a critical review on research design of selected journals in taxation research

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A Critical Review on Research Design

of Qualitative and Mixed-Method Approach Papers in Taxation

Arifin Rosid

Assignment 3 - TABL 0400

School of Taxation and Business Law - ASB

University of New South Wales

1. Introduction

Research tradition in taxation, regardless of its adopted philosophical framework, is

typically derived from existing concepts, models, and theories in multi-disciplinary

schools of thought. This, obviously, does not necessarily mean that this procedure

reflects all research processes in taxation. Some exceptions, such as in grounded

theory research, exist. Nevertheless, as I will elaborate shortly, these following articles

below adopt existing theories, concepts, or models as their theoretical framework.

However, given that this review primarily focuses on research design, it should be

noted that these articles were selected because of their chosen research paradigm

rather than their adopted theoretical frameworks. In this sense, I believe that the way I

view the relationship between the 'existing concepts, models, and theories' and the

research process provides me useful guidance in critically reviewing the research

design of the reviewed articles.

In these three selected articles, the relationship between objective reality, or the real

world, and the research findings the authors made are drawn from research processes.

From these academic protocols they generate knowledge, which is mainly in the form

of conceptual knowledge. From this standpoint, it should follow that the authors, as

researchers, in a position between existing knowledge and the 'reality' or 'fact' as the

object of working knowledge. Further, as pointed out by Daly (1997), what we call

realities or facts are actually interpreted facts. Thus, as he argues, the concepts or

constructs made by social scientists are second degree, that is the interpretation made

by the researcher is based on the participant's interpretation on certain facts or realities.

This is what Sarantakos (2013) calls "re-constructed reality". Similarly, Denzin and

Lincoln (1994) also argue that the most crucial thing in social science is interpretation.

In these lines of thinking, I concur with the idea that the real world has its own

objective existence, but the way we know this existence is conceptually mediated

through existing theories (Danermark, 2002).

This review mainly analyses these following articles from a research methodology

point of view and will be divided into five main parts in each article. Firstly, it will

summarise the article. Secondly, it will analyse the research approach used in the

article and whether this approach philosophically appropriate to the research question.

Thirdly, it will review the validity and consistency of the claimed knowledge with the

adopted research approach. Fourthly, it will examine the appropriateness of adopted

strategy of inquiries to the research question and how it could be improved. Lastly, the

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review will also discuss the strengths and weakness of the adopted methods and how it

could be improved.

2. Boll, K. 2013. Mapping tax compliance assemblages, distributed action and

practices: A new way of doing tax research. Critical Perspectives on

Accounting, (article in press).

2.1 Summary of the article

The purpose of the article is to explore how tax compliance, from the taxpayers' stand

point, is formed. Answering a call for creativity in tax research, this article argues that

two existing approaches to studying tax compliance neglect the importance and the

relevance of practical aspects of how tax compliance is 'produced'. Thus, inspired by

the Actor-Network theory (ANT), this article adopts a new approach to tax compliance

research by focusing on practice-oriented perspectives. Tax compliance, as this article

maintains, is viewed as 'a socio-material assemblage' and the result of 'distributed

action'. Instead of providing an 'eagle view' ─a metaphor to represent the

epistemological view of a deductive researcher─ as typically revealed by a traditional

quantitative approach, this study offers uniquely a 'frog view' ─a metaphor to

represent epistemological view of an inductive researcher─ which captures the

'creation' process of tax compliance right from the source. Thus, in terms of social

science, it offers the reader a relatively new perspective of the 'human view' in

understanding the practical level of tax compliance. Overall, this article unveils how

an alternative approach can be used to study tax compliance in order to gain a unique

perspective of an unexplored 'map' of tax compliance research and points out the

contribution of the ANT approach in further development of taxation studies from a

different angle of social science perspectives.

2.2 Adopted research approach and its appropriateness to the research questions

As pointed out by the author, "...this approach...focuses on how the means to comply

are put together" (Boll, 2013 p. 2), it implies that she attempts to subjectively present

the readers with an understanding of the constructed tax compliance process as part of

social reality. In this study, she argues that an alternative way to study tax compliance

is worthwhile exploring. She posits that by alternatively adopting the actor-network

theory, further theoretical development in taxation studies is advanced. Thus, she

claims her work offers an opportunity to improve taxation knowledge from a

qualitative and interpretative perspective of social science.

