Ensuring Ethical Episodic Interviews: Research Practice, Triangulation, Reliability and Validity

Conducting ethical qualitative research involves principled practice and appropriate codes of conduct (Marshall & Rossman, 2010; Mason, 2002; Patton, 2002; Punch, 2005; Silverman, 2006, 2009; Taylor & Bogdan, 1998). Ethical behaviour rests on the maxim of assuring the free consent of respondents to engage in the study, guarding the confidentiality of the material and protecting participants from any harm that may ensue from their involvement (Josselson, 2007; Kvale, 1996; Sieber, 1992; Smythe & Murray, 2000; Stark, 1998). Given the background of people partaking on Community Employment, individuals who have experienced long-term unemployment (see Chapter Three), I am conscious of my role as an ethical researcher to safeguard their integrity. In addition, my familiarity with the sector (see Section 2.2.1) alerts me to the possibility that my research involves sensitive events and topics (Hydén, 2008; Josselson, 2007). Consequently, my approach needs to be ethical to ensure that people are not potentially damaged from participation in this inquiry. As it transpired, a number of the participants used the interview to articulate delicate areas of their lives, narrating stories that they had never previously told. These issues are described in the findings and discussions chapters. The strategies I embrace to establish ethical interviews (described in Table 2.5) involve four distinct areas of practice: gaining permission to enter the field; carrying out the interviews; transcribing the interviews; and maintaining confidentiality. I believe that these actions protect the informants and ensure an ethical relationship between myself, as interviewer, and the Community Employment scheme participant, as interviewee (Gready, 2008; Hollingsworth & Dybdahl, 2007; Hydén, 2008; Mishler, 1986; Squire et al., 2008).

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Table 2.5 Strategies to Ensure Ethical Research Practice

Phase Strategy Outcome

Entering the

field Obtained permission from schemes through Supervisors (Appendix C) Supervisors advised participants had the option to accept or decline

7 schemes representing 12 organisations contacted All agreed to partake in the study (Chapter Three) 28 participants decided to be interviewed

Conducting

interviews Purpose of the interview was outlined (Appendices B and C)

Written consent to engage in the interview was sought (Appendix C) Written consent to tape-record the interview was sought (Appendix C) Advised participants that tape-recorder could be turned off at any stage Participants had choice about providing personal details (Appendix D) To facilitate reflection about the content and context of the interview

All 28 participants gave written consent All 28 participants gave written consent

27 participants gave written consent (Section 2.5.2) 2 participants availed of this before resuming the recorded conversation

All 28 participants supplied the information

Wrote field notes immediately after each interview Maintained a journal of the experience

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Phase Strategy Outcome

Transcribing

interviews Informed participants that they could receive a copy of the typed transcript to peruse, check, edit and/or delete Ensured accuracy of information

Ensured accuracy of transcription

3 participants asked for copies of their transcripts, but none requested amendments

Contacted 2 participants post-interview to clarify details of the taped discussion (Chapter Nine)

Average time to transcribe an interview was 6½ hours Maintaining

confidentiality Provided options to participants to decide on the depiction of their voice in the final analysis (Appendix C) Storage of the documentation

18 agreed to public portrayal and 9 preferred a pseudonym (Section 2.5.2)

1 participant asked for a written guarantee that the taped record would be erased

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As part of my ethical approach, the interviews are supported by field notes and a journal to facilitate continued self-reflection (Mills, 1959). Numerous authors have recommended that researchers keep dual field texts: notes that chronicle the existential, outward events; plus journal entries that record the researcher‟s inner responses (e.g., Clandinin & Connelly, 2000; Flick, 2002; Mason, 2002; Mills, 1959; Silverman, 2006). These reflections are a record of oneself as the researcher experiencing the experience (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000). I used my journal as a form of triangulation to assist in the validation of this research. My observations on my doctoral journey, based on this journal, are contained in Section 2.7.

