Response

3/11

Marshall and Rossman’s (2011) chapter 4, 5, 6, and 7 offer valuable suggestions on entry, sampling, cross-cultural settings, and exit, to name a few of the critical points in the research process. The importance of entry might be overlooked if researchers take it for granted that one can always make correction as he or she goes. What might be problematic with this approach to entry is that unplanned entry into a site might “contaminate” the site and make it no longer useful for the research. Should participants be asked to take a survey again, their prior exposure to the survey questions might influence their decisions and responses. In many cases, there is only one chance for researchers to enter a site to collect legitimate data. In sending recruitment emails, for example, researchers should be careful to provide sufficient information and consider potential ethical issues. The example provided on p. 102 includes necessary information for potential participants to decide whether or not they want to participate. As an example, the email includes an adequate introduction to the types and number of participants to be recruited, the sponsors of the project, and any benefits and harms the project might incur. Marshall and Rossman also advise researchers to phrase the recruitment email in a personal manner, as emails are personal and might be easily ignored and deleted (p. 101). Another issue with recruiting emails is that there is perhaps only one chance that recipients might be interested and agree to participate. The second time when a recipient reads a recruitment email, he or she might be either further driven away of coerced to participant. In either case, the recruitment process violates the ethical code of voluntary participation.

How participants are sampled is also an ethical issue, as well as one of validity and efficiency. To start with, the site to recruit participants and conduct face-to-face interviews and observation needs careful considerations. Public places, as Marshall and Rossman (2011) suggest, might be associated with various political implications (pp. 108-110). Classrooms or teachers’ lounges, for example, might impose pressure on the participant because other fellow students or teachers might be present. To implement the voluntary participation principle, researchers should recruit potential participants at a place where associated perception of the place will not affect potential participants’ decision-making. It is advisable that interaction between the researcher and participants take place in a physical setting that is agreed upon by both sides as comfortable and unconstrained. Moreover, the types of sampling are closely related to the purpose (p. 111) and participants of the research. Snowball sampling, for example, might have both procedural validity and efficiency. Participants who know each other might have already been in the same community in which the research is situated. The interpersonal connection between potential participants also helps researchers to recruit participants without unnecessary intrusion into the site. Another type, stratified sampling, might work well in qualitative researchers because participants and phenomena of qualitative research are often not as randomly distributed as those in quantitative research. The seemingly controlled sampling method is closer in meeting the natural research setting requirement than randomized sampling. Convenience might be tempting but may often incur problems. Recruiting participants from a researcher’s colleagues or students might be convenient but harms voluntary participation and credibility.

Much as negotiating entry and reciprocity is critical to building trust and respect from participants, the exit strategy is also important to a research. Marshall and Rossman (2011) warn researchers not to “grab the data and run” (p. 130). Exit is more than leaving with gratitude; it concerns the type and epistemology of research. To further involve the participant after collecting data and writing the paper means that researchers need to view participants not merely as “subjects” but as co-researchers. In the latter view, participants might continue to contribute to the research by working with researchers to check interpretations, representations, implications, and benefits. Exit is also the phase of research when the promised benefits are cashed in and the phase when the validity of research is further tested.

In cross-cultural settings, participants should be viewed as co-researchers in checking translation of their responses (Marshall and Rossman, 2011, p. 165) and culturally sensitive contents in the research. A researcher needs to consider providing sufficient linguistic and cultural support in translation and at the same time refrain from intrusion and misinterpretation.