Ontologically, in this article the author implicitly views that 'multi faces of realities'

exist in understanding tax compliance, at certain points ranging from a positivist view,

which is represented by behavioural psychologists in one point and many critical tax

studies on behalf of a non-positivist view in an opposing point. In other words, from

social science perspectives, she opines that tax compliance does not lie in a vacuum

continuum. Thus, given these beliefs, as part of social reality, tax compliance can be

understood, described, and interpreted in different ways. Further, in this article, the

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adopted ontological view seems to be followed by the author's view on how the

knowledge of tax compliance is obtained. An epistemological stance of the author is

reflected explicitly in her view of "...an approach to studying tax compliance where it

takes place as well as to show what it is made of" (Boll, 2013 p. 4). This excerpt

implies that the author maintains that the reality which is related to the 'creation'

processes of tax compliance is constructed and can be found in her engagement with

the real world in a real context.

Thus, in my view, given that the nature of the overarching research question in this

article is to understand the 'real world' of the tax compliance process directly from the

taxpayer's point of view, to reveal the meaning of their real-life experience, and to

uncover their tax compliance's living world, I conclude that her adopted research

approach was obviously appropriate to her research question.

2.3 Validity and consistency of knowledge claims with the adopted research

approach

In this contemporary approach, the author outlines several interesting research

findings as her claim to knowledge. In this article, she illustrates a unique in-depth

awareness of the 'creation' process of tax compliance and how heterogeneous entities

are involved in this process in real-life context, in a given time (i.e. 2008) and place

(i.e. various taxpayers' premises). It could be said she demonstrates to the reader that

tax compliance is a result of 'distributed action' by convincingly illustrating 'vivid

descriptions' of multiple cases of the dynamic process of tax compliance practices in

the 'unexplored middle ground' between tax authority and taxpayers. Moreover, as she

claims, her work also significantly contributes to filling the current gap of knowledge

in social science on how tax compliance is 'created', attributable to her claim that both

the existing theory presented by behavioural psychologist and critical tax researchers

failure to provide analytical options of the tax compliance phenomenon. Along the

lines of these findings, I take the view that the basic nature of knowledge claimed in

her work is an in-depth understanding of 'the creation process' of tax compliance cases

over a specific period of time and events, without explicit managerial implications or

generalisations. Therefore, I concede that the knowledge claimed in this study is valid

and consistent with that of qualitative approach.

2.4 Appropriateness of adopted strategies of inquiry to the research question and

how to improve it

Using Yin's (1989) and Creswell's (2007) work, it is possible to show that the

characteristics of the case study approach are found in this article. Initially, the article

examines interrelated socio-material assemblages of tax compliance practise in its

relation with tax administration, in several natural settings. Secondly, it represents how

uniquely tax compliance is 'produced' in a real-life situation involving many

'distributed actions'. Then, a case study approach is typically preferred in studying

complex social phenomena. In this case, tax compliance incorporates many elements

and is highly dynamic as it does not depend on a vacuum continuum. Thus it is

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reasonable to consider that tax compliance is an appropriate example of complex

social phenomena. Lastly, in this work, a case study is adopted at an 'explanatory'

level. By adopting case study approach, this article contributes to 'how' tax compliance

is created in a dynamic situation and 'why' tax compliance involves many aspects of

social assemblages at the practical level. Further, according to Creswell (2007), the

case study approach can be applied into multiple cases. Therefore, from Yin's and

Creswell's work it is possible to show that the adopted research approach in this study

is case study research with multiple cases.

Was the case study appropriate to the research question in this article? To determine

whether an adopted research approach is relevant or not in answering the research

question, an appropriate yardstick is needed. Yin (1989) proposes a brief guidance on

this discourse. In my view, this study fits all the cumulative requirements for a case

study. Firstly, as previously mentioned, this work answers 'how' and 'why' question

regarding tax compliance. Secondly, the researcher did not have any control over

interrelated parts in observing the 'creation' of tax compliance practice. All

behavioural events under this study are natural and independent. Lastly, given its

nature, tax compliance is arguably an everlasting topic of research and therefore offers

many contemporary issues, discussions, and idea. In addition, as Merriman (1998)

argues, a case study focuses "...in process rather than outcomes, in context rather than

a specific variable, in discovery rather than confirmation". In this sense, this study was

adopted to capture current issues with regard to the process of how tax compliance is

produced in real-life contexts. Consequently, I consider that the author was right in

adopting a case study approach as her strategy of inquiry.