Narrative inquiry seeks to elaborate and investigate an individual‟s interpretation of his or her thoughts and feelings surrounding the experiences and events that he or she encounters (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000; Gabriel, 2004; Riessman, 2008; Squire et al., 2008; Webster & Mertova, 2007). It is, therefore, not an exact replica of what happened, but is more concerned with individual truths than identifying generalisable and repeatable occurrences (Czarniawska-Joerges, 2004). Consequently, the definitions of reliability and validity, commonly used in traditional research, require a rethinking and redefining for narrative inquiry (Polkinghorne, 1988; Webster & Mertova, 2007). Polkinghorne (1988) argues that reliability should relate to the accuracy and trustworthiness of the notes or transcripts, not to the stability of measurement, and that validity should be more closely associated with meaningful analysis that is well grounded and supported by the data that has been collected, than with consequences. According to Polkinghorne (1988), we need to re-orientate our measures when using narrative inquiry because the traditional criteria of reliability and validity are not appropriate to this research. Huberman (1995) contends that if the narrative

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researcher can demonstrate rigorous methods of reading and interpreting that enable other inquirers to track down their conclusions, then reliability can be achieved.

It has been suggested that measures such as access, honesty, verisimilitude, authenticity, familiarity, transferability and economy are applicable to the narrative genre (Gabriel, 2004; Huberman, 1995; Webster & Mertova, 2007). All seven criteria are evident in my research:

 Access – access can be viewed in two ways: access by readers of the study to the participants, their cultural context and the process of the construction of knowledge between the researcher and participants of the study; and availability and the representation to the same audience of the research notes, transcripts and data on which the researcher has based the findings (Webster & Mertova, 2007). To facilitate access on both of these counts, I use the three-dimensional narrative inquiry space (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000; Connelly & Clandinin, 1990, 2006) as my method of analysis (described in Section 2.6.3).

 Honesty – „truth value‟ can be demonstrated, according to Lincoln and Guba (1985: 296), when the researcher shows that he or she has portrayed the interviewee‟s multiple constructions adequately, that is, ensures that the interpretation is credible to the creator of the original manifold realities. As part of my ethical practice, I rely on „communicative validation‟ (Flick, 2000: 90), in which the interviewee is shown the data and/or interpretations resulting from his or her interview, so that he or she may consent, reject or correct them (as noted in Table 2.5).

 Verisimilitude – truthfulness can be created through the researcher telling coherent stories that resonate with readers, which display a level of plausibility (Gabriel,

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2004; Webster & Mertova, 2007). By employing the three-dimensional narrative inquiry space, I link both the individual‟s local (micro) context with the broader (macro) environment to produce a systems theory approach to narrative inquiry, so that the reader has a comparative framework against which to view the stories.  Authenticity – realism can be achieved when the researcher provides sufficient

information to convince the reader that the story is told in an intelligible manner, with the well-formed narrative being culturally and historically situated (Gergen, 2001; Webster & Mertova, 2007). In narrating the career stories of the former non- employed, I use traditional storytelling conventions, such as incorporating the narrator‟s goals, actions and events in an ordered arrangement and exploring identity issues and causal linkages in their chronicles (Gergen, 2001).

 Familiarity – „dulling‟ occurs when our ways of conceiving of things become routine, thus we cease to know that we are thinking in a certain way, or why we are doing so (Amsterdam & Bruner, 2000: 1). To avoid this state of affairs, a researcher should make „the familiar strange again‟ (Bruner, 2002: 12). To uncover the assumptions underpinning career theory and research is one of the core aims of this inquiry.

 Transferability – application in another setting can be achieved when the researcher provides the tools to permit a person contemplating a similar study to conduct a comparable inquiry (Watson, 1997; Webster & Mertova, 2007). In my opinion, the research philosophy and methodology described in this chapter, combined with an explanation of the Community Employment scheme structure in Chapter Three, and the analysis and discussion of the findings, affords inquirers with the knowledge base to carry out an analogous study.

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 Economy – transcripts can produce voluminous material, so an efficient method is required that will not compromise the integrity of the data or its findings (Flick, 2002; Pavlenko, 2007). The three-dimensional narrative inquiry space is such a framework of analysis.