INTRODUCTION AND OVERVIEW
3.5. ETHICAL ISSUES
participant). Three senior lecturers are 50-years-old and above. These participants have each served the Department of Education for more than 20 years. The fourth senior lecturer is 40- years-old and has worked in this institution for 13 years. All four participants volunteered to participate in this study after understanding the nature of the research topic.
This sample also includes nine lecturers from selected Thekwini FET College' departments and comprises six female and three male lecturers. The youngest lecturer is 32-years-of-age and the oldest lecturer is 54-years-old. It is important to note that all respondents previously worked for other organisations and spoke informally about the respective creative climates.
Participants provided details of their experiences in their former workplaces. Many respondents, therefore, were easily able to identify with the topic.
After a preliminary meeting with all the volunteers, the researcher was able to establish his sample size as a catalyst for his study. All participants met the following criteria:
• Had working knowledge experience and were able to provide a rich description of the creative climate in their work environment;
• Were responsive and amenable to articulate emotions, reflections, insights, thoughts and open-mindedness (impartiality) on their experiences in the workplace;
• Participants stood a better chance of legitimately highlighting salient factors that could either enhance or stifle creativity at Thekwini FET College.
Once the sample size was established the researcher had to take cognisance of ethical issues discussed in the next section.
An ethical obligation remains with the researcher to safeguard participants against any form of vexation and victimisation, which may emerge, within reasonable limits, from the nature of this research project.
The following ethical issues are relevant to this study:
• The researcher was open and honest with all participants. The profile and circumstances of the researcher was revealed to all participants through verbal and written communication;
• The objectives of the research and the procedures to be followed were thoroughly explained to all the participants through verbal and written communication;
• The outcome of the final study will be made available to the Chief Executive Officer (Rector) and the College Council. Thekwini FET College will be the beneficiary of this study;
• Any controversial findings in this study were handled with sensitivity;
• Informed consent was obtained from the CEO of Thekwini FET College and the research participants;
• Participants were given the opportunity to withdraw their participation from the study at any time if they so wished;
• The respect, privacy and support of all interested participants were embraced through the guarantee of confidentiality and anonymity;
• A letter of gratitude/ appreciation will be forwarded to the CEO, College Council and participants for allowing and accommodating the researcher to conduct the studies at Thekwini FET College.
Acknowledging the Probable Presence of Bias
In the research environment, the researcher cannot avoid having data contaminated by bias of one sort or another. What is unprofessional, however, is for the researcher to fail to acknowledge the likelihood of biased data or fail to recognise the possibility of bias in the study (Leedy & Ormrod 2001).
It became clear to the researcher that in trying to understand the depth of creativity in a bureaucratic climate it would require flexibility in the research to incorporate subjectivist points of view. In this research it was necessary to make provision for subjectivity in order to understand the creative climate of the workplace. There was always the element of multiple perspectives of describing the creative climate, all of which were 'valid' and needed to be
explored. Throughout the research it was important for the researcher to be aware of this subjectivity and to consciously reflect on it and remain unbiased at all times. By being unbiased means the tendency to not focus on certain points of view more than others. In this way the researcher was able to preclude prejudices that would have not only influenced the direction of the research but flaw this study with the possibility of misjudgments.
Informed Consent
The key element in informed consent is not the comprehensiveness of the study provided to the prospective research participant, but rather its relevance to the participant's decision to give consent. Research participants should be told the nature of the study to be conducted and be given the choice of either participating or not participating. Furthermore, they should be told that, if they agree to participate, they have the right to withdraw from the study at any time. Any participation in a study should be strictly voluntary (Leedy & Ormrod 2001).
Moreover it is important that the ethical principle of respect for the participants be upheld at all times. The participants in this study were given a valid informed consent form that included the following pertinent points:
• Unveiled and acknowledged significant information to prospective participants about the study and that it involved valuable research;
• An explanation of the purpose of the research and establishment of the participant's comprehension of the information ;
• A description of the procedures to be followed and the timeframe of the subject's participation;
• A description of the necessary risk management strategies and countermeasures taken to minimise them;
• An important averment included the extent to which records were to be kept confidential as well as disclosure of any benefits to the participant and the organisation;
• The participants voluntarily agreed to be part of the sample and were free from intimidation and undue influence to participate.
