The End is Nigh…. Or is it?

Posted on 21 August, 2013 by a8906382

Wow, after nearly a year of fieldwork, the interviews are coming to a close! July ended quietly on the recruitment front, so I knew I would need to push the recruitment stuff forward in August to attempt to secure 5 or so more women for the final batch of interviews. I started with a simple status on my research Facebook page (just while I went away to think of some other methods) and the response was unprecedented! 3 or 4 young women contacted me within an hour, and I had a total of 7 new contacts within 2 days. This may not sound like a lot, but sometimes I wouldn’t even get 7 contacts in a month, let alone a couple of days! So yes, recruitment obviously can be like buses, nothing for ages, then loads come along at once! So far, 4 of these contacts have been interviewed, and the 25th interview is now booked in for this week. As 25 is the approx. number of interviews I initially stated I would undertake, this could mean that by next week the interview stage of the research is completed (leaving me to try to sort out the pesky focus groups – no comment)! I will need to speak to my supervisors in today’s supervision about whether I should keep trying to recruit for further interviews or not. It’s a tricky one, how do you know when to stop? When and how can you say you have ‘enough’ or ‘sufficient’ data? I feel like I’m still getting loads of rich, new data, and I could keep going… but you have to draw the line somewhere I guess. So this could be the end of an era. Or not. Watch this space!

How long is a piece of string?

Posted on 31 July, 2013 by a8906382

I’ve been thinking about interview lengths this week (yes my life really is that exciting)…. It’s always a difficult one when you arrange an interview with someone – how long do you book the room for? Can you make plans afterwards? How long do you tell the participant it is going to take? You don’t want to scare them off by suggesting a 2 hour interview is on the cards, but neither do you want them to have to regretfully call it quits after half an hour because they need to dash off to work or whatever. Plus, the reality is, you really just don’t know how long each interview is going to last, particularly with projects such as mine – the interviews are in-depth, semi-structured and quite participant-led. I use a lot of prompts and follow-ups to probe what the young women are saying, so it really can be difficult to predict how long the whole process will take. A lot of it depends on what – and how much – my participants want to say to me. I aimed originally for ‘about an hour’ in terms of length, and this is what I tend to say to participants in advance too. So I decided to see just how accurate that had turned out to be… And guess what?! I was right on the money, so it would seem! After 20 interviews, my average interview length is exactly 59 minutes. There is a fair bit of variation within that of course, with the shortest being 35 minutes, and the longest 1 hour 45 minutes. So perhaps we can make a rough estimate, embracing the fact that some interviews will be much longer than this, and others much shorter. Although having said this, the motto of fieldwork should probably always be ‘expect the unexpected!’…

To pay or not to pay?

Posted on 12 July, 2013 by a8906382

I was having a chat with a fellow PhD student the other day, and the issue of whether or not you reward participants in some way for their time came up. It reminded me of when I was debating this old classic myself. At first, I was dead set on offering participants some kind of financial incentive/reward for their involvement in the research process, but after working through it, I eventually decided against it.

I considered three main options:

a) Do not mention prior to the interview / focus group, but afterwards reward participants for their time with a small token of appreciation e.g. gift voucher

b) Mention up-front that participants will receive token of appreciation

c) Provide teas, coffees, nibbles etc but do not financially reward participants for their time

Option a has the advantage that it may have helped avoid the risk of participants feeling in any way coerced to take part in the study for the financial gain, which could disproportionately affect those who might appreciate the money the most (e.g. lower income, working part time). It may also have helped avoid participants feeling pressure to give certain ‘right’ answers to the researcher. However, a disadvantage is that the fact of the payment would not be able to be used to aid the recruitment process. Additionally, it may have been difficult to keep the fact of the payment hidden, particularly amongst groups of friends. Some women may have persuaded their friends to take part on the grounds that there was a gift voucher to be had. Option b is more transparent and would have avoided this issue and possibly aided considerably in recruitment. However, there is still a risk that participants may feel ‘coerced’, and possibly the greatest risk is that people may have taken part for the wrong reasons (e.g. the gift voucher) rather than because they have a lot to say or are interested in contributing to the project. This could result in the research process producing less rich data. Considering these pros and cons, I decided not to offer payment or incentive, but to provide refreshments and cover travel costs where relevant. I predicted that the research topic would hopefully be interesting and relevant to young women (well, of course, I would say that!), who would come forward without the offer of additional incentives. Similarly, I was not specifically targeting a particularly hard-to-reach or very narrow group, so had a large pool of potential participants as there were very few limits on who can take part within the gender and age range. I also thought that in this way the decision could always be revisited at a later date if recruitment proved problematic. And as it turned out, I think it was probabaly the right choice. Women have come forward because – so they tell me – they are interested in the topic and want to help out with the research. Having said that, I know every project is different, and for some research – for example with hard-to-reach groups – it may be appropriate to offer some sort of incentive or payment.

