Establish Access To, Making Contact With, and Selecting Participants

1. Establish Access To, MakingContact With, and SelectingParticipants 9210033A Sharon 9310053A Jamie

2. THE PERILS OF EASY ACCESS ___________________________________ ★Beginning interviewers  Easies path to the goal  The most difficult to the interview

3. Interviewing People Whom You Supervise Choose your supervise  Conflict interest of existing Hierarchy  May not talk openly Interviewing Your Students Be respected  Hardly be open to his or her teacher

4. Interviewing Acquaintances Unpredictable  Limit the full potential interview Follow up and distort  Relationship broken Interviewing Friends ★ Easy access  Friendship  Assume understand already  Seldom to develop merit

5. Taking oneself just seriously enough ★ Not take themselves seriously as researchers  Find easy access  Establish by uncritical attitude  Doing research as an elite occupation

6. Less practice  Frustration  Hard to find interest, status, method and usefulness instead of finish a requirement Purpose  Establish equity in the interviewing relationship

7. ACCESS THROUGH FORMAL GATEKEEPERS ____________________________________ Gatekeepers  Control access to the potential participants  Range from legitimate to self- declared

8. Gatekeepers Parents, guardians, teachers, principals, superintendents to be respected Key point  Face to the person who has responsibility for the operation of the site and gain the access

9. ★ Research an experience or a process that takes place in a lot of sites  Don’t need to seek access through an authority Ex. One teacher who teaches in many cram schools Key point  The more adult the potential participants, the more likely that access can be direct.

10. INFORMAL GATEKEEPERS___________________________________ ★Persons who are widely respected, but hold moral suasion without having formal authority  seeking access without using formal way, but to gain their participation as a sign of respect  help researchers gain access to others

11. ★ Self-appointed gatekeepers  Must be informed  Must try to control everything

12. ACCESS AND HIERARCHY__________________________________ ★ Difference between research and evaluation or policy studies  The latter are often sponsored by an agency  Affects the equity of the relationship between interviewer and participant  Interviewers appear higher instead outside

13. Key point  Establish access through peers rather than through people “above” or “below” them

14. MAKING CONTACT___________________________________ ★Do it yourself.  Don’t rely on third parties  Have not internalized in it  Do not have investment in it  Seldom answer questions naturally might arise

15. ★ Contact visit  Select participants  build a foundation for interview relationship

16. MAKE A CONTACT VISIT IN PERSON_______________________________ Telephoning is the first step  Avoid asking yes or no questions Major purpose  To set up a time that the interviewer can meet participants in person to discuss the study.

17. ★ Contact visit Most important purpose  To build a basically interactive relationship with participants Group contact visit :  Save time  Explain the project to whole group once  Effect the attitude of others in the group

18. Second important purpose  Decide whether the potential participant is interested Allow interviewers  Familiar with participants live and work  Try to keep interviewing appointment  Building mutual respect  Explain the nature of interview study

19. Participants understand:  The nature of the study  How he or she fits into it  The purpose of the three-interview sequence

20. Building the Participant Pool Choose the right participants  subject related to participants’ experience Keep record of suitable participants’ key characteristic  make a pool of suitable participants

21. Some Logistical Consideration • Develop a data base of participants •  Facilitate communication •  To inform final choice •  Follow-up after interview • Participants’ information •  Home, address, phone number and when • to contact or not to contact with them

22. Pay attention to the details of communication •  avoiding missed or confused appointment • Contact visit •  decide time, place and date •  be flexible to accommodate participants’ • choice • Thank cards or letters

23. Selecting Participants • Randomly selecting participants •  experimental & quasi-experimental • In-depth interview studies  No randomness selection  Need participants’ agreement

24. Purposeful Sampling Maximum variation  the most effective basic strategy  maximum range of sites and people ex : Students’ oral reading fluency would influence their reading comprehension  determine the range of school sites  determine the range of students’ age

25. Negative cases •  select participants outside the range •  check researchers’ studies not to draw • an easy conclusion

26. Snare to Avoid in the Selecting Process • Participants don’t want to participate •  interviewer too easily accepting rejection •  interviewer too enthusiastic trying to • convince reluctant participants • Participants too eager to participate

27. How many participants are enough? • Sufficiency •  enough number to reflect the range of • participants and sites • ex: Students’ age, girls, boys, their • background and experience of oral • reading

28. Saturation of information •  the information is nothing new at all • The number of participants is different for • each study and each researchers •  time, money and other resources • Not learning anything decided new • + the process becoming laborious •  ENOUGH!!