Ethical Considerations

This thesis received full ethical approval from the SHU Ethics Committee on July 7, 2023 (SHU Ethics ID: ER53949845); see Appendix 1 for the ethics email confirmation. The approval process was carefully negotiated and rigorously followed throughout the research. Ethical responsibilities—toward participants, institutions, and myself—have been addressed across Sections 1.1, 1.4, and 1.5 both explicitly and implicitly. This section offers a concise synthesis of those commitments.

Following ethics approval, I distributed recruitment letters or emails to potential participants (see attached files for sample), outlining their relevance to the study and the anticipated benefits of participation. Each letter was accompanied by a participant information sheet and a consent form (see attached files for sample). These documents explained the research aims, scope, interview procedures, data protection protocols, and participants’ rights—including the right to withdraw at any stage. A total of 14 interviews were conducted, as summarised in Table 3. Four participants returned signed consent forms in advance, while the remainder provided oral consent on the day of the interview. In all cases, consent was obtained prior to data collection. To ensure confidentiality, participants were assigned pseudonyms, with the exception of institutional and site names, which were disclosed with explicit consent.

Data handling procedures were designed to ensure security and integrity. Initially, all data were stored in a secure folder on my personal laptop. Upon completion of processing, files were backed up to the SHU-secured Q-drive and deleted from local storage. Access to the Q-drive was restricted solely to me, and weekly backups were maintained throughout the analysis period. All coding and thematic analysis were conducted using SHU-licensed NVivo software, which proved effective for managing and organising qualitative data.

As detailed in Section 1.5, I employed multiple strategies to uphold the trustworthiness and authenticity of the research process. These included triangulation of methods, data sources, theory, and investigator perspectives. I also prioritised credibility, confirmability, fairness, and contextual representation. Ethical integrity was not only procedural but also embedded in the analytical and relational dimensions of the study. My aim was to accurately reflect the meaning-making processes of each university while integrating my own interpretive lens.