The quality of the case study

In the process of designing the strategy of qualitative research, the researcher needs to consider how the quality of research design is achieved and what criteria need to be adopted for judging and measuring the quality of research design (Flick, Kardorff & Steinke 2004). Schwandt (2007, p. 299) indicated that “Trustworthiness was defined as that quality of an investigation (and its findings) that made it noteworthy to audiences.” The four criteria for judging the trustworthiness of this study are: credibility, transferability, dependability and confirmability.

Credibility

The first criterion is credibility, which is “parallel to internal validity” and “addressed the issue of the inquirer providing assurances of the fit between respondents’ views of their life ways and the inquirer’s reconstruction and representation of same” (Schwandt 2007, p. 299).

Considering credibility, I used a series of ways to achieve this criterion, as the following shows:

 I did the pilot study and passed my preliminary data analysis results to My Senior Professor, who worked in this leading university, and to the relevant interviewees for checking the consistency between the interviewees’ descriptions and my representation.

 I transcribed each interview in Chinese based on the digital recording, and then I passed my transcription to each interviewee to check the accuracy.

 I translated a sample of transcriptions and some of the main quotes from Chinese to English as the examples, and my supervisor checked them for accuracy.

 In order to clarify some particular words, such as pinde, which had been translated from Chinese to English, I discussed with my supervisors and other researchers to confirm the accuracy and meaning.

 I participated in three conferences (Zhang, Y 2010, 2014, 2016) in different years and presented my results. Some audiences, who were from China and/or who had experiences working or studying in China, were interested in my research, and they recognised and understood my data, and they also provided me the suggestions how I could better report my results.

 The data in this research were from three different interviewee groups: doctoral supervisors, current doctoral students, and successful doctoral graduates. I found that the majority of results from the three interviewee groups were similar, which is shown in the data analysis Chapters (Chapter 5 and Chapter 6).

Transferability

The second trustworthiness criterion is transferability which is “parallel to external validity” (Schwandt 2007, p. 299). Transferability “dealt with the issue of generalization in terms of case-to-case transfer”. As Yin (2009, p. 15) states that “case studies, like

experiments, are generalizable to theoretical propositions and not to populations or universes”. The purpose of my research is establishing a theory of cultural custom and policy practice of China influencing doctoral supervision within the Chinese context. Although I collected all data from only one Case University, this university is a well- developed sample for other leading universities within the Chinese context. Due to some special doctoral education policies and the different distribution of higher education, Chinese leading universities, such as this Case University or the top ranking universities, have the most famous supervisors; the national and ministerial level key projects; abundant funding; and advanced infrastructures. The educational ideas and practical experiences are always recognised by other levels of universities within the Chinese context. The successful practical experiences and educational policies from Chinese leading universities are always followed by other universities in different provinces in China. Furthermore, some Chinese culture, such as the Confucian culture, influences many Asian counties, and this Case University is one of the top fifty universities in the world; therefore, the theory and the results from this study are likely to have the generalization for other Chinese universities, the universities with the similar cultural backgrounds, or the organisations with the similar policies backgrounds.

Dependability

Schwandt (2007, p. 299) identifies “dependability (parallel to reliability) focused on the process of the inquiry and the inquirer’s responsibility for ensuring that the process was logical, traceable, and documented”. In order to more directly satisfy this dependability criterion, the research needs to report detailed process, which can enable a further researcher to easily repeat the work (Shenton 2004). There are two approaches which can reduce the errors and bias in the case study research. One is “the use of a case study protocol to deal with the documentation problem in detail”, the other is “the development of a case study database” (Yin 2009, p. 45). For enhancing dependability in this research,

I developed and refined a research (case study) protocol, which is shown in Figure 4.2, and which was then tested in a pilot study, which is shown in Section 4.4.3. I followed up this protocol throughout the whole data collection phase. In order to develop a consummate case study database, I recorded all interviews by digital audio recorder, kept and stored the transcriptions for reviewing the collected information, which is further shown in Section 4.4.4. In addition, for analysing data, all transcriptions were uploaded

to Nvivo 10.0 software, and the results of data coding and data sorting saved on a password protected computer. All documents of sorting data results were printed out for further checking in the future. Further information on data store is introduced in Section 4.4.4.

Confirmability

The last criterion is confirmability. Schwandt (2007, p. 299) indicated that “confirmability

(parallel to objectivity) was concerned with establishing the fact that the data and interpretations of an inquiry were not merely figments of the inquirer’s imagination”. This criterion is especially challenging for the researcher who uses case study as their research methodology. Several people are often dissatisfied and doubt the case study investigator whose judgments from the process of data collection are too ‘subjective’. Three tactics can be used in case study research for satisfaction of this criterion. These are: “use multiple sources of evidence”; “establish a chain of evidence”; and to “have key informants review draft case study report” (Yin 2009, p. 41).

This research used all of these three ways. Firstly, during the process of data collection, this research used multiple sources of evidence. When I collected data and analysed data, I set up and maintained a chain of evidence. The purpose of this principle benefited the reader who can “follow the derivation of any evidence from initial research questions to ultimate case study conclusions” (Yin 2009, p. 122). Furthermore, the reader can also trace these steps in either direction, from research problem to research conclusion (case study report) or from research conclusion (case study report) back to research problem, thus maintaining a chain of evidence as following Figure 4.2 shows:

Figure 4.2: Maintaining a chain of evidence

Source: Developed for this research

In addition, the final tactic is that my supervisors reviewed the data analyses chapters. As mentioned in the Section on Credibility, one supervisor who is expert in Chinese culture and Chinese background has strong knowledge background and language abilities between English and Chinese. This supervisor reviewed three examples of my transcripts from Chinese to English, and the sample of the quotes translated from Chinese to English. My supervisors reviewed my case report drafts and this review procedure assisted me to reach the confirmability criterion for this research (Yin 2009).