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interviewed for a short period of time – leaving the interview still open for an open ended session, as and when additional information becomes necessary.
Confirming the richness of data emanating from the in-depth interviews, the following is the purpose of in-depth interview: to document the interviewee’s perspective on the topic; to promote active engagement and to offer flexibility to change direction to pursue emergent issues.
It probes the topic thereby eliciting or deepening a response. This method has the potential to uncover and represent unobserved feeling and events that could otherwise not be observed.
Focus Group Discussion
The focus group discussion is a conversation or dialogue between groups of people who share similar types of experiences. It is useful for gaining a sense of the discussion in a group setting.
The diversity of views, of how dialogue/conversation shifts, the understanding of members in a group, are what promote the discussion. Focus group discussions are used to generate information on collective views and opinions as well as meanings that participants make behind those views. They are also useful in generating rich understandings of participants’ experiences and beliefs. A focus group discussion is useful when the researcher has a series of open-ended questions and wishes to encourage research participants to explore the issues of importance to them in their own vocabulary, generating their own questions and pursuing their own priorities (Kitzinger, 1995; Gill, Steward, Treasure & Chadwick, 2008; and Simon, 2009).
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Simons, (2009); and Rule and John, (2011) articulations of research ethical procedures. When approval was received, I telephonically informed the management of PB that I intended to conduct a study within their organization. In the conversation, I mentioned the aims and objectives of the study and the value added of the study to the organization. At that level too, I received approval.
Process focus
The study included self-administered open ended-questionnaires, in-depth one-on-one interviews, group interview (with PBA management) and focus group discussions. While most of the responses were of a qualitative nature, there are some areas where data has been presented in table format. These particular areas pertain to the participants’ bio-data and statistical information and the global, regional and national, HIV and AIDS situation.
The questionnaire administration process
To set up the questionnaire session, I contacted telephonically the PB management to allocate a suitable time and date for me to present on the study. The management arranged an appointment for me to meet with the participants. During their monthly meeting in June 2013, the programme management gave me a slot to present my mission. I introduced myself and the purpose of my visit as well as the benefits that the study would have to the organization. I then requested any women of the age cohorts mentioned in the sampling section above, to voluntarily participate in the study. I explained the format of the questionnaire- how it was going to be administered. I told them about the need to have their written consent before filling it out. Simons, (2009) stresses on the importance of seeking a written consent prior to engaging in a data collection method that it demonstrates an element of good ethical practice. I explained about the issue of confidentiality in that all information requested would remain with myself and the research team. Initially there were 23 women who volunteered to participate, but when I did the screening in terms of age,
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eleven of the women did not qualify due to age. They were relatively older than the required age cohort. I was then left with only 12 women who I regard as participants in this study. Each participant filled out the consent form and later on, completed the questionnaire.
The questionnaires were distributed by myself and my Research Assistant. The questionnaires were written in the vernacular to enable the participants to fill them out with ease (a copy of which is attached and labelled Annex “6”. I read out each question with the participants and allowed them time to ask questions for clarity. I clarified the issue of anonymity explaining that the participants would remain anonymous throughout and even after the study has been completed. I emphasized their choice to participate or withdraw from the study anytime they wanted to. After the question time, the participants completed the questionnaire. The questionnaires were mostly open-ended, with a few sections on bio data that were close-ended type of questions. After completing the questionnaire, I told the participants that I would call them for another level of data collection whenever I felt that additional information was required.
Each one of them gave me their contact details.
The Interview process
These were conducted in July 2013 with 13 women. Suffice to mention that during this second visit, an additional participant (Joyce) who was not present during the first visit, expressed her willingness to join the study. This made a total of 13 participants. The interviews took two days to complete. The duration for each interviewee ranged from 60 – 67 minutes. Since the participants had been aware that a second level of data collection might be needed, it became easier to invite them for the next level. I called the PBA Programme Management, to request them to inform the participants that the second level of data collection was being requested. As in the previous meeting, I took advantage of their monthly meeting in July, to do the one-on-one interview.
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Before the interviews commenced, each participant was reminded about their option to withdraw from the study anytime they felt like it and were assured of their confidentiality and anonymity, throughout the study period. One element that was included in the meeting was that a voice recorder was going to be used. Their consent for their voices to be recorded was given. To ensure anonymity, I asked each one of them to choose their pseudonyms which the study was going to use throughout the interview. The additional participant (Joyce) too fill in the consent form. For the rest of the participants, the consent forms that they had filled in before, were still relevant for the interview sessions.
The interviews were conducted in the vernacular, translating the English version into Sesotho, to allow participants to respond with ease. In the first part of the interview, the participants were asked if there was anything they wanted to tell which was otherwise not covered in the questionnaire. Most of them noted that the issue of how they felt when they discovered they were living with HIV and AIDS, was not asked and that became the starting point for the story telling which they did in a self- directed and open-ended fashion. At the end of the interview I reassured each participant that additional information would from time to time be requested as necessary.
