The semi-structured Interview Guide

The participant selection process began with the researcher sending them a letter requesting their participation. The components of the package sent to various interviewees included informed consent forms (see Appendix 10), detailing the name and programme of study of the researcher, and the reasons for conducting the interviews; a consent form was also administered to the interviewees requesting their signature to assert their willingness to participate in the interview. Invariably, the researcher established a pool of potential interviewees and contacted more interviewees than the number required in order to make room for any potential withdrawals from the interviews. Consequently, despite the hitches confronting the researcher such as participants declining, he was able to reach successfully the proposed number of interviewees needed for the interviews. To make the interview process smooth and less fraught with difficulties, the interviewer, together with the interviewees, proposed and agreed on a suitable place, time and date for each interview to be conducted.

4.5.3.2 Establishing Contact

Emails were sent to each international student’s affair offices of each university, requesting their participation. Unfortunately, none responded. Consequently, the researcher had to visit each university in person and approached international students, and called (invited) them to participate in the study. This was facilitated by the fact that international students apparel, and appearance and their accents differed from Jordanian students5_{. The first thing the researcher did was to verify whether a student was an} international student or not. If the researcher’s option was correct, a student was invited to participate in the study and their phone numbers were taken to make an appointment for the interview.

To ensure that the interviews proceeded properly, the interviewer made sure that he had secured and verified the meeting place with the participant and further ensured that all equipment such as the tape recorder, field note book and batteries necessary for the interview were prepared in advance. Furthermore, the establishment of contact is

5 _{Sometimes, Jordanian students were approached mistakenly, assuming they were international students.} Upon verifying they were not international students, the researcher stopped immediately.

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imperative for the interview participant. After the initial contact requesting the interviewees’ participation in the interview, the establishment of contact began when the interviewer again introduced himself, orally reviewed the purpose of the study, and read the consent form to the participant in order to verify his/her willingness to participate in the interviewee.

4.5.3.3 Pilot Study

Denscombe (2014) stressed that the purpose of conducting a pilot study is to refine the methodology, as it is a smaller version of the main study, which is used to assess the adequacy and feasibility of the main research. Kim (2011) argues that the pilot study can identify problems and strengthen the qualitative methodology by identifying practical and methodological issues as well as highlighting modifications that should be made to the main study. The pilot study also gives the researcher valuable experience in the relevant administrative procedures, contacting the respondents, explaining the purpose of the study and timing each interview (Creswell, 2013). Additionally, it helps to identify key ways in which respondents think about the interview questions (Luton, 2015). According to Morse et al. (2008), pilot studies can help check the data collection instruments by presenting extensive proof of the contents of the interview questions and any methodological issues. Consequently, before the execution of the main field study the researcher carried out a pilot test to review the interview protocols in order to evaluate promptly their effectiveness and to determine how well the respondents understood the questions, whether there were any contradictory questions and to explore their understanding of any difficult concepts used in the interview questions. The interview questions were pilot tested during the third week of June 2013 with three international students, one from institution ‘A’, one from institution B, and one from institution D. Individual comments were also taken from participants after each interview to make sure that there was enough time for every respondent in the main interview. After each pilot study, interviewees were asked to give their opinion and notes on the general structure of the interview to improve on the quality of the study and credibility of the research. Some minor problems were encountered, relating to lack of clarity in some interview questions and repetition of a few. The interviewer ensured that areas with lack of clarity were addressed and the repetitive questions were adequately dealt with.

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Since the research was conducted in an Arabic-speaking country, the interview questions have been translated into Arabic (the mother tongue of most the interviewees and of the interviewer). Three of the participants were non-native Arabic speakers, although two of them spoke Arabic and so an English version of the interview questions was used for just only one of the participants. All the interviews were translated and transcribed verbatim to reflect exactly what was said by the interviewees. This method was supported by Fontana et al. (1994, p. 371), who stated that the “use of language is crucial for creating participatory meanings in which both the interviewer and respondents understand the contextual nature of the interview”.

All interview transcripts were then translated back into English. The first interview was translated and showed to specialists in English and Arabic who then confirmed that, the translation was a true reflection of the transcript. Following this, the rest of the interviews were transcribed and translated by the researcher himself.

4.5.3.4 Sampling Techniques

A convenience sampling technique was employed by the researcher in the data collection process due to its simplicity, cost effectiveness and its short duration of implementation (Zikmund et al., 2012). Bryman & Bell (2015) stress that convenience sampling is very easy to carry out with few rules governing how the sample should be collected, emphasising that the relative cost and time required to carry out a convenience sample are minimal and there is less difficulty with its implementation. Bryman & Bell (2015) reiterate that the main advantage of the convenience sampling technique is its usefulness in documenting phenomenon as it occurs within a given sample and its ability to detect relationships among different phenomena. Maxwell (2012) warns that irrespective of the tremendous advantages of convenience sampling, it can result in sampling bias and that the sample is not representative of the entire population, emphasising that since the sample is not representative of the population, the results of the study cannot speak for the entire population, which can affect validity and reliability of the study. However, the researcher ensured that these effects are reduced to the bear minimum by cross-checking the details of any interviewees selected.

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