Informed Consent

All the principals who took part in this research were adults and, therefore, consent was sought directly from them. However, I now work as a lecturer at King Faisal University, so I did not have any relations with the Local Educational Authority in the Eastern Province in Saudi Arabia, nor any power to support or influence the school principals. All 20 participating principals were fully informed about the research, the reason behind it and what it aimed to accomplish, before the interviews or observations started. I followed Collis and Hussey‘s (2009) advice that interviewees should not be forced to participate in research and should not be offered any reward for participating, because it

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may cause embarrassment to the interviewee and thus lead to him or her giving the answers desired by the researcher.

Moreover, the principals who participated were made aware that the data collected was for research and that the Ministry of Higher Education in Saudi Arabia (King Faisal University) and the University of Lincoln in the UK would be informed of the findings of the research. Furthermore, they were informed that data from the research might be used in future seminar presentations or publications. After being made aware of these issues, they were free to consent to the interview or to choose not to participate. The principals gave verbal consent, having seen the written consent from the local educational authority, which was considered the most culturally appropriate procedure. However, approval had to pass through several stages. Regarding gaining access to participants, application for ethical approval was submitted to the Ethics Committee of the Centre for Educational Research and Development at the University of Lincoln. Following their deliberation and approval, a letter was then sent to the Saudi Cultural Bureau in London (see Appendix 7). In 2013, a letter in Arabic was then issued by the Saudi Cultural Bureau in London to King Faisal University and to the Local Educational Authority in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia, which stated that I was registered as a PhD student at the University of Lincoln and wanted to carry out my research in Saudi Arabia (see Appendix 8).

The Local Educational Authority in Saudi Arabia was then informed of my intention to conduct research at 20 mainstream schools in the country. An introductory letter was sent to the Director of the Local Educational Authority introducing me and my research and requesting permission and authorisation for me to visit the selected schools and carry out interviews with the interested principals. As a result, a letter was issued by the Local Educational Authority that allowed me to access the schools required and was given to the principals of the schools in order to proceed with the interviews. Approval from the Local Educational Authority in the Eastern Province was important because the school principals asked for evidence of approval (see Appendix 9). This process did not, however, involve ethical approval, nor was there any other process in Saudi Arabia requiring such approval.

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After approval was given by the Local Educational Authority, I travelled to Saudi Arabia on what is termed by the Ministry of Higher Education in Saudi Arabia an academic trip to make appointments by telephone to meet the principals of the 20 mainstream schools selected for interview. Once appointments were arranged, I met the school principals, informed them of the research, and gave them a copy of the information sheet explaining the research, also giving them a copy of the approval from the Local Educational Authority. Then I discussed their agreement regarding participation in my research. After that, suitable dates and times for the interviews were set. I met the male principals face to face and spoke to the female principals by telephone. Participants also were given an opportunity to review their response after I transcript the interviews. The same process was undergone for a later trip I took to undertake observations (see Appendix 10, Appendix 11 and Appendix 12). The next trip I took to Saudi Arabia was to observe the five selected mainstream schools.

Obtaining the consent of the research participants was essential, as it demonstrated that their rights as participants were valued and offered them the chance to make informed decisions for themselves rather than being in any way influenced by the recommendations of the Director of the Local Educational Authority. At the outset of my research, I brought with me consent forms for the participants to sign. All the participants felt uncomfortable at signing the consent document, although they expressed willingness to participate in the research. This attitude surprised me, although such an approach to written and verbal contracts is deeply rooted in Saudi culture (Hutchings and Weir, 2006); I observed the participants usually felt some freedom when I did not give them anything to sign in writing. Principals felt uncomfortable with providing a written signature, because it would identify them as part of the research, and they preferred the sense of anonymity available from giving only verbal consent, which I recorded using a digital recorder (Ahmed, 2007; Alzaghibi, 2010; Al-Zyoud, 2011). I decided to proceed with this method of recording verbal consent as a more culturally sensitive approach.

A similar approach was implemented when conducting observations within a school setting. Contracts are commonly concluded in this manner in daily life in Saudi Arabia.

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In addition, principals are not willing to sign documents because of the likelihood of incurring liability, a perception acknowledged by Alzaghibi (2010) when making videos, conducting interviews and using other data gathering methods in Saudi Arabia. Ahmed (2007), carrying out research in Bahrain, which is only 25km from to the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia, and Al-Zyoud (2011) in Jordan, similarly found a preference for a verbal approach with respect to Arab culture.