Telephone Interviews

The next stage of data collection that was undertaken was interviews with officers involved with the use of ICT in developing consultations in the 32 Scottish local authorities. It was decided that every local authority in Scotland would be invited to participate in the telephone interview stage even though some did not appear to have developed any eParticipation initiatives. From the benchmarking exercise it was evident that there were great variations in the quality and functionality of the website of Scottish local authorities and by interviewing those authorities that did not have eParticipation strategies it would be possible to further identify why some engage in these activities while others had not. As previously stated, this thesis studied eParticipation from the perspective of the public participation side and not the technological side and sought to determine what place, if any, eParticipation played or could play in an overall consultation and engagement strategy of a local authority.

One of the biggest problems encountered in the primary research phase was identifying potential interviewees to invite to participate in the research. Some contacts were identified through the benchmarking exercise but these did not always turn out to

be accurate which in itself was an interesting finding because it is indicative that the currency of information of local authority websites was poor in some cases. Further contacts were established through telephone calls to local authorities and some through secondary sources such as a COSLA document. In the case of three of the local authorities a message was sent to a general ‘contact’ address or feedback form which then resulted in an officer getting in contact to assist me in finding the appropriate person to interview.

Once all contacts were identified an email invitation was sent out to invite officers to participate in the research which contained an introduction to the research. In some cases it was necessary to send follow up emails and make phone calls to confirm the interview dates and times.

The majority of the interviewees selected were involved in the general sphere of consultation and/or engagement, a finding at this stage was that very often consultations are conducted on a departmental basis and so it would not be possible to fully understand all participatory mechanisms in the local authorities through this method.

In total, 30 local authorities participated in this stage of data collection. Although repeated contact was made with the other two local authorities it was not been possible to arrange interviews. Nevertheless, the total interview sample represents 94 per cent of local authorities in Scotland and so a clear picture of eParticipation in Scottish local authorities will be gained.

Due to time constraints and resource limitations it was decided that the interviews would be conducted by telephone rather than face to face. Telephone interviews reduce the costs and time involved in data collection (Oppenheim, 1992). This ensured that island communities such as Orkney, Western Isles and Argyll and Bute councils could which would not have been practical to travel to in order to conduct face to face interviews. Telephone interviewing has a number or disadvantages over face to face interviews; the interviewer has less access to cues such as body language although tone and intonation are still available (Opdenakker, 2006) and the nature of telephone interviewing means that it is harder for the researcher to standardise the setting for the interview (Opdenakker, 2006). For example, during a couple of the interviews the interviewee had to answer a question from colleagues which disrupted the interview.

Telephone interviews are also more difficult for a researcher to establish a rapport with the interviewee (Oppenheim, 1992) and it is argued that telephone interviews are more challenging than face to face interviews for researchers to ensure that the conversation is ‘natural’ while keeping the interviewee on topic (Fielding and Thomas, 2008).

In keeping with the grounded theory approach taken during this study, interviews were not heavily structured although a topic guide was used to provide points of discussion.

Semi-structured interviewing was most appropriate for these interviews because there were key issues to be addressed but a degree of flexibility was allowed for to let the interviewee expand on ideas and speak more widely on issues (Denscome, 2007). As is good practice, the interviews were preceded by an informal discussion with respondents explaining the nature of the research and asking about the interviewees’

role. This allowed for a rapport to be created between the researcher and the interviewee and created a more relaxed tone for the interview (Yates, 2004).

Examples of topics covered in the interview included:

• the coordination of participative strategies within local authorities

• internal and external factors influencing the development of participative strategies.

• Whether or not the local authorities have used electronic participation methods

• If electronic methods are used which tools are used and how these feed into the policy process.

• Local authority officers' perceptions of the advantages and disadvantages of electronic participation.

It is important to note that the term eParticipation was not used during the interviews as it was considered to be too jargonistic and lacked a formal definition and so may have caused confusion (Yates, 2004). Care was taken to explain the scope and purpose of the research to ensure the validity of findings from the research.

In order to ensure that an accurate account of the interviews and to allow for sufficient depth of analysis, the interviews were tape recorded with the permission of the respondents in line with ethical guidelines (Fielding and Thomas, 2008). All recordings were stored securely and only I have had access to both the recordings and transcripts. In addition to recording the interviews, notes were taken during the course

of the interviews of the key points and relevant affective responses to questions by respondents for example instances when respondents responded defensively to questions or seemed uncomfortable with a particular line of questioning.

Conducting the inductive analysis of the telephone interviews

The analysis of the telephone interviews was conducted over a series of steps. Firstly the transcripts were read through and the first stage of ‘open coding’ was commenced by identifying concepts or points of interest through the transcript and noting these. The telephone interviews were then analysed using the CAQDAS (Computer Assisted Qualitative Data Analysis Software) NVIVO. Using CAQDAS tools in qualitative data analysis remains quite a controversial point because it is argued by some that CAQDAS abstracts the researcher away from their data, fragments the data too much and so it loses context and attempts to apply inappropriate pseudo-quantitative methods to qualitative data analysis (Denscome, 2007). It is recognised the ‘code and retrieve’ nature of many packages means that a researcher can lose sight of their role in data analysis thinking that the software package is effectively ‘doing their analysis’ in the same way that SPSS runs statistical texts and provides researchers with outputs that can be inserted into a research report or thesis.

These concerns are valid and must be borne in mind when devising the qualitative data analysis strategy. However, CAQDAS tools also have great advantages and assist the storage, coding and retrieval of data and subsequent interrogation of coded passages (Lewins, 2008).

The ‘open codes’ were translated into a coding structure which in NVIVO are called

‘nodes’. The coding structure was tested on 3 transcripts initially and then refined slightly with some ‘nodes’ expanded into two and some ‘collapsed’ into one ‘node’. As coding progressed more concepts were identified and more ‘nodes’ created. Following the changes to the coding structure all the coding repeated.

As the coding progressed ultimately each transcript was coded individually until it was felt that coding was exhausted. The data was then further categorised by means of

‘axial coding’ , sorted into themes and then evaluated and synthesised into thematic categories to allow for interpretation and reflection on the data. The results are presented in Chapter 5