Attention was paid to ethical considerations regarding this project. Consideration was given to ethical issues such as confidentiality – the most important aspect – information sheets and consent forms to sign to protect the rights of the participants and the researcher. This section explains some of the ethical considerations that were considered during the research project.
Researcher’s positioning
A part of ethical considerations is to acknowledge the position of the researcher in the project. The researcher in this project is an Arab herself which can be challenging. One aspect is that, the researcher needs to be extremely careful about having unbiased or neutral opinions. It was easier to access the Arabs, mainly Egyptians, given the fact that the researcher lived in Egypt for many years and speaks Arabic. Nonetheless, this is, once again, problematic for several reasons: first, being an Arab and not Egyptian may have made some participants suspicious as to why a non-Egyptian would be interested in Egypt; second, a few participants felt that non-Egyptians might be spying on them by asking questions, especially regarding political activities. This could be the reason for some potential participants refusing
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to participate in the project (see Figure 5 – a screenshot of the reply from a potential participant who was not interested in politics). Regarding the objectivity of the researcher, being an Arab and close to Egyptian culture, some interviewees asked me for an opinion or which political group I support. However, I was not able to do give a personal viewpoint because I had to maintain neutrality and objectivity. This issue was challenging when striving to build a rapport with the interviewees; therefore, an explanation had to be given to the participants that researchers must be objective and always remain neutral and that they cannot influence research with their personal opinions.
Confidentiality
According to Wiles, Crow, Heath and Charles (2006), confidentiality in research is an essential aspect. Six interviewees out of the 22 Egyptians preferred not to use their real names in the final thesis. After asking for their permission to use their first names, Issam, Mazen, Salim, Majed, Maher and Sama refused to use their actual first names. Mazen’s reason for not wishing to use his genuine first name was the instability and lack of security in Egypt. Therefore, a pseudonym is used in the analysis and findings chapters. Additionally, using false names is better than using the technique of employing numbers for participants, as it not only helps readers to follow the stories presented to avoid any confusion but will also help participants to follow their own stories.
Salim preferred not to use his real name for security reasons, although he did not explain why he did not wish his genuine name to be revealed. It is worth mentioning that Maher also did not wish to use his actual first name. This was the same in relation to three more participants, Issam, Sama and Majed, who did not want to reveal their real names. Additionally, some interviewees only agreed for their first names to be used but requested
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that their contact details were not revealed. To protect the interviewees’ privacy, all these conditions were respected.
Figure 5 A potential participant showing no interest in the project
The period of recruiting and interviewing participants lasted one and a half years – from July 2014 until January 2016. To save participants’ information, data was securely kept in locked folders with a password. I as the researcher am the only one aware of the password, to protect the data. Data is only shared by me with the supervisory team. Furthermore, after the submission of the thesis, the data will be destroyed. It is also worth stating that the ages of the participants in the analysis chapters are their ages according to the year the interviews were conducted.
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Consent form
A consent form was presented to each interviewee to sign at every interview. The form consists of sections regarding the consent of interviewees to be interviewed, the recording of the interview and the use (or not) of the interviewee’s first name during the analysis. The other section is to make sure that the interviewees have read the information sheet and to ask questions if necessary, which the participants have a right to do (a consent form sample is attached in Appendix 3).
Information sheet
An information sheet was sent to each interviewee to read carefully and to encourage them ask any questions related to the project. The information sheet allows the participants to read details about the thesis topic and to be completely aware of the topic and what types of questions will be asked during the interviews. The information sheet makes sure that both interviewees and interviewers’ rights are protected. Moreover, it also gives the right to participants to withdraw from the project at any time, without giving any reason (information sheet sample attached in Appendix 4).
Saturation
The saturation concept is related to qualitative research. Mason (2010) claims that saturation is a factor that can affect the sample size in research. Additionally, saturation can control sample size and how many interviews, for instance, each project requires. Mason (2010, p. 2) claims that in his examination of a sample size of more than 500 PhD theses using interviews (in Theses.com), the mean sample size was 31 interviews; however, the size might vary from one PhD thesis to another. Ritchie et al. (2003) argue that sample size in qualitative research does not require too many interviews and that additional data does not mean new
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information, as qualitative research is concerned with meaning and not the amount of data collected. The number of interviews conducted in this interview is 22. The reason why this number was selected was because of the concept of saturation. Glaser and Strauss (1967) state that a saturation point is reached when no new data is generated by new interviews.