Nevertheless, I argue that some area of improvement could be explored to increase the

robustness of the findings. Firstly, given the complex nature of tax compliance, I think

it is essential that the author indicates adequate justification for selecting the cases or

participants. In fact, there are four matrices of taxpayer compliance types, ranging

from intentional-compliant to unintentional-noncompliant (McKerchar, 2002). In this

sense, for example, what is the role of the author's claims of the concept of "socio-

material assemblages" and "distributed action" in terms of unintentional-noncompliant

or unintentional-compliant? By giving the rationale in selecting the cases or

participants, I therefore contend the findings will be more rigorous, particularly in

terms of its transferability. In this case, the author may adopt a strategy called

"negative case sampling", in which she could locate and analyse cases that disconfirm

her conjecture and tentative interpretation (Johnson, 1997). Secondly, I believe that tax

compliance practices, by nature, are somehow a 'sensitive area'. I notice that during the

research process the author observed 50 encounters between taxpayers and tax

inspectors. In my view, this situation encourages what the social scientists call

reflexivity. In this case, based on the assumption that the author's involvement was

overt observation, I propose the author adopt the so-called "modus operandi approach"

(Maxwell, 2004) in order to increase the validity of her explanation. It is not an easy

approach, yet it has potential given that in tax compliance practices, as the author

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claimed, interplay among causal factors is not directly observable. Lastly, in terms of

validity, I think in this paper the author has an inclination to use 'high inference

descriptors' by giving limited descriptions of participants' own words. Using work of

Johnson (1997), as a qualitative researcher, the author could promote the validity of

her findings by adequately providing verbatim descriptions of participants' responses.

2.5 The strength and weakness of the adopted methods and how to improve it

Firstly, it should be born in mind that the term 'methods' in this section refers to the

means of collecting the data (McKerchar, 2010). As stated by Boll (2013, p. 4), for

example, "in 2008, I conducted 12 interviews with bookkeepers and business owners

in e.g. plumbing, carpentry, cleaning and restaurant businesses", it is explicitly clear

that she adopted in-depth interview as the working method in her study. Also, she

declares that during her internship in the Danish Tax and Custom Administration

(SKAT) she observed a total of 50 tax audit encounters. It indicates that she also used

a direct observation method for her study. In terms of adopted method, the author

therefore simultaneously employed at least two methods: (i) in-depth interview and (ii)

direct observation.

It is certainly obvious that both methods have their own inherent strengths and

weaknesses as much literature has already discussed (see for example, Gray and

David, 2004; Kvale and Steinar, 2009). Through direct observation, it was possible for

the author to realistically learn the behaviour of both observed taxpayers and tax

officers, and also the meaning attached to those performed behaviours. She also had

vast opportunities to conclude beyond participants' opinions or statements. As shown,

she vividly described how a bookkeeper in a small carpentry business was 'juggling'

with her clerical job, accessing the company information system, preparing tax

documents, and deciding what to prioritize. Similarly, by conducting in-depth

interviews, the author had the opportunity to gain a deeper understanding of how

observed taxpayers interpret tax-related matters or phenomenon, which cannot be

obtained through solely direct observation. In this work, information regarding tax

compliance procedures in the carpentry business, the function of the installed

accounting application, interaction between a bookkeeper and an external accountant,

all are obtained through in-depth interviews. Also by adopting this synchronous mode

of communication, the author was able to reap the benefit of various social-

psychological cues ─such as pitch, tone, facial expression, intonation, or body

language─ of the respondents. In this case, particularly in interpreting and analysing

the 'non-compliant' respondents, the author was able to incorporate these social-

psychological cues as additional information to be added into the verbal response of

the respondent. In brief, it was certainly obvious that by embracing the strengths of

these methods, the author mission of "...to learn about what bookkeepers and/or

business owners do in their daily work in order to be compliant" (Boll, 2013 p. 4) is

achieved.

