Participant selection for this study was influenced by several different factors. The research question was concerned with the migration decisions of New Zealand nurses and the study was conducted in the country where I currently reside, the United States. Geographically, the United States is a very large country and due to the fact that I am currently still working as a nurse in California, for logistic reasons it was decided at
the beginning of the study process to limit the selection of potential study participants to New Zealand nurses currently working in California.
The foremost criterion in considering a sample collection method is its representativeness of the population to be studied (Beanland, Schneider, LoBiondo- Wood & Haver, 1999). In qualitative studies, it has been suggested that purposeful selection of participants can best help the researcher understand the problem or issue being studied because sampling is criteria based and specified in advance (Creswell, 2009; Holloway & Wheeler, 2010; Liamputtong, 2010). It is hoped with the deliberate selection of specific individuals that ‘information rich’ stories can emerge.
Certainly for this study, the selection criteria for participant inclusion limited the potential number of nurses who could be included. To be included in the study
participants had to be New Zealand educated nurses currently working in California. As I wanted to interview nurses whose migration stories were not familiar to me, I chose to interview nurses I did not know very well. This was because I felt that I would have preconceived expectations of data that could emerge from including those nurses I knew well in the study. By making this decision I excluded several close New Zealand friends currently living in California.
The difficulty with this decision, I found, was in trying to locate other New Zealand nurses. There is no data base for New Zealand nurses in California and certainly the California Board of Nursing would not have that data available except for nurses who were newly arrived and newly licensed in the State. For the most part and certainly initially, snowball sampling was the primary means of obtaining participants. Miller and Brewer (2003) describe snowball sampling as a method of identifying respondents who are then used to refer researchers to other potential participants. This form of
opportunistic emergent sampling is good for gaining access to hidden populations and used frequently for studies where the number of respondents is few, random selection is not needed and where potential participants are known to have knowledge of experience of a topic (Holloway & Wheeler, 2010; Liamputtong, 2010; Miller & Brewer, 2003).
New Zealand friends in California initially gave me contact information for several potential participants. Some of these participants in the study I knew of and/or had met before but I had limited regular social interaction with them. I had never heard their stories of how they came to the United States and thus it was felt they could be included in the study. Some of these participants were able to refer me to another
potential participant. Several of these referrals resulted in additional participants. With some of the referrals I received no response from my inquiries and with others though they responded they did not participate in the study. This was either due to logistical reasons or they chose not to be part of the study.
The number of participants in a study is determined by the scope, nature, methodology and data saturation (Holloway & Wheeler, 2010; Liamputtong, 2010). It was my original intention to limit the number of participants in the study to six to ten with an aim of obtaining eight. Qualitative studies are often centred around small samples in order to gain meaningful rich data (Thorne, Kirkham, & O’Flynn-Magee, 2004) and it was felt that this was a realistic number in order to get good data with the given time constraints. I initially felt I would have no difficulty finding that number of New Zealand nurses in California but instead the task was quite daunting. It took several months to find six participants and despite repeated attempts to find more nurses willing to participate, I was unsuccessful. Despite having only six nurses to interview I was however able to obtain a significant amount of data to base an analysis upon.
After initial contact by email, potential participants were sent information sheets (Appendix A) which provided detail about the study along with an introductory
paragraph identifying myself and the reasons why I was conducting the research (Appendix B). Ample time was given to review the information and they were asked to contact me by phone or email if they were interested in being a participant. The majority of people contacted did agree to be involved but I did not receive replies from several potential participants. It is unknown if they were able to review the information or not, or what influenced their decision not to be part of the study as I felt it intrusive to contact them multiple times if they did not respond after the information sheet had been sent.
The nurses were assured confidentially would be strictly maintained and that pseudonyms would be used throughout. All participants were asked to choose their own pseudonym but every one of them declined to do so, so I assigned a pseudonym after each interview. Participants were informed that the interviews would be audio recorded but were also given the opportunity to be interviewed without being recorded; all agreed to be recorded. Prior to the interview, all participants were advised again of the details of the study, the reasons I was undertaking the research and were given the opportunity to ask any questions. Several participants had questions regarding the post graduate
study I am pursuing in New Zealand and the choice of topic. All questions were
answered to the best of my ability and all participants then expressed their readiness to be a participant in the study.