Engaging participants in interviews?

I may have to write down this week as one of my most productive. Like…ever. There’s something about a large to-do list with a vacation at the end of it that provides some serious motivation. So much motivation, in fact, that I am done with the list and sitting in my office (impatiently) waiting for my wife to pick me up so we can go home. Our (honeymoon) trip to New Orleans doesn’t start until Saturday, but I’m ready to start preparing…even if it means doing laundry and dishes. Alas, this has nothing to do with my dissertation, except that the timing of this trip is exactly what I need right now and I hope to come back refreshed and ready to dive back into data collection.

Until then…I want to spend a little time talking about interviews. I love conducting interviews. It very much feeds the social worker in me. I like talking to people and hearing their stories and getting their perspective. I especially love conducting interviews with teenagers because they’re fabulous. I love their honesty and willingness to say what they mean, regardless of how I, as the adult, might perceive it. I love that (for the most part) they want to share their stories and haven’t been asked over and over to do so. I love how they will tell me what they think is important…not let me dictate what I think is important.

My first interview for my dissertation was over an hour and a half. This kid could talk and it was awesome. Most of the others have averaged around an hour. I’ve had a few that were really short, though (less than 30 minutes). These were the ones that I felt like I tried and tried to ask follow-up questions when participants provided short answers, but it was to no avail.  It’s not to say there isn’t data there…good data….there is, but it feels not as good as it could be. As much as I enjoyed talking with these participants, I left the interview feeling as if I’d missed some sort of opportunity. What could I have done differently to engage more with the participant?

Anyone else had this experience?  (Seriously, I’m sure it’s not just me.)  What do you do when the participant seems willing to be there and open to answering questions, but just doesn’t provide much detail?  Is it just a part of research I’m going to have to get used to?

Assorted updates

I’m a little behind in posting. I try to post weekly and it’s been nearly 2 weeks since my last post. Sometimes there just isn’t room on the to-do list for a blog post…but I’m trying. It snowed (again) in Illinois last night and this morning and my morning meeting was cancelled so I’m taking that opportunity to catch up on some work…at home…in my pajamas…with an unlimited supply of coffee.  This generally involves more procrastination than when I work on campus, like cleaning instead of reading or writing…but at least my procrastination is productive. Like how writing this blog post is me procrastinating from reading one more chapter on cluster analysis. 

It’s been a pretty good two weeks overall. I’ve done 3 research recruitment trips in the last month and I’ll do 2 more in April. I found out this week that I’m getting an award through my university and that I’m a finalist for a fellowship for next year.  I’ll be interviewed for the fellowship next week and find out in mid-April if I get it or not.  In terms of data collection, over 100 people have taken my survey and I’ve conducted 5 interviews.  I feel good about these numbers I’m also finally getting to go on my Honeymoon (5 months after the wedding) to New Orleans in less than 2 weeks and I’m very excited.  

Despite the progress this semester, I’m definitely feeling the stress of projects and deadlines piling up. Between now and the end of the semester, I have an article to write and submit for a special issue, an abstract to submit to another special issue, a draft of a third paper to complete, another fellowship application to write, 6 presentations to prepare or help students prepare (which includes finishing preliminary analyses of dissertation data), data collection to (mostly) finish, a grant report to write, and probably some other stuff I’m forgetting–and none of this includes the day-to-day work associated with my research assistantship or dissertation. I know it’s all part of the process…and I’m mostly used to it…but it still gets a little overwhelming at times. 

Speaking of my dissertation, here’s a funny (at least to me) little update:  As I mentioned before, I’ve conducted 5 interviews and I have 2 more scheduled. My goal is 30-40 interviews total, although I’m engaging in theoretical saturation so that number may vary. The other day I was thinking about my interview participants and how they’re similar or different. I realized that 4 of the 5 are similar in some pretty major ways and that I may need to attend to this when I’m recruiting survey participants (some diversity in the sample would be good). About the same time I realized that I should probably be starting to do some preliminary analyses for upcoming presentations and that, while I’ve been analyzing interview data, I have yet to do any mixed method analyses which I’m supposed to be doing throughout.  As I realized all of these things in the span of just a few seconds, I thought to myself “I should pick a week to stop doing data collection and just focus on these issues and doing some analysis to see where I’m at with things.”  Feeling proud of myself for coming up with such a smart idea, I remembered a moment back in November when my dissertation committee recommended I do just that–build in analytic stopping points into my data collection timeline. I looked at the timeline I created back then…and there was the first scheduled stopping point–a few weeks ago. Oops. It’s a good thing my committee had such a smart idea.  I guess I’ll go follow it now 🙂  

One last random update:  I ran a quick report of demographic data for the surveys and told my wife how the majority of the youth participants (so far) have been identifying as pansexual, as opposed to the “traditional” LGB or even queer. In our discussion about this she proclaimed “Your research is really exciting!”.  Have you ever had that moment?  The one where someone in your life who is not in academia, not interested in research, and whose eyes tend to glaze over when you say things like “theoretical saturation” or “logistic regression” takes a legitimate interest in your research?  I don’t mean to say she’s never been interested–she has–but in a different way. She knows it’s my education/future career and wants me to succeed and be happy…but this was different…this was authentic interest in the actual research itself. It felt amazing.  A few days later I said something about “cluster analysis” and her eyes glazed over again, so I’ll take it when I can get it 🙂

Sorry for the scattered selection of updates. I’ll try to find some focus in my next post.  What are things you want to read about? 

