MODELO RELACIONAL

The research process began with an exploration of the characteristics of older people’s peer-run community groups, in accordance with Research Question One.

It was found unnecessary to contact individual residents, because a list of groups was already available; the groups that had sought to be included in the Get Going Guide fulfilled the criteria – groups in a local area that were sufficiently interested in recruiting older people as members as to send in their details for publication. As stated earlier, the free and readily available booklet was one reason for choosing ‘Clearview’ as the research area.

The current study was never designed as a comprehensive study of older people’s peer-run groups in the area - that would have required far wider research and larger samples. Rather, the focus was on exploring the nature of groups as entities, with the end purpose of discovering which characteristics influenced local residents’ decision to join one group rather than another.

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4.7.1.1 The survey questionnaire to groups

To obtain data on the characteristics of older people’s groups in Clearview, it was decided to use a questionnaire mailed out to the contact person for each group listed in the Get Going Guide.

Burns (2000, p. 581) lists the advantages of a questionnaire: less expensive to administer than face-to-face interviews; identical questions to each respondent; freedom to answer in their own time; avoidance of any fear, embarrassment or influence from direct contact. The disadvantages Burns lists, such as non-flexibility of responses, could be largely overcome by including an ‘other’ space for a response, ‘to avoid forcing responses that are inappropriate’ (p. 572). A one-pagedouble-sided questionnaire (Appendix 1) was designed, guided by the

comprehensive guidelines on questionnaire and schedule design in Burns (2000, pp. 571-582). The questionnaire included both closed and open-ended questions. It sought information on:

The name of the group and the activities offered, including social activities;

The organisation: who ran the group, group finances, and whether the group received assistance from any outside source;

The membership – numbers, ages and gender. Recruitment processes. Cost of membership.

The meeting place of the group, and the days and times of meetings.

Topics of interest or concern to the groups (Space left for comments, with suggestions of possible topics).

The questionnaire ended by asking whether the group would be willing to forward an invitation to their members to take part in an interview. The questionnaire was discussed with supervisors, and pre-tested informally with other third agers who had experience of participation and

governance of older people’s groups.

4.7.1.2 Sampling criteria

This study employed a purposive sample, that is, directed and deliberate, with conscious choices about who and what to sample in order to obtain the needed data (Strauss & Corbin, 1990, p. 187). Purposive sampling was chosen rather than random sampling because the aim was to simply to explore a phenomenon, not to make inferences about its distribution. The power of purposive sampling is in selecting information-rich cases for study (Patton, 2002), and it had been decided at the planning stage that the study setting should be a discrete area where a range of groups was operating and for which information on local groups was available.

A further reason for purposive sampling was to fulfil the aim of identifying the range of opportunities to join a group available to older local residents of an area, which in turn could

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shed light on an individual’s reasons for choosing one group rather than another. These criteria were satisfied by the choice of the municipality Clearview as the research area and the use of the

Get Going Guide booklet as the source of samples. Using the booklet as the source of samples set parameters on the scope of the survey by ensuring that all the groups contacted fulfilled the criteria for selection, that is, they were groups which identified as older people’s groups and to which older residents in Clearview belonged.

4.7.1.3 Recruitment and data collection

First contact with the groups was by a telephone call to the contact person listed in the Get Going Guide for each group, in order to ascertain whether the contact details were correct, whether the contact person was willing to take part in the research on behalf of their group, and if so, to obtain a postal address to which the questionnaire and accompanying letter could be sent. The telephone calls revealed that there had been some changes to the groups and activities since the booklet was published, reducing the number of possible respondent groups to 78. When a favourable reply was received, the questionnaire (Appendix 1) was posted to the contact person for each group. Sixty four questionnaires were returned, representing a response rate of 82%. Forty six of the 64 responses (72%) included a comment in the space provided. Nineteen groups (30%) sent a copy of their newsletter or an explanatory letter giving further details of the group. A further attempt was made to complete the returns. Contact persons of groups that had not responded were contacted again by telephone, reminded of the survey and asked if they would consider participating, but no further surveys were returned.