La pregunta de investigación y los objetivos del estudio

As previously mentioned I employed multiple methods for this feminist standpoint investigation of women’s experiences with elective prenatal ultrasound in Canada. Most importantly, I

interviewed ten women about their experiences with elective ultrasound during a current or recent pregnancy (within the last 5 years). At the end of the interviews I distributed a short demographic survey. Additionally, in an effort to situate and understand elective ultrasound as a consumer practice, and the ways in which it appealed to pregnant women as consumers, I conducted a discourse analysis of the promotional websites of four elective ultrasound clinics: two franchises and two stand-alone clinics located in the cities in which my interview

3.7.1

Discourse Analysis

The promotional websites reviewed for the discourse analysis were UCBaby, 3D Miracles, Babymoon and Dr. Lederman ND 3D Baby Ultrasound. Both UCBaby and 3D Miracles are franchises that were chosen due to their numerous locations across Canada and their prominence in the internet search results for “3D ultrasound Canada”. Babymoon and Dr. Lederman ND 3D Baby Ultrasound were representative of stand-alone clinics and were chosen due to their location in the cities in which some of my participants lived (Winnipeg and Vancouver). Each website was analyzed for its use of language, images and the type of information provided. Discourse analysis is premised on the notion that texts or cultural artifacts are constructive, rather than representative of an independent reality (Edwards, 1997). This method is useful because, as Patricia Lina Leavy suggests, “texts are central to how norms and values come to be

shaped...which reflect macrosocial processes” (2007: 229). For the purpose of the discourse analysis, the “texts” to which I am referring are the language and images present on the websites reviewed. Promotional materials are an important avenue for determining the business practices and ethos of a particular company, and for creating and shaping consumer expectations. Thus, the method of discourse analysis was useful for determining the specific visual and linguistic choices that frame the experience of elective ultrasound.

3.7.2

Interviews

A total of ten semi-structured, in-depth interviews were conducted with ten participants between December 2012 and July 2013. An interview guide (see appendix) was used for each interview and included prompting questions, as well as space for follow-up inquiries. Each interview lasted from 40 minutes to an hour and 15 minutes and took place at a location of the interviewee’s choosing. Attempts were made to conduct the interviews between a woman’s elective ultrasound and the birth of her baby, though due to challenges with recruitment, the decision was made to expand the interview pool to those who had received elective ultrasound during any recent pregnancy. Of the ten interviewees, seven had already given birth. The purpose of the interviews was to investigate why participants chose to engage with elective ultrasound, how they

experienced ultrasound in an elective setting, and how the ultrasound image was understood, and taken up after the session. I do not attempt to make any claims of universality in my findings,

and as such, I feel that this purposive sample, with an eye to diversity, was sufficient for this investigation.

In my approach to interviewing I worked to disrupt the traditional positivist paradigm of researcher as authoritative, objective knower. This research was guided by, and entirely

dependent on, the knowledge and viewpoints of my interview participants. Because I have never been pregnant, I have not had an elective ultrasound and thus claim no authority to speak to the experience, or the embodied knowledge gained by interview participants. I was reliant on, and very interested in the knowledge shared by interviewees, to develop a deeper understanding of elective ultrasound as it is experienced. In this sense, I view my research as collaborative. DeVault and Gross suggest that an important consideration for feminist interviewers is “how to organize interviews so as to produce more truly collaborative encounters, whatever the identities and commitments of participants” (2007:180). As a way to facilitate the kind of collaborative encounters DeVault and Gross discuss, they suggest another approach they call “strategic

disclosure” (2007:181). Sharing with interviewees my own identity, as a childless researcher, my fascination with current constructions of pregnancy and motherhood, and my commitment to contextualizing women’s experiences with this meaningful and emerging practice from a feminist perspective, I believe, helped to develop an honest rapport and encourage disclosure from interviewees. I was interested in and excited by their answers to my questions, and I allowed that to show through in the interviews. Adopting a conversational style during the interviews, allowed me to react and respond to the descriptions of participants in what felt like a natural way. I believe this made interviewees feel more at ease sharing with me. This form of interviewing relies on the notion that sharing encourages sharing, and helps the interview process to unfold more like a conversation that acts “as a collaborative moment of making knowledge” rather than a stale question and answer exchange (DeVault and Gross, 2007:181).

Also within the interview process, I recognized my work as the interviewer to be two fold. Not only was I responsible for asking thoughtful, open-ended yet probing questions, I was similarly responsible for listening actively and attentively to the responses of my interviewees. Attentive listening goes beyond simply hearing and understanding what is spoken, to include the active processing of information. DeVault and Gross advocate that researchers allow the information

provided by interviewees “to affect you, baffle you, haunt you, make you uncomfortable, and take you on unexpected detours” (2007:182). Once these allowances are made, it opens the door to whole other sets of questions and interpretations that may not have previously occurred to the researcher. Attentive listening allowed me to better understand the questions I was asking, based on the responses, and to reformulate questions and ask new ones based on the responses of participants. Attentive listening also applies to the silences inevitable in interview research. I follow Marjorie DeVault (1990) in recognizing that attention to silences can help illuminate some of the points at which women’s embodied experience deviates from how that experience is culturally understood and the language available to describe it. Attention to both speech and silence, allowed me to develop a contextualized and nuanced understanding of the responses provided by interview participants. The purpose of this research lies in “creating knowledge that is for rather than about” the women I study and therefore attentive, active listening is crucial (DeVault and Gross, 2007:184).

3.7.3

Field Notes

After each interview, detailed field notes were recorded to capture my impressions about the interview, and anything I noticed about the participant or setting that may not have made it in to the recorded transcript. Due to the conversational style of the interviews and the friendliness of each encounter, we often began and ended each interview with “small talk”. For example, I would ask a participant how she was feeling, how advanced her pregnancy was or how her children were doing. Often participants would ask me questions during this time, either about my work or personal life. As well, at points during the interviews, women would often relay

anecdotes or “side stories” that did not necessarily link to their experience with ultrasound. From these interactions I was able to get a better sense of who my participants were and, as such, I wished to include these observations in the data. I compiled participant profiles (see appendix) in an effort to contextualize each woman’s narrative. Participant profiles provide a description of each interview participant, including the demographic data gleaned from the survey. During data analysis, these participant profiles became in some ways inseparable from the transcript data, in that I relied on them to interpret the full meaning of participant’s responses in the context of their lived experiences.