Chapter 3 Research Methods
3.2 Research Paradigm and Ethics
3.3.1 Quantitative: Structured online survey
Quantitative methods tend to be associated with a deductive approach that establishes the nature of truth by testing hypotheses, and an ontological view that sees the world as consisting of causal relationships (Jennings, 2001). A quantitative approach is commonly used to examine travel motivations, patterns and experience (Bischoff &
Koenig-Lewis, 2007; Taylor et al., 2004). One of the main objectives of this study is to examine the VFR tourism behaviour of international PhD students in New Zealand.
The quantitative approach, therefore, helps achieve such objectives given its advantages.
A common method of data collection for quantitative research is surveying. There are various types of surveys, such as mail surveys, telephone surveys, e-surveys, and on-site surveys. This study employed a structured online survey (e-survey), with the use of a self-completion questionnaire. That means that the survey was conducted online, and participants engaged in responding to questions of the survey questionnaire. The structured online survey method was chosen for reasons of quick response (Litvin & Kar, 2001; Tse, 1998), high rates of completion (Evans & Mathur, 2005), low research costs (Bischoff & Koenig-Lewis, 2007), and easy follow-up (Oppermann, 1993). In general, structured online surveys have been found to allow a high capture of the potential population in a given period of time. Details on the development of the survey questionnaire are provided in the following section.
3.3.1.1 Development of survey questionnaire
The survey questionnaire was constructed using the Qualtrics online platform, and the content aimed to address three main research questions. Each section contained questions related to the research objectives. A wide range of question types was used including closed- and open-ended, multiple-choice and Likert-type scale responses.
The first part of the questionnaire collected demographic information about the respondents, such as nationality, age group, area of study, and family status. The second part explored participants’ backgrounds in relation to New Zealand, including their previous visits to the country, social connections prior to and after their arrivals in New Zealand, and the overall time spent in the country. In the third part of the questionnaire, the VFR tourism experiences of the participants while studying in New Zealand were examined. The fourth and final part queried the hosting and guesting experiences of the participants who engaged in VFR tourism during their studies.
Types of questions were varied ranging from closed-ended, either single or multiple choices, to open-ended with text entry for participants’ answers. Themes drawn from previous relevant literature were used as the foundation to develop some questions of the questionnaire (see Appendix A.1 for the detailed questionnaire). It is important to note that the primary purpose of the online survey was to gain data that could describe the VFR tourism behaviour of international PhD students, rather than to test hypotheses in relation to it. As a result, a considerable amount of the data collected
from the survey is nominal in type and serves a descriptive purpose.
3.3.1.2 Selection of participants
The population of this research consisted entirely of international PhD students who were enrolled at a university in New Zealand during the field trip period: between February and June 2017. For the structured online survey, international PhD students currently enrolled at eight New Zealand universities were targeted: University of Auckland, Auckland University of Technology, University of Waikato, Massey University, Victoria University of Wellington, Lincoln University, University of Canterbury, and University of Otago. In other words, the study population comprised the entire population, which amounted to a ‘census’ that aimed to capture every international PhD student in New Zealand.
The original approach was to recruit the students via email sent by representatives of the universities. This method was chosen so that the aspects that might compromise the students’ anonymity (such as email addresses) would not be exposed to the researcher. A standard recruitment email with a link to access the survey was prepared and sent to the representatives of the universities to ensure the consistency of the method (see Appendix A.3 for the content of the email). Unfortunately, this approach was not permitted by some universities. Additional methods used to recruit in some instances are detailed in Section 3.4 of this chapter, ‘Data Collection’.
Respondents to the online survey had to meet two selection criteria in order to be eligible participants in the study: first, they had to be currently enrolled at one of the eight listed universities; and, second, they had to hold a student visa status at the time they started their PhD study in New Zealand. The purpose of these criteria was to make sure that the respondents included those who came for PhD study, and, thus, belong to the research population. These criteria acknowledged the possibility that some international PhD students might have obtained residency during the course of their study. The questionnaire was also designed with a filtering question to sort participants who had already engaged in VFR tourism since their arrival in New Zealand from those who had not. The filtering question (Question 13) was placed after questions that identified the demographic characteristics of respondents (Appendix A.1). Only those who had had some VFR tourism experience could continue through the full sequence of questions to the end of the survey. Those who
had not had any VFR tourism experience were directed to the end of the questionnaire.