I selected three methods of data generation in this inquiry: 1) web-based surveys; 2) online interviews; and 3) face-to-face (FTF) interviews. Table 2 provides a summary of these three methods. The use of multiple methods was informed by two considerations. The first consideration was to broaden the options for participation and hence to maximise young people’s participation. The second consideration was ensuring that young queer people had safe options to participate in the research that was on their own terms and in their control. Other researchers have advocated for several methods of participation so that young people are given some opportunity to make their own
decisions over how they would prefer to participate (Hillier et al 2005; Hillier et al 2007). During an eight-month time-period from October 2006 to June 2007, I completed
thirteen (13) online interviews and thirteen (13) FTF interviews, and twelve (12) completed surveys were received. The three selected methods were complementary to developing a layered and nuanced account of young queer people’s experiences in the workplace. While it was not intended to implement the three methods in separate time- phases, I initially commenced with the online interviewing to assist in building my
confidence in this unfamiliar interviewing style before organising FTF interview two months later. Completed surveys were received throughout the eight-month time-period. In this section, I discuss the theoretical influence of the active interview approach, the design of a theme list and the facilitation of pilot interviews. I then outline in detail the three methods selected for generating participants’ accounts of the workplace—the online methods of web-based surveys and online interviews, and the off-line method of FTF interviews.
Table 2
Number of young people participating in each of the three methods and description of each method
Method Number of
participants for each method
Description of each method
1) Web-based survey
Twelve (12)1 Online method—Series of open-ended questions posted
on the research website in a survey format.
2) Online interviews
Thirteen (13) Online method—Interviews conducted in real-time through the Instant Messaging (IM) program MSN Messenger.
3) Face-to-face interviews
Thirteen (13) Off-line method—Interviews conducted in person between the researcher and participants.
1Four (4) young people initially sent in responses through web-based surveys then agreed to participate in a subsequent online interview to discuss their responses in greater depth.
Approach to interviewing
I adhered to an active interviewing approach for generating comprehensive accounts of young people’s work experiences during both online and FTF interviews. This approach bears similarity to other interviewing approaches discussed as ‘in-depth’, ‘unstructured’ or ‘focused’ in which the interview is conversational in tone, not bound by a set structure, centres on the interviewee’s understandings of social reality, and is generally guided by their telling of the story (Alston & Bowles 1998, p. 120; Liamputtong & Ezzy 2005, p. 56). Holstein and Gubrium (1995, p. 4) describe the active interview approach as a social encounter. The active interview is a mutually generative process of interpretation and interaction between the interviewer and the interviewee (Holstein & Gubrium 1995, p. 16). This approach is congruent with a constructivist paradigm as recognition is given to the interview as a co-generative process in which boundaries between the researcher and the researched are more permeable than prescribed in conventional interviewing roles. Qualitative interviewers in the interpretative tradition appreciate that the interview is not a neutral tool for documenting people’s stories but an active engagement of storytelling between two or more people within a specific social context (Fontana & Frey 2003, p. 62). From this perspective, participants are no longer objectively viewed as ‘repositories of knowledge’ (Holstein & Gubrium 1995, p. 4). As Stein (1997, p. 72) stipulates, every interview is a social interaction in which interviewers and participants alike draw on broader social and cultural practices and discourse throughout the interview. The active interview approach is not a ‘biased’ approach for directing the interviewee to produce particular responses. Instead, it gives the interviewer scope to explore incomplete or unarticulated areas, to suggest alternative interpretations or to make links between particular events and sequences within the interview (Holstein & Gubrium 1995, p. 17). Young queer people are seldom given the opportunity to speak safely of their
experiences as non-normative sexual subjectivities in an affirmative environment (Valentine, Butler & Skelton 2001). In selecting interview methods, I could provide young people with a politically invested audience to witness and validate their accounts of working life. I wanted young people to feel less like the sexual ‘Other’ in the
active interview approach met these considerations. This more informal style was an effective way of generating in-depth interview accounts in a validating manner that focused on young people’s interpretations of work-life without pushing a more
structured agenda. This approach allowed me to explore participants’ interpretations of events through further questioning and conversation while continuing to value the participant as ‘the expert’ on their life-experiences.
