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these categories gave a descriptive overview of the data and that it meaningfully linked the original research question and the data. The analysed patterns formed themes which, according to Gray (2014:609), “capture something important about the data in relation to the research question, and represent a level of patterned response or meaning within the data”. Before the researcher developed a written description of the participants from the IPID, an independent researcher explored each cluster in more detail to check for nuances and differences and to find out whether, in the original coding system, there were no alterations to be done or broadening of themes to include these nuances.
94 4.9.1 Permission letters
According to the ethical requirements of the university, a student needs to get ethical clearance from the Ethics Committee before conducting a study. The researcher requested and received a gatekeeper’s letter of permission from the IPID institute which she emailed to the Ethics Committee and waited until permission by this committee had been grated before conducting the study. A clearance letter was received from the University of KwaZulu-Natal and another one from the IPID to interview their staff.
4.9.2 Affecting IPID investigating officers’ careers
Social research can harm a research participant physically, psychologically, legally, and economically and affecting such persons’ career or income (Neuman, 2014:147). By using IPID investigating officers, the researcher ran the risk of harming them in relation to their careers. Gray (2014) explains that research in the work place mostly requires the respondents to express their views on work-related issues, which may include criticizing the organization or its management. Therefore, to avoid the issue of disciplining and even dismissing participants by their managers, the researcher adhered to the request of the Deputy Director of the IPID to not include any demographic information in the research report. The proposed interview questions were sent to the Deputy Director to ensure that all the questions were in line with their ethical concerns. These questions were approved, but it was left to the individual participants to decide whether to participate or not and whether to answer all the question or not.
4.9.3 Legal harm
Neuman (2014:148) states that a researcher may be able to secure clearance from law enforcement authorities before conducting certain types of research. A letter of approval from IPID Head Office helped the researcher to minimise the risks of legal harm on the part of the participants. For example, if they shared confidential information they could be sued by the clients that the served. Furthermore, this could then, according to Neuman (2014:148), destroy trust in social scientific research, causing potential future participants to be unwilling to participate in studies. It was important for the researcher in this study to weigh the value of protecting the researcher-subject relationship and the benefits to future researchers against potential harm to innocent people.
95 4.9.4 Deception
A major ethical tenet is the principle of voluntary consent: never force anyone to participate in research. A related ethical rule is not to lie to research participants unless it is required for legitimate research reasons, because a researcher might misrepresent certain actions or true intentions for legitimate methodological reasons. If the participants had known the true purpose, they would have modify their behaviour, making it impossible to learn of their real behaviour or access to a research site might be impossible if the researcher told the truth (Neuman, 2014:151). The researcher avoided deception by briefing the participants about the study, especially the study objectives. Before the interviews commenced, the researcher gave the Deputy Director a letter from the University of KwaZulu-Natal Ethics Committee and one from the IPID Deputy Director which permitted the researcher to conduct the study. The letters were also shown to the investigating officers during the first meeting. In this case, the researcher followed Neuman’s (2014:151) advice that deception is never advisable if we can accomplish the same thing without deception.
4.9.5 Voluntary consent form
Neuman (2014:151) states that a very serious ethical standard is that participants should explicitly agree to participate in a study. The researcher thus provided the participants with a consent form to read and sign as an indication that they agreed to participate in the study.
However, Neuman (2014:151) further contends that it is not enough to obtain permission;
people need to know what they are being asked to participate in, and only then can they make an informed decision. Thus, the informed consent form (attached as Appendix B) contained information such as the right to quit, anonymity and confidentiality, permission to tape record the interview, and the aim of the study. The researcher also adhered to Gray’s (2014) suggestion that respondents must know that their participation is voluntary and that they have the right to withdraw at any time. This was indicated in the consent form and the researcher also explained this provision before the interviews started. In this way, the participants were made aware of their rights and what they getting involved in when they read and signed a statement giving their informed consent.
96 4.9.6 Anonymity
Neuman (2014:154) is of the view that because social researchers transgress in terms of the privacy of subjects in order to study social behaviour, they must take precautions to protect participants’ privacy by not disclosing a participant’s identity after information has been gathered. This takes two forms: anonymity and confidentiality. Neuman (2014:154) states that anonymity means that people remain anonymous, or nameless. The researcher therefore used fictitious names and did not provide information of their characteristics or background job experiences. Instead of using their names, the researcher used code names (e.g., P-Inv-1; P- Inv-2). In this way, the participants’ identities are protected, and the individual remains unknown and anonymous.
Neuman (2014:155) contends that it is possible to provide anonymity without confidentiality, or vice versa, although the two usually go together. However, in the case of anonymity without confidentiality, this happens if a researcher makes details about a specific individual public but withholds the individual’s name and certain details that would make it possible to identify the individual. With regards to confidentiality without anonymity, this happens if a researcher does not release individual data publicly but privately links individual names to data on specific individuals. Therefore, it is safe to say that the researcher provided both anonymity and confidentiality, because the participants’ data are provided in Chapter five. The data are not presented in an aggregate form as Neuman (2014) indicates that confidentiality can be protected through their presentation in percentages or means form. In this way the researcher honoured this guarantee of anonymity. Also, no information is provided that a participant wanted to keep confidential. In this way the issue of confidentiality was adhered to.