Strydom (2000) cites that emphasis must be placed on accurate and complete information so that subjects will fully comprehend the investigation and, consequently, be able to make a voluntary, thoroughly reasoned decision about their possible participation.
Anonymity and Confidentiality Mouton (2001:243) emphasizes that:
Informants have a right to remain anonymous. The right should be respected because where it has been promised explicitly and where no clear understanding to the contrary has been reached. The conditions of anonymity apply to the collection of data by means of cameras, tape recorders and other data gathering devices, as well as to data collected in face-to-face interviews or in participant observation. Those being studied should understand the workings of such devices and should be free to reject them if they so wish. (...). Whereas anonymity refers to the principle that the identity of an individual is kept secret, the principle of confidentiality refers to the information gathered from subjects.
Therefore, it is proper practice to assure respondents that their identity will remain anonymous and their responses confidential. As part of the selection process, each participant agreed to follow an ethical code explained in the informed consent form. To comply ethically and methodologically the researcher discussed confidentiality and anonymity with each participant (lecturers and senior lecturers) before they could sign the consent form. Each participant selected a code name to ensure anonymity - these names were taken from the Daler-Rowney Georgian Oil Colour Chart. The names of the campuses were also coded in alphabetical order and were followed by a numerical sequence with four digits.
Table 3.4 Key to Code Names of Participant & Campuses
A A B B B C C C D D D E E
2 2 3 3 3 4 4 4 5 5 5 6 6
Campus Codes 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000
NAMES
Mrs Naples Yellow Mrs Lemon Yellow Mr Permanent Geranium Mr Scarlet Lake
Mr Crimson Alizarin Mrs French Ultramarine Mrs Permanent Blue Miss Cobalt Blue Mrs Light Red Miss Venetian Red Mr Indian Red Mrs Ivory Black Ms Lamp Black
An audio typist assisted in typing the full transcripts and was debriefed about the sensitivity of the responses recorded and collected during the interviews. With the obligation to constantly reflect on the guardianship of such data and to avert any foreseeable problems, the
audio typist signed an ethical clearance form to respect the anonymity and confidentiality of all respondents in this study. Mouton (2001:244) concurs that:
Confidential information provided by research participants must be treated as such by researchers, even when this information enjoys no legal protection or privilege, and no legal force is applied. The obligation to respect confidentiality also applies to members of research organisations (interviewers, coders, clerical staff, etc.) who have access to the information. Anyone who works with the data at any point should be made aware of this obligation.
Trust Development
Establishing on-going, reciprocal trust development is often easier to write about or verbalise than to do. In order to earn the trust of the participants the researcher was well aware that it was essential to respect them and actively use effective listening and understanding skills.
Some examples of listening skills used in this research were accepting participant's reality, asking open-ended questions, paraphrasing questions and responses, demonstrating attentive body language during the interviews. This resulted in both the interviewer and interviewee understanding tacitly that the norm, in all interviews, would be mutual respect, effective listening and espousing the codes of ethics. Consequently, the researcher made certain that before he commenced the interview, ethical considerations were addressed to participants about informed consent, right of privacy and protection from physical or emotional harm in the organisation.
Another aspect of trust development was ensuring that participants were safe and secure with the location of their interviews. Interviews with two of the participants took place in the students' toilet so that they would not be identified by any other staff-members and that there would be no eavesdropping on the responses to the questions. Interviews with two other participants took place in the campus library's storeroom.
Participants felt intimidated about being interviewed in the senior lecturer's office. Due to the location of some of the interviews, unplanned interruptions were inevitable but posed no problems. As a result there was a strengthening of the trust between the interviewer and the interviewee with the inherent support of agreed-upon protocol for anonymity and confidentiality.
During the data collection phase (that evolved over two months) participants showed a commitment to the process and responsibly kept their interview appointments. They
willingly shared their perceptions of the climate for creativity in the workplace by openly responding to the scheduled questions and shared their views and emotions about the hierarchical structures of communication, about co-workers, resources, organisational impediments, workload pressures, supervisory encouragement and other sensitive issues practiced in the workplace. By emphasizing confidentiality and anonymity in the interview the majority of the participants were comfortable about their interviews being taped, reinforcing the trust which had developed.