El sistema de escritura del Español y los procesos

Various data collection techniques can be employed during a case study research strategy and that is considered one of the main advantages of it. Six sources of evidence can be obtained by a case study strategy, namely, documents, archival records, interviews, direct observation, participant observation and physical artefact (Dooley, 2002; Yin, 2014). Using multiple sources of evidence has been encouraged by Yin. Thus, an investigator can be allowed to address a broader range of behavioural, historical and attitudinal issues which leads to the development of a converging line of inquiry and a more accurate and convincing conclusion (Yin, 2014). Using multiple sources of evidence also encourages creating a case study database as well as maintaining a chain of evidence.

In agreement with the aforementioned argument, making records of all relevant evidence and creating a database may help the researcher to meet the study purposes. Such purposes can be obtained further by using a combination of both qualitative and quantitative research i.e. mixed methods research. Moreover, by triangulating the methods, a personal understanding of the phenomenon will be enhanced. Accordingly, a general picture of the real situation regarding Iraqi disaster response management was gained by using a quantitative method. By using such a method, the answer to the research question “What is the status of disaster response management in Iraq?” and all the consequent related probing questions were obtained. Further, in order to get a fuller picture, an in-depth understanding of the quantitative results was obtained by exploring experts’ perspectives using the qualitative method of interviews. In addition, some significant and related documents were analysed in order to help the researcher to understand and further support the findings that were derived from questionnaires and interviews.

A wealth of information was obtained from both primary and secondary data. In this study, the resources of secondary data were articles, books, past theses, archival records, legislations, and relevant websites, while primary data were collected through questionnaires, interviews, and documents.

3.8.1.1 Questionnaire Design

The questionnaire is a set of proforma question distributed to individuals aiming to gather information (Saunders et al., 2016). An intensive investigation of the literature has been conducted to find the elements of good practice disaster response management in order to formulate the questions for the first draft of the questionnaire. After the completion of literature investigation, permission from the selected case was obtained. This permission was sought from

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the senior managers of The Iraqi Directorate of Civil Defence because it is a hierarchical organisation. In the meantime, the researcher began designing the first draft questionnaire which needs to undergo through the required ethical approval process (see Appendix D). The questionnaire which has been designed in accordance with management stages (planning, organising, directing, and controlling) was reviewed by supervision panel. They suggested reducing the number of questions by deleting repeated and unrelated questions and to group and separate the questions for more clarity as well as to provide a definition for every stage within the questionnaire. The required amendments have been made and the questionnaire was translated into the Arabic language (see appendix E). To facilitate an efficient translation, the researcher also conducted a comprehensive investigation into Arabic literature to ensure the accurate technical terminologies are used.

The researcher conducted questionnaire survey within the case study. The questionnaire was divided into five sections (see appendix E). The first section asked about general information, while the rest four sections asked about the element of good practice disaster response management during planning, organising, directing, and controlling stages. By carrying out this survey, the difference between the levels of importance and implementation of various elements related to the different stages of disaster response management was investigated from a questionnaire survey.

3.8.1.1.1 Likert Scale

By using a Likert scale, the opinion and behavioural variables can be captured. Five scales of “importance” (unimportant, of little importance, moderately important, important, and very important) have been represented by Likert scale to capture the level of importance. Further, other five scales of “frequency” (never, rarely, sometimes, very often, and always) have been used to capture the level of implementation. In addition, a column for “no opinion N/O” has been added for both the scales. This addition is important as it would minimise the tendency for giving an inaccurate answer when the respondents lack knowledge or opinion for a specific question (Kulatunga, 2008). Table 3.1 represents the values designated for the Likert scale.

Table 3.1 Values Designated for the Likert Scale Scale for importance Unimportant Of little importance Moderately important Important Very important No opinion N/O Scale for implementation

Never Rarely Sometimes Very often Always No opinion N/O

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The questionnaires were distributed to the staff with Captain military rank and above. 53 questionnaire surveys were conducted. All the respondents were executives responsible for disaster response in the Iraqi General Directorate of Civil Defence and were selected based on the experts’ rank, knowledge, experience, and involvement with disaster response teams. Section 3.8.2 will discuss in detail how the questionnaire sample was selected. The questionnaire was designed to identify the difference between the levels of importance and implementation of the elements of the good practices and any gaps in every stage of disaster response management in Iraq. The extent of such gaps acts as a good indicator of the weaknesses and the good practice highlights the strengths of the current disaster response management. After completing this stage, the researcher carried out the pilot study.

3.8.1.2 Archival Records and Documents

To enhance the reliability and triangulate the research questionnaire and interviews about the disaster response management in Iraq, reviewing the existing information in archival records and documents were conducted in addition to the processes of the questionnaire and semi- structured interviews with the disaster response experts. According to Saunders et al. (2016) and Yin (2014), a collection of archival and current documents as empirical research field data is known as being important.

In this study, the archival records and documents to be analysed were identified from expert interviews. Documents such as studies, reports, statistics, follow-up, and laws have been gathered from the IGDCD and other organisation related to disaster response, for example, Iraqi Ministry of Health (see Table 4.1 ). Such gathering has been conducted during the interviewing stage. The types and design of semi-structured interviews will be discussed in the forthcoming section.

3.8.1.3 Interview Design

According to Amaratunga et al. (2002), interviews are deemed to be a favourable method in different research areas in order to gain in-depth data. It is widely considered that one of the common sources of evidence for the case study is interviews. Through a series of interviews, the data were collected. In this study, the most critical sources of evidence are the interviews. This is due to the capability of this technique to probe the current practices related to disaster response management. Further, the researcher is allowed to clarify any unclear answers with experts (Kumar, 2011) and access to sensitive information might be achieved. Saunders et al. (2016) stated that there are three ways to conduct interviews, namely, structured; semi-

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structured or unstructured. Each kind of interview has its own disadvantages and advantages. Regarding the structured interview, the responses from the interviewees are limited which leads to less richness of the data. Conversely to that an unstructured interview, it lets the interviewees express freely without restriction. Consequently, the process of analysing the data might become more difficult due to the absence of consistencies (Myers, 2013). However, a semi- structured interview is established to extract valuable information from real experiences, interviewee’s interpretations, and recommendations on the research topic.

Due to the aforementioned argument and because this research contains an in-depth study on the current practices related to disaster response management, a semi-structured interview will let the interviewees be more flexible in giving their response from various viewpoints with the consistency coming from a similar set of questions. The researcher prepared a few sets of proforma semi-structured interview questions for the interviewees. This form of questions was sent to the supervisor team to get their feedback. After receiving the supervisor team’s feedback and making the amendments and translating it to the Arabic language, the semi-structured interview form (see appendix F) became ready to conduct the pilot study in April 2015. The interview was designed to elicit the weaknesses and the strengths of the disaster response management and the recommendations to enhance the current disaster response practices. The interviewees are referred to in this study as E followed by the number, as this was the code assigned to each interviewee. 28 intensive semi-structured interviews were conducted with Lieutenant Colonel military rank and above. The next section will discuss in detail how the questionnaire and interview sample were selected.