Ethical Considerations

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The study was guided by the University of York’s ethical principles, which are specific to dealing with human participants. Firstly, I had to gain permission from the university’s ethical committee by detailing how the data would be collected. These methods also covered the key aims and objectives of the research, as well as the location of the field study. The anonymity of participants was paramount. Confidentiality was also outlined. All potential participants were given information about the research study before being asked to sign a consent form (Appendices 7-10). This form implied informed consent and required the sending of a separate form to participants for both questionnaires and interviews before participants could take part in the research.

To ensure that the study information was clear and unambiguous, the details were provided in both Arabic and English. Participants were told that they were volunteers and that they could withdraw their consent at any time before completing the questionnaire. However, their anonymity was assured, as the data from the questionnaires were kept on a password-protected computer to which only I had access. Data would be taken from the paper-based questionnaires and uploaded onto the computer in order for data analysis to be conducted using computer software. The completed paper-based questionnaires would be kept only for the duration of the research study and would then be destroyed.

The interviewees were offered the same level of protection to assure the confidentiality of the information provided. However, participants were informed they could withdraw their consent at any time during the interview and up to seven days after the interview had taken place. In this case, all of the participant’s records would be destroyed. It was important to provide a time limit for consent withdrawal, as the data analysis depended on the scrutiny of all data, and it would be problematic to delete after analysis had taken place. Under the Data Protection Act, I had to ensure that all information would be used only for the purpose for which it was provided. I also had to protect information provided if it was going to be sent to a translator, but as I am fluent in both English and Arabic, outside translation was not necessary.

I also ensured that supervisors were aware of where the interviews would take place if carried out in the field. This information was shared so that contact would be maintained throughout the process and to protect the research from potential risks while it was ongoing. Although the field study was to be carried out at my own university, permission had to be granted by both the Saudi Ministry of Education and the governing body of the university.

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The Saudi Cultural Bureau also had to be informed, and this organisation provided consent to conduct research on the university premises.

Various ethical issues can arise in terms of confidentiality, particularly when the researcher is an insider. Insiders have greater insight into the experiences of the participants, which can be seen as either a benefit or a limitation. As the author of this study, I had to take these limitations and ethical issues into consideration when handling the data collection. Some information revealed to a researcher, especially in interviews, might be deemed privileged information (Smyth & Holian, 2008), so it was necessary to respect the confidentiality of such disclosures. In addition, the research findings had to reflect collected data without compromising the integrity of the research or the confidentiality of the information provided.

3.10 Summary

This chapter has shown how data was collected in this study. The chapter has explained how the research was designed to utilise both quantitative and qualitative methods. It has also explained that questionnaires and interviews were selected as fit for the purpose of meeting research objectives. Pre-prepared questions were used in the pilot study as these were already validated, and small adaptations were made to ensure that the questions covered the topic and could elicit the information required. These questionnaires were found to be too long, and some questions towards the end of the questionnaire were left unanswered. The unanswered questions meant that the questionnaire needed to be reduced for the main study. The pilot study also revealed that the interview timeframe was too small, so timing allocation was expanded in the main study. However, the interview questions were effective in meeting research objectives. All interviews were carried out face to face to avoid the technical problems that had occurred during the pilot study’s online interviews. Throughout the data collection process, care was taken to ensure internal validation; this meant keeping in mind at all times the research objectives. Transparency was important to ensure external validation, which meant that other researchers would be able to conduct a similar study and produce similar results. All data were collected, analysed, and stored according to ethical principles. Both sets of data were subject to software analysis and were then interpreted to produce findings. The next chapter provides the findings of the study.

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