Establishing Access To, Making Contact With, and Selecting Participants A Nina A Alexia A Carl A Peggy A Doris Instructor: Mavis Shang Date: Apr

The Perils Of Easy Access  The easier the access, the more difficult the interview

Interviewing People Whom You Supervise May not talk openly Interviewing Your Students Hardly be open to his or her teacher Interviewing Acquaintances May limit the potential of interview Interviewing Friends Assume you know your friend

Taking Oneself Just Seriously Enough Not take themselves seriously as researchers  An uncritical attitude  Doing research is a work that elites do Research has long been seen as a male preserve.

Access Through Formal Gatekeepers Range from legitimate (to be respected) or self-declared (to be avoided) E.g. parents, teachers, principals, superintendents → legitimate Must gain access through the person who has responsibility for the operation

Research an experience that takes place in many sites → Do not need to seek access through an authority E.g. High school teachers who teach in many schools → go directly to them The more adult the potential participants, the more likely that access can be direct.

Informal Gatekeepers Persons who are widely respected and do not have authorities but hold moral suasion → not to use them formally for seeking access, but to gain their participation as a sign of respect → help researchers gain access to others

Avoid Self-appointed gatekeepers  Must be informed  Try to control everything

Access and Hierarchy Difference between research and policy studies → The latter are often sponsored by an agency  Affects the equity of the relationship between interviewer and participant  Interviewer seems higher

Establish access to participants through peers rather than through people “above” or “below” them

Making Contact Do it yourself.  Third parties seldom do justice  Have not internalized  Do not have investment  Seldom response to questions that arise naturally

A contact visit → Select participants → build a foundation for interview relationship

Make a contact visit in person Telephoning is often the first step to contact. The major purpose of the telephone contact: To set up a time that the interviewer can meet participants in person to discuss the study.  Time For arranging a separate  Money contact visit  Effort

1. The most important purpose of contact visit is: To have a basically mutual relationship with the participant. Group contact visit Advantage: save time because the interviewer can explain it to many people at once. Disadvantage: one participant may affect the attitude of the others participating

Characteristics that can enhance a contact visit:  Tone: Seriousness but friendliness  Approach: Purposefulness but flexibility  Presentation: Openness but conciseness

2. A second important purpose of the contact visit: To decide whether the participants is interested. Participants should understand:  The nature of the study  How he or she fits into it  The purpose of the three interview sequence

Building The Participant Pool Another purpose of the contact visit:  The appropriateness of a participant The major standard for appropriates is whether the study is central to the participant’s experience.

Some Logistical Considerations Develop a data base of their participants A simple participant information form:  Facilitate communication  Record basic data about  Keep in touch with the participants  Avoid disturbing the participants

The contact visits can also be used to determine The best times – let participants choose the hour The best dates The best places - convenient, private,…, etc. After the contact visit, interviewer should write follow-up letters to the participant. Disagree – thank them for meeting Agree – confirm the schedule of interviewing

Sometimes the no-show is:  Poor communication  Lack of enthusiasm Before the interviewing begins, Pay attention to the details of access and contact.

Selecting Participants In-depth interview Purpose: to understand the participants’ experiences, not to predict or control that experience Researcher’s task → to describe the experiences → readers can connect to the experiences

Define the issue → to see whether the participants’ experiences can be accepted to most people In-depth interviewer’s job → to ask some deeper questions that make participants to say more about their experiences during the interview

Two possibilities for making connection (1) Find connections among the experiences from the participants (2) Open up for readers the possibility to connect their stories Purposeful sampling → a non-random sampling technique based on member characteristics relevant to the research problem.

Maximum variation sampling → select in order to get maximum differences of perceptions about the topic among rich information → allow the widest possibility for readers to connect what they are reading

Another useful way → select some participants who are outside that range → for interviewers to check themselves in order to prevent drawing easy conclusions

Snares to Avoid in The Selection Process Participant is reluctance to get involved Strike a balance between easily accepting and ardently persuade Participants are too eager to be interviewed In-depth interviewing elicit person to be interesting no matter he is famous or not.

How Many Participants Are Enough? Snowball sampling: ask participants to identify people or sites to study (e.g. Homeless people) Two criteria for enough: -Sufficiency => cannot interview only person in any particular category -Saturation information => begins to hear the same information Enough => not learning anything new