Preparing a theme list
I referred to a theme list during both FTF and online interviews. Open-ended questions for the web-based survey were prepared from this same list. Theme lists consist of important topics noted in brief that cue the interviewer to potential topics that are worth visiting in the interview and that relate directly to the research question (Liamputtong & Ezzy 2005, p. 62). My theme list covered topic areas that I had noted when reviewing the background literature and that included emergent issues from both pilot and consequent interviews. The list included topics such as formal and informal roles in the workplace, entering the workforce, perceptions of work cultures and environments, disclosing sexualities at work, relationships and interactions with co-workers and management members, challenges and difficulties in the workplace, and perceived advantages and disadvantages to identifying as non-heterosexual in the workplace. I also invited
participants to discuss former experiences of employment, including first experiences of participation in the workplace, to be able to note changes in their patterns of work-based interaction. The theme list with sample questions is presented in Appendix D.
During the interviews, these themes were not adhered to in a strict linear format. Instead, themes were raised in varying order through asking open-ended questions to ‘encourage unanticipated statements and stories to emerge’ (Charmaz 2006, p. 26). Based on some of the online interviews completed and the survey responses received, I fed newly emerging topic areas into my theme list for future FTF interviews. This is in keeping with an inductive process of being attuned to new perceptions and meanings entering the interview context from participants’ subjective worlds (Charmaz 2006).
A crucial component of my theme list was inviting participants to discuss how they would describe their sexuality and gender. A similar line of questioning was
demonstrated by Arlene Stein (1997) when inviting lesbian-identifying women to share their narratives, or ‘self-stories’, of how they perceived their sexual subjectivity. I integrated questions from Stein’s (1997) narrative project into my interviews, such as ‘how would you describe your sexuality?’, ‘what do these words mean to you?’ and ‘at what point in your life did you did you come to call yourself that?’ (p. 208). I asked similar questions when inviting participants to describe their gender. This ensured that space was opened up for young people’s self-stories that might have transgressed conventional understandings of sexual and gender identities. This was a particularly important question for online communication to avoid assumptions about participants’ gender identity based on their provided names or described experiences.
Facilitating pilot interviews
I facilitated pilot interviews for both online and face-to-face interviews to provide an initial gauge of the interview process and to assist in ‘smoothing out wrinkles’, as suggested by Padgett (1998, p. 30). Pilot interviews were arranged with two volunteers who identified with the sample group but who were several years older than the specified age range. One volunteer participated in an online interview while the other person participated in a FTF interview. These ‘trials’ persuaded me to put aside a set of specific pre-determined questions and to adopt a more recursive style of questioning. This approach was more suitable for honouring each young person’s story as a separate and unique account, and for remaining focused on and sensitive to the story being told (Minichiello, Aroni, Timewell & Alexander 1991, p. 112). It was also more in keeping with the active interview approach.
Online methods of data generation
Justification for online research methods
I predicted that by selecting online methods this would expand opportunities for young people to participate through an alternative point of access to the research. Accessing the Internet is a regular leisure activity for many young Australians. Internet access for this age group has dramatically increased over the last six years from 58% of young people (aged 18 to 24) in 1998 to 85% in 2005–06 (ABS 2005/06 cat. no. 8146.0). Furthermore, computer mediated communication (CMC) is a useful medium for accessing ‘hard to reach’ populations who are not readily visible in the public arena (Mann & Stewart 2000, p. 18). This is particularly pertinent to young queer people who may not publicly identify as non-heterosexual. Prior studies indicate that the Internet is a prominent technology in the social and sexual lives of young queer people in Australia (Hillier & Harrison 2007; Hillier, Kurdas & Horsley 2001).
