The types of questions to be asked are open-ended to encourage the interviewee to be expressive and to share their views and opinions on what the proposed programme should include. Some existing research, as discussed in the literature chapter, has outlined the requirements of blending learning with online and work-based pedagogys compared to existing models with online elements, on-the-job training and the requirement for lectures in a classroom environment to keep students focused. These ideas will be discussed in the interview as they are a fundamental part of the content of the programme. It is important to discuss some of the models from Austria, Britain, Switzerland and Germany, for example, to gain an understanding of what the tourism sector and students of North Cyprus feel are important to the design of the proposed programme.

3.6.2 Focus group

A significant element of the AR cycle is developing the proposed professional programme, and in particular for AR two it is necessary to evaluate the newly-developed programme. The most feasible method is a focus group since networks with the experts would have been established and it provides an opportunity for different representatives to discuss views. This method will not be used until after the results have been analysed. The purpose is to share the finished product with stakeholders, rendering the research findings fully transparent, and to enhance the data by monitoring and reviewing the designed programme through stakeholders’ views. As a result of this method, the professional programme content will be designed and shared with a committee formed of representatives of interviewees and two groups of students (currently

studying and graduates), which will make the results robust. As Kitzinger (1995) outlines, focus groups are an excellent way to gather people together to discuss a common task or activity, and considered to be ethical in terms of providing an opportunity to obtain views from various backgrounds. This understanding is confirmed by Dawson (2002, p.29), who suggests that focus groups are an opportunity to discuss or arrange a group interview. Additionally, Morgan, Fellows and Guevara (2008) state that a focus group is a good way to complement existing methods such as interviews, which comprise the first step, followed by further data collection. The others include focus groups, and these are compatible with the project design proposed here. Another benefit is that the combination of individual and group interviews provides a method of checking for data collected by other means, thus individual interviews could cross-check conclusions drawn from focus groups, or vice versa, and this is what is intended in this study. The focus group will allow stakeholders to debate, criticise and confirm the content of the designed programme. Representatives will be selected from the stakeholders interviewed previously, consisting of students and tourism sector representatives.

Holding a focus group in the second cycle of the action research study also presents an opportunity to evaluate the proposed professional learning programme. In addition, it provides an opportunity to revise the programme until it most closely fits the requirements of the stakeholders. It is difficult to state at this time how long it will take until the programme is designed; however, the advantage of an action research cycle is that there is flexibility in re- evaluation. Depending on the time and resources available, if the programme is accepted and utilised earlier on in the study, it can be further evaluated during delivery and upon achieving graduates. However, I do not believe this is likely, considering the time given. Focus group findings can also help me to triangulate the data with my own reflected experience as Head of Department, coupled with my secondary reading and the interviews.

In summary, the reason I have selected the focus group interview is to create an opportunity for the different stakeholders to come together to provide a collective view on how the new programme meets the experts’ (stakeholders’) requirements, which will enable me to justify the decisions made and to bounce ideas off each other (and enable justifications to each other on why the finished programme has been designed is this way). As a result of this reasoning and perhaps debate, I will obtain feedback on the overall view on areas that may need improvement. For these reasons, a focus group was preferable to other interview models: it provides a form of dialogue that, again, has not been undertaken before in North Cyprus.