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However, on the other side of the same coin, given the nature of qualitative research

on which the researcher is the main instrument for data collection, the adoption of

these methods poses some weaknesses. As previously discussed, interpretation is the

primary activity in social science research. In terms of interpretation, as pointed out by

Barkai (1980), two critical stage occur, both in receiving and sending information

attributable to necessary deletion and distortion process in the human mind. Indeed, I

strongly agree with his argument that "no person knows the true reality...human beings

never exactly know what is going on in the world around them" (Barkai, 1980 p. 577).

Having said that, it is now clear that in adopting interview and observation methods,

the author inevitably takes a certain degree of potential interpretation bias.

Could this method in this paper be improved? To answer this question I need to

initially set out an assumption. I reasonably conjecture, particularly based on the

author's 'rich description' of what a carpentry bookkeeper and a business owner do in

their daily lives to become compliant taxpayers, that most of the interviews were

carried out in 'descriptive ways' with the inclination to use 'introductory-open

questions'. Given the aim of this study is to improve our taxation knowledge by

illustrating how practically tax compliance 'is made', I argue that giving the readers

what Maxwell (2012) called descriptive validity ─a term which refers to the factual

accuracy of the researcher's description─ is arguably not sufficient.

From this stand point, I suggest two recommendations. Firstly, as there are many types

of questions available to use in in-depth interview (Kvale and Steinar, 2009 p. 135), it

is reasonably worth using more determined questions such as probing or hypothetical

questions. Therefore, instead of asking a bookkeeper: "Could you please describe your

planned task in relation to tax compliance?", it is worth the author's asking: "Suppose

you went ahead with this planned task of monthly VAT reporting and it failed. How

would you cope with this situation?" Accordingly, by describing this situation, the

author can emphasize the central point in her work that tax compliance is composed of

many inextricably socio-material assemblages and is obviously constituted by

interrelated distributed actions. Secondly, given the nature of this study is interpretive

research, particularly in seeking an understanding of the creation process of tax

compliance, an additional approach called 'interpretive understanding' should be made.

This approach is essential to eliminate the potential bias made by the researcher in

interpreting participants' statements or mental phenomena and to avoid distortion on

participants' accounts. Maxwell (2012) terms it 'interpretive validity' ─a term which

refers to how the researcher accurately interprets the meaning provided by the

participant─.

3. Tuck, P. 2010. The emergence of the tax official into a T-shaped knowledge

expert. Critical Perspectives on Accounting, 21, 584-596.


The main purpose of this article is to illustrate how identity, professionalism, role, and

organisational context of the Large Business Service (LBS) tax officials, are

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influenced by both internal and external factors, shaping them into a new style of tax

official. These changes are attributable to three main causes: (i) internal restructured

organisation ─merger of Inland Revenue (IR) and HM Custom and Excise (HMCE) to

the HM Revenue and Custom (HMRC)─; (ii) government modernisation; and (iii)

interconnected governance. In short, all of these factors transformed previously 'I-

shaped' technical tax officials into T-shaped strategic tax officials. Adopting a

Foucauldian methodology, this article unveils how 'the horizontal part of T" of tax

officials' expertise is dynamically shaped by subjectivization and objectivization

processes. In brief, based on interviews with a wide spectrum of tax officials and

prominent tax professionals, the author concludes how internal and external powerful

contextual-forces shape and transform tax officials in the UK. She also illustrates the

impact of these forces on tax official's identity and encourages further research of the

impact of organisational and managerial changes on the identity of public servants in

the wider contexts.

3.2 Adopted research approach and its appropriateness to the research questions

As pointed out by Tuck (2010, p. 585), in this article she examines the structure of

how "the tax official being disciplined by the changing working practices of the tax

administration and also on agency: how the tax officials construct meaning and

identity". It implies that she tries to interpret and to construct reality which is related to

those situations. Using Sarantakos's (2013) work, I observe that her main research

endeavour is to provide the reader a "re-construction of reality". In this point, for

example, how IR merged with HMCE to become HRMC is real world or "objective

reality" while how involved tax officials view the transition processes along with all

their implication are "constructed reality". Further, in seeking the answer to the

research question in this article, how the interviewed participants responded and

communicated with the author regarding the impact and process of change is a "re-

construction of reality". Thus, ontologically, it can be inferred that she implicitly

adopts a view that reality has many faces. In this sense, according to Merriman (1998),

as a qualitative researcher the author is "interested in understanding the meanings

people have constructed". By reflecting on the author's research question and the

primary characteristic of the qualitative approach, I take the view that the research

approach used by the author is a philosophically appropriate one with which to address

her research questions.


approach

A research question is the main driver of any research endeavour. It implies that the

selection of a research method should be an indication that the researcher already has a

research question in mind. Therefore, the validity and consistency of knowledge

claims of an adopted research method can be measured by whether the findings

provide what is supposed to be answered.

