The English Examining Boards: Their route from independence to government outsourcing agencies

45

For two reasons, I did not attempt to interview a wider range of individuals. The
principal one was that I believe the genuine insights I was seeking would come only
from those involved at the highest level of the relevant bodies. Previous experience of
data collection from various levels within one organisation (Sturgis 2000) had
produced limited data, and responses determined largely by the skill with which the
questionnaire prompts had been constructed. The second was that I wanted to have the
opportunity of collecting data which involved the variety of significant actors’
perceptions, generalisations and uncertainties in order to discern patterns and
relationships - or the lack of them, and to produce what Priscilla Anderson describes
as “rich, thick" reports (Anderson 2002). Ecclestone’s research demonstrated both the
difficulty “for researchers and other constituencies to delve into the messy obscurity
of policy processes" together with their need to “understand more about the diverse
constituencies and individuals that influence policy" (Ecclestone 2002: 174). I
contend that my small but influential sample of interviewees could enable me to
“delve" effectively.

Finally, I must address the matter of interviewees’ motivation and the reliance one can
place on accounts that may involve “records to set straight, scores to settle,
reputations to defend, perhaps a career to rationalise” (Ecclestone 2002: 175). While
my intervewees were undoubtedly subject to such motives, the issues I was asking
them to reflect on were, I suggest, sufficiently distanced from their direct individual
responsibility to elicit as dispassionate an account as one can ever expect to receive.
My methodological approach to analysing the evidence from this limited sample of
interviews would seek to identify common strands and shared interpretations in order
to avoid taking a particular account at face value. The reader should similarly treat the

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