This chapter discusses the methodology used in this study. The chapter shows how a mixed mode study can be used as an approach to do the studies. The chapter comprises the research framework, the description of the research methods, the description of the population and sampling method, the data collection methods, which include the discussions on the instruments. Also is discussed the data analysis method, as well as the error management, the validity of this study and, finally, the research procedures were discussed.
Research Framework
A research framework has been developed, see figure 3.1, in accordance with the research study and the literature review. The research framework offers a visual structure of the study. First, a survey questionnaire provided the perception of managers in Burkina Faso on the importance and their expertise level, from which were derived the development needs of HR managers. After finding out the development needs of the HR managers in Burkina Faso from the survey questionnaire, an interview was executed to some experts in Burkina Faso in the HR field in order to gain deeper knowledge about the development needs and to find possible development paths for the HR managers that participated in the study.
Figure 3.1. The research framework.
Interview
Development Gap Survey
Development Channels Method
Result
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Research Methods
Two types of direct-data survey were included in this study; a questionnaire survey and interviews. Within the quantitative approach, the survey method focused on obtaining numerical findings about how HR managers taking part in this study perceived their expertise level in the 10 HRD AOEs. On the other hand, within the qualitative approach, the interview focused on the insight of personal and individual perception, accounts, observations, and description of the respondents about what and how to further enhance the abilities of HR managers in HRD. In consequence, this study used the combination of qualitative and quantitative approaches to overcome the limitations of both approaches.
Quantitative Approach
A descriptive research describes present conditions (Creswell, 2003); therefore a descriptive study is adequate for this study, as the aim of this study is to explore and describe the HRD expertise of the HR professionals.
A survey questionnaire is an appropriate tool for this research because it enables generalizations. Consequently, at the end of the study the researcher was able to generalize the findings to the studied population.
The data obtained from the questionnaire was analysed using descriptive statistics, such as means, percentages and standard deviations.
Qualitative Approach
The qualitative approach consists on interviews of HR experts in Burkina Faso. Interviews were scheduled with the purpose of collecting the opinions of experts in the HR field from Burkina Faso. From these interviews, the researcher gained an in depth knowledge of the HRD competency gap of HR managers. The interviews, also, gave a further insight about the results of the survey.
In addition, the interviews of the experts helped the researcher finding the best development channels for the HR Managers that participated within the study. The results of the survey were presented to the chosen experts; after they were asked their opinions about the gaps found, and then the experts were ask to provide possible solution channels for the HR managers in Burkina Faso.
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Data Collection Population and Sampling
The study had respondents from Ouagadougou, the capital city of Burkina Faso. HR managers were selected from this location because of the unavailability of resources (time and financial resources), to reach HRs in other regions. In the search of establishing the total number of HR Managers in the capital city, the researcher faced the unavailability of data. Therefore, the researcher targeted 200 respondents. The major condition for participating within this study was to have an HR function in any organization both public and private. Before receiving the questionnaire, the researcher ascertained that the potential respondents had been working in the HR field of his or her own organization. The researcher targeted HR offices and HR professional schools to distribute the questionnaire. Also the demographic question 2 served as benchmark, as respondents that stated that they have not worked before were simply removed from the sample.
The researcher used snowball method to reach the target population, as well as asking acquaintances to refer HR managers. HR managers, who respond to the questionnaire, were also asked to refer their colleagues or friends that are HR practitioners and were willing to take part of the study.
For the interview, four HR specialists were interviewed. The HR specialists were conveniently selected on social media such as Facebook and LinkedIn. The researcher entered in online search engines the key words “HR managers in Burkina Faso” in order to find a list of HRs working in the country. After finding potential interviewees, the researcher sent electronic messages to them requesting permission to interview them. When the researcher received the permission, another message asking contact details and making time arrangements was sent to the interviewee. The condition for an HR to be retained for the interview was the years of experience in the HR field which had to be equal or above ten years.
Instrumentation
This section discusses the different research instruments that were used for this study survey questionnaire for the quantitative approach and interviews for the qualitative approach. This section, also, discusses the validity and the reliability of the different instruments.
34 Questionnaire.
The questionnaire (refer to appendix A) was designed to examine the perceived expertise level and the perceived importance of each HRD competencies by adapting a modified version of the key actions performed by each competency domain described in the 2004 ASTD Competency Study Mapping the Future, which are similar to the key actions for the 2013 ASTD competency model.
The modification included rearranging, rewording and updating the information following the changes brought in the current ATD 2014 competency model. Following the assumption that HR managers already possess the foundational competencies, only the areas of expertise (AOEs), therefore, were measured by the questionnaire. The modified questionnaire was submitted to an experts review for validity.
After the validation of the English version, the questionnaire was then translated into French (refer to appendix B and D) by the researcher and the translation was validated by a translation and localization professional who is certified as translator at International Language Translation Center in Burkina Faso.
The researcher submitted the translated questionnaire through a validation process, which involved the questionnaire being review by experts in the HR field from French speaking countries.
