Procedimiento para el diseño de las competencias laborales

As earlier alluded to, this study involved me, a male researcher, with no direct experience of parenting a child with disabilities, interviewing mothers of children with disabilities. One focus group discussion comprising of ten mothers was held in both research sites with the mothers who were members of parent- support groups. One of the reasons for this was to develop strategies of undertaking fieldwork. It was also a way of making the whole process participatory. This participatory element, although modest, was important in order to take on board the unique strengths of the local knowledge in the research process (Chatrakul Na Ayudhya et al., 2014, Halcomb et al., 2007, Morgan, 1997). In as much as I am familiar with the local culture, I still thought that it was important to get the views of mothers on socio-cultural norms before starting data collection (Bergold and Thomas, 2012, Horowitz et al., 2009, Cargo and Mercer, 2008, Lambert and Loiselle, 2008). These focus group

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discussions in both study sites ensured that the interview questions were clearly stated, easy for participants to understand and that they were relevant to the lives of the participating mothers.

In Lusaka, I had a focus group discussion with ten mothers drawn from various communities and of diverse backgrounds. These were members of the parent support groups. A week prior to the focus group discussion, I met individually those who agreed to take part in the meeting and provided them with the interview guide. These discussions were not recorded but I wrote the main points in the field diary. Mothers who took part in the meeting made some suggestions some of which I incorporated in my research:

1. That the interviews take place in the homes of the participants and not at the health centres. They said that the implications of meeting at the health centre was that it would raise ethical issues as I would be required to be cleared by the Ministry of Health to use their facilities.

2. They proposed that I change my other research site from Kaoma to Mongu, a provincial capital and much bigger town. They gave the reason that mothers come from all the towns in the province to meet for a day once a month. I would, therefore, have a large pool of mothers, and they suggested that I do focus group meetings. I did not go with this suggestion because it would have been challenging to conduct over 10 interviews within a single day.

3. The mothers also proposed that we have an exit meeting once I was done with data collection. And this was done with the members of ZAPCD.

4. On the interview guide, they recommended that I include questions on self-blame and where mothers seek medical help for their children. This was done.

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5. They expressed willingness to interview them as individuals in an event that I did not have enough or had difficulties recruiting participants.

I also held a focus group meeting with ten members of the parent support group in Kaoma. Just like in Lusaka, the discussions did not ask details about their lives. I was not as familiar with Kaoma as I was with Lusaka, hence, I needed to know, as a male researcher, what I needed to keep in mind when interviewing women especially as I did not know their culture too well. This addressed the issues of reflexivity and positionality. The participants made the following suggestions:

1. Just like in Lusaka, they recommended that interviews be conducted in the research participants’ villages.

2. They indicated that the starting point in every village was to see the headman who would in turn introduce me to his or her subjects. Only after that would I be able to conduct interviews with the prospective research participants

3. On the issue of written consent, they advised that most people in the villages were illiterate; hence, verbal consent in the presence of a third person would be most appropriate.

Both focus group meetings were insightful and valuable in making suggestions to the whole research process. They all stated that the interview guide was clear and appropriate. This approach of first seeking the views of the local people, accorded mothers an opportunity to describe their lives from their own perspectives by letting them review the data collection instruments. This participatory element, much as it could not completely remove the power balance (hierarchical relationship) between me (male) and the mothers, to some extent it helped in addressing it. This was in tandem with most feminist researchers who challenge the traditional hierarchy between especially a male

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researcher and the researched (Denzin and Lincoln, 2008, Hesse-Biber et al., 2004, Reinharz and Davidman, 1992).

4.8.1 Establishment of Inclusion Criteria for Participants

During the focus group meetings, we also talked about the criteria for those who were to be invited to take part in the project. These were to be mothers of children with disabilities, whose children have had impairment for one year or more, serious enough to warrant service provision. As elaborated by Shih 2012, the rationale for having a criterion of having had impairment for one year or more is that ‘it can take over a year for families to settle into a pattern of

adaptation to disability’ (Shih 2012:78). Participants were all residents of either Lusaka or Kaoma. However, I did not specify the types of impairments for this research, as I aimed to uncover a broader picture of the impact on mothers. Furthermore, restricting to a particular form of impairment would have made it difficult to find potential participants owing to the small population. For example, according to the population census of 2010, Kaoma has a population of approximately 200,000 (CSO, 2012c).