CMC can offer a greater assurance of anonymity to online participants who are not required to be visible or speak directly to the researcher. Online methods provide the space to construct an online persona that is preferable to the participant in regards to self- presentation (Markham 2005, p. 809; McCoyd 2006). Mann & Stewart (2002, p. 608) argue that the Internet provides an expansive electronic field for qualitative researchers seeking to access dispersed populations. Online methods enabled me to access a diverse sample that was geographically spread across Australian cities and regional centres. Ordinarily, I would not have been able to fund or resource this required level of travel for FTF methods. However, using online methods does place greater responsibility on the researcher for setting clear boundaries for their inquiry. As Markham (2005) reiterates, “boundaries are not so much determined by ‘location’ as they are by
‘interaction’” (p. 801). In my study, the criteria for participation were clearly defined on the research website.
First method: Web-based surveys
I designed an alternative option for online participation through a web-based survey in recognition that not all young people would wish to commit to the more time-intensive process of online or FTF interviewing. Twelve (12) participants participated through this method; four (4) of these young people later agreed to participate in an online interview. Web-based surveys are similar in format and appearance to hand-written surveys except uploaded online and translated into HTML (hypertext mark-up language) as a standard language protocol used across Internet browsers (Rhodes, Bowie & Hergenrather 2003, p. 68). These surveys can be an attractive and straightforward option for participation in research while simultaneously providing researchers with a consistent format of data through which to compare and consider response-sets (Mann & Stewart 2002, p. 612). I decided to use web-based surveys because this method provided a private, flexible and autonomous means for young queer people to participate. Online participation enhances participant autonomy and ensures a high degree of flexibility and control for users in when, where and for how long they participate in the research (Mann & Stewart 2000, p. 24; Mustanski 2001). Survey participants are free to participate in their own time without feeling pressured to respond to interview-based questions in a more intrusive discussion in ‘real-time’ (Rhodes et al 2003).
The survey process
The web-based survey was uploaded as one of the three options for participation available on the research website. Participants were provided with a text-box layout under each question to compose their responses. These text boxes expanded to
accommodate longer responses. After completing the survey and pressing ‘SEND’, the completed responses were automatically sent to my email inbox. Drop-down menus with fixed-responses were used to gather basic demographic information including current age (range 16-26 years), current location of workplace (‘rural’, ‘regional’ or ‘urban’) and home state/territory location. These demographic questions were included across all three methods of data generation for consistency. Please see the attached CD-ROM to
story via email’ on the website homepage. A standardised sequence of open-ended questions were composed and uploaded on the webpage. These questions were based on the interview theme list and focused on general experiences of workplaces (how would you describe the places where you work/ have worked?) through to more specific questions exploring relationships with co-workers and other staff (who in your
workplace/s might you talk to about sex and sexualities? and how would you select that person/s?). I limited the number of questions to no more than eleven to prevent young people feeling fatigued from having to complete a long-winded survey, as suggested by Riggle et al (2005, p. 4).
Challenges in using web-based surveys
This method of self-completion relied entirely on how much information participants chose to convey. In some cases, very short and occasionally ambiguous statements were provided which were difficult to interpret. This could be explained through varying levels of literacy and typing skills or through the limitations on how much time
participants had access to computers, particularly if accessed in public spaces (Riggle et al 2005). I overcame this difficulty by inviting email respondents to provide me with their email address at the end of the survey if they agreed to further contact. This gave me the opportunity to acknowledge their responses and to email back additional clarifying or probing questions based on their original responses. The majority of participants were willing to respond to two or three further questions. In addition, I had to make certain that I wrote in plain language at all times as ambiguous expressions can often lead to the misinterpretation of intended meaning. One other challenge was the restriction on interaction between the researcher and participants. While standardised web-based surveys can restrict participants from engaging directly with the researcher, online interviews open the space for dialogue in real-time (James & Busher 2006).
