Cash or Card: Consumer Perceptions of Payment Modes - Scholarly ...

In this chapter, the methodology for the research is discussed. The chapter begins by
describing the research task, detailing and justifying the research design. It then outlines the
sampling process and the specifics of data collection and analysis.
4.2: Research Approach
To address the research questions, the study needs to accomplish a number of tasks. One is
concerned with gathering people’s subjective experience of two specific money based tokens
commonly used to enable payment for purchases: cash and debit cards. Another is to
identify, quantify and compare the volume and value of the products purchased across these
payment modes. A final task is to develop a self report instrument that captures payment
mode perceptions and determine if these perceptions are related to payment mode choice.
The first task requires data that reflect the participants’ personal perspective and
interpretation, so a phenomenological approach to data collection is adopted. Though the
intent is to identify individual perceptions, relativist ontology underpins this task as the
assumption is that an individual’s experiences and understandings of the world create a
unique set of perceptions whilst recognising that some of these perceptions will be shared by
others. This understanding directs the collection of individual and group sourced data. The
remaining tasks require documentation of actual products purchased and payment mode used
and the responses to a self-report questionnaire. As the intent is to compute this information
and compare responses, data that can be quantified and statistically analysed is required.
Hence, this study adopts a multi-phase, multiple method approach to data collection and
analysis.
Multiple methods are useful in a research program when a series of projects are interrelated
within a broad topic and designed to solve an overall research problem (Morse 2003: 196). It
essentially refers to blending and integrating a range of data and methods involving simple to
complex designs allowing “a more complete, holistic, and contextual portrayal of the unit(s)
under study” (Jick, 1979, p.603). Although some researchers (e.g., Guba & Lincoln, 1988)
argue that internal paradigmatic consistency and logic caution against such mixing, others
note that mixed methods provide strengths that offset the weaknesses of studying a research
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