Data collection method: qualitative interviews

Interviews are the most common data collection method in qualitative research as they offer a rich source of data (Silverman, 2011, 2013; Bryman, 2012; King et al., 2018). It is a research technique that resembles daily conversations and, if conducted correctly, feels natural to both the researcher and the interviewee (King et al., 2018).

The type of interview selected for this study was the semi-structured interview, where interviews were conducted following an interview guide, that is, a predesigned list of questions (Table 5.1) (Bryman, 2012; Clifford et al., 2016). This interview guide was flexible and used to orient discussion, but participants were allowed, and encouraged, to take the interview in the direction they wished. This led to follow-up questions being asked to find out more about specific mentions and answers. Although follow-up questions varied across interviews the same

wording was employed to ask the questions from the interview guide, thus assuring consistency (Bryman, 2012).

The interview was structured in three sections. The first section worked as an ice-breaker and allowed the gathering of data about the background of the participants (Table 5.1) and to calculate the carbon footprint of the participants using an online and publicly available tool (footprint.wwf.org.uk) designed by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF). This initial section was useful in getting participants to open up and to start an initial informal discussion about behaviours in different sectors and emissions. These series of questions about the background of the participants allowed were employed for the sample description and to verify that the sample was diverse. The second and third sections were where the qualitative data collection took place. The second section focused on the presence of air pollution and participants were asked to describe their feelings, understandings, and motivations for transport behaviour (Table 5.1). The third part of the interview asked participants to think about the future and to imagine a city with clean air, to describe their feelings and understandings, and to consider the solutions they would implement to achieve that (Table 5.1).

Table 5.1 Interview guide employed in the qualitative interviews.

Profile Questions Time

Pseudonym:

Age:

Postcode:

Occupation:

Number of household members and relation:

Number of children:

Who is mostly in charge of household chores? E.g. shopping.

Who is mostly in charge of escorting children and family members to school, doctor, etc.?

Which would you say are your main forms of transport?

What is your carbon footprint?

10’

Present: Air Pollution Time

Emotions/Feelings: How do you feel when you hear 'air pollution'?

Description: How would you describe air pollution? I am not looking for a technical definition. I want to know your personal experience.

Contributors: Which would you say are the biggest contributors to air pollution? If you think of your daily tasks, or actions which would you say you are contributing to air pollution?

Motivations for transport: When you decide on a form of transport, what do you value most? Think retrospectively to when you have used different forms of transport.

25’

Future: A city with clean air Time

Emotions/Feelings: How do you feel when you hear 'a city with clean air'?

Description: How would you describe a city with clean air?

The future city: If you could change anything in Greater Manchester, so that it becomes a city with clean air, what would you change? This could be anything at all and time and money are not a constraint.

25’

The motivation to include questions about emotions and feelings was found in different studies explaining how these are key in risk perception (e.g. Slovic, 2010).

Different studies concur that although fear and negative emotions have been effective in motivating people to seek environmental information, they have also paralysed them in taking action; and how emotions of hope have been shown to be more effective in motivating behavioural change (O’Neill and Nicholson-Cole, 2009; Moser and Dilling, 2011; Myers et al., 2012; Roeser, 2012). The aim of these questions was to explore what emotions women link to air pollution and clean air, and whether these emotions are encouraging or if they are preventing women to act. Questions asking to describe air pollution and a city with clean air were included to ascertain whether women also conceptualized it as something ungraspable and invisible (Defra, 2017; EEA, 2017; WHO, 2018), and to explore if the role of signifiers of air pollution and clean air (e.g. vehicles, buildings,

greenspace) were key in their conceptualizations (Bickerstaff and Walker, 2001, 2003; Howel et al., 2003; Bickerstaff, 2004; Saksena, 2011; Johnson, 2012;

Smallbone, 2012; Xu et al., 2017). The question in relation to general and individual contributors to air pollution was designed to gather data in relation to what sectors women believed to contribute most, but also to explore notions of responsibility. This question was included as different studies show how awareness and perceived responsibility for emissions can be translated into whether the necessary positive behaviours are adopted (Bickerstaff and Walker, 2002; Whitmarsh, 2005). The question about motivations for different forms of transport was shaped by the pilot study, as it became clear that transport was at the centre of the discourses. This question was also inspired by studies such as Kollmuss and Agyeman (2002) or Gifford and Comeau (2011), and was designed to investigate if the health frame is also present in the discourses of women when referring to active forms of transport, and which other frames they employed to think about other forms of transport. Finally, the question about imagining a future city with clean air was motivated by studies such as Eames and Egmose (2011) and Nieuwenhuijsen and Khreis (2016), which highlight that the views of citizens of a sustainable future must be explored and integrated, as they are central to designing attractive and liveable urban environments.

In order to guarantee that the questions were easy to understand by the participants, that they were generating relevant data, and that the flow and length of interviews was suitable, a pilot study was conducted with five participants. The pilot study was helpful in getting the right framing of the questions, in finding out what type of follow-up questions were needed, and in modifying questions so that they became more relevant. For example, the question about motivations for choosing a particular form of transport (Table 5.1) was included as participants discussed transportation as their main contributor to air pollution. In the pilot study, it became clear that interviews were heavily oriented to transportation over, for example, agriculture.

Interviews were planned to last approximately one hour and took place in different places in GM: sometimes in the participant’s homes, but most often in

safeguard the researcher’s own safety in the field, it was arranged to meet in public spaces when possible, or the location and estimated finishing time was shared with colleagues. Before the interviews started, the background of the researcher, the project, and the structure of the interviews were explained to the participants, and verbal and informed consent was ascertained to proceed with the interview, to record it, and to use the data in the form of this thesis, or in subsequent publications or conference presentations. In order to anonymise the data, participants were asked to choose a pseudonym and this was used when saving data and reporting findings. With the approval of Manchester Metropolitan University’s Academic Ethics Committee, the anonymised data was stored on a secure University server, and was password protected during the data collection and analysis processes, before being made publicly available through the Centre for Environmental Data Analysis (CEDA) data repository (Loroño-Leturiondo et al., 2019a). Although there was no form of compensation for participating in the study, participants were asked about their motivations to participate, and agreement was made to feed the results of the study back in the form of an academic paper or report so that they could comprehend the overall level of their contribution. The interview guide as well as the informed consent document received full ethical approval from Manchester Metropolitan University’s Academic Ethics Committee (Reference Number: 0660). The informed consent document that was read to the participants can be found in Appendix 5.1.

The researcher’s positionality, that is, how the researcher presents themselves, influences how participants react to the study and respond to the questions asked (Savin-Baden, 2010; Corlett and Mavin, 2018). Factors such as class, gender, or race can influence the findings in a study, i.e. power imbalances can influence access to participants or the quality of the data collected. In this regard, the fact that it was a female researcher investigating the experiences and views of women facilitated dialogue, enabling the participants to open up in a safe and secure environment. In other words, in this study the researcher “belonged” to the group of study (Savin-Baden, 2010).