Issues of confidentiality and anonymity

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3.9 Issues of confidentiality and anonymity

Confidentiality and anonymity were two important issues in conducting this research, especially in reporting the findings. Confidentiality was an important issue in this research. According to De Vaus 2002 there are three main reasons for assuring confidentiality in research. It improves the quality and honesty of responses, especially on sensitive issues, it encourages participation and thus improves the representativeness of the sample, and it protects a person‘s privacy. Confidentiality in this research study was assured by giving access to no one, except the researcher to the data. Research data would be kept in a secure location for five years and then destroyed after the completion of the study. Anonymity means that the researcher will not and cannot identify the respondent Vaus, 2002. Based on the permission released by the SCERH Monash University, there was no need for the researcher to collect data that would possibly reveal the identity of the research subjects. Subjects‘ responses were kept anonymous. In responding to the questionnaire, the subjects were not required to write their names, so that there was no way that the subject would be personally identified. The only data needed from the subjects were those related to the demographic variables of the research. Names would in no way be used in the reporting result. However, anonymity was not an issue concerning the data gathered through classroom observations and interviews. It was of course not possible to conduct both anonymous classroom observations and face to face interviews. It was only 83 at the reporting of the findings that the anonymity can be satisfied. In doing so, the researcher assigned different name to each participant. It was therefore expected that there would be no other people were capable of identifying the participants.

3.10 Data Analysis