Chapter 4: METHODOLOGY
4.3 Research process
4.3.4 Data collection instrument
‘The Auntie Stella toolkit: Teenagers talk about sex, life, and relationships’ is an innovative reproductive health toolkit that was used in this study as a data collection instrument during the data collection process. The researcher’s supervisor received permission from the ‘Training and Research Support Council’ (TARSC) (Appendix 6), which is the organisation who assisted in the development of the Auntie Stella (AS) material, to conduct studies using the AS material in a
33 South African context. The researcher applied, under the auspices of her supervisor’s study (ethical clearance number is: HSS/0445/017) to use the AS material in research with students at the UKZN campus (Appendix 2).
‘The Auntie Stella toolkit: Teenagers talk about sex, life, and relationships’ was originally developed in 1997 from research conducted around reproductive health rights which recognized the need for adolescents to acquire more information relating to reproductive health issues in Zimbabwe (Harnmeijer, 2001). The Auntie Stella (AS) material provided a platform for gathering information around reproductive health issues and became a useful tool for assisting adolescents in obtaining and accessing information and support networks for these particular issues (Harnmeijer, 2001; Gwarada, 2009). Since then, the AS material has been revised to include various topics, such as peer, social and economic pressures and difficulties; and adapted to be applied in diverse contexts (Training and Research Support Centre [TARSC], 2006). The AS material can be viewed on-line at www.tarsc.org (TARSC, 2006).
The AS material uses a format which is similar to the ‘agony aunt’ format which one might find in magazines or newspapers, and is based on a series of letters, written by ‘young people’ to Auntie Stella. These letters draw upon experiences and narratives of young persons living in southern and east Africa. Each letter has an accompanying response which deals with the various personal, emotional and social issues that are in the letter (Leach & Humphreys, 2007). These letters have been developed into question-and-answer cards and additional talking points and action points are also included on the cards. All of these form part of an activity pack which can then be used as focus points for discussion within small groups (Kaim & Ndlovu, 2000).
There are three steps that are involved when using the AS material. The first step involves participants reading through a letter, in which the author is seeking assistance with a specific issue.
The letter is written to an agony aunt called Auntie Stella. Each letter is written from a different person’s perspective, which provide a diverse range of beliefs and attitudes regarding various issues. This makes the letters relevant and relatable (Kaim & Ndlovu, 2000; Ntinga, 2019). In the second step participants are encouraged to discuss and unpack the particular issue addressed in the
34 letter. In order to prompt and assist group discussions talking points are offered at the end of each letter. The third step requires participants to read through the response letter from Auntie Stella.
The response letter provides suggestions on how to deal with that particular issue. There are also action points included at the end of the response letter which offer possible actions that could be taken to address the issue. This provides the space for participants to learn new ways of dealing with potential issues (see Appendix 7 for an example of an AS card) (Kaim & Ndlovu, 2000;
Ntinga, 2019).
The AS material was beneficial for this study as it provided a means to generate discussion points and facilitate conversation during the data collection process. Furthermore, the AS card was useful in encouraging critical thinking, reflection and assistance in assessing risks, options and support networks for participants regarding the research topic (Leach & Humphreys, 2007; Gwarada, 2009). Particularly card number 34, i.e. “I’m gay – will anyone love me?” (Appendix 7), was a suitable point of reference and guide for this study as it addresses the topic of social pressures around sexual orientation. A limitation of using the AS material in this study, is that the participants may not have related to certain aspects of the card, as the card was designed for adolescent learners in other African countries. However, this was overcome by adapting the card to suit students at a tertiary education level.
Card number 34, i.e. “I’m gay – will anyone love me?”, was adapted to suit the age, content and site of the students participating in the focus group (Appendix 8). The AS card number 34 focuses on an issue relating to sexuality from the perspective of a school-going female learner from Zimbabwe. Therefore, the age of the female was changed to 18 years. The name on the card was changed to an IsiZulu name – as IsiZulu is the most commonly spoken home language in Pietermaritzburg (UKZN, 2017a). Certain terminology was changed to suit the South African context. For example, ‘Form One’ was changed to ‘school’ as South Africa does not use ‘Forms’
within the schooling system. In addition, the talking points and action points were adapted to be more appropriate to a university context. For example, an action point was adapted to include discussions around organisations on ‘campus at UKZN’ (as opposed to ‘in general’) that provide support.
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