Ethical issues must be given due consideration throughout any research project and as Simpson and Tuson (1995) assert, researchers should guarantee confidentiality, sound intentions and integrity. Every attempt was made to achieve this during the research. Prior to interviews, permission was sought from interviewees to tape record the discussions and all interviewee names were changed so as to guarantee confidentiality in the transcripts and the analysis. I also ensured that quotations were not used out of context to alter their meaning. Bulmer (1982) suggests consideration should be given to the impact of the research upon subjects and with this in mind, the names of employers and institutions were altered where details of sensitive issues were revealed and could potentially be traced back to participants. Some participants were a little nervous about talking in detail about entrepreneurial ideas, because of the potential for those ideas to be used by others and so I took care not to include such details in the analysis.
Singh (2004) infers that it is important to be honest about the difference between the planned research design and the actual research design, which in some cases can evolve into something quite different. In this project the major problem encountered in the research methods related to gaining access to an appropriate sample population in the early stages of the research.
The initial intention had been to carry out an institutional case study based at a Russell Group University, to which I had access. A case study was selected as the most appropriate approach to provide a holistic view, incorporating student and institutional perspectives within the same environment. The case study would, thus, be divided into two strands. The first strand would involve policy interviews with members of University staff who were key players in relation to widening participation policy. The second strand would include structured questionnaires, focus groups and semi-structured interviews with BAC students currently studying at the University.
However, two key difficulties emerged. Firstly, having moved to work in the South of the country, the logistics of travelling long distances to visit the university campus and arranging interviews around work commitments, made the data collection extremely cumbersome. The fact that I was not on-site hindered my ability to build a rapport beyond the interviews with members of staff that were involved in the policy interviews. It also made it necessary to depend on third parties for the distribution and collection of some questionnaires, which had a negative impact on
the response rate. Secondly, the low number of BAC home students studying at the HEI made it impossible to access a large enough sample to carry out the research effectively and only six completed questionnaires were returned from BAC students. The low numbers of BAC students at Russell Group Universities is a reflection of the issues of race and education discussed throughout the thesis.
As a result of these problems, it became necessary to abandon the idea of the institutional case study and reconsider the research design. At this point I decided to approach a small group of graduates, rather than students and thereby open up the opportunity to also evaluate the impact of their education on their subsequent careers. As the research design evolved, I was ultimately able to undertake a much more intimate and detailed piece of research, because of the closer links and identification with the snowball sample population.
This closeness was not without problems, however, and it was essential that I remained mindful of the potential to allow over-identification to interfere with my analysis (Singh, 2004). For instance, I was careful to avoid assuming that I understood what interviewees meant and lapsing into shorthand during discussions. I was also vigilant in always seeking clarification so as to double check my understandings by asking for explicit examples and descriptions.
Transcription is very labour intensive, tedious and time consuming, but it proved extremely useful as a means of familiarising myself with the data. I transcribed the
bulk of the interviews, but eventually, due to competing demands on my time, I decided to outsource the transcription. For the same reason, the design of the SPSS database used for analysing the statistical data obtained from the pilot and interviewee questionnaires was outsourced, but the data entry and analysis were carried out by myself. The outsourcing of work, of course, had cost implications and was an additional strain on my financial resources.
Last, but not least, becoming a mother for the first time in the middle of the research project had a considerable impact on my ability to carry out the research in the standard amount of time for a part-time PhD. The enormous amount of time and energy required to fulfil the responsibilities of caring full-time for a baby and then young child, naturally detracted from the amount of time I was able to commit to the research and led to the extension of the project. The very gendered and classed issues of juggling childcare commitments, financial constraints and the resultant time poverty (Reay, 2003) was a constant reminder of my own positioning within the research and reinforced my commitment to the research objective of contributing to improving BAC experiences of education.
Conclusions
This chapter provided a clear explanation of the research methodology and methods employed throughout the project.
An overview of the design of the study outlined the overarching research questions and provided the rationale for the use of triangulation in the research methodology to improve validity (Ritchie and Lewis, 2003). A summation of the range of qualitative and quantitative primary data collection techniques was given, including interviews, questionnaires, diaries and participant observation in HE environments. Interviews provided the main source of primary data, and were selected on the basis of their efficacy for the collection of in-depth data for exploratory analysis (Asher, 2001). Sources of secondary data were also outlined, including the literature review and university policy documents. The literature review focused on race, class and gender in education, as well as BME graduate career destinations. The ongoing and constant process of revisiting and reviewing the literature in conjunction with the primary data was explained.
Sampling methods were given some consideration and a purposive sample was utilised on the basis that it was well suited for researching specific communities or incidences (Patton, 2002). The snowball sampling technique was also employed in the research as a means to access a population that was difficult to reach (Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, 1997). I handpicked the purposive sample to ensure that the participants matched the selection criteria, which was that they were BAC graduates who had been educated entirely within the education system and had progressed into graduate careers. The snowball sampling method was used as the most effective way of accessing a sufficient number of members of the target population, whilst the choice of equal numbers of men and women respondents aimed to provide the most
representative sample (Singleton and Straits, 1999). My ‘insider’ status as a BAC graduate provided me with some initial contacts, which led on to further contacts until I gathered the required amount of participants.
The methods and techniques used for data collection and analysis were illustrated in a data collection flowchart and then detailed more specifically throughout the text. Informal piloting was used to test the validity of the draft questionnaire from which a revamped questionnaire was designed and utilised for collecting data from the pilot and interviewee populations. Data collected from these questionnaires was analysed using statistical analysis software and the emergent themes were explored in the subsequent interviews. Interview schedules were drawn up as prompts for semi- structured interviews and three interviews were carried out with each of the participants. Each set of interviews revolved around a particular topic. The first interviews focused on experiences of education, the second on identity and the third on learning styles and the relationship between political awareness and education. Detailed discussion provided a wealth of data that formed a picture of the experiences and perspectives of the participants and lent itself to providing answers for the research questions. Every attempt was made to ensure reliability and validity in the data collection and analysis.
Finally, ethical considerations and problems that arose during the research were discussed, alongside the solutions.
Having outlined the research methods utilised during the project, the following chapters will analyse the main findings of the research based on the experiences of the ten graduate participants interviewed.