Second method: Online interviews
The second method of online participation was through online interviews using the instant messaging program MSN Messenger (Microsoft 2005). Thirteen (13) young people participated through this method. Instant messaging (IM), otherwise known as ‘real-time chat’, involves the synchronous exchange of messages between two or more users simultaneously from different computer terminals (Mann & Stewart 2002, p. 604). MSN differs from other chat rooms available on the Internet in which groups meet online for text-based discussion. In contrast, IM is a private program in which individual users are required to have other MSN users saved in their ‘contacts’ list before chat sequences can be initiated. This makes IM ideal for one-to-one research interviews in a private electronic setting (Robinson 2001). For my project, Microsoft Messenger was selected as a well-established and highly accessible IM program that was available to download free from the Microsoft website. Consequentially, MSN proved to be a familiar and user-friendly tool for online participation.
I selected this method because it was a highly accessible means of exchanging open and reflective dialogue with young people about their experiences of the workplace. I considered that some young people might be more encouraged to participate if they did not have to meet with the researcher in person and could participate from the comfort of their preferred surroundings. This method ensured a considerable degree of anonymity and control over personal information. Similar to web-based surveys, participants have a high level of autonomy within online interviews as they can swiftly exit the interview setting with one click of a mouse button (Mann & Stewart 2000, p. 56). IM also provides both researcher and participants with time for reflecting on their responses (Bowker & Tiffin 2004, p. 231). Furthermore, online participants may feel greater comfort in disclosing their life-stories without having to engage with the physical presence of the researcher (Bowker & Tuffin 2004, p. 231).
The online interview process
I facilitated online discussions with participants located across the Australian mainland through MSN. Markham (1998, p. 64) advises that substantial time-periods should be anticipated for engaging with people online. This advice proved invaluable as most of the online meetings lasted from two to four hours with the majority of participants meeting with me at least twice. It became rapidly clear that online interviewing was a considerably slower and more laborious method than FTF interviewing that could occur anytime, day or night. As most online interviews were spread across several meetings, many participants wanted to continue chatting the next consecutive day. This presented a challenge for me in making certain that I was always available and poised at my
keyboard. However, it was also a blessing to continue discussions that were relatively fresh in both our minds.
Challenges in facilitating online interviews
The process of online interviewing brought its own set of challenges. Technical difficulties with MSN and online access presented occasional challenges such as not being able to log on to MSN when the program was inundated with other users. I remedied this by making sure I logged on to MSN at least half an hour before the arranged meeting time. Another challenge I encountered with using MSN were the limitations placed on the amount of text that could be written per response. The text boxes in MSN only allowed each user to compose several lines of text before having to press ‘Enter’ and display their message to the other user. I wondered whether this limit on text would deter participants from elaborating on their responses. Instead, this often produced a series of short responses that were spread down the page. These responses were far more succinct, precise and less ‘wordy’ than responses generated in FTF interviews but were nonetheless thick in description and detail. Sometimes it took me several attempts to interpret abbreviated forms of ‘text-speech’ such as ‘ppl’ (‘people’) or ‘btw’ (‘by the way’). However, if ever unclear I had plenty of opportunities to seek clarification while frequently posing as an MSN ‘dim-wit’. After the first few interviews I quickly became adept in using what Mann and Stewart refer to as ‘electronic
paralanguage’ (2000, p. 134). Appendix E contains two extracts from online interviews to illustrate the appearance and layout of ‘text-speech’ in MSN.
It was not always easy to establish rapport with participants through text-based communication, particularly with the absence of non-verbal cues (McCoyd & Kerson 2006, p. 396). I used several techniques to maintain rapport that I had learnt from my initial few interviewees. Both participants and I used emoticons as a way of injecting warmth and a more humanistic quality into our online interactions, for instance :O) for