S ASTRARA
3.4 Sampling procedure
Welman & Kruger (1999), considered the purposive method of sampling as the most important kind of non-probability sampling to identify the primary participants. This sample was selected based on the researcher's judgment and the purpose of the research (Babbie, 1995; Greig & Taylor, 1999; Schwandt, 1997), looking for those who "had experiences" relating to SY meditation as a form of therapeutic community, the phenomenon to be researched (Kruger, 1998:150). Obtaining information relevant to a topic or issue from several informants is an indispensable tool in the real world enquiry. It is particularly valuable in the analysis of qualitative data where the trustworthiness of the data is of concern. It provides a means of testing one source of information against other sources. It is useful in validating information (Robson, 1993).
3.4.1 Research sample
Boyd (2001) regards two to ten participants or research subjects as sufficient to reach saturation and Creswell (1998: 65,113) recommends "long interviews with up to ten people" for a phenomenological study. Taking the above into consideration, six Sahaja yogis were selected to participate in the main study and two in the pilot study.
3.4.2 Participant profile
The participants in this study were all females (Appendix A: 2; Appendix B: 2). They had been practitioners of SY meditation for between 6 to 19 years. The participants were between the ages of 35 and 58 years. Among the participants were a psychologist, an educator, a musician, a business administrator, a personal assistant and a housewife. All the participants lived in KwaZulu Natal, South Africa, except for
one who was touring the country. All the participants were married and had family members who were Sahaja yogis.
3.4.3 Informed consent
In order to ensure ethical research, the researcher made use of informed consent (Holloway, 1997; Kvale, 1996). A specific informed consent 'agreement' was used in order to gain the informed consent from participants (Arksey & Knight, 1999; Bless &
Higson-Smith, 2000; Kvale, 1996; Street, 1998). The informed consent agreement (AppendixA: 1; Appendix B: 1) contained the following information:
•. Participation in the research
• The purpose of the research
• The procedures of the research
• The risk and benefits of the research
• The voluntary nature of research participation
• The subject's (informant's) right to stop the research at any time
• The procedures used to protect confidentiality
The 'informed consent agreement' was explained to Sahaja yogis participating in the study at the beginning of each interview. Participation in the study implied consent.
3.5 Instrumentation
The following data-gathering method was used:
• unstructured in-depth phenomenological interviews
3.5.1 Informal interviews
At the root of phenomenology, "is the intent is to understand the phenomena in their own terms - to provide a description of human experience as it is experienced by the person him/herself' (Bentz & Shapiro, 1998: 96) and allowing the essence to emerge (Cameron, Schaffer & Hyeon-Ae, 2001). In this study, the in-depth interview was used as a data collection technique to obtain the participants' descriptions of their SY meditation experiences.
Participants needed to be sufficiently motivated to describe their SY meditation experiences. In order to motivate participants to co-operate during the interview, applied the three factors described by Nachmais & Nachmais (1981 ):
• I presented myself to the participants as a caring person, who was easy to get along with and easy to talk to so that our interaction was mutually pleasant and satisfying.
• I high-lighted the importance of the participants' co-operation in the study as being worthwhile and beneficial not only to themselves, but also, that in participating, they played an integral role in creating international awareness of SY meditation as therapeutic community.
• I explained the purpose of the study, the method of selecting participants and the confidential nature of the interview to the participants in a relaxed and friendly manner so as to motivate the participants and to overcome barriers to the interview. Participants were encouraged to ask questions in order to seek further clarity.
The participants were interviewed separately between March and June 2007. I arranged interviews with the research participants at a time and a venue that was free from possible noise and disruption. At the outset rapport was established and an atmosphere, in which the participant felt relaxed, and where anonymity and confidentiality was guaranteed, was created.
The interviews were audio-recorded with the permission of interviewees (Arksey &
Knight, 1999; Bailey, 1996). Audio-tapes were used during interviews, since extensive note taking runs a risk of distracting the participant and interrupting the flow of the interview (Barker, Pistrang & Elliot, 1996). Furthermore, using tape recorders provides a more accurate rendition of any interview than any other method (Yin, 1984). Other benefits to tape recording are that: by preserving the words of the participant, researchers have their original data, and ifsomething is not clear in a transcript, the researcher can return to the source and check for accuracy. Tape recording also benefits the participants, in that they feel assured that there is a record of what they had said, to which they have access. Thereby they can have more confidence that their words will be treated responsibly (Seidman, 1991).
The interviews were unstructured and proceeded with the question: What are your Sahaja Yoga meditation experiences? This facilitated a free dialogic flow, which allowed other open-ended questions to be asked during the interview based on the emergent data. I attempted to influence the participant as little as possible. The interviews were of self-determining duration, and were conducted until participants reached saturation point. As soon as possible after each interview I listened to the
recording and made notes. Key words, phrases and statements were transcribed in order to allow the voices of research participants to speak (Seidman, 1991).