CHAPTER 3 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
3.6. Qualitative Research Process
3.6.1. The focus group discussions
A focus group comprising experienced infrastructure PPP practitioners was constituted. This facilitated inter-participant discussions guided by open-ended questions on the nature of typical conflicts and disputes in infrastructure PPPs, critical issues in DR, performance of current DR practices in infrastructure PPP project settings, and recommended improvements to DR.
Perspectives from the focus group enriched insight on the information obtained from literature and confirmed the design of questionnaires.
Given that DR in infrastructure PPPs is a highly specialised subject, participants of the focus group discussions were purposively sampled to ensure that the individuals selected had the appropriate expertise and experience required for providing relevant information on the topics of discussion.
For focus groups, sample size usually varies from 4 to 15 individuals; large sample sizes – typically more than 12 individuals, are discouraged because participants tend to disintegrate into smaller groups thus defeating the purpose of the focus group (Ochieng et al. 2018). The widely accepted range for sample size is 6 to 8 participants (Krueger and Casey 2000). This research targeted to have 10 participants in the focus group discussions.
Due to the travel restrictions that had been imposed across Australia in a bid to control the spread of COVID-19, a face-to-face focus group discussion session with the research participants was not possible. Therefore, an online video focus group session was held via Zoom software. This was done on 16th October 2021 in one session that lasted approximately three hours. The discussions were guided by a set of open-ended questions as presented in Appendix 1. Recordings obtained from the focus group discussions were used to make a transcript that was analysed using content analysis. Audio recordings were used for verification of any participant quotations of interest and harvesting more information.
3.6.2. Designing the semi-structured interviews
The in-depth interviews were designed to be semi-structured. Interview question guides were prepared under five broad sections namely: background information, current DR practice in infrastructure PPPs, critical issues in DR in infrastructure PPPs, improvement to DR practice in infrastructure PPPs, and additional thoughts. Specific questions to the interviewees varied
based on their responses. This facilitated the gathering of each interviewee’s holistic viewpoint on DR in infrastructure PPPs.
In order to understand the influence of behaviour of project parties on the DR approaches or processes, interview questions querying into behavioural aspects of project parties were embedded in the interviews in line with the principles of DCT as depicted in the conceptual framework of this research study. This was also done for focus group discussions and survey questionnaires. However, no explicit mention of DCT was made in the questions used for data collection in order to avoid overwhelming the respondents with conflict research theories and instead redirect their focus to describing the different scenarios that were relevant for analysis of the research findings.
3.6.3. Sampling for interviews
Given the difficulty in sourcing individuals from the niche players of the Australian infrastructure PPP market, interview participants were purposively sampled.
During the planning phase for the interviews, it was anticipated that 15 – 20 infrastructure PPP practitioners with at least 5 years of experience in infrastructure PPPs would be interviewed. A fair balance between government and private sector representation was targeted. Marshall et al.
(2013) suggested that the number of research participants for interviews can be determined through examining similar past research and using the same sample size used in the past research or a sample size at which data saturation is achieved. Data saturation is said to be achieved when addition of data from more interviewee participants does not significantly contribute to more meaningful understanding of the phenomena under investigation (Guest, Bunce and Johnson 2006). The optimum sample size is determined when data from interviewee respondents becomes repetitive and interviewing additional participants only returns the same information submitted by previous interviewees (Francis et al. 2010). According to Guest, Bunce and Johnson (2006), a minimum of 10 interview participants is required for data
saturation and 11 participants can be sufficient to achieve it. In line with this, 18 participants were interviewed for this research and data saturation was achieved with this number.
Prior to the interviews, pilot interviews were done.
3.6.4. Pilot interviews
Four pilot interviews were undertaken to test the clarity of interview questions as well as efficiency of recording equipment that was used during data collection. Subsequently, the final question guide for the semi-structured interviews (Appendix 2) was drawn based on the feedback from the pilot study as suggested by Maxwell (2013).
3.6.5. Interview process
Infrastructure PPP practitioners whose contact details were publicly available were contacted directly by email to request for their participation in the interviews. Participants were also sourced via existing professional networks. To broaden the interviewee sample, snowball sampling was employed by requesting interviewees to nominate other experts for consideration in the data collection process.
The personalised invitation emails to prospective interviewees had a Participant Information Sheet (Appendix 4) and Consent Form (Appendix 5) attached. This served as preliminary information on the research project.
The interviews were held between 1st August 2022 and 30th September 2022 with a mix of face- to-face and Zoom video online sessions each lasting between 45 and 120 minutes. Although the preference was to conduct only face-to-face interviews, a compromise was made for Zoom online interviews because most people were still cautious about physical meetings accelerating the spread of COVID-19. Moreover, the interviews were conducted in late winter / early spring – a season that saw a peak in flu and cold cases whose symptoms could be hardly differentiated from those for COVID-19. This resulted in some people opting out of face-to-face interviews out of precaution. Out of respect for their health decisions, the interview protocol was adjusted
to accommodate online interviews. The online interviews were more like virtual face-to-face interviews because they were video meetings via Zoom. The Zoom video meetings came with an additional advantage of enabling interviewees across different geographical locations in Australia to participate in the research, considering that South Australia only contributes a small percentage to the infrastructure PPP inventory in Australia. In Australia, the highest percentage of infrastructure PPP projects is located in New South Wales (NSW) as discussed in Section 2.3.2 of this thesis. Therefore, the Ph.D. Candidate travelled to Sydney, NSW to conduct a number of face-to-face interviews.