On the road again…

For several days over the past two weeks I have traveled around the state to promote my study. Two weeks ago: Chicago. This past week: Southern Illinois. Next week: St. Louis area (mostly the Illinois side of East St. Louis). In two weeks: Central Illinois. And at some point in the not-so-distant future: Northern Illinois (beyond Chicago). I’m mostly posting flyers at libraries, coffee shops, and anywhere else youth might hang out, but I’m also meeting with people who can help me promote the study (social workers, teachers, LGBTQ advocates/activists, etc.).

First, let me just say that traveling is exhausting for an introvert. Being away from home requires talking to more people during the normal course of a day…even if much of that day is spent in the car. I’m always nervous to walk into a new place and ask them to post a flyer. I wonder how much of my anxiety has to do with just talking with someone I don’t know (and asking them to help me promote my research) and how much of it is directly LGBTQ-related. I do worry a little that I’ll get the Look and the Polite Decline indicative of a lack of acceptance for LGBTQ people. For the record, no one has refused yet, and I’ve met several excited librarians, which is awesome. But the fear is still there. Do I have any readers doing non-LGBTQ research with similar anxieties?  If so, speak up in the comments…I’m curious.

Regardless of the cause, the anxiety also contributes to the exhausted feeling I have after a day of travel, flyer-posting, and talking to strangers.  And then there’s the bed that’s not my own and the way hotel doors have of being the loudest doors. EVER. (Seriously, what’s up with that?) So, despite the fact that I’ve been working all day to try and get caught up on some things…I’m exhausted and appreciating some at-home time.

As exhausting as these trips are, so far they have been totally worth it. Yesterday morning, before leaving the town I stayed in overnight, I met with a staff and volunteer at a small LGBTQ youth program. I had anticipated it being a 30-45 minute meeting and we ended up talking for an hour and a half. They were excited to tell me all about their program, including their successes and challenges. They were also excited about my research which was so affirming at this early stage in my research career. If that had been the only thing I did on my trip, it would have been worth the time and money!

So, that’s where I’m at. Despite the exhaustion, I know these next 2 trips will be worth it. And after they’re over, I get to travel for fun (on my delayed and highly anticipated honeymoon to New Orleans), so there’s that. Traveling without flyers will be a much-needed break 🙂

Until next time…

On Data Collection (Where My Participants At: Round 2)

A few days ago I posted about the ups and downs of data collection. Well, mostly the downs. Today, I want to share with you the ups…and some things I learned over the past few days.

As I mentioned before, I went to Chicago late last week to do some in-person research recruitment. Before I left, I posted a study announcement on the Facebook page I set up for the study. On a whim, I decided to “boost” the post. I set a budget of $25 and “targeted” the post to reach my target population for the qualitative portion of my study (one county in Illinois). I also tweeted about the study and tagged (is that what it’s called on Twitter? I’m still figuring this Twitter thing out) several organizations and people asking them to RT (re-tweet). Then I left for Chicago and let the internet work its magic (or so I hoped).

Chicago is only a couple of hours away from me, but I ended up stopping after an hour because of fog so bad I couldn’t see cars in front of me.  It was so bad that 3 separate accidents shut the interstate down for long periods of time.  I’m glad I stopped. Once I got settled into my hotel for the night, I had a chance to catch up on emails and social media. I was blown away. In a matter of hours, the number of “likes” on my Facebook study page had increased by 20, I had 2 emails from youth requesting participation in the study, and my post had reached nearly 1,000 people–and only $5 of my $25 budget had been spent. Needless to say, I decreased it to $10 with the goal of spreading that “boost” money out over a couple of weeks. By the end of the 2-day boost/promotion, the number of “likes” on my page had nearly doubled (52 to 99 as of this morning), 3 interviews have been scheduled with youth, a couple new surveys have come in, and the post was seen by over 1,500 people. Totally worth it.

The next day I was able to make it to Chicago and had one day to get 1 1/2 days worth of research recruitment in. I met with a school social worker who was very excited about the study. She plans to inform the youth she works with about it and gave me some contacts to follow-up with. It was a wonderful meeting. I also met with a friend/colleague at a university in Chicago. We spent some time catching up but she also provided some ideas for reaching out to Chicago organizations to help promote the study. After the meetings, I went to post flyers. Thank goodness my amazingly supportive wife was with me because a) navigating Chicago by myself would have been a nightmare and b) by the time I got around to posting flyers, my introvert had taken over and I just wanted to go back to the hotel and take a nap (which she wouldn’t let happen–despite the fact that she, too, wanted a nap)!  It was cold and windy, but we walked around Boystown and posted flyers anyway. We met a few particularly nice individuals at LGBTQ-related stores. One talked with us about possible places to advertise the study and another talked about how he’s been working in Boystown for decades and how he’s seen so much change (for the better and the worse). Unfortunately, I didn’t make it to Andersonville or Bronzeville on this trip, but I plan to go back later in the Spring (when it’s warmer!).

Driving around all day, I didn’t get much chance to check my emails or social media. When we finally got to our hotel, I had over 30 emails. I realized quickly that half of them were from Twitter and I sat down to figure out the chain of Twitter events that I had missed. And here it comes. The 2nd exciting social media event of my week:  Kate Bornstein retweeted my post about the study. Yep. That happened. And then a few more people retweeted it and I lost count. I love Kate. I’ve seen her speak twice and met her both times and I just adore her. To have her retweet my study meant the world to me–even if it doesn’t go “viral”–the support there is immeasurable.

Alas, I am home now. And thankful for it. Time to rest up for a few days (and by rest up I mean catch up on lots of work) before heading to Southern Illinois late this week to do some more research recruitment. This morning I created a new post–specifically targeting my quantitative sample–all of Illinois, rather than just one county–and “boosted” it. And I have an interview in a few hours. Look for updates on all of these fabulous happenings this week later. And thanks for reading.