Yorkshire Sculpture Park

Posted on 6 June, 2013 by a8906382

It’s so important to make the most of all the amazing opportunities to do extra activities outside of your own research, and recently I was able to participate in a day trip down to Cambridge to take part in a seminar on Feminist Classics Revisited, discussing Ann Oakley’s Sex, Gender and Society. It was a long but brilliant day out. I have also been lucky enough to attend the Visualities Research Group field trip to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park (see pics), which was a great day out and a good opportunity to reflect on the impact that the visual can have and how powerful it can be in provoking emotions, reactions etc. This can of course be linked back to research methods, where visual prompts might be used to elicit certain emotions and responses. I am still debating whether I am going to use visual methods in my own focus groups, just trying to work through what exactly I want the focus groups to achieve and whether there is a rationale for use of visual materials in this setting.

Can’t be having too much fun though (haha!) and PhD work rumbles on alongside these fun days out. I’ve done a couple of interviews with local women in the last few weeks which has really helped to develop and progress the research and add an interesting new dimension. Hopefully there should be a couple more this month as well. Recruitment is still ongoing, and I’ve managed to get a route in to Newcastle College hairdressing, popping into the salon next week to talk to some of the students, which is great. I’m also developing links with local cinemas with ‘mum and baby screenings’ and with a dance school in the area, so hopefully these will come to fruition too….

Recruiting Non-Students

Posted on 2 May, 2013 by a8906382

The preliminary analysis is now complete, and my ‘brief’ summaries of each theme turned into 30 pages and 16,000 words of analysis (predictably, oh how I like to waffle!). Apparently though, there was some good stuff in there, which was great to hear (as I said before, if the data wasn’t rich enough or wasn’t answering the research questions, there may be trouble ahead)… One thing that really came through the analysis was the ways in which students construct a student/local binary and talk about local, working women in particular (often classed and aged) ways. I need to target my remaining recruitment efforts for the second half of the interviews at non-students / locals / women who work in Newcastle. This is proving slightly more challenging than the student recruitment! I’ve almost lost count of the number of high street shops and supermarkets where the staff have kindly agreed to leave some flyers in the staff room for me, plus I’ve left some for the general public in cinemas, cafes and bars, alongside revitalising my Facebook recruitment… However this has only lead to one more interview so far so really going to have to think about what additional mechanisms I can use if these continue to prove relatively unsuccessful.

Recruitment continues…

Posted on 22 January, 2013 by a8906382

Well after a nice and relaxing Christmas break it is back and full steam ahead with recruitment. I’ve presented at a couple of Newcastle Uni lectures now, and had a great opportunity today to go and talk to dance students at Newcastle College, laden down with a big stack of flyers! This has been an important step as I’m interested in talking to a wide range of both students and local young women from a broad range of backgrounds and who may be working or undertaking academic or vocational courses.

I have another interview lined up and a couple of expressions of interest, which is great, and I’m trying to make real use of social media to help raise the profile of the research – I really think there are good opportunities to be had here as social media has the potential to reach so many people.

I’ve also managed to secure some good opportunities to talk to geography students at Northumbria University, including 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd years (this is particularly useful as it would be good to be able to interview a broad range of ages and see how age as a factor comes into the analysis).

First interview done!

Posted on 9 December, 2012 by a8906382

On 29/11 I completed my first interview! A real milestone in the project.

I’ve also printed 200 nice shiny flyers, they look great (Emily’s research flyer)!

