The pros and cons of research methods

This section is not concerned with every possible research method and limited to the most common ones in the present research area.

One possible data collection method is represented by the so-called narrative interviews. Even though this type of interview might follow a rough guideline, they normally develop quite freely. A narrative interview is sub-divided in two distinct phases, the main narration on the one hand and the subsequent questioning by the interviewer on the other hand. This method is suitable to explore a particular area of interest in greater detail but is also associated with several particularities. First, the interviewee must be willing to report his subjective experiences, opinions and interpretations. This requires adequate conversation circumstances and active listening of the interviewer. Second, individual responses must be accepted to avoid biases, debates or justifications. Third, the interviewer must follow specific procedures to ensure an ongoing narration without interruptions. The results must be further transcribed in the case that the interview is recorded. This process of transcription is associated with the risk of incompleteness and unintelligibility. Hence, in some cases, the validation of the transcriptions is required by further transcriptions of the initial records (Kempf 2008). Overall, interviews are associated with the risk of biases due to interviewer’s influence, are time intensive and require the linguistic competence of the interviewer and the interviewee (Häder 2010). In terms of exploring the research area in greater detail, narrative interviews were carried out successfully by Grethe (2010), Manchot (2010) and Wahrenberger (2011). In some cases, structured interviews

were carried out in order to collect quantitative data during the main study (Brinkrolf 2002; Vater 2002; Hoffelner 2010). Brinkrolf (2002) and Vater (2002) were very successful and achieved impressing response rates of approx. 88% in each case.

Written surveys on the other hand ensure anonymity and the responses could be regarded as unbiased due to interviewer’s absence. Nevertheless, there is the risk of non-responses and possible biases due to the uncontrolled survey situation (Häder 2010). Hummel’s (2011a) research is an example of a large scale research programme that suffers from non-responses. This examination resulted in a small response rate of 1.4%. In addition, intuitive responses could not be processed or are limited to open categories in the questionnaire. Overall, questionnaires must be self-explanatory, as direct requests are impossible or difficult to receive (Häder 2010).

Text analysis on the other hand is defined as a scientific approach to collect and to analyse the content of texts, pictures, movies and records. This approach both analysis manifest and deferred facts in communication processes and could be quantitative or qualitative in character (Häder 2010 and appendices J.1 and J.2). Kempf (2008) distinguishes between:

text interpretation; qualitative text analysis; quantitative text analysis.

Text interpretations and qualitative text analyses are usually based on smaller sample sizes, whereas quantitative text analyses are based on larger sample sizes. The analysis process of text interpretation is quite dynamic and open, whereas in the case of qualitative and quantitative text analyses, processes are descriptive and less flexible (Kempf 2008). Text analyses and interpretations require the analysis of texts along the categories of interest. These categories are derived from a research question or, in the case of an open question, by the inductive exploration of the text material. The difficulty in the development and application of categories along the text material is associated with their objectivity. In some cases, the research subject or term is evidently given in the text, whereas in other cases the detailed interpretation of the text material is required. Due to the risk of hidden information in the material, it is possible that the content is not completely analysed along the categories. In the case of quantitative text analyses, categories are connected with scales to determine frequencies of text contents and/or to evaluate the intensity of messages. Categories which are associated with several meanings should be clarified

in greater detail by the so-called indicators. These indicators require detailed explanation which should be based on several examples. Both the categories and the indicators are finally coded along the text material by encoders (Früh 2007).

This type of method is quite cheap, does not require the cooperation with third persons as in the case of interviews or surveys, and is repeatable as often as required. Furthermore, text analyses are suitable for longitudinal examinations of past developments. On the other hand, text analyses require thorough categorisation and encoding to guarantee objectivity, reliability and validity (Häder 2010).

Every type of research approach and method is associated with pros and cons. Clarifications show that qualitative research on the one hand is more concerned with a subjective perception and interpretation of reality, whereas quantitative research is associated with a positivist and rather objective perspective of reality. In that case, the reality is captured by standardised methods, whereas qualitative research approaches are rather open and more flexible. Mixed- method approaches on the other hand are suitable to cope with the barriers of quantitative and qualitative methods (Kuß 2010; see also appendices J.1, J.2 and J.3).

The subsequent section builds on the initial clarifications in section 5.1 and 5.2, and is concerned with the development of a research strategy for the underlying research study.