Qualitative Research in Practice : Stories From the Field - Blogs Unpad

Tailoring data collection
Wendy:
through family photographs, where they have them, as
a very useful prop and I guess the other important
thing here too is maintaining a concrete frame of
reference in terms of the questions and how you
progress the interview—not dealing with abstract
notions. Being wary about things like time and
people’s ability to be able to place events in chronological
sequence, but maintaining that focus, that
concrete focus upon events that happened, what is,
behaviour, specific examples—that is so important
with this group of people.
I think that is where it is important that you do know
something about them, that you have taken the time to
get to know them, because I know one mother who I
would say does have very limited skills in communicating
and if she says to me one word, like she would
say the name of her newest grand-daughter, I know
that she wants to talk about her and I can ask her a
question, and she will come back, and it will only be
very short sentences, but this is how we can communicate
about it. As I have said before, just one or two
really key words, and because you know them, you
know what it is about, and then you can start having
a conversation.
Comments
While these examples reflect very different research studies, both
illustrate the importance of an individualised approach to working
with research participants—taking the time to get to know and
engage with research participants on their own terms. There is little
point in relying on conventional notions of what happens in an
interview if participants have neither previous experience of such a
context nor a view of what an interview ‘should’ be like. Both
research teams exercised considerable flexibility in their approach in
order to elicit information about participants’ experiences—whether
abandoning an interview to play a game with a restless child or
going shopping with a mother with a learning difficulty—and so
were able to obtain a depth of understanding that would have been
unlikely had they relied on a more conventional format.
117