According to Matthews and Ross (2010) in social research four key aspects of research quality exist: reliability or dependability; validity and credibility; generalizability and transferability; and finally ethical practice. Saunders et al. (2009) state that data quality issues such as reliability and validity can be identified when using semi-structured interviews. Issues of validity and reliability will be discussed next.
2.3.1 Validity and Credibility
In terms of the data collection instrument, validity is defined as “the extent to which an instrument is measuring what it is intended to measure” (Holsti, 1969, p.142). In the case of research findings, validity “is concerned with whether the findings are really about what they appear to be about.” (Saunders et al., 2009, p.157). Stated differently, validity “…refers to the accuracy of a result. Does it ‘really’ correspond to, or adequately capture, the actual state of affairs?” (Robson, 2002, p.100). Flick (2011) advises that when focusing on evaluating the validity of results, internal validity and external validity must be checked. According to Sekaran (2003, p.150) “external validity refers to the extent of generalizability of the results of a causal study to other settings, people, or events, and internal validity refers to the degree of our confidence in the causal effects (i.e., that variable X causes variable Y)”.
Robson (2002, p.175) suggests that “triangulation can help to counter all of the threats to validity”. Furthermore, while Lewicki et al. (2006) note that qualitative methods such
125 as critical incident techniques and in-depth interviews have high external validity, they suggest triangulating such methods with survey data, to limit the problems of internal validity inherent in these methods. Triangulation is “a research approach employing more than one perspective, theory, participant, method or analysis. The notion is that this helps in getting a better ‘fix’ on the object of study” (Robson, 2002, p.553). Given that this thesis uses interview and questionnaire data to examine antecedents of co-worker trust, problems of internal validity can be countered. However, the antecedents of distrust were only examined using interview data and hence triangulation does not apply and the possible threats to internal validity are considered as one of the limitations of this thesis.
Credibility (or believability) “of the researcher’s interpretations of the data she has gathered is tested by the transparency of the analysis and interpretation of the data, for example, by testing out the interpretation of the data with the research participants or by setting the interpretations alongside existing theory” (Matthews and Ross, 2010, p.12).
This aspect of research quality is checked by comparing the study findings with previous literature and explaining them with existing theory.
2.3.2 Reliability and Dependability
According to Robson (2002) reliability in qualitative research is associated with the use of standardized research instruments. With regard to interviews as a data collection tool, Saunders et al. (2009, p.326) state that “the lack of standardisation in such interviews may lead to concerns about reliability.”. Robson (2002, p.176) supports this by stating that “the general non-standardization of many methods of generating qualitative data precludes formal reliability testing.”.
Reliability can be defined as “the extent to which a measurement procedure yields the same answer however and whenever it is carried out.” (Kirk and Miller, 1986, p.19).
Stated differently, reliability is “the extent to which your data collection techniques or analysis procedures will yield consistent findings” (Saunders et al., 2009, p.156). Since the questions used in the semi-structured interviews were modelled after interview questions from previous research (e.g. Wasti et al., 2011) answering similar research questions as the ones here, and given that the questions used in the semi-structured interviews were standardized in all 20 interviews conducted for the purposes of this thesis (the only unstandardized aspect of the interviews were the probing questions, and
126 these questions’ primary purpose was to encourage the participant to elaborate more on his/her responses), concerns about this aspect of reliability can be reduced.
“The concern about reliability in these types of interview is also related to issues of bias.” (Saunders et al., 2009, p.326). Robson (2002) also lists as causes for unreliability:
participant error, participant bias, observer error and observer bias. In order to deal with participant error, as described in previous sections of this chapter, the researcher attempted to encourage participants to participate and elaborate in their response (e.g.
guaranteeing to participants the confidentiality of their responses, informing participants of the expected duration of the interview, conducting the interview wherever and whenever it was convenient to the participant), probing questions were also asked to encourage participants to elaborate in their responses. Participant bias was also dealt with by attempting to eliminate socially desirable responding in terms of participants’
feeling that they had to say what they thought their bosses or the researcher wanted them to say. This was done by guaranteeing to participants the confidentiality of their responses and that no one in their respective organisations, especially their managers, would have access to their responses. The researcher explained to them that there are no right or wrong answers to the questions and that the analysis and presentation of the results would be carried out in a way that would make it impossible to identify who any of the respondents are. Observer error and observer bias were generally countered through the use of data triangulation.
According to Matthews and Ross (2010) dependability is frequently referred to in relation to qualitative research methods and it applies to consistency in research practice, by for example, making sure all data is included and that none is lost through unreliable audio recorders or inaccurate transcribers. As was described in previous sections in this chapter, all 20 interviews conducted were included in the study with no omissions, and they were all transcribed verbatim. Furthermore, there were no problems relating to the recording of the interviews. Therefore, this measure of research quality was adhered to in this study.
2.4 Summary
This chapter an overview of the methods and procedures used to collect and analyse qualitative data to address the first two research questions in this thesis. First the use of
127 semi-structured interviews as a data collection tool was justified followed by a description of the procedures followed to recruit participants, translate the interview question in to Arabic, pilot testing of the interview questions, conduct of the interviews and the steps followed to analyse the collected data. The major ethical issue of anonymity of participants and their responses was addressed and a number of data quality issues were discussed. The following chapter will present the findings produced from the analysis of interview data collected from participants.
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