132) will not be administered. The reason for this is that the scope of Internet surveys are far greater than that required for this research. These type of surveys are generally administered when a wide variety of data are required from a large amount of interested parties. For the purpose of this study, surveys are limited to a specific set of participants from specific sectors of academic and public life. Surveys over time are also not considered relevant to the study. The issue of tenure is current to many academic institutions. The effects of tenure will be investigated in their current manifestation. Evolution of these issues and opinions over time is not an issue. A related issue to investigated could however be a hypothesis on how opinions might change if tenure and post-tenure review were to be administered by different means than they currently are.

Limitations of the Chosen Design and Methods

In applying the qualitative and quantitative methods, the participants of the research should be considered in terms of a number of criteria. Cozby (2009, p. 83) for example mentions participant variables such as age, gender, ethnicity, nationality, personality and marital status. These can have a significant impact on the data obtained from individuals, and should be taken into account.

Participant variables for this specific study are likely to include attitude towards the tenure and post tenure review programs, professional association, as well as the usual parameters of gender, age, ethnicity, and so on. These could have an interesting effect upon the qualitative data gathered specifically. A negative perception of the tenure issue could for example be related to racial bias.

One important limit in terms of the qualitative method, according to Cosby (2009, p. 123), is the tendency...

The lack of such willingness and truthfulness can significantly compromise the validity of data. This is one reason for the bias that still exists against qualitative study in academic circles.
Cozby (2009, p. 126) specifies "yea-saying" and "nay-saying" as specific limitations of the closed-ended survey method. This is the tendency to either agree or disagree with all questions where the possibilities are various degrees of agreement. To limit this possibility, the author suggests that questions are to be worded in a way where agreeing or disagreeing with everything is unlikely. A question regarding a positive attitude toward tenure could for example be followed by a question regarding a negative attitude towards the same issue.

In conclusion, it is hoped that the limitations of the study will be mitigated by the mixed-methods approach, where the limitations of one method of data collection and interpretation will be mitigated by another.

Validity and reliability as related issues will also be considered very strongly when conducting interviews and administering the various forms of surveys. It is hoped that the numerical data will correlate sufficiently with narrative accounts to provide a valuable basis for this study. In all cases, an attempt will be made to present and interpret the data in a non-biased and objective way in order not to compromise the results of the study.

For these reasons it is considered that a combined research methodology best suits the purpose of the study.

Sources

Cozby (2009)

Creswell (2009)

Wood and Johnsrud (2005) Post-tenure Review

O'Meara (2004) Beliefs about Post-tenure Review

Wood and Des Jarlais (2006) When…