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44 Data collection Methods – Solid waste management for sustainable development

Solid waste management for sustainable

development

A study of solid waste management for sound

environmental development in Hambantota Municipal
Council (HMC) in Sri Lanka.

Data collection Methods

Data is the most important thing to carry on a research. There are two types of data namely
qualitative and quantitative. In general, Qualitative data are textual and quantitative data are
numerical. According to Punch (1998, p.62) quantitative data are information about the world in
numerical form, whereas qualitative data are information about the world in the form of words. As
the study is conducted under a mixed method strategy, both qualitative and quantitative data were
required. Therefore, Semi structured interviews and non participant observation collected qualitative
data while a self completion questionnaire collected both Qualitative and quantitative data. Figure
two present the data collection methods.

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(https://swm4sd.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/methodology-structure.png)

Source: Developed by Author

I. Self completion questionnaire (SCQ)

The research gathered both qualitative and quantitative data with the help of self completion
questionnaires (SCQ). According to Bryman (2012, p. 715) a Questionnaire is a collection of questions
administered to a respondent. Hence, with the self completion questionnaire, respondents answer
and complete the questionnaire by themselves. There were XX closed ended questions, XX semi
closed ended questions and XX open-ended questions with XX variables within the self completion
questionnaire. The questions were divided into few categories such as general information about the
respondent, socio economic situation, solid waste generation; perspectives abut SWM, environmental
concern, development concern.  The questionnaire was designed to identify variables that could be
coded for final analysis.

As described by Bryman (2012, p.232), the most prominent of several different forms of self
completion questionnaires were postal or mail. Yet, in this study, the researcher personally met the
household owners and business owners in order to attenuate one of the most damaging limitations of
postal questionnaire. It is the low rate of response (Bryman, 2012, p.235). As the researcher met the
respondent personally, positive attitudes about the research were developed and respondents were
willing to support the study.

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However, there were some drawbacks of this tool. As pointed out by Bryman (2012, 235), there is no
opportunity to probe respondents for elaborate answers.  It is difficult to ask a lot of questions with
this tool and therefore it is difficult to collect additional data for the study. In addition, the researcher
can never be sure who answered the questionnaire. Nevertheless, in some situations with the low
literacy of the household or business place, the researcher advised them to solicit support from
someone else to complete the questionnaires.  Furthermore, by using SCQs, some kinds of response
might be inappropriate and some data might be missing because of the lack of supervision.  To avoid
these shortcomings the researcher used a few steps as described by Bryman (2012, p.236). First a good
cover letter was included into the questionnaire package explaining the reason & importance of the
research and why the respondent had been selected. It provided the tips how to self complete the
questionnaire and a guarantee of confidentiality of the respondent.  Moreover, the questionnaires
included clear instructions and an attractive layout to improve the response rate.

II. Semi structured interviews (SSI)

Semi structure interviews (SSI) are the most widely used method in qualitative research (Bryman,
2012, p.436). The study used SSI in order to accommodate the use of an open framework to gather
qualitative data. This tool gain individual perspectives of selected categories about SWM and its
impact on sound environmental development. Especially by using semi structured interviews (SSI),
the researcher had the opportunity to ask questions adapted to the interviewee and collect different
thoughts, attitudes, and concerns about SWM in the study area. The Personal health inspector (PHI),
the director of the hospital, NGO administrative directors, the urban development minister of HUC,
workers of Sustainable Waste Management Centre (SWMC) in HUC, community group leaders
(CGLs), and chairman or president  of environmental organizations such as Wildlife and Nature
Protection Society of Sri Lanka (WNPS), Sevalanka Foundation (SLF), Federation of Wildlife
Conservation (FWC), Green Movement of Sri Lanka (GMSL) And government agencies such as
Department of Wildlife Conservation (DWC), Forest Department(FD)  and Central Environmental
Authority (http://www.cea.lk/) (CEA). With all these different participants, the researcher could
collect their personal concerns and perspectives on waste management for sound environmental
development. The researcher made notes of answers collected by semi-structured interviews and also
used an audio recorder to ensure the effective transcribing and coding of data afterwards.

To conduct the semi structured interview, the researcher used interview guides throughout the
process. As pointed out by Bryman (2012), an interview guide, with a list of guiding questions was
formulated with the intention to give the interviewee a wider scope within which to respond.
Interview guides allowed the researcher to conduct the interview flexibly and in a comfortable way.
The Researcher conducted a pilot research in the study area and interview guides were formulated
according to the knowledge gathered from the pilot research.

Moreover, there were many benefits with Semi structure interviews (SSI). As the instrument
encourages two-way communication, the researcher could develop a less intrusive environment
between interviewer and interviewee. The researcher could also confirm what is already known.
Moreover, a large amount of detail was generated with this tool. As the semi structured interview is
fairly flexible and sensitive, the researcher could get more data which is fairly reliable and easy to
analyze.  Yet, with the semi structured interview, it was not possible to guarantee honesty of the
participants. Flexibility of the interview may reduce reliability. Preferable skills were needed to
understand the verbal and even body language in order to know which areas to pursue farther. The
interviewer had to remain objective in order to guarantee not to influence the responses of the
interviewee.

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III. Non participation observation (NPO)

The researcher used a Non-participant observation (NPO) instrument to collect necessary qualitative
data for the study. According to Bryman (2012, p.273), this is a term that is used to describe a
situation in which the researcher observes but does not participate in what is going on in the social
settings. The non participant observer usually watches a structured event in the field, without being
part of the scene (Cargan, 2007, p.147). As the researcher wants to understand and obtain sufficient
knowledge about how SWM practices are carried out in the area and how SWM impact on sound
environmental development (SED), the researcher had to spend more time in the study field. In this
way the researcher could collect much information regarding waste disposal, waste collecting
systems, waste management systems, and perceptions of the local community. The observation
played an important role for the study as information gathered from self completion questionnaires
and semi-structure interviews were verified with non participant observation and it helped the
researcher to visualize the information in the research process. Moreover, observations helped to
identify the quality of the environment in the area with water bodies, landfills and dumplings,
littering and flooding. The findings were recorded in photography, textual and numeric format.

 IV. Secondary data

Secondary data provide alternatives to the collection of primary data (Vartanian, 2010, p.3).  The
study needed to collect secondary data as they were Useful for the literature review, understand the
research subject and for formulation of research questions.  The researcher collected different
secondary information from written and recorded documents. Especially, government reports,
municipal council reports & documents, academic papers regarding waste management impacts on
the environment, internet resources and many other documents from different organizations were
collected.

Secondary data were useful as they provided more accurate and relevant data for the study.
According to Hilary (2010, p. 120), the major advantage of secondary data is that they provide easy
access to knowledge. Moreover they provide the researcher with readily available resources to
examine characteristics of the research and more often give the researcher access to more information
than would be available in primary data sets (Vartanian, 2010, p.3).  It was less costly and took less
time to collect secondary data compared to primary data. However, there were some shortcomings
such as secondary data are very large and complex and they took the researcher long time to fully
understand. Moreover, there were time issues also because some data were not relevant as they were
collected many years ago.

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