3. EMPIRICAL SECTION

3.1.1 WHAT RESEARCH METHODOLOGY HAS BEEN FOLLOWED AND WHY?

Mainly two research methods have been used — critical analysis of literature and semi-structured interview.

Literature review or critical analysis of the existing literature forms the foundation of every research work. It helps to develop a good insight into relevant previous research and the trends that have emerged. A deductive approach has been followed to identify the literature. That is, a conceptual framework has been developed which is subsequently tested using data from the literature.

Gall et al [as quoted by Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, 2003: 46] point out several purposes or advantages of literature review, such as:
• it helps to refine research questions and objectives
• it highlights research possibilities that have been overlooked till date
• it helps avoid work that has already been done
• it also gives an insight into the research strategies and techniques that may be appropriate for your research

It also helps to identify the relevant theories, demonstrate knowledge in the chosen field, prevent plagiarism by referring to work by recognised experts, as well as support arguments with valid evidence in a logical manner.

Thus, literature review has been used to string together different ideas culled from the literature into a cohesive argument to justify the context and the content of my research. But, this method has a drawback: the researcher has a tendency to refer to only that literature which positively supports the work, often overlooking contrary ideas.

Data has been collected using both primary and secondary sources. As a primary source, data has been gathered from the seminar report of The Cardiff Group and reports by Government of India, Ministry of Health. As a secondary source, books, journals and internet publications relevant to the research have been consulted.

To overcome the limitations of this research method, it has been supplemented by semi-structured interview in the empirical section, whereby a list of themes and questions had to be covered. These often varied from interview to interview, with some questions being omitted or their order being re-arranged depending on the respondent’s background. At times, additional questions have also been used to explore the research questions. Besides, the questions were primarily open-ended, to facilitate understanding of the respondent’s point of view. The data was recorded either by note-taking or through emails. So, they were one-to-one qualitative interviews that were conducted either face-to-face, over the telephone or through emails.

However, there are certain advantages as well as disadvantages of semi-structured interviews as well. It can strike a positive rapport between the interviewer and the interviewee; since the respondent talks about something in detail and depth, there are chances of high validity; it offers an opportunity to clarify complex questions and issues; with few pre-set questions involved, the interviewer does not pre-judge what is important and what is not. On the other hand, the success of the interview depends on the skill of the interviewer and the articulacy of the respondent. Again, the drawback of this interview method is that it could be time-consuming and expensive; the qualitative response may be difficult to analyse; lastly, the validity of the responses may be questionable for a number of reasons, such as the researcher has no way of verifying the veracity of the answers or the respondents may have imperfect recall [Ibid: 268].

Extensive library work has been engaged in by the researcher to reduce the chance of arriving at any fallacious conclusions to some extent.