Karabo Mokobocho-Mohlakoana Chapter Five: Methodological Considerations
portions of those lives (Denzin, 1995). We have all done selection at different times and in different ways. The transcripts in this study, therefore, are not and can never be a definite picture of what transpired during the interviews.
Our stories (and transcriptions of these stories) do not mirror the world as lived because our stories are constructed retrospectively. We can only attempt to reconstruct life events and hope that there will be some degree of verisimilitude
(Arvay, 1998)
Data as exact interviews could never fit into the margins of this study. I have represented the participants and shared with them. Some details have been omitted and others altered because they were threatening for concealing the participants' identity. In a study as sensitive as young women's pregnancy that touches on individual's sexuality, I cannot afford for participants to be easily traceable. As I transcribed I had to put all that in mind.
The role that reflexivity played in the transcription of stories into narratives has been unimaginable. I had to retrace my steps several times and wonder who is talking. I finally had to agree and let go. The stories are a mixture of voices. The voices represent me the researcher, me the research tool, me the writer and the participants' views. I cannot measure and say how much of whose voice is where, but the effort for the representation to be balanced has been made. My biases are strengths through which the narratives have come to be.
In this study, I had to translate the interviews from 'Sesotho' to English. I am a native 'Sesotho'speaker and English is my second language. I point out in this study that I faced challenges to try and use English in the way it is used in most 'acceptable' studies. There is a 'sesothoised English' that is common especially amongst the women in my country, the research site (Kendall, 1995). As I write throughout this text some 'sesothoised English' can be picked. It is not because I am unaware of the grammar requirements of the English language. But that language that makes its way in some cases for me keeps me in contact with the land from which I come.
5.12.2 Analysing Data
This study has mirrored analysis at different levels and stages. The study on young women's pregnancy has been a long journey for me. It started many years ago, even before I experienced young women's pregnancy myself. The analysis may have shifted with a changing exposure and the influences of the world around me,but at each point in my life the whole discourses of young women's pregnancy and education have been analysed by my being. The intent to do the study was influenced by and has had an influence in the road to analysis. As I settled for doing research in the way I have done, the analysis has been with me throughout. And as indicated by the drafts of the work that I have been engaged with, I have done this analysis in all the steps of the study (Ely et al 1991). I have made notes to myself, to others, and to the text, and I realise analysis throughout. In the analysis I have not been alone. The participants in giving me information have gone further to analyse their situation and the situation of others in the pregnant young woman arena. They have done it in their own ways that are not anybody else's ways, and in this our trip together they are allowed to be as individual as I am (Singh,2000).
Unlike quantitative research that ends with the analysis of the specific data collected,I believe that qualitative,research continues to grow and develop,sometimes exponentially.To me, qualitative research provides the opportunity to study people in their natural settings, uses more flexible techniques for collecting, analysing and interpreting data and allows me to creatively report findings that bring individual voices into examination.
(Maxwell,1998:5).
I invited the participants to be free to interact with the data even at the stage of analysis.
Some were more interested than others.The less interested shared how issues of research are for groups other than them. I took these opportunities to reaffirm their importance in the undertaking that we have begun together. I see the layers of analysis as strength to
Karabo Mokobocho-Mohlakoana Chapter Five:Methodological Considerations
finally come out with what is ours. The researcher and researched have analysed as they put their efforts together to make the experiences making meaning and to add to the body of existing knowledge.
Content from the memos that I kept and the notes I made on documents informed the analysis. This added to the final product memories that would have otherwise been forgotten and buried. The details are part of the journeyand they comprise data as well as analysis. The challenges, opportunities and achievements are contributory to the analysis and the whole process.
5.12.3 Questionnaires
The questionnaires were manually analysed by question. All the points that bore similar meanings were grouped and a narrative analysis of opinions in each question is presented.
5.12.4 Interview Data
In my analysis of interview data I did not impose a predetermined set of categories, but permitted these to emerge from the data. To ensure a rigorous and systematic analysis,I devised a four-step process by which I analysed each set of data.Although these stages are presented as a linear process, I in fact moved between the data, findings, and emerging theory in a cyclic fashion, (Blaikie, 1993). I describe the procedure as for interviews here,but I also used the same one for the observations:
Step 1: For this step,and indeed the next,I kept the distinct groups of interviews with all parties according to opinions for and opinions against pregnant girls attending schools. I first went through each interview,and noted emerging themes and any subcategories that became evident within each one. This resulted in a list of themes for each group of interviews, with the subcategories listed beneath, and the interviews in which they appeared noted next to each heading.
Step 2: I then went through each list, amalgamating any themes that were sufficiently similar, and moving subcategories into other themes if they appeared to fit more appropriately.At this stage I also began to break down the bigger themes conceptually.
Step 3: At this point I linked all the interview sets together, by drawing out themes that were shared between them, and examining their relationships. I continued to develop higher-level concepts to link themes together and bring more interpretation into the descriptions.
Step 4: The final stage involved returning to each interview,and actively searching for exceptions to the developing themes. Where exceptions were found I examined the reasons for this, and used that information to modify and further develop the emerging theory (Seale, 1999),until I was able to construct a coherent,interpretive account of the interview data.