Presenting the data

There are numerous ways of presenting qualitative data (Robson, 2011; Creswell, 2014). In this study, ‗narrative passages‘ are used to exemplify the findings as well as convey the meaning. In addition, data is displayed and visualised in the form of tables. Segments of texts are used to demonstrate each of the categories emerging from the data. In Chapter 4, section 4.2.4 data from the pilot study is presented and in Chapter 6: Findings, the main study data is displayed.

3.9 Ethical Considerations

To ensure ethical conduct of the study and data collection, the researcher is guided by both the British Sociological Association‘s ‗Statement of ethical practice‘ (BSA, 2002) and the National Association of Social Workers‘ ‗Code of Ethics (NASWCE, 2008). The rationale for using the BSA‘s (2002) general guidelines for ethical conduct of research is rooted in the nature of the investigation, which is inherently entrenched in the sociological tradition and theory of research. Additionally, McCormick (2012) argues that feminist social research can benefit from applying the NASWCE code of research practice, particularly in relation to the relationships between researcher and participants and obtaining informed consent.

Therefore, in order to adhere to the highest level of ethical practice, the researcher refers to both statements. The ethical aspects that the researcher focused on are: the professional integrity of the investigator; the relationship with the participants; preserving the anonymity of

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the participants; and following the principle of confidentiality. The ethical statement for conducting ethical research is offered in Appendix 14.

3.10 Rigour of Qualitative Research: Matters of trustworthiness

The ‗trustworthiness‘ of findings from a qualitative research with a flexible design has been a long-listing topic of debate among adherents of the positivist and the interpretivist traditions (Robson, 2011; Carcary, 2009). Scholars like Lincoln and Guba (1985) and Wolcott (1994) reject the positivist notions of validity, reliability and generalisability of qualitative research because different methodologies take different approaches to validity and any attempts to generate a common set of validation criteria would be ineffective (Porter, 2007). Kvale (1996:229) claims that the above-mentioned standards have reached the status of a

‗scientific holy trinity‘ among the positivist research community. However, ‗the linguistic and interpretive turn of the twentieth century means that new criteria need to be established for evaluating the worthiness of qualitative research‘ (Jamal and Hollinshead, 2001:76). Corbin Strauss (2015:266) suggest that the positivist criteria need to be redefined in order to ‗fit the realities of qualitative research and the complexities of the social phenomena that we seek to understand‘. Thus, reliability and validity are avoided by many proponents of the qualitative, interpretivist, non-positivistic social inquiries. Instead, Guba (1981) and Lincoln and Guba (1985) propose the concepts of credibility, transferability, dependability, dependability, conformability and in 1994, Guba and Lincoln added a fifth criterion, authenticity, as the

‗standard‘ means of enhancing the ‗trustworthiness‘ of qualitative research. In this feminist case study, the ‗trustworthiness‘ construct is used as an alternative means to addressing the issues of validity and reliability and generalisability. In the following sections, the concepts are defined and discussed in detail in relation to the trustworthiness of the present research study.

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‘Confirming’ the ‘validity’ of research

From an interpretivist perspective, validity refers to how well the research method investigates what it seeks to investigate (Mason, 2002; Ritchie and Nichollos, 2014) and the extent to which the researcher succeeds in acquiring and representing participant‘s knowledge and meanings. The interpretivist stance ‗encompass[es] the philosophical assumption of multiple constructed realities, which can only be studied holistically (meaning, the knower and known are interactive, inseparable)‘ (Jamal and Hollinshead, 2001:76). This line of thought suggests that inquiry is not value-free, on the contrary, it is value-bound (Jamal and Hollinshead, 2001). Thus, the issue of ‗validity‘ is rooted in the philosophical underpinnings of the study‘s research design and its fundamental assumptions (Lincoln, 2001). This involves demonstrating that the research methods accurately identify and describe the phenomenon under investigation. The issue of validity and reliability of a feminist case study research is under scrutiny as it advocates critical methodologies and philosophies, which as mention above are consider by some scholars to be unscientific. In a positivistic study, the validity of the results is ensured by method triangulation (Denzin and Lincoln, 1994). In contrast, this study, utilises the principles of crystallisation and trustworthiness criteria proposed by Lincoln and Guba (1985) to showcase the merits of this research project. Appendix 15 shows the techniques used to establish trustworthiness.

Reliability of research

Reliability is largely concerned with whether a study can be repeated by other researchers using the same methodology and data-gathering methods (Kvale, 1996; Mason, 2002; Yin, 2003). The concept of reliability, similarly to validity, is associated with positivistic, quantitative, fixed design research (Robson, 2011). According to Guba and Lincoln (1989:234), ‗reliability is a precondition of validity‘. From an interpretivist perspective, reliability is concerned with demonstrability: showing that the researcher has not misinterpreted or inverted the data, or has being careless with the interpretation (Mason, 2002). That is why researchers using flexible design need to account for the strengthes and

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weaknesses of the methods they use and be able to show their workings (Holliday, 2002) in order to minimise the risks of common pitfalls. This research utilises the techniques shown in Appendix 15.

Generalisability of this research study

The term generalisability refers to the question of how theories, findings or conclusions which are generated in a particular setting can be applied to another (Yin, 2014). Maxwell (1992) distinguishes between internal and external generalisability. Internal refers to generalisability within the study‘s setting and external refers to generalisability beyond the setting.

In this case, external validity is not an issue as in qualitative research statistical generalisability to a wider population is not the goal. On the contrary, as Carcary (2009:15) asserts,

the main focus in qualitative research is on insuring appropriate representation of the study‘s events and on understanding the key issues under investigation.

However, because of the nature of individuals and organisations, it is not unreasonable to expect that some findings may be transferable to other organisations.

For instance, it can be argued that some relevant theories or hypotheses inducted from this study may be applicable to working women in other Eastern European countries with similar socio-historical developments or circumstances. Thus, external generalisability is not a concern of this research study, rather it seeks to understand and explain the problematics of Sofian women‘s leisure choices and recommend aspects for further investigation.

3.11 Summary of the Chapter: Methodology

This chapter presents the methodology employed in this research study in order to address the study problem and sub-problems. It adopts a flexible, emerging case study design, which consists of two stages of fieldwork and empirical data collection – Phase 1: pilot study and Phase 2: main study. In the first stage, unstructured interviews, participant observations and casual conversations are chosen as data-gathering tools. Interviews were conducted with

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three Sofian women, who work full-time, using a purposive sampling approach. In the second stage, semi-structured interviews, casual conversations and the personal narrative were used utilising the same sampling approach. In the next chapter, a detailed account of the both phases is given. In addition, the management and interpretation of the data was assisted by the qualitative data analysis software NVivo 11. The purpose of the pilot stage was to refine the methodological approach for the main study, in terms of unit of analysis, data collection methods, refinement of sub-problems and approach to reflexivity.

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