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In this article, the author tries to uncover and to describe the transition process of tax

officials in the UK tax authority, from traditionally 'I-shaped' knowledge professionals

into strategic T-shaped knowledge experts. She demonstrates that this dynamic

formation process is attributable to three primary factors: new public management

(NPM) discourses; modernisation of government; and networked governance. In this

paper, she uses 'T-shaped' as a metaphor to visually represent tax officials who possess

new expertise, both traditionally technical capabilities and contemporary strategic

competencies in dealing with prominent corporate taxpayers.

Clearly, in this paper the author provides richly descriptive data. At least, 22 verbatim

transcriptions are described by the author to prove what she has learned and, at the

same time, to support her interpretation in each topic. As an inductive researcher, the

author seems to successfully adopt several theories that explain her observation data.

In this case, for example, her claims of the changing process of "T-shaped" tax official

are inductively derived from this fieldwork data. Based on the participants' verbatim

data, the author also implicitly illustrates that in the process of producing her

knowledge claims, her understanding of the changing phenomenon under study is

relied heavily on tax officials' perspective Thus, it did not take long for me to conclude

that the claims made by the author in this paper are valid and consistent with that of a

qualitative approach.


how to improve it

According to Merriman (1998), a qualitative approach which focuses on studying

human society and culture to uncover and describe how beliefs, attitudes, and values

shape behaviour of a group is ethnography. By conducting ethnography, a qualitative

researcher has an opportunity to describe and to interpret a culture-sharing group or

system. Therefore, the unit of analysis in an ethnographic study is a group that

nurtures common culture (Creswell, 2007). Thus, as an ethnographic researcher, the

author finalizes her work by providing the reader a vividly rich description of how the

shared patterns of culture dynamically shape the mindset and capabilities of

transforming tax officials. Based on this primary characteristic, I take the view that the

author correctly adopts ethnography as the approach to address her research questions.

I highlight that the author examines the structure of several cultural aspects of

transforming tax officials. Further, focus on cultural aspects of a group distinguishes

an ethnography study from any other studies in a qualitative paradigm. It follows that

producing a description and interpretation of a shared socio-cultural context of a group

is generally the knowledge claim made by the ethnographer(s) (Merriman, 1998).

LeCompte and Margaret Diane (1993, p. 2-3) maintain the crucial aspect of culture in

an ethnography study by emphasizing that "ethnographies re-create for the reader the

shared belief, practices, artefacts, folk knowledge, and behaviour of some group of

people".

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In details, I found at least four cultural aspects which are examined, described, and

interpreted by the author; they are: (i) how the expertise of tax officials emerges and is

shaped; (ii) how tacit knowledge of the vertical part of 'T' knowledge is obtained by

particular tax officials through implicit training; (iii) how the administrative and

functional structures of the organisation affect the professional development of tax

officials; and (iv) how external business factors enforce the need for specialist

expertise in particular areas of knowledge to assist tax officials. Further, using the

work of Wolcott (1990) in connection with validity in ethnographic research, I notice

that the author implicitly maintains the validity of her findings by providing rich

descriptive data of each discussed topic and lets the readers make their own

interpretations. As previously discussed, there are at least 22 verbatim transcriptions of

interviewed tax officials used by the author to support her findings. Based on these

criteria, I therefore posit that the ethnography study is appropriately adopted by the

author to address her research question.

However, despite the author's view on the benefit of longitudinal study in her work

─over 4 years─ I found the following argument is somehow contextually appropriate

in improving the adopted strategy of inquiry in this paper; "...qualitative researchers

tend to use data collection and analysis methods that emphasize uniformity, such as

relying on key informants and focusing shared themes and concepts..." (Maxwell,

2012 p. 65). Given the overarching aim of this paper is to examine "the changing

identity of the tax official employed by the UK tax administration" (Tuck, 2010 p.