After the review of the expert, a pilot study was conducted and the final questionnaire was adopted (refer to Appendix B and D).
The competencies were rated based on the Likert type scale from one to five (1 to 5) for the expertise level, and one to five (1 to 5) for the current importance. For the expertise level, one (1) was labelled as novice (no experience) and five (5) was labelled expert. For the current importance, level one (1) was labelled as no importance and five (5) was labelled as extremely important or critical as shown in figure 3.2.
Importance Key Actions Expertise Level
1 2 3 4 5 Compare actual and ideal performance and identifies performance gaps or
opportunities.
1 2 3 4 5
1 2 3 4 5 Links human performance improvement to organizational goals by assessing.
1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 Gather and summarize information about
performance appraisals.
1 2 3 4 5 Figure 3.2. Sample of the questionnaire.
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The questionnaire was preceded by instructions on how HR managers should rate themselves.
The instructions provided a short description on the competencies and suggested HR managers rate themselves according to the provided definition on the questionnaire for more clarification.
The instructions also labeled the scale against with the managers should rate themselves.
The scale for level of Expertise was developed following the model of skill acquisition of Dreyfus (1981) detailed by the Institute of Conservation from London in 2003. The scale was described as below in table 3.1.
Table 3.1.
Expertise Level Scale and Description
Scale Title Description
1 Novice No knowledge of the competency
2 Beginner Little or general knowledge of the competency 3 Competent Have knowledge of the competency
4 Proficient Good understanding of the competency 5 Expert Excellent command of the competency
Note: Adapted from “Novice to Expert: the Dreyfus model of skill acquisition” by Stan Lester Developments, 2005. Retrieved from http://www.sld.demon.co.uk/dreyfus.pdf in November 2014.
The scale for current importance was designed to measure the level of importance managers placed on each competency as it currently relates to their specific job function. The scale of importance was added to this study in order to prioritize the development needs of HR managers.
The scale of importance was described in the instructions guideline as following in table 3.2.
Table 3.2.
Scale for Perceived Importance
Scale Title
1 Not Important
2 Slightly Important
3 Important
4 Very Important
5 Extremely Important or Critical
The first section of the questionnaire requested demographics from the respondents. The demographics questions were sex, area of work in the HR field (training, organization development, human resource management, generalist or other), years of experience in the HR field, and highest diploma obtained. The second section was the actual questionnaire (refer to appendix B and D).
36 Interview questions.
The interview was conducted by semi-structural questions. The interview questions were developed based on the objectives of the study. The questions were developed in English, and then translated into French following the same procedure as the survey questionnaire translation. The interview questions were submitted to the review of experts for its validation.
The interview questions addressed to the HR experts was to gain an insight on the HRD competencies in Burkina Faso. An extract of the interview questions for HR experts are as the following:
Table 3.3.
Interview Questions Development
Research Question Interview Questions
What are the best development channels for the HR managers?
1) According to the results of the survey, what would you suggest could be done to improve those HR managers’
competencies in HRD?
2) How could solutions you previously mentioned be put into practice?
3) After attempting to develop those HR managers, what could be done to evaluate whether or not the necessary knowledge has been acquired?
Before the formal interview, the experts answered some demographics questions such as: years of work experience in the HR field, actual position, and highest diploma. Those demographic questions were used to describe those experts background and to confirm the criteria settled in the previous section.
The interviews were made by skype calls and lasted for about 10 to 15 minutes. Skype calls were used because the researcher and the interviewees are located in different countries therefore telecommunications instruments and software were found useful to achieve the purpose of this study.
The researcher first sent invitation letter to participants via email and social media. The invitation letter had for objective to inform the potential interviewee of the purpose of the study, to ensure him/her of the identity non-disclosure, and also to obtain agreement for the interview.
After the agreement response from the interviewee, the researcher set the time for performing the interview in accordance with the availability of the interviewee.
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When the date and time were set, a word file was sent to the interviewee, containing the definitions of the AOEs. The definitions of the AOEs was adapted from Konan (2010) study. The instruction was for the interview to read the definitions before the interview. This stage was to ensure that the interviewee understood fully the meaning of each competency.
During the interview, the researcher shared the results of the survey with the expert, and then each expert was asked to respond to the interview questions. Also each interview was recorded using Amolto call recorder for skype. The recordings of each interview were transcribed in order to proceed to coding.
Validity and Reliability of the Instrument Questionnaire
Validity refers to ability of the survey instrument to measure what it is intended to measure.
For this study content and face validity were established. For Litwin (1995) content validity is a way to measure appropriateness and relevance of an instrument. To establish the validity, the researcher preceded with the review of literature about HRD competencies of HR managers. Also a panel of experts reviewed the instrument to verify that the instrument measures its intention.
