THE ROLE OF THE RESEARCHER 83

Interpretive research has long been an object of criticism owing to the prominence of the researcher in the research process and interpretation of results, which presents the possibility of researcher bias. Unlike positivist enquiry, whose goal is objectivity owing to its view of reality as single, tangible, fragmentable and value-free, interpretive research is subjective and acknowledges that there are multiple realities and that the researcher and the study participants mutually influence and shape a reality (Gorman & Clayton, 2005). Objectivity in interpretive research is viewed as impossible and researcher bias is a resource rather than a weakness of a study in that, when joined with the perceptions of study participants, the researcher’s bias contributes to a new, mutually constructed reality (Gorman & Clayton, 2005). Wolcott (1995) views bias as crucial to an investigation because “researcher bias is a manifestation of the cultural self” (cited in Gorman & Clayton (2005, p.191).

To control and deal with the potential for bias in an investigation, the interpretive researcher is expected to apply the practice of building trustworthiness. As an interpretive researcher, one must be candid about personal perspectives and experiences in the “person-as-research- instrument” statement (Creswell, 2003; Gorman & Clayton, 2005)(Creswell 2003; Gorman and Clayton 2005). In this study, the researcher adopted an outside observer role. This was possible because the researcher was a mainstream civil servant, in a Ministry that has no link with the research institutions and their parent ministries. Apart from limited interaction with librarians and journal editors in some of the research institutions as a research fellow for UNESCO/Keizo Obuchi in 2002/03, the researcher had no personal stake in the interpretations and outcomes during the research process. Hence, this could be viewed as an advantage in that it placed her in a unique position to address the problem pertaining to ICT adoption for research communication and also put the participants at ease to frankly give their opinions, especially after establishing good rapport with the respondents. However, this external role could prevent the researcher from getting a sense of the research setting from the inside, or obtaining access to confidential or sensitive data and issues (Walsham, 1995). Also, the researcher’s role as a programme officer in a Ministry that has been associated with rationalisation and staff retrenchment made some participants unwilling to divulge information. Nevertheless, the advantages outweighed the disadvantages.

There was also the issue of the researcher’s cultural self and national background. Being a Kenyan who has grown and shared in the culture of the research participants made it easy for the researcher to understand and explain issues related to the socio-cultural environment, such as the social/communal and oral nature of Kenyans pitted against the isolationist and silent nature of computer-mediated communication; the high power distance in relationships between those highly titled/qualified in academic terms but low in ICT skills and the ICT savvy but lower qualified/students, as well as issues to do with age and gender. On the other hand, culture familiarity might lead the researcher to interpret issues based on her own experience and not that of the participants. To avoid such a scenario, the researcher was always careful to document the views of the research participants and use them to support all claims and conclusions.

Given that the researcher was not a research scientist, the science-oriented research institutions setting and the process of communication of scientific research outputs posed challenges and advantages. The challenges arose in that the researcher could not easily understand the concepts and issues that related to scientific research communication and its day-to-day constraints in the particular institutions. Though the researcher did not encounter such a scenario, there was the possibility of limited trust on the part of participants regarding her ability to articulate issues pertaining to scientific communication, as well as concerns about the usefulness of the final research report. To guard against such issues, the researcher was ever alert for nuances, and constantly reflected on and requested validation of emerging understanding and issues. Conversely, her outsider’s perspective was viewed as providing benefits in that factors unique to the scientific cultural setting relating to the adoption of ICT for research communication were easier to perceive. Moreover, the researcher was seen as relatively free from assumptions associated with the scientific research fraternity, thus, in a unique position to uncover issues that the insiders could not.

The literature review identified conceptual gaps and theoretical models that could be applied in gathering data to fill the gaps. However, the researcher used the models only as lenses and did not restrict herself to their prescriptions at the expense of new insights that arose in the course of the study. She was careful to balance following possible leads from the literature with attempts to unearth emergent findings impacting on the adoption of ICT for the

communication of scientific research outputs. To ensure checks and balances in the practice of building credibility and trustworthiness, the research applied Lincoln and Guba’s techniques:

• Undertook prolonged engagement in the field to ensure collection of in-depth data/information.

• Was persistent in her observations to be able to identify relevant events and their relationships as every setting had unique features and dynamics.

• Applied more than one method of data sources, settings and research participants to help ensure legitimacy of the observations and to help in seeing phenomena from a variety of perspectives.

• Was modest enough to seek peer debriefing to help review perceptions, methods and analytical techniques and also get additional and expert perspective as events unfolded.

• Allowed for member checking or review to confirm data and their interpretation and also to help in overcoming certain aspects of research bias (Gorman & Clayton, 2005; Lincoln & Guba, 1985).