584), I argue that this phenomenon can be studied from both a 'frog view' ─as

previously discussed, a metaphor to represent the epistemological view of an inductive

researcher─ and an 'eagle view' ─a metaphor to represent the epistemological view of

a deductive researcher─. Thus, to obtain a clearer and comprehensive picture to

address the research question, a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods is

arguably the most appropriate method ─as I previously called it, 'a human view'─. On

a complementary basis, as I believe, the quantitative approach can provide systematic

evidence and inter-relational or causal relationship among observed variables, which a

solely qualitative approach cannot.


In this paper, the author adopts interviews and some document reviews as tools for

data collection. Using a semi-structured interview format, the author has more

flexibility in collecting various categories of conversational data and, at the same time,

opportunities to directly clarify ambiguous responses. Also, as an interviewer, the

author can explicitly observe socio-psychological cues of the interviewed tax officials

which may contain invaluable 'unspoken' signals with regard to the explored topics.

Thus, the author can simultaneously adopt this method, for exploration and

confirmation purposes. Furthermore, given that this study is a longitudinal study, it

can be assumed that the author has established a good rapport with the participants.

Thus, it has the advantages to the process of interview of minimizing unproductive

'psychological barrier' between the interviewer and the interviewees. In this paper, it

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could be said that the author reaps the benefit of interviewing as "a process of

knowledge collection" and takes a metaphorical position as "a miner" rather than "a

traveller" interviewer (Kvale and Steinar, 2009 p. 48).

Aside from these advantages, the use of interviewing undoubtedly has inherent

weaknesses. For instance, based on the facts that she had conducted 59 interviews ─33

interviews in 2003/2004 and 26 interviews in 2005/2006─ and given that it could have

taken seven stages of validation (Kvale and Steinar, 2009), interviewing was

inevitably time consuming and expensive to adopt. In detail, for example, according to

Bryman (2001) verbatim transcription of one hour's recording is equal to five to six

hours of transcribing. Indeed, there are some potential limitations in adopting

interviewing as a means of data collection; reflexivity, interviewer bias, interpretation

bias, and perceived low anonymity to name a few.

Nevertheless, to improve the robustness of the findings in this study I propose some

recommendations. Given the interpretive nature of qualitative research, I think it is

important that the author provides detailed information for and elaborate adequate

explanation of the facts that some of the participants refused to allow to be recorded.

Indeed, given that meaning is context-dependent, the 'deep structure' of reason of

participants' refusal could provide essential information. Secondly, I argue that the

quality of research validity in this work can be enhanced if the author includes

participant feedback in interpreting her research findings. In this case, her

interpretation bias is minimized by participants' confirmations.

4. Mammen, S. & Lawrence, F.C. 2006. How Rural Working Families Use the

Earned Income Tax Credit: A Mixed Methods Analysis. Journal of Financial

Counselling and Planning, 17, 51-63, 96.


As an explanatory research, the aim of this article is to answer three questions

regarding the implementation of the Federal Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) in

terms of eligibility of the recipients, recipients' level of awareness of the EITC, and

recipients' behavioural aspects toward the EITC in spending and saving. The rationale

of this work is lack of studies which examine the behavioural and attitudinal aspects of

tax credit of rural families. Embracing the behavioural life-cycle (BLC) theory as a

working framework to analyse the behaviour of the samples, the authors conclude that:

(i) the EITC provided economic benefit for a significant number of working rural

families in terms of increasing their purchasing power and their savings potential; (ii)

continued involvement of financial practitioners is needed due to several practical

issues, such as a quite significant number of eligible recipients not applying the EITC

scheme; most of the sample of recipients used 'lump sum payment' instead of 'advance

payment'; and few families used the commercial services of tax agent in administering

their EITC. In a nutshell, this article unveils socio-demographic descriptions and

behavioural aspects of the implementation of the EITC of low-income rural families,

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and suggests some areas of improvement for future research to obtain a clearer picture

of the socio-economic impact of the EITC.

