4.2 Setting, Sample and Informants
4.2.2 Consideration for Research Ethics
As the interview research is tied to ethical aspects, respect for the integrity of the informants and the findings must influence the research process. In this section, I present some research ethical considerations and principles related to this study. I have used Kvale and Brinkmann’s (2010) four areas of ethical guidelines: informed consent, confidentiality, consequences, and researcher’s role.
Informed consent: The research participants should be fully informed about the main purpose of the research, the main features in the design, as well as potential risks and benefits by participating in the research project. All the informants in my study were given a letter that explained the purpose of the study, which included a summary of the topics that were to be discussed in the interview (Appendix 2). Additionally, all informants signed a letter of consent (Appendix 5) as decided by the law on treatment of personal data (the Personal Data Act, 2000). The consent was signed by the informants after the initial briefing, and after I had asked whether they had any questions. They were also informed that they participate
voluntarily and could at any point withdraw from the project.
Confidentiality: According to the Personal Data Act, §13(2000), the interviewer, who is responsible for treating the empirical data, must assure satisfying security for the informants, both by making sure their identities are not revealed, and by treating the collected data with integrity and consideration. In other words, the participants must not be recognized through name or other identifiable personal data. To assure this, I have chosen to anonymise the schools, and the informants are registered with letters and numbers, for example, Teacher A1 from school A. I have made sure the interview material and the names of participants and names of schools at all times have been kept separate, locked away and unavailable for outsiders.
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Another element concerning the confidentiality, also presented in the Personal Data Act, §13 (2000), is the potential conflict between the participants’ anonymity and the researcher’s role as interpreter. Kvale and Brinkmann (2010) refer to this as an ethical area of uncertainty, as the anonymity on one hand protects the participant and thereby is an ethical demand, but on the other hand can serve as an alibi for the researcher by an opportunity to interpret the participants’ utterances and statements without being argued with. Therefore, Kvale and Brinkmann (2010) emphasize that the results should be controlled and validated in order to provide transparency.
Consequences: A third ethical consideration is the researcher’s responsibility to evaluate whether the project might lead to negative consequences for the informants. This is both relevant in relation to the participation in the study, and in relation to my interpretation of the data material. To avoid misquoting and misunderstanding my informants’ answers, I asked follow-up questions such as “Have I understood you correctly when you say…?” In this way, the informants had the opportunity to correct, and also to give additional comments. Also, I asked all my informants to sign a consent form about secondary contact, where they agreed to me contacting them again if I had additional questions or needed clarification (Appendix 6). Researcher’s Role: According to Kvale and Brinkmann (2010), it is important for the
researcher to have expert knowledge of the interview topics in order to ask good follow-up questions. In other words, the quality of the data produced in a qualitative interview depends on the quality of the interviewer’s skills and knowledge on the subject. Since I had, prior to this study, completed a pilot study for my master’s thesis, I was quite comfortable with the interview guide when I began the interviews. Nevertheless, I experienced that this comfort grew with each interview. This comfort enabled me to focus more on the informants and the informants’ utterances, and less on the questions in the interview guide. When I became more experienced as an interviewer, the questions became adapted to the conversation, instead of following the interview guide chronologically. The focus was increasingly on the intention of the study, and the interview guide was, in the end, used to check that all topics were covered. The pilot study, completed prior to this master’s thesis, had the same topic as this study. As a result, I had experienced how to construct the interview guide, in order to ask questions that provided answers relevant to the study. Kvale and Brinkmann (2010) suggest it is important for the interviewer to define the situation for the informant, and I did this by explaining the purpose of the interview, how the recorder would be used, and whether the informant had any
55 questions before the interview began. Thagaard (2009) states that, “The importance of
establishing a good and trustful atmosphere in the interview situation cannot be overrated” (2009, p.103, my translation). This was done through a good briefing before the interview and a debriefing afterwards. I was open to changing the topics and questions, and as mentioned, I edited the interview guide between the interviews with the school leaders and the teachers (Appendixes 3 and 4). Kvale and Brinkmann (2010) and Thagaard (2009) agree the best learning is through own practice and the only way to acquire skills as an interviewer is through interview practice. I made changes and added questions during the interviews, especially if I noticed the informants had little information about NTE, and believed my predetermined follow-up questions would not work. I also experienced that my first, and therefore most open, question to each topic gave the informants the opportunity to choose different angles for their answers. As I gradually became more comfortable as an interviewer, my follow-up questions were more adapted to their answers and not necessarily read aloud directly from my interview guide. In the first interviews, I experienced the follow-up questions created repetition, rather than elaboration. As I became more aware of this, I avoided such questions. Thagaard (2009) also emphasizes the importance of using probes during the interview, so I was conscious of my response to the informants’ answers, by nodding and affirming utterances such as “yes” or “mhm”.
The last question, “How have you experienced this interview situation?” was included to establish how the informants responded to the interview. I made time for a debriefing after the recorder was turned off, and I experienced some of the informants, in this situation, gave additional information that I immediately wrote down after the interview was over. After every interview, I used a couple of minutes to write down my reflections from the interview, and these notes I read before the next interview. “These immediate impressions that are based on the interviewer’s empathic access to the communicated opinions may – in form of notes or recordings – be a valuable context for later analysis” (Kvale & Brinkmann, 2010, pp. 142- 143, my translation).
Another ethical consideration is the power relationship between the interviewer and the interviewee. “The research interview is not a conversation between equal participants, as it is the researcher who defines and controls the conversation” (Kvale & Brinkmann, 2010, p.23, my translation). This can again refer to the atmosphere between the interviewer and the informant. The interviewer’s role is to ask questions, and the interviewee’s role is to answer
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the questions. However, the findings from the interview are dependent on the relation between the two participants.
The research interview is pervaded of ethical problems. The knowledge that arises from this research depends on the social relation between the interviewer and the interviewee. This relation depends on the interviewer’s ability to create space where the interviewee freely and safely can speak. This requires a balance between the interviewer’s wish to collect interesting knowledge and his [or her] respect for the interviewee’s ethical integrity (Kvale & Brinkmann, 2010, p. 35, my translation).
The researcher must remember his or her role of power, as the researcher has the privilege of interpreting and reporting what the interviewee “actually meant” with his or her answer or utterance (Kvale & Brinkmann, 2010).
When conducting a research with informants, the project must be approved by the Norwegian Social Science Data Service (NSD). Therefore, I applied to the NSD for approval to conduct the study. The application was approved 29.08.2012.