CHAPTER 3 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
3.7 Research Techniques
The research process made use of three research techniques to understand the waste
management system within the Msunduzi Municipality and to complete the research process.
These included documentary analysis, participant observation and semi-structured interviews.
3.7.1 Documentary Analysis
A study of relevant literature was undertaken to understand the new national waste
management policy. This involved going through legislation, policy documents, academic journal articles and research papers published to support the development of a national waste management strategy. In order to understand the waste management system within the MM three different sources of information was used. Literature from integrated waste
management planning processes in 2004 and 2009 were reviewed as well as reports prepared for the Community Services Portfolio Committee by MM waste management officials for the period January 2006 to September 2009. The final source of documentary information on the MM waste management system was a series of articles published on waste management issues in The Witness newspaper from January 2005 until July 2009. This triangulation process tried to ensure that different sources of information was used to define and explain the phenomenon under research. Information from the Management Committee of the MM chaired by the Municipal Manager would have provided a wealth of information on the week to week operational challenges faced by the WMU and the LSU but attempts to obtain access to this information were unsuccessful. In order to understand concepts and theories for transforming complex social systems and improving policy implementation prospects literature related to systems thinking, organisation learning, complexity, Theory U and scenario planning were also reviewed.
3.7.2 Participant Observation
The researcher was employed by the uMgungundlovu District Municipality as a Manager responsible for solid waste management services. Since 2008 the researcher was responsible for the management of an integrated waste management planning process involving key stakeholders within the Msunduzi waste management system whilst the researcher was also a participant at the District Waste Management Forum since December 2006. These processes have provided opportunities to gather information pertinent to this research and to observe
77 the various stakeholders in action within their context. From time to time the research
process will be informed by observations made by the researcher from conversations with key stakeholders and information from meetings attended by key stakeholders and the researcher. Welman et al (2005) indicates that researchers involved in participant
observations perform a dual role of experiencing the activities of the group and observing and recording the experiences. Welman et al (2005) cautions that such a role could lead to
conflicts between the roles of participant and observer where the researcher becomes so involved with the stakeholders that he or she fails to notice developments that could have been detected by outsiders immediately. Welman et al (2005) recommends that the researcher should take notes and create written reports of observations in order to improve reliability of the data.
3.7.3 Semi Structured Interviews
Monette (2002) suggests that despite interviews being time consuming they offer far greater control and flexibility in terms of gathering the required information. Stake (1995) proposes that interviews are ideally suited to uncovering the multiple realities held by the different stakeholders and offer opportunities for interacting with stakeholders which can only deepen a researchers understanding of a context. According to Welman et al (2005) semi-structured interviews offer the researcher a flexible measuring instrument in the research process since the researcher has a list of themes and questions to be covered and may vary these from one interview to the next. The semi-structured interview offered an ideal measuring instrument for this research project because of the different organisational contexts the various
stakeholders represented and the need to tailor each interview to suit the context. The inherent flexibility of the semi structured interview also allowed the researcher to probe certain themes in order to clear up vague responses and pose additional questions in order to explore a particular theme or response (Welman et al, 2005).
The interview guide developed for this research process included possible questions for the different stakeholders to answer in order to enable the researcher to gain insights into the different perspectives held on the key research issues. The semi structured nature of the interview allowed each stakeholder to offer their insights on these broad thematic areas and then to give specific responses to the mainly open-ended questions posed by the researcher.
Welman et al (2005) recommends the use of open-ended questions since the responses are
78 then not influenced by the researcher and a rich variety of data can be obtained provided that the questions posed take into account the subject‟s literacy levels and do not offend the subject. It is also important for questions to be brief and focused; the questions should also be free of ambiguity and must not encourage participants to answer in a particular way (Welman et al, 2005). Finally ethical considerations have been taken into account when drafting the questions so that no harm is caused to the research participants. In the case of this research project the research participants identities have been protected, all of them have participated voluntarily and the results have been reported truthfully.
One of the major disadvantages of the semi-structured interview instrument is that the researcher is directly involved and in control of the process and could display bias in the interview session and in the interpretation of the data. The need to take detailed notes and observations of the interview process including the audio or video recording of interviews is well documented in the literature reviewed (Lincoln, 1985, Cary, 1988 and Welman et al, 2005). In order to create a level trust amongst the research participants the researcher did not make audio or video recordings of interviews. This decision was based on the sensitivity of the research topic since subjects were being asked to identify obstacles and propose strategies to improve service delivery and subjects could evade sensitive questions if they feared their perceptions about other stakeholders could be revealed through audio recordings or
interviews that were not anonymous. Bradburn (1979) found a positive link between complete confidentiality and the respondents‟ willingness to answer sensitive questions.
Given this decision it will be critical for the researcher to take detailed notes during the interview and to write a detailed report on the interview immediately after it has been completed. This process enables the researcher to capture an accurate picture of the
respondent‟s views, non verbal behavior, opinions of the researcher on the respondent and the interaction between respondent and researcher during the interview (Welman et al, 2005).
The interview questions were developed by the researcher and refined during sessions with the research Supervisors. The interview guide is included in the report as Appendix B. In order to detect any possible flaws in the measuring instrument and to identify unclear items a pilot study was undertaken with at least three subjects from the sample list. The pilot
experience proved to be invaluable as it became clear that the interview guide contained too many questions which led to the process taking too long and the subjects becoming
79 exhausted. It also became clear in discussions with the research Supervisors that the
interview questions focussed heavily on the first research objective which resulted in a limited focus on the second and third research objective. Given that the second and third research objectives focused on understanding the barriers and opportunities for transforming the Msunduzi waste management system and how the implementation prospects of the Waste Act can be improved within the MM, which was the central themes of the research project, the interview questions were amended to focus on these aspects.
3.7.4 Interview Procedure
Once the interview guide was refined through a pilot process the researcher contacted all the subjects identified in the sample in order to introduce the research project and to seek their participation. This was done via email or through telephonic contact. A total of 28 subjects agreed to be interviewed and all interviews were undertaken during October and November 2009. There were two non responses to the request to be interviewed; these subjects were replaced with other subjects who could ensure the sample remained representative of the stakeholders within the Msunduzi waste management system. The researcher started each interview with an introduction of the research objectives and indicated the ethical principles underpinning this research project. Welman et al (2005) suggests that the interviewer must gain the trust of respondents by being honest and frank, assuring the subject of complete anonymity and behaving neutrally despite what is being said by the respondent. Given the researcher‟s historic and current role within the waste management system of the MM it was vital that the research participants were assured of their anonymity and the researcher‟s neutrality during the research project. The researcher had to exercise maturity and skill to ensure that a neutral stance was demonstrated to the subjects and that the research findings lacked bias that can be attributed to the researcher‟s role within the Msunduzi waste management system.
The interview questions started with a very general enquiry into the new waste management policy before proceeding to look into the respondents views regarding the implementation prospects of the new policy within the MM. The final part of the interview provided a basic description of the Theory U and proceeded to elicit responses from the subject on ways of improving the implementation prospects within the general framework provided by the Theory U. The interviews generally lasted for an hour and the researcher then spent an
80 average of half hour per interview on the day of the interview to document the contents of the interview.