Interviews

I used semi-structured interviews as a primary data generation tool. One of the key reasons for this decision was that it provided me an opportunity for conversation with the

participants. This type of conversation, as Tim May (2011) suggests, allowed me to ask questions in a flexible fashion which enabled me to explore the perceptions, values,

meanings, beliefs, or assumptions etc. about research held by the participants. It also allowed interviewees to express their views, feelings, opinions and experiences regarding research freely in response to interview questions. In this way, the interview data facilitated me to gain

deep insight into academics’ views as well as to spot out research related cultural items expressed in their conversation. It appeared naturally that the holders of these items were also present in the context. In this way, the extraction of cultural factors from interview data fulfilled one of Archer’s basic propositions about cultural items that there must be bearer of every cultural item (Archer, 1995) (for details see 2.7.5). In addition, the dialogue with interviewees also enabled me to uncover views of the participants about the influences (i.e. constraining or/and enabling powers) of the cultural items on their research practices.

Moreover, interviews also provided me an insight into how participants’ research experiences within University X contribute to the shaping up of their research related views.

Another advantage of collecting data through interviews was that it provided me a chance to know the opinions/views of the participants about the structural setting of the university and its influences on their research practices. However, according to Archer, a structural factor can exist and may exert causal power on the action of the people, whether they know it or not (Archer, 1996); for example, the criteria for academics’ promotion can exist in a university even in the absence of their knowledge about it. In the light of this claim of Archer, I thought that interview data only provided me partial information about the structural setting of University X for analysing research culture with the morphogenetic perspective since it revealed information only about those structural factors which were known to the participants. Therefore, I also analysed selected documents to unveil the structural factors (which might be (un)known to the participants) pertaining to research culture present in the university (for details see 2.7.6)

For conducting interviews, I contacted and met with the prospective participants in their offices. After briefly introducing my study and myself, I invited them to participate in the study. Within a few minutes, they agreed/disagreed to participate in the interview for the study. After knowing the consent of willing participants, I scheduled the interviews according to their availability and convenience. Before conducting interviews at the scheduled time, I again explained the purpose of the study in both oral and written forms (information sheet). I explicitly informed interviewees that their participation in the study was voluntary and they may withdraw from it at any time. I also told them that their identities and responses would be kept confidential and would be used only for research purpose. After getting their verbal permission for the audio recording of interviews, I obtained their signature on a prescribed informed consent form and then started the interviews.

While conducting interviews, I used ‘laddering technique’, which helped me unfold the respondents’ beliefs, values, perceptions and assumptions etc. underscoring their research practice. This is a simple process of asking a general question on a particular topic followed by why and how questions with the aim to unveil ‘individuals’ core set of constructs on how they view the world’(Hawley, 2009, p. online). By following this technique, I first asked

questions about interviewees’ engagement in research activities. Then, in the light of their responses, I posed ‘why’ questions, followed by ‘how’ questions to get deeper insight into participants’ beliefs system that underpin their research practices. In addition, I also used prompts, when required, because it helped participants to respond to questions in a focused manner.

I conducted face-to-face interviews because it increased the chances of high response rate for the study (Grix, 2010). It also enabled me to gauge the body language of the

interviewees that might be helpful in decoding and interpreting respondents’ verbal messages. Consequently, it facilitated me to get a deep insight into the phenomenon under investigation. I also decided to conduct all interviews in English language, because it could be assumed, on the basis of my knowledge and personal interaction with the academics and managers in University X, that the selected participants had enough English language skills to express their ideas in this language. However, I also told the interviewees that they can reply in their national language (Urdu), if they thought an idea could be expressed better in it or felt that English was a barrier to the expression of their views. This was done to ensure that

interviewees express their views freely, frankly and in detail and a language barrier may not affect the quality of their views.

In order to remain focused during all interviews, I used an interview schedule (see Appendix F) which was primarily derived from Evans’s conceptual model of researcher development (Evans, 2012). The interview schedule included open-ended questions to get in- depth views of academics and managers about their research practices as well as their

understandings of the contextual factors affecting their research practices. In this manner, I interviewed 6 mangers and 16 academics. The average length of an interview was

approximately 35 minutes, though it ranged from 29 to 50 minutes.