In addition, participants were informed that there would be another level of data collection in the form of focus group discussions on the topics that would be chosen. They all expressed their desire to join in the discussion. At the end of the interview I informed PBA of the next steps in the data collection process. They gave me permission to continue.
Focus Group Discussion
One focus group discussion was held with the participants in January 2014. A total of eight women participated in the discussion. The focus group discussion was conducted to explore more deeply some of the issues arising from the interviews and as a way of observing these women in
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a discussion – how each one of them was participating on each discussion point. There were four topics that the women were deliberating on. The topics are listed below:
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Family reaction towards a woman who live with HIV and AIDS
Did you receive support when you told your husband you were living with HIV and AIDS?
What happened to your sexual relations?
How did you approach the issue of safer sexual practices? What did you say? What was his reaction?
If your partner hears that you are a member of the Association of people living with HIV and AIDS how does that make him feel, and what does his reaction towards you make you feel?
Child Bearing
How did you deal with your spouse, in-laws and community who pressurize you into having a child? What did you tell them?
Treatment intake
How do you feel about life-time treatment?
What do you do to ensure that you do not miss it?
Are you comfortable taking medication in the presence of other people- at work, at home, during gatherings (where there are many people)? If some people who do not know about your HIV status see you take medication and ask about it, do you tell them the truth about the drugs you are taking?
How has the exclusive 6 months breast feeding programme affected you – what are your experiences?
Your participation in a support group
What have you learned from your membership in the PBA?
Apart from HIV and AIDS competency, are there other skills that you have developed as a result of your participation at PBA?
The maximum time allocated for the focus group discussion was 20 minutes but it dragged for close to 1 hour.
Below are participants at a focus group discussion:
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Figure 4.1 Participants of the Focus Group Discussion
The focus group discussion process
I telephonically informed PB management about the third level of data collection process. They (PB) gave me the date when the participants would be available for their monthly visit. The exercise was conducted in January 2014 (almost six months since we last met). I introduced myself and highlighted the importance for participants to freely and voluntarily participate or opt out of the study. The eight women who participated all expressed their desire to participate in the discussion. Likewise their anonymity and confidentiality of the issues to be discussed was assured. I received permission to record the discussions using a voice recorder. I then explained how the focus group discussion would be conducted. Key issues clarified by the participants were the need to allow each participant to share their perspectives; to stay within the allocated time and to be mindful not to dominate the discussions. Surprisingly, they still recalled the
Thato
Palesa
Maliketso
Puleng
Tukane Joyce
Thandiwe Portia
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pseudonyms that they had given me during the interviews in July 2013. The discussions were at first slow but as the second topic was being discussed, more perspectives came through until the allocated time lapsed. Participants asked for more time in order to finish discussing all the four topics. At the end of the discussion I informed the PBA management about my intention to visit them, to verify some of the data reported by the participants, especially the data regarding knowledge acquired from their participation in the PB.
Telephone interviews with PBA programme management staff
Three programme management staff of the PB Association (The Programme Manager, Programme Officer and Monitoring and Evaluation Officer) were interviewed jointly. It was deemed important to interview the programme management staff in order to elicit their responses for the various coping processes that the women had reported to have happened. In addition, as a way of testing the communities of practice theory, the data were especially imperative in order to assess the level of participation of these women in the association and to allow for triangulation of data. In his discussion of data triangulation Yin, (2009) encourages researchers to collect information from multiple sources, corroborate it in order to minimize potential problems of construct validity, because multiple sources of evidence provide multiple measures of the same phenomenon. The telephone interviews were conducted in March of 2014. The interview took 22 minutes. The gist of the interview centered on some key tenets of the communities of practice theory (community, identity, meaning and practice).
The Group interview process
The PBA management was initially approached for an individual interview. Later on, I was informed that it would not be possible to have each staff member separately for an interview, given the work load. Instead a group interview would be the better option. I sent via email, a set of questions that was going to be asked. In the email I highlighted issues of anonymity and confidentiality as well as voluntary participation in the study. On the day of the interview, the
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PB management arranged a telephone conference. Each of the programme staff members responded to almost all the questions. Whenever a question was asked, they took turns in responding. Where clarification was sought on certain issues – especially on meaning-making – every officer gave their understanding of meaning-making until the responses made sense to me (a summary of the PB responses are annexed to the study).
Transcription of the vernacular responses: All the responses that I received from the questionnaires, interviews and focus group discussions were transcribed by myself only, as a way of complying with the ethical considerations of protecting the participants’ sensitive information from any possible identity.