When considering the aspect of recruitment participants concentrated on the practical task of ‘contacting participants’ and considered what would act as ‘motivators for involvement’ in research. There was an acknowledgement that these issues are influenced by the perception that researching sexuality is sensitive, which in turn could impact negatively on recruiting participants. Due to this the shared theme of ‘sensitive research’ is returned to with some additional brief commentary.
151 6.7.1 Sensitive research
A number of the participants felt that the perceived sensitivity of the research topic could lead potential participants to worry about their ‘risk of exposure’, discussed earlier in Section 6.5.3, if they agreed to take part in the research. This ‘risk of exposure’ was connected to the notion that too much personal information about sexuality may have to be disclosed leading to feelings of vulnerability and anxieties about safety particularly in situations involving gay and lesbian sexual orientation.
Some people like to keep it [talk about sexuality] very close, …they’re talking about themselves, exposing themselves… you might have difficulties... finding people… I think people are going to be very frightened of the tape. I think people can often be seen afterwards as “I’ve said too much and talked too much” if it’s on tape. (OW2P1)
Especially the older gay men, it was more ‘what’s all this for then’, it was twenty questions before you even got to the questions, and there was quite a concern about their own safety and security, and how much of a threat was this [research] to them. (R4P1)
Due to the possible links between ‘risk of exposure’ and ‘difficulty of recruiting’ participants, some of the older women participants felt that there was a crucial role for the preliminary research information. The recruitment advertisements and participants’ information sheets needed to encourage and nurture confidence, and trust in the research process, a dominant theme, which is considered further in Sections 6.8 and 6.9.
Sexuality is a delicate topic, certainly amongst older women [and] you need to put that … that might sound reassuring about ‘women hearing women’s stories’. I’m just trying to think of ways to make it more palatable, more acceptable, less frightening. (OW3P1)
6.7.2 Contacting participants
Different ways of ‘contacting participants’ to take part in researching sexuality were suggested by all the participants. Many of the older women felt that ‘making contact with groups’ either for older people such as Age UK, or for women such as Women’s Institute would be a starting point to ‘making contact with older women’. Numerous groups identified by the older women participants were non-traditional such as Older Feminist Network, Growing Old Disgracefully Network and Older Lesbian Network, and would tend to challenge assumptions and stereotypes in relation to gender, ageing and/or sexuality.
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I mean [name of network] is a good place to start because a lot of those women have been doing a lot of self awareness stuff so they’re becoming aware of themselves and they’re freeing up themselves so I think if you can get them... you maybe need to talk to some more of them. (OW5P1)
Over half of the sample of older women participants for this research was recruited from non-traditional groups and informal networks. There was a sense however from the older women that non-traditional groups are more likely to have older women members who would be more receptive to volunteering to take part in sexuality research and not be deterred by the sensitivity or ‘inappropriateness’ of the topic.
[Name of network] was really a good source of respondents for me and I am sure that’s because you know the aim of [name of network] is something that you can sort of see similar to continuing to be sexually active as an older person, as that is another thing you are not suppose to do... to continue to have sex. So you know if you can find a group that somehow aligns with this aim then that’s really helpful. (R2P1)
Arguably older women who volunteered to take part in sexuality research were in a sense taking up a challenge. This aspect of recruitment was also encountered by one researcher participant who failed to attract participants for a sexuality research project after extensive advertising and had talked to a national newspaper about her difficulty in recruiting.
[The national newspaper] actually reported on ‘New Zealanders shy to talk about sex’ or ‘New Zealanders don’t want to talk about sex’ and then all of a sudden the phone never stopped ringing. So it was that one newspaper article that never cost anything which was the clincher. (R7P1)
The couple of older women participants who were involved in the more traditional older people’s/women’s groups felt that ‘talking to groups’ about the aims and ideas of the sexuality research in question initially may help to stimulate interest and encourage older women members to volunteer to take part.
There are quite a few of these groups around… retired professionals… the WI. If you are willing to go out and give them a talk about it, your research, and what you are doing... then you might have some success. (OW2P1) As well as groups, participants identified contact points for older women where recruitment advertisements could be displayed such as community centres, libraries, luncheon clubs, and older people’s/women’s magazines and newsletters. Some of the researcher participants identified ‘informal networks’ as a way of
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contacting participants such as web-based chat rooms, and in particular had found success employing the sampling technique of snowballing.
A snowball sample and people recommend friends of theirs and there is a level of trust, so if you can tap a community. That seems to be the best way to recruit folks because they know each other, they trust each other, they can recommend individuals. (R5P1)
During the process of contacting older women, many of the participants stressed the importance of a diverse sample of participants in terms of, not only socio- demographic background, but also sexual experiences. One researcher participant felt that it was important for researchers to be prepared for sexual diversity and for the impact that it has on the type of sample. It was suggested that the extent of the diversity could be due to participants volunteering only if they have had non- traditional, memorable or extremely significant sexual experiences.
I think you are more likely to get people who have had a slightly unusual experience because they feel they have something to say, they have something they want to express, whereas some people who feel ‘I have nothing to say’, ‘nothing interesting has ever happened to me’ in respect to sex then they are less likely to respond to you. That is certainly my experience… I think it made the sample more diverse than the general population of older people. (R2P1)
‘Having something to say’ is returned to in the next theme as being identified as one of the motivators for people becoming involved in research. The researcher participants had encountered ‘difficulty in recruiting’ older participants and highlighted the challenge posed to the research findings when working with a small sample. As suggested earlier, many of the participants linked the difficulty in recruiting to the sensitivity of the topic under research, but the findings could not adequately ascertain the level of impact age may have on the issue.
6.7.3 Motivators for involvement
The participants identified a wide range of factors that could motivate older women to get involved in researching sexuality. These broadly fell into two groups associated either with the participants or with the research process itself. The personal attributes of the participants that were identified include possessing a degree of familiarity with academia/research setting, having something to say, and courage.
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I guess you have to be quite confident individual to come forward and take part in this sort of thing to start with don’t you … you will have something to say won’t you. (R3P1)
They have to be prepared and to really think about it and to have the courage, if that’s what’s involved, to speak out. (OW3P1)
Many of the older women also identified features within the research process itself that were important motivators such as using the research information to convey to potential participants that their contributions would be listened to and taken seriously as well as being considered important and useful.
Older women do feel that their ideas and thoughts are not being considered any more so I would think that a lot of women might jump at the idea of being able to talk about things to somebody who is going to listen to them… they must feel that their comments and views and so forth will be taken seriously and may even somehow change things that they’re unhappy about. (OW4P1)
One older woman participant in her mid-seventies commented that she had been motivated to take part in this study on how to research sexuality because the information sheet and advertisements had specified that participants needed to be over seventy years of age. There was a sense that she was more attracted to a specification of age as opposed to the umbrella term ‘older’ where she may not have felt as welcomed.
You specifically saying for women over 70, well I thought well yes, I feel quite strongly about it, that women over 70 should not be dismissed, and so that was why I decided to do this one, I was more willing to do this one than I was to do the first one [research where ‘over 50’ was specified]... because I’m of the age that you’re researching. (OW2P1)
As discussed in Section 6.6, the use of language in recruitment advertisements to enable a broad understanding of the concept of sexuality is crucial in conveying the nature, aims and objectives of a study, which in turn is a key factor in people’s decision whether to volunteer as participants.