Also been doing a bit of reading in the last few days and really enjoying engaging with the literature again, I think it can be easy for that side of your work and research to become neglected once you become caught up in the practicalities of recruitment and pilots! But it is nice to get back to, it puts everything back into context and reminds you of why you’re doing the project and what you’re passionate about finding out in the first place. Can be easy to get bogged down in the little details of what colour scheme to use for a flyer so it is nice to have a real reminder of the bigger picture!

Starting the research!

Posted on 28 November, 2012 by a8906382

It has been a busy few months but my research project has finally been launched! the fieldwork risk assessment form has been approved, recording equipment all ordered and two pilot interviews transcribed and analysed to refine the process. Recruitment for the interviews is underway and I’ve got the first one lined up for tomorrow.

No time is an ideal time to start research, and this may be particularly true regarding the run-up to end of term / Christmas. However, it seemed worth getting the ball rolling with at least some of the recruitment tools to see if I could get an interview done before Christmas, with a renewed focus in January, and it looks like that paid off!

I’m presenting in two Newcastle University lectures over the next few weeks (law and health). I’ve also made some personal contacts at Newcastle college through a friend undertaking an NVQ in hairdressing and somebody I met at a conference in Hull who actually works for the college (lucky!). I will also start on workplace recruitment and university societies in January.

My website is also up and running, along with a Facebook page.

September

Posted on 19 September, 2012 by a8906382

This month I have been starting to think in more detail about the recruitment process and methodology, exploring different potential avenues for recruitment and trying to figure out the types of populations these routes will target. I’m working on a recruitment timeline, trying to make it more strategic so that I have a more coherent approach to the project and can deploy different strategies at different times (thinking, for example, about university term dates and holidays, specific events etc). Some of the early issues I have encountered have been that I have been suggesting a sort of ‘hands-off’ approach, when I need to look in more detail at some of the more face-to-face mechanisms I can utilise. I know I am focusing quite heavily on the use of a dedicated account on Facebook, however I really can see the potential value in this. So many of my target demographic use Facebook that I think it would be a mistake to overlook it, plus it offers a way for me to proactively target different night out pages and events, many of which have over 10,000 subscribers. This makes Facebook a free and low-effort way to reach a huge target population, plus it can be used as an ongoing process (e.g. targeting pages for upcoming events) rather than a one-off, meaning I can be flexible and responsive in how it is used, for example depending on which populations I need to target.

Alongside this, I need to ensure my research documentation (consent forms, information sheets, flyers and posters) are up to date and ready to go when the study is launched (hopefully at the start of November).

And of course, the interview and focus group schedules are constantly being developed and fine-tuned in the background. Obviously I don’t want to start trying to recruit if I am still some way off actually starting the research, as potential participants are more likely to lose interest. On the other hand however, I will need to balance this with ‘putting the feelers out’ for recruitment sufficiently early as there may be some time lag in securing participants.

Research Practicalities

Posted on 24 July, 2012 by a8906382

So after a lovely holiday in South East Asia it is time to settle back down and refocus. This is somewhat daunting when you open up word documents you sent to your supervisors just before going away and can barely recall /understand anything you’ve written! But I am certainly getting there and starting to get back into the swing of things.
The pesky research questions are still a work in progress, but it is just so important to get them right, hopefully finally got them down to (near enough!) the final version now… still working on the practicalities of methodology and recruitment currently. Got the basics down but now time to really think about the nitty gritty details and the groundwork I need to do before I can start recruiting, so I’m working on getting a snazzy website set up to provide potential participants with further information about my research project and details of how they can contact me. A few other tasks for the next month include contacting local colleges and universities to see if I can come and speak to students about my project and try and get some face-to-face recruitment done. Also need to look at opportunities to get a flyer or advert posted in some local publications, and get myself a dedicated mobile number and email address for communicating with participants. So there has definitely been a clear shift now from the theoretical and background research towards thinking about actually doing the research, feels like I am entering an exciting new era…
My ethics form has been approved at faculty level too so that has been another satisfying and important step towards actually starting the fieldwork, exciting times!
Annual progression went well too, and delighted to say I passed and am allowed to progress into second year!

Emily's Blog

Category Archives: Fieldwork