4.2 Adopted research approach and its appropriateness to the research question

In this article, the authors seem to philosophically adopt a pragmatic perspective. As

pointed out by McKerchar (2010), pragmatist researchers are similar to critical realist

researchers ─both of them lie in-between a continuum of two extreme poles of

positivist and non-positivist─ but pragmatists have a tendency towards flexibility in

choosing the approaches, methods, and procedures to best satisfy the needs and aims

of their research. In this case, the authors employ both the quantitative and qualitative

approach using face-to-face interviews as strategy of inquiry. Using semi-structured

format, the authors employed trained interviewers to simultaneously collect

quantitative data (i.e. socio-demographic characteristic data, employment, and some

objective measures of income) and qualitative data (i.e. subjective measure of income,

themes, rules, principles, and factors) from participants who were selected on

convenience sampling.

In this article the authors explicitly state that they adopt a mixed-methodology

approach. Accordingly, given that adopted research approach should be based on

research questions, it is essential to elaborate the research questions in this article to

determine whether this approach was appropriate. There are three exploratory research

questions in this paper; "Do all eligible working rural families receive the EITC? Do

rural low-income families understand the EITC? How does the EITC affect the

consumption patterns and asset behaviours of rural working families?" (Mammen and

Lawrence, 2006 p. 52). In my view, the first research question deals with several

'quantitative measurements' to obtain the eligibility criteria and to capture the socio-

demographic data of respondents while the other two concern ideational and mental

data. In this quantitative approach, the authors clearly take an 'observers' point of view'

by deductively analysing the data obtained from the respondents. On the other hand, in

answering the two latter questions, the authors attempt to capture the level of

understanding and the spending and saving behaviour of the respondents with regard

to EITC by using qualitative approach. In this case, the authors depended heavily on

the participants' point of view in addressing these research questions. In terms of

timing, the authors concurrently adopt different research approaches to address

different research questions. In relation to the use of this mixed-methodology

approach, following McKerchar's (2010) argument, I consider the authors are driven

by these three research questions rather than their epistemological consideration. Thus,

in terms of the appropriateness of adopted research approach, I consider the authors

are right in so far as employing mixed-methodology to address the 'mixed-nature' of

their research question.

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approach

Given the adopted research approaches, the knowledge claims in this article can be

broadly divided into two parts, quantitative and qualitative findings. In presenting the

findings, the authors tend to elaborate them sequentially on a complementary basis. In

the beginning, the quantitative data is presented to provide the 'objective' numerical-

findings and then followed by 'subjective' ideational-findings. For example, Mammen

and Lawrence (2006, p. 54) explain that "although 237 families were entitled to the

EITC, only 62% (147 families) claimed the tax credit..." and then followed with "...the

qualitative data were analyzed to determine the reasons for not receiving the EITC." It

is easy to conclude that the quantitative findings in this article as well as the

qualitative findings are presented in a 'descriptive way'.

In the quantitative section, despite the fact of authors' acknowledgement regarding the

absence of its generalisability ─attributable to adoption of convenient sampling─, the

authors claim that the findings "provide an extremely useful account" (p. 54) in terms

of how rural families treat the EITC. Further, since the authors do not clarify how they

measure the usefulness of their findings, I therefore assume that its 'extremely useful

account' of their findings is in relation with practical and policy implications. In my

view, the author's claim that "many financial practitioners are and should continue to

be involved in implementing the solutions to a variety of concerns associated with the

EITC" (p. 60) without giving certain boundaries is something of a generalisation and

therefore questionable. It was arguably opposed to their own claim of "...the findings

cannot be generalized to the entire rural population." From a qualitative perspective,

given the aim of this research is "...to explore rural working families' experiences with

the EITC...", I find that all qualitative findings were employed by the authors to

support the quantitative findings in descriptive way. Having said that, I consider that

qualitative approach in this article is appropriately used to address the qualitative parts

of research questions. In a nutshell, I conclude that the knowledge claims in this

article are appropriately based on the adopted research approach, with a little bit of

clarification needed, particularly in its generalisation of practical implications.


how to improve it?

In my view, as previously discussed, in this article the authors adopt mixed-

methodology approach. In seeking the answer for the three research questions, the

authors employ descriptive statistic for quantitative parts and narrative research for

qualitative parts. Given the nature of the purpose of the research, the authors used

'common descriptive statistic' to describe and to elaborate the socio-demographic data

of respondents in terms of their eligibility and their filling status. On the other hand, a

narrative research approach is adopted to unveil both the level of understanding of the

respondents and their economic behaviour with regard to the use of the EITC. Since

the main purpose of this research was neither to test nor to generate some theoretical

13

hypothesis, I consider that the use of descriptive statistic and narrative research are

appropriate to address the exploratory research questions.

