Phase Two (Qualitative) 79

In the second phase of this research, the researcher utilised a purposive sampling approach to interview participants who had participated in the first phase. Twenty-eight nurses who had participated in Phase I have signed the consent form and contacted the researcher to be interviewed. They were interviewed individually in a meeting room in the hospital during their break and asked open-ended questions (Appendix I) regarding their experience of pain and pain management. The interview questions were in English and developed by the researcher to explore the barriers that face nurses during pain assessment and management, and to answer research question number two. The duration of each interview was about 30 minutes and no participants had any difficulties answering the questions. Interviews were audio-recorded in order to be transcribed for further analysis. The researcher did the transcription and each participant was allocated an alphabetical letter (A, B, C etc.) for

identification. As noted by Cohen, Manion and Morrison (2013), interviews are a way of collecting research data by talking and listening to the research participants as they air their experiences on the research topic. The interviewees usually provide the primary data on the subject being investigated. In this research, the use of interviews was relevant because it was a means of collecting data and gaining knowledge on the research topic from the participants. Kvale (1996) stated that interviews are ‘an interchange of views between two or more people on a topic of mutual interest, sees the centrality of human interaction for knowledge

production, and emphasizes the social situatedness of research data’ (p. 14).

Equally, the use of interviews promotes the collection of research information from

participants within their local settings and ensures the accuracy of the data collected. While conducting interviews, the researcher should always ask questions in a way that elicits valid responses from the interviewees. In this vein, Hoyle, Harris and Judd (2002) pointed out that the researcher has the ‘dual goals of motivating the respondent to give full and precise replies while avoiding biases stemming from social desirability, conformity, or other constructs of disinterest’ (p. 144).

By using interviews in this research, highly personalised data were gained from the perspectives of the interviewees. This gave the interviewer the opportunity to probe for further views from the interviewees and enabled the interviewees to further explain themselves. David and Sutton (2004) observed that semi-structured interviews are usually non-standardised and commonly used in qualitative analysis.

In semi-structured interviews, Gray (2004) affirmed that note-taking is essential. Moreover, this method of data collection gives the researcher the chance to probe for further views of the interviewee if he or she feels that the outcome is not satisfactory. David and Sutton (2004)

suggested that having ‘key themes and sub-questions prepared in advance helps in giving the researcher a sense of order from which to draw questions from unplanned encounters’ (p. 87). Thus, planning is essential before conducting semi-structured interviews. Nonetheless,

probing enables a researcher to explore new research dimensions that had not been taken into consideration while planning the research study.

3.9.2 Transcribing Qualitative Data

Malterud (2001) commented that the increased use of qualitative research calls for efficient data collection techniques and documentation procedures. Similarly, the increased use of computer applications in qualitative data analysis requires more efficiency—especially in the process of transcribing the research data. Although computerised qualitative data analysis promotes efficiency in the management and processing of research data, researchers have continued to play a crucial role in the transcription, processing and management of qualitative research data. Qualitative data should be transcribed word by word because such transcription promotes the reflection of the respondent’s knowledge in the transcribed data.

Long and Johnson (2000) observed that transcription guidelines are meant to guide

researchers in the process of organising and analysing the data despite the analytical tools and techniques applied. Moreover, the guidelines ensure that the data transcripts are made

efficiently, systematically and consistently. In the present research, the data were transcribed word by word to ensure that the respondents’ views and meanings were not altered in the transcription process. Further, a categorisation scheme was used and guided in the process of organising, classifying and indexing the research data.

3.9.3 Phase Two Data Analysis (Qualitative)

Thematic analysis was used to analyse the qualitative data. The qualitative data were analysed by the researcher and checked by the supervisors. Tobin and Begley (2004) asserted that thematic analysis involves seeking important themes in the process of describing or

explaining the research phenomenon. The important themes are identified by reading through the data carefully and then re-reading the data to confirm any omitted themes. These

important themes usually form the basis for research analysis. In this research, thematic analysis was used to support the quantitative research results. The important themes were identified in each transcript. Qualitative data were assigned numerical codes to promote the classification of research themes based on the frequency of theme identification by the respondents in each research question. While conducting a thematic analysis of open-ended research questions, the themes in each question were identified and counted.