Pilot Study and Pre-testing Data Collection Tools

Pre-testing of the data collection tools and pilot interviews was conducted with the mentor in Japan and three nurses working at the study sites

• To examine the wording of interview questions in terms of participants’ understanding.

• To examine the order of questions in terms of participants’ understanding.

• To give the researcher experience with the interview procedure and to improve the researcher’s interview skills and overall performance in Japanese.

Part 2: Japan • To examine the quality of recorded data for data analysis with different computing

settings.

• To examine the wording of interview questions and the questionnaire in terms of participants’ understanding.

• To estimate the length of time to complete the questionnaire.

Phase 1: Pre-testing Interview Schedule

The interview schedule for Phase 1 was given to the mentor and discussed. Pre-testing was conducted with the mentor in Japan. Several suggestions were made on interview questions as the mentor thought these questions were difficult to answer for some nurse managers. The order of interview questions flowed smoothly from one question to another question.

Phase 2: Pilot Interviews and Pre-testing Interview Schedule and Questionnaire

The pilot interviews for Phase 1 were conducted with three nurses working at one of the study hospitals. One was a ward manager at an accident and emergency unit with recent working experience in the intensive care unit as a ward manager. The other two were registered nurses with recent working experience at the study site and one had experience of being a clinical educator. The researcher had personal contact with them. Thus they were recruited directly by the researcher. The pilot interview was conducted either in their office or in their private room. These pilot interviews were recorded for the purpose of testing the quality of recording equipment and the operating system because the researcher had to use a different computer to the one she used in Scotland.

Pre-testing of the questionnaire and the interview guide was conducted with 15 nurses and ward managers working at one of the study sites. Their nursing backgrounds varied so that the researcher was able to gain feedback from nurses with various backgrounds and different perspectives. The interview guide (n=10) was distributed to six ward managers and five recently qualified nurses at the study sites. The questionnaire (n=10) was distributed to nurses at study site hospitals. They were asked to give feedback about the contents and the length of the time to complete the questionnaire.

Part 2: Japan • The researcher was able to familiarise herself with the interview process in Japanese. The researcher did not feel any stress or anxiety because the researcher had personal contact with the interviewees before. Good feedback was given to the researcher in terms of overall interview performance.

• The recording equipment worked well and the transference of recorded data into the personal computer was also successful with a different computing environment although it took much longer to transfer compared to Scotland.

• The quality of the transferred data was good enough for data analysis.

• Participants commented on several questions that were difficult to answer. They gave the researcher advice to give participants some examples at the actual interview so that these questions would be easy to answer.

• Most of the feedback for the contents of the interview guide and questionnaire was positive and favourable.

• Both the interview guide and questionnaire were understandable and easy to follow. However, several comments were made on the interview guide for nurse managers that some interview questions were difficult to answer because there was no example. Thus minor amendments were made to the interview questions for the nurse managers. The researcher added some extra explanation to the interview questions during the actual interview.

Overall Summary

The researcher was able to establish interview skills and familiarise herself with the interview environment in Japanese. A few changes were made in order to maximise the understanding of the interview questions for the potential participants. All pilot study data were excluded from the main study data analysis.

Part 2: Japan

4.5.9 Data Collection Process

Conduct of Interview

Interview appointments were usually made via emails or face to face. All interviews started after the researcher introduced herself and explained the study briefly. Participants were then asked to sign the consent form. Interviews with academics were held usually at their office or in an available room at the hospitals where the participants were working at the time of the interviews. Interviews with nurse managers and ward managers were mostly held in their office or in an available room at their hospital or the organisation. The interview time with nurse managers and ward managers varied from 28 minutes to about an hour. Interviews with recently qualified nurses were held mostly at available rooms at their hospital. The interview time with recently qualified nurses varied from 23 to 29 minutes. In terms of digitally audio recording, all participants agreed to be recorded and none of them withdrew from the interview.

Most of the interviewees seemed to be relaxed and comfortable with the researcher. However, some of the recently qualified nurses seemed to be nervous and some of them mentioned that they were nervous. In that case, the researcher explained again the purpose of the study and the participation in this study was voluntary and that they were always able to withdraw at any time. None of them withdrew the interview. As the interview proceeded, they started to be relaxed and talk more fluently.

Field Notes

Field notes were taken after the each interview in order to gain depth understanding of the interviews. The researcher used same developed template for the field note that used for Scottish interviews (Appendix XXI).

4.5.10 Data Analysis of Interview Data

Data analysis of interview data was conducted in Japanese. The process of data analysis followed the same way as Part 1(4.4.9). The data were not translated into English at this point.

Part 2: Japan

Transcribing

The digital audio recorded interview data were transferred to a secure computer at the researcher’s residence. Verbatim transcribing was undertaken shortly after the interview by the researcher. The researcher would go through the recorded interview once with the initial transcription was completed to ensure the transcription was accurate and a valid reflection on the whole content of the interview. In this way, transcriptions were checked to ensure they were valid reflection on the whole content of the interview.

Translating Findings

Translation is the important part of this research to maintain the richness of meaning in the original language. The original language, Japanese, was used for Part 2 data analysis. The findings from the interviews were translated after completing all data analysis to secure the accuracy of translation. Firstly, the themes and categories were identified from the original Japanese interview data. A set of findings, themes and categories, in Japanese were then briefly discussed with the mentor in Japan. After that a set of findings were translated into English and then discussed with the researcher’s supervisor in UK.

The researcher translated all of the data and findings for this study. This brought benefit to the accuracy and consistency of the translation. Firstly, the consistency of the translation was established by only the researcher being translator. Secondly, the researcher had advantages that she was able to understand the language and the background of the culture. Thus it was easier to translate and abstract the meaning in the cultural context. On the other hand, the researcher faced the challenge of keeping the richness of meaning in the original language as it was difficult to translate some unique Japanese expression and diction.