However, there are some areas of improvement that could be explored to enhance the

quality of this article. Firstly, I think it is essential that the authors acknowledge the

rationale of adopting convenient sampling. Without adequate consideration, the claims

of knowledge are vulnerable to some threats to their robustness. Secondly, in

maintaining the rigorousness of research findings, the justification of adopting the

criteria of eligibility in selecting respondents (see p. 53-54) should be acknowledged

to ensure the validity, credibility and transferability of the knowledge claims. Thirdly,

I argue that it is better to conduct the adopted approach on a sequential instead of a

concurrent basis ─as the authors did─. In this case, the quantitative approach is firstly

adopted as an exploratory tool and then followed by the qualitative approach,

confirming the exploratory findings. By adopting this sequential approach, the authors

open the possibility to provide more detailed findings rather than relatively 'blunt'

findings. In this case, the authors can use semi-structured survey question to provide a

more detailed explanation to combine quantitative findings with qualitative findings.

In this case, ideational or mental responses from respondents in relation to certain

quantitative data are converted into a form of statistical data. For example, by using

this approach the authors have an opportunity to clarify the detailed portions of those

eligible to receive the EITC but fail to claim it instead of just concluding that "...there

was confusion and a lack of understanding even among those who received it." (p. 60).

Fourthly, given the extensive coverage of sampled area ─23 counties of 13 states─,

the authors have a potential opportunity to increase their 'level of research questions',

particularly in quantitative section, from exploratory research to explanatory research

by adopting appropriate inferential statistics instead of standard descriptive statistics.

This result can be achieved by adding specific survey instruments to obtain the

empirical 'construct' data from respondents at the data collecting stage.


As a means of research, interviews are an essential method both in quantitative and

qualitative approaches. Indeed, interviewing can be considered the most essential part

of human interaction. In this article, the interviews were conducted on a one-on-one

basis or personal interviews by trained interviewers in respondents' choice of premises.

The data were then transcribed, coded, and analysed. By using this approach the

interviewer has an opportunity to explore a large amount of more detailed information.

Also, the interviews are more focused given that the answers are based solely on the

respondents being interviewed. Further, the interviewers can directly clarify the point

of responses which are easily confusing during personal interviews. Lastly, compared

to other methods of interviews, one-to-one interviewing offers more social-

psychological cues such as pitch, expression, intonation, tones, which can provide

useful additional information in answering research question.

14

However, given the crucial role of the interviewer in a qualitative approach, the use of

'trained interviewers' in this work may pose some additional inherent weaknesses. In

interviews, there is some degree of non-verbal behaviour (such as tone, pitch, or facial

expression) of the interviewer which may affect the interviewee's response to the

question. This is known as 'interviewer bias' (Saunders et al., 2003). It also happens

when the interviewer interprets the respondent's response in a different way.

Participating in an interview could also be intrusive. In this case, the interviewees may

be willing to respond, but might only reveal the 'surface structure' of their experience

or knowledge. Indeed, this method relies heavily on the respondents' willingness to

provide complete and accurate information. Do the authors sense this situation and

communicate this with their trained interviewers?

It is certainly obvious that the authors should take into account this situation to

maintain the robustness of the research. Therefore they need to ensure that their

trained interviewers have appropriate interviewing skills and credibility in conducting

interviews. In this sense, there are two crucial stages involved, planning the interview

and conducting the interview. In the planning stage, the interviewer should have a

well-formed outline of the issues to be explored. It is also essential at this stage that

the interviewer be aware of appropriate appearance in the interview, as it could

influence the perception of the interviewee. Building a good rapport and giving a

warm opening is also essential in this stage. In the next stage, during interview, the

interviewer needs to have an appropriate approach to questioning and improvising

techniques, ability to maintain control of the interview, active and attentive listening

skill, ability to conduct behavioural observation during the interview, and an

appropriate approach to note-taking and recording the information.

5. Conclusion

In summary, I can reasonably opine that I did not discover any noticeable

methodological misfits among these three articles. All of them, regardless of the

authors' philosophical stances, adopt appropriated research approaches. Nevertheless,

some areas of improvement are worthwhile exploring to enhance their quality.

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a critical review on research design of selected journals in taxation research

Technology