Reliability refers to the extent to which an instrument yields the same results on repeated occasions (Carmines & Zeller, 1979). In this study reliability was established by a pilot study on the targeted population. The questionnaires, previously designed with 40 items, were distributed via internet to 30 HR managers in Burkina Faso. From the 30 online messages sent, only 29 responses were received. The internal consistency was established by computing the Cronbach alpha of the items. According to McMillan and Schumacher (2001) only a Cronbach alpha higher or equal than .70 should be considered acceptable, thus for this study only items that obtained a Cronbach alpha higher or equal to .70 were retained for the main questionnaire. After the pilot study, item 12 “Capture trainees’ attention and focus during training sessions” was removed from the main questionnaire as many respondents could not understand the statement; therefore left the item unanswered. After the pilot study, the revised questionnaire was distributed in order to collect the data. After the analysis of the reliability, question 12 “Capture trainees’ attention and focus during training sessions” was removed in order to increase the reliability of the measurement of training delivery. The Overall Cronbach alpha of the study was of .98 and .96 for importance and
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expertise, respectively. The overall R2 for importance is .96 and for expertise level .92. The table below details the Cronbach’s Alpha of each individual competency.
Table 3.4.
Reliability Analysis
N. Items Cronbach’s Alpha R2
Importance Expertise Importance Expertise
Questionnaire 39 .98 .96 .96 .92
For the interview questions credibility was established. According to Mertens (2005), credibility can be obtained by peer debriefing, member checks or triangulation. For this study, validity was established by experts that review the questions before the interviews. After the interviews and the coding system (refer to appendix G for coding example) the researcher invited peers to review the transcripts in order to ensure conformity of results with the interview transcripts.
The transferability, or external validity, according to Martens (2005) refers to the fact that the similar results could be found if the process was followed. For this study, the researcher ensured transferability by providing a detailed description of the time, context, and place of the interviews.
The dependability refers to the fact that time influences the data obtained from the interview.
In this study, the researcher provided an audit trail in order to testify quality and appropriateness data documentation, methods, and decisions about the research.
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Data Analysis
This section discusses the different method to analyze the data by approach; survey questionnaire for the quantitative approach and interviews for the qualitative approach.
Questionnaire
Competencies were rated using 5-point Likert scale. Descriptive statistics were used to answer the question of importance and the perceived level of expertise. Then, the mean and the mean rankings were calculated to measure the perceived level of importance and their current expertise level for each competency, as it related to their specific job function.
The greater the mean value of importance of a competency is, the higher the perceived importance ranking of the competency is. To be considered as important, the mean value should be superior equal (≥) 3.0, which represent the label “Important” in the scale of measurement. The scale of importance was used to prioritize the development needs.
The higher the mean value of the perceived expertise in a competency is, the higher the level of expertise is. The mean and the mean rankings were computed using Microsoft Excel 2010 and SPSS 22.
Interview
After the interviews, to analyse the descriptive and the interpretive data obtained, a content analysis was used. Weber (1985) defined content analysis as “a research methodology that utilizes a set of procedures to make valid inferences from a text” (p. 9).
According to Holsti (1969), valid inferences suggest that the analysis should follow the three requirements of content analysis, which are objectivity, system, and generality. The characteristic of objectivity implies that each step in the research process must be carried out on the basis of explicitly formulated rules and procedures. The characteristic of systematic implies that the inclusion and exclusion of content or categories is done according to consistent rules. The characteristic of generality requires that the findings must have theoretical relevance. Data will be analysed after proceeding to the coding of the content of the interviews.
Holsti (1969) also defines coding as “the process whereby raw data are systematically transformed and aggregated into units which permit precise description of relevant content characteristics” (p. 94). The process of coding is best described by Hahn (2008); for Hahn coding comports many steps, the first stage consists on going through the data to information that are
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important for the research and code those information; a sample of the coding steps used for this is attached as appendix G. The second stage consists on re-examining the codes previously developed and separate that information into categories. The third and last stage was to link the categories or themes found out in the second stage to the existing literature and from all derive necessary conclusions. The conclusions drawn from the previous stage will serve as recommendation for developing HRD competencies of HR managers.
Research Procedure
The research procedure (see figure 3.3) of this study started from the review of literature and identifying potential problems. From the identified potential problem, the research questions were derived. From the research questions, literature was reviewed in order to explain the need of this study and for the development of the adequate instruments to attempt solving the problem statement. After, the data was collected and analyzed in order to develop the findings.
The unit of analysis in this research is the HR managers in Burkina Faso. In the first stage, the researcher sent a letter and a sample of the survey questionnaire to the HR professional school and HR associations to explain the purpose of the study and to request permission for distributing the questionnaire
After the collection of the survey questionnaire, the analysis was done to establish the level of expertise of HR managers in Burkina Faso in HRD competences. After the data analysis from the survey, the researcher conducted interviews to experts in the HR field in Burkina Faso. After the interviews, and the comparison of the questionnaire and interview analysis, the researcher provided conclusions on the status of HRD competences in Burkina Faso, as well as recommendations to overcome the findings.
41 Figure 3.3. Research procedure.
Identify research problem
Identify research purpose and
research questions
Review the relevant literature
Design research framework and research design
Develop and assessment instruments
Collect data
Analyze survey questionnaire
data
Interview experts
Analyze
interview content Discuss findings
Provide conclusions and recommendations
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