List of acronyms and abbreviations
Chapter 3: Research methodology
3.4 Data collection methods
Semi-structured interviews and questionnaires were used as data collection methods for this study. Ngulube (2005: 136) observed that although no single method is perfect, if different methods lead to the same answer, then greater confidence can be placed in the validity of the conclusion.
3.4.1 Semi-structured interviews
The qualitative aspect of the study was facilitated by semi-structured interviews with the visually impaired students in a face-to-face setting which is, according to Babbie and Mouton (2001: 249) the most common method of collecting survey data. Holstein and Gubrium (2003: 176) defined an interview as „an in-depth conversation between two participants and the researcher‟. Conducting an interview is a more natural form of interacting with people than making them fill out a questionnaire (Terre Blanche 2006: 297).
Interviews were used in the study in order to get to know the students quite intimately, Terre Blanche (2006: 297) elaborated that „so that we can truly understand how they think and feel‟. A structured interview was found to be more appropriate for this particular population of visually impaired students. It is defined by Understanding research…(2003: 86) as a structured conversation where the researcher has in mind particular information that she or he wants from the respondent and has designed particular questions to be answered. As the study employed this technique, an interview schedule, which is a set of questions in a predetermined order, was used.
Through the use of the interviews, a critical incident experienced by the students was explored. For example, question five of the interview schedule, whereby the students were asked to describe an instance where they had a need to find information. This
105). The students were asked for details of their experience of an information seeking incident, or were presented with a realistic scenario of their information seeking behaviour. Davies (2007) opined that the critical incident approach seems more likely to elicit a more valid interpretation of information behaviour than might be obtained from asking about frequency of information source use.
The critical incident technique in Maepa‟s (2000: 68) words, „allows for explanation, probing, and trustful communication in the respondents‟ words‟. It therefore requires the respondents to think of a problem or any difficult situation they were confronted with in the recent past, which required them to acquire information, and consequently, knowledge to enable them to make a decision or solve that problem. In so doing, the students had greater flexibility in identifying the formats of needs and information seeking situations than would have been the case if a list of fixed options had been provided by the researcher. A major criticism of the critical incident approach as Kaniki (2001: 195) points out is that it heavily depends on the respondents‟ memory and his/her ability to remember important events. However, a counter argument to this is that people will often remember what they consider to be critical to them, however non critical others may consider these situations to be.
Some of the benefits of semi-structured interviews are that they are conducted with a fairly open framework which allows for focused, conversational and two-way communication. Case (2002) adds that they can be used both to give and receive information. Additionally, semi-structured interviews provide a very simple, efficient and practical way of getting data about things that can not be easily observed; for example, feelings and emotions. One of the down-sides of using semi-structured interviews according to Cone and Foster (1998: 20) is that they depend on the skills of the interviewer. For instance, the ability to think of questions during the interview and articulate them to the interviewee may not be as easy as one may anticipate. In this study, no research assistants were employed, all the interviews were conducted by the researcher.
3.4.2 Questionnaires
The quantitative aspect of the study was facilitated by semi-structured questionnaires.
The nature of the study is largely qualitative. The questionnaires were semi-structured with only a few questions in the questionnaires being close-ended. The close-ended questions in the questionnaires largely collected background information of the respondents. Close-ended questions in Gillham‟s (2000: 45) words, allow the respondent to choose from a list of predetermined options. For example, questions 1 and 5 in the Subject Librarians‟ questionnaires were close-ended. That is to say, the respondents were asked to make a selection from a list of options provided. According to Understanding research … (2004: 82) a semi-structured questionnaire asks more open-ended questions whereby the respondents are not given any categories to choose from, and they may answer, in their own words (Cone and Foster 1998: 121). Open- ended questions were asked to encourage a full, meaningful answer using the subject's own words, knowledge and feelings. They tend to be more objective and less leading than closed-ended questions. In fact, they are the opposite of a closed-ended question, which encourages a short or single-word answer. For example, nine out of eleven questions for the DUC used in the study were open-ended questions.
For the survey of Subject Librarians and the DUC, self-administered questionnaires were used. As Lewis-Beck (1994: 3) points out, a self administered questionnaire could be used with or without the researcher. The questions that were asked in the questionnaires were based on the research questions this study sought to answer.
Questionnaires have advantages over some other formats of surveys in that they are cheap, do not require as much effort from the interviewer as do verbal or telephone surveys, and often have standardised answers that make it simple to compile data (Gillham 2000; Cohen, Manicon and Morrison 2000 and Terreblanche; Durrheim 1999). Further, the respondents are allowed to answer questions at a time that is convenient to them (Babbie and Mouton 2001: 262).
Self administered questionnaires are also limited by a number of factors (Kothari 2004: 113) such as the fact that respondents must be able to read the questions, (understand) and respond to them. The disadvantages pointed out by Kothari can be overcome by having questions worded so that they are easily comprehended by the
respondent and do not need any further clarification by the researcher. The disadvantage of questionnaires is that they have a low response rate as people sometimes do not return them and, according to Lewit-Beck (1994: 8) those who do return them may not be truly representative of the population. Another disadvantage that questionnaires have is that there is lack of control over how respondents interpret questions and a lack of opportunity to probe or correct misunderstanding. The