CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 3.1 Introduction
3.8 Data collection strategies
The researcher tape-recorded both the in-depth interviews and the focus group discussions, while also scribing some notes. (For interview guide please refer to appendix E). Confidentiality was maintained during interview sessions as I ensured the participants. They gave written consent for participation in in-depth interviews. Anonymity was also ensured as no document would be traced back to them.
3.8.1 The interview process.
The interviews were carried out with the participants in their own settings. This was usually in their hut, where privacy was maintained by asking the participants to have a private place away from the rest of the family members. The researcher politely explained that the questions to be asked were confidential and that she needed privacy with the participant. This was not a problem because normally whenever Africa Centre fieldworkers pay a visit, the community members show respect and provide the privacy needed.
Participants were generally participative and gave valuable information. Some however were a bit uncomfortable and did not want to give information. The majority, however, were very happy to be the part of the study. During the interviews, the interviewer could see that participants were giving information with the hope that they would get assistance in the form of an intervention to help them out of their desperate situations. Perhaps this was particularly so because in the introduction of all interviews it was mentioned that interviews would contribute to an attempt to design an intervention. Throughout the interview, the researcher had to guard against exaggerated or biased data.
With the participants in the focus group discussions, the researcher was assisted by peer leaders, as people who had "walked in the shoes" of the targeted group (Fluskerud and Winslow, 1998:75). The 'peer leaders' referred to were two Community Health Workers (CHW) from two different izigodi (meaning the area wards). CHWs normally have the profile of the community in which they work.
They were therefore in a good position to communicate to female participants and campaign amongst them for the focus groups. Their role was to identify homesteads that had migrant men in their wards and bring together women to form focus groups. Each CHW was told that the criteria for the selection should be wives of migrant men not older than 55yrs of age. They were told about the grouping of these women and were able to organize them accordingly for interviews. The selected women met in a central area which was the Africa Centre offices.
During the FGDs the issue of confidentiality was also addressed as the participants were assured that there would be no disclosure to people unrelated to the study. Instead of real names pseudo-names were used during the FGD sessions. The sampling method using snowballing meant that the issue of anonymity would not be addressed as the members knew each other from the community. This was also due to the presence of the peer leaders.
Money was provided for transport and lunch was bought for them. They were not, however, made aware of this offer prior to the meetings. During both interviews and focus group discussions, the researcher created an atmosphere of mutual sharing and established a rapport with participants. The researcher was also a good listener who showed empathy when participants answered the questions earnestly and showed their heartfelt experiences. This she showed by reflecting, summarizing, paraphrasing and listening attentively. In this way she moved with the flow of the interviews, using verbal and non-verbal communication. Her empathy assisted participants to offer more information until the researcher felt that data saturation had been reached.
During both the interviews and the focus group discussions, the participants laughed and giggled as they were sometimes embarrassed. They also shed tears of sadness, dismay and anger. Others sometimes stared into space because of resigned feelings and desperation. At the end of the interviews, the researcher would ease the atmosphere by talking about the situation in a general manner over lunch. It was not unusual that during these debriefing sessions
more information would be revealed by the participants, owing to a more relaxed atmosphere. During lunch everyone would be at ease, as participants would
"regain their composure" before going home. (See appendix E and F for an example of an interview and a focus group discussion respectively).
3.8.2 Alternatives to direct questions for interviews Vignettes
As the study used qualitative methods, vignettes were used across normative responses to ground the discussions in concrete cases rather than abstract views (Green and Thorogood, 2004:99). These vignettes consisted of summary descriptions, such as an unemployed married woman who had had an affair, a woman who had divorced her husband and gained custody of her children, and others as will be discussed in Chapter 4.
Vignettes were used to prompt discussions around the problem in question and to find out the kind of solution that was appropriate (Green and Thorogood, 2004:99). Critical incidents were also used, for instance, to find out which group of women indulged in promiscuous behaviors: between employed women working away from home and unemployed women staying at home.
Field notes
Patton (1990: 287) postulates that "to capture a holistic view, the researcher should stay alert to what happens during informal conversations...no break for the dedicated fieldworker!" Though the researcher was not doing participant
observations, she kept a notepad in her bag so that each time any conversation or situation related to the study occurred, she was able to record it.