LEGISLATIVE MANDATE OF TMPD OFFICERS
CHAPTER 6 CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH
6.3 Limitations of the research
It is important in research for researchers to acknowledge the limitations of their research.
This is because both transparency and credibility are important principles relating to acknowledgement behaviour. Furthermore, it is an indication of ethical behaviour which demonstrate degree of awareness on inherent shortcomings associated scientific inquiry (Johnson et al., 2020; Ross & Bibler Zaidi, 2019). The same view is held by the researcher in the current study, hence the research limitations encountered in the execution of this study are acknowledged and discussed in the following section.
6.3.1 Small sample size
Small sample sizes are common in qualitative research than in quantitative research.
Likewise, in the current study, 14 research participants were part of the study and were thus interviewed. However, the target was to interview 16 participants or higher in line with previous studies within the same research topic fraternity.
6.3.2 Limitation in generalisability of the findings
Owing to small size of the sample associated with qualitative research studies, it is inherently difficult to generalise the findings of the research to a wider population group.
For example, in the current study, the focus was on traffic metro police officer within the jurisdiction of TMPD. That implies that these group of law enforcement officers may be posing unique traits, characteristics or experiences that pose a limit on the ability to generalize the findings of the study to the wider group of law enforcement officers in other metropolitans or jurisdictions.
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This aspect relates directly to the previous limitation in generalizing the findings of the study. Since the study involves a specific group of traffic metro police officers from a specific area (Tshwane in this case), it may only provide a narrow perspective on the topic being studied, that is asset protection strategies of TMPD.
6.3.4 Potential for researcher’s bias
This limitation is inherent in qualitative research owing to the researcher’s own assumptions, preconceptions, beliefs on the subject or topic being studied. These views or bias may potentially influence the way in which the interviews are conducted and interpretation of the findings. When this happens, objectivity, validity and credibility of the study are potentially impacted. The researcher’s prior knowledge and experience in the field of metro police work may influence the way in which questions are asked and analysed. Nonetheless, section 4.9 in Chapter 4 explained how bias for this study has been minimised to achieve validity and reliability of the findings.
6.3.5 Social desirability and research participants’ bias
The social desirability is the kind of pressure emanating from the research participants to socially desirable responses during interviews, either not to be judged or to be affirmed by the interviewer. This form of bias characterizes itself when the research participants modify their responses to be in alignment with society’s expectations or perceived professional standards. If not checked, this may have consequences on the accuracy or depth of the data being collected. The potential for the research participants’ bias arises when they have their own biases, assumptions, or personal experiences influencing their responses during interviews. The researcher is aware that these individual beliefs do not necessarily represent the broader views or experiences of all traffic and law enforcement officers in the CTMM area.
6.3.6 Resource and time limitations
Due to lengthy process of interviews, observations or analysing the content, be it text, voice and so on, qualitative research can be time-constraint. Time factor may also originate from the research participants’ side as they may not be available for the interviews on the date and time scheduled by the researcher. This also implies that this may require patience to meet research participants’ diary, which may be against
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researcher’s timelines because the research project should be completed within specified time. Furthermore, considerable number of resources such as data collection and data analysis instruments may be needed, which may be outside the researcher’s budget limit.
With regards to time constraints, the researcher in this study had to cancel 2 scheduled interviews for data collection because the potential research participants were just not available. There were also financial constraints which had implications for procuring technology-aided data collection tool such as Livescribe pen, which can record and do live transcription of the meeting or interview notes.
6.3.7 Limitation on the data breadth and depth
Qualitative research studies are associated with rich and detailed data, owing to related research methods and techniques such as interviews and content analysis. This may consequently have limitations as far as depth and breadth of data being collected is concerned. Likewise, in this study, semi-structured interviews were the adopted data collection research method. Therefore, relying solely on interviews may potentially have restrictions on ability to explore certain aspects or perspectives on the research topic under study that could have been better studied through other research methods or complementary data sources such as analysing strategic policy documents and annual reports of these metropolitan departments.
6.3.8 Difficulties in analysing data
Given the potential to collect rich and detailed data, the concomitant data analysis and data interpretations are inherent skills required for this exercise. Additionally, this process may be time-consuming and may need significant effort for transcription and coding of the collected data. This, therefore, pose limitations on the amount of data that can be analysed if the skill to execute these research activities is limited. For the sake of this study, the researcher procured the services of the experienced consulting company to assist with data collection (interviews), transcription and data analysis. The researcher was briefed after each session as to how the interviews went. Challenges experienced and areas of improvement were discussed.
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6.4 Recommendations on how the asset protection mandate of the TMPD officers