Caso de estudio N° 1 - Agenda

A specific issue in cross-cultural research is the issue of translation and conducting the research in different languages. In this research I have had the advantage of being a bilingual researcher, fluent in both English and Swedish (native speaker). I was therefore

Strategy Criteria

Credibility Reflexivity: Field notes were taken for each interview and a research diary was kept

throughout to guide the analysis as a later stage. This also included reflecting upon my own background (young woman with no children) in relation to the participants that I interviewed

Interview technique: Interviews were conducted in a semi-structured format and

prompts were used to re-phrase questions and also ask about other’s experience to contextualise the participant’s own experiences (e.g. “I always ask all pregnant women about alcohol, but other midwives don’t”)

Peer examination: Discussions and reflections on the process were held throughout

the studies with a supervisor who specialises in qualitative research methods. This also included the development of codes and themes, as a way of addressing accurate interpretation of the data

Transferability Comparison of sample to demographic data: Early on in the research, it was noted

that participants were all in their late twenties or in their thirties, and may therefore not represent the experiences of parents of younger (or older) age. The recruitment process attempted to address this by supplementing recruitment from e.g. children’s centres with more targeted services (for young/teenage parents and smoking cessation)

Dense description: Each step of the process was clearly outlined which allowed for

transferability, which Kreftling notes happens when the data are used in another context but for the data to be transferable the researcher must provide a comprehensive and transparent description of the context. Conducting research in two countries meant that comparisons of the same phenomena in two different contexts allowed for exploring whether findings may be transferable.

Dependability Peer examination: As mentioned above, the data collection and analysis process

was reviewed by a supervisor who is a qualitative researcher. Ongoing discussions facilitated continued improvement throughout the studies.

Confirmability Reflexivity: The reflective process of the interviews was an important strategy to

ensure confirmability. One of the main conclusions from this mainly relied on my own position as a young woman without any children. In regards to distance, and neutrality, this allowed me to approach each participant with no pre-determined lived experiences. In the interview situation, this meant parents (and to some extent midwives) ‘educated’ me on this. As a researcher, I could analyse the data and with less subjective bias in their experiences. This allowed me to be more distanced from the data than I might have been if I had shared their experiences and had a more distinct position on the subject.

able to plan and conduct the research without any need for assistance with translation; however some strategies were adopted to ensure consistency and validity in the translated material.

All documents for the research (research proposal, ethics application, data collection tools) were initially developed in English and subsequently translated into Swedish once collaboration had been set up with the collaborating institution Örebro University. While it is important to acknowledge translation issues in quantitative research (such as ensuring applicability of concepts in another language, as well as comparability), there are specific issues relating to qualitative research. For example, van Nes et al. (2010) and Green and Thorogood (2014) noted that translation in qualitative research is complex, as the focus is on participants’ accounts and interpretation of a phenomena. Researchers therefore have to be attentive to situations such as where figure of speech, such as metaphors, or non- translatable concepts (that are culture specific) are used. The researcher’s role is therefore to ensure that concepts are presented in a way that makes sense in that specific context. Green and Thorogood (2014) refer to this as the researcher not only being bi-lingual but also “bi-cultural” to interpret the spoken word in the cultural context in which they occur.

As I am Swedish myself, and a native speaker, the interviews were conducted with these aspects in mind. To ensure validity in the translations, the questionnaires used in the survey and the interview schedules used for the semi-structured interviews in study II and III were subject to back-translation. Back-translation is a method of validating translated materials to ensure that they can be understood by the targeted audience and that culture- specific items have been considered (Cha et al., 2007; Del Greco et al., 1987). Figure 9 shows the process of back-translation of documents, from the original into translated versions which were given to a reviewer to translate back into the original language.

Figure 9. Back-translation validation process

For Study I, the questionnaires were back translated by two independent reviewers, who were both native in Swedish and fluent in English. The reviewers translated the research tools back to English, which was subsequently compared to the original document to identify any discrepancies. Overall, only minor discrepancies were identified in a few documents which related to choice of words, but did not change the meaning. The translations were therefore considered to be accurate. Following amendments of the few identified, the final Swedish versions were checked by the Swedish co-supervisor (CE). The questionnaires were translated by two reviewers and all other documents, including a shorter sample from two interviews, were only translated by one reviewer. The interview guides for Study II and Study III were not subject for back-translation, but were reviewed by supervisor (CE) to ensure that the wording was appropriately translated.

Translation of qualitative findings developed throughout the analytical process as a result of reflection on my own interpretation and understanding of the data. For Study II, I translated all transcripts into Swedish, with back-translation verification from one reviewer (same as for Study I) who reviewed two pages of transcribed data from two separate interviews. I then analysed the translated transcripts for coding and creation of themes.

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However, it has been suggested that translation may lose part of the meaning of the data (Temple & Young, 2004), and my own perception of this process was that it was difficult to get a feeling for the meaning of specific narratives when they had been translated to English. This mainly related to issues with ‘hearing the participant’, that is remembering the tone of their voice and choice of words. For this reason, I decided to not translate the transcripts from Study III, but instead analysed each interview in the original language. This allowed me to ‘hear’ the participant throughout the analysis, and I then only translated relevant excerpts from that interview to present representative quotes. Acknowledging the challenges of translating qualitative research, it should be noted that the differences in analytical approach and translation in Study II and Study III may have had impact on the level of interpretation.