The majority of interviews with practitioners were conducted by telephone and were typed verbatim during the interview (with permission of the practitioner) as practitioners were geographically spread across England and it was not possible to travel to every location. This process was enabled by earlier training as a legal secretary. This technique was adopted as it was difficult to record telephone interviews due to a lack of appropriate software and the unreliability of the quality of using Dictaphones or smart phones to record telephone conversations.
However, a number of face-to-face interviews were carried out with more local practitioners and these were audio recorded (with prior permission of the practitioner) and transcribed. Jones (1985) and Kelly (1985) suggest that researchers should listen to taped interviews at least twice (cited in McNulty, 2012). The first ‘hearing’ provides an overview of the entire interview: its tone, mood, and dynamics. A second ‘hearing’ allows for the data to be scrutinised in more detail (McNulty, 2012). Therefore, audio-recordings were listened to twice, the first time involved transcribing the recording and making any additional notes on the mood and dynamics of the interview; the second time
involved checking the transcript for accuracy and making any required amendments. In addition, written notes made during the interview were considered alongside the transcriptions. Once transcribed the audio-recordings were destroyed.
The total number of practitioner interviews (n=27) allowed for a grounded thematic analysis. A grounded theory approach, a type of thematic coding, was adopted to analyse the data, focusing on capturing what participants said. Grounded theory is broadly defined as general methodology for developing theory that is grounded in the data, which is then analysed in a systematic fashion (Allen, 2011). Constructivist grounded theory develops on these key principles but uses them as guidelines rather than subscribing to the objectivist and positivist assumptions (Charmaz, 2006) inherent in the traditional grounded theory. Constructivist grounded theory is particularly well suited to the feminist intersectional framework of this study as it:
‘assumes to relativeness of multiple social realities, recognises the mutual creation of knowledge by the viewer and viewed, and aims towards interpretive understandings of subjective meanings’ (p.250).
Coding began by reading over the transcripts and attaching a descriptive ‘label’ to each sentence which explained what was going on in the text. This then developed into labels which applied to larger chunks of text, for example paragraphs, and which provided a deeper level of understanding that the descriptive labels originally applied, seeking interpretation of the meaning of the data. Key themes were then drawn out of the data. This happened continuously throughout the data collection and analysis, and once the themes became saturated, they were copied and pasted in a document under each interview question to facilitate the write-up of the analysis in order to fully answer the
research aim and questions. However, these were constantly reviewed as more data were collected and analysed and additional codes and themes developed as they arose. For example, in response to a question about what challenges older survivors may face in accessing practitioner support services, all 23 sexual violence practitioners described different physical challenges such as reduced or restricted mobility, sight or hearing problems. Any challenges relating to physical issues, poor health or other conditions were therefore coded and grouped under the theme of ‘physical challenges’.
Interviews with survivors were conducted face-to-face and were audio-recorded with permission of the survivor. As mentioned previously, one of the survivor interviews was conducted by her support worker. This was also audio-recorded and the audio file emailed to me. All audio recordings were transcribed and a pseudonym was assigned to the transcription file; audio recordings were then destroyed. Recordings were listened to twice, as per the suggested approach by Jones (1985) and Kelly (1985).
As the number of survivor participants was small, a case-study approach was considered the most appropriate way of analysing and writing up the findings from the interviews. A case study approach has no official definition but generally refers to a qualitative method, often using interviews, where the number of ‘cases’ is small and the amount of information or detail collected is large (Gomm, Hammersley and Foster, 2000). As such, transcripts were not formally coded; instead, each transcript was read a number of times and the data was separated into sections relating to: contextual information (for example, the participant’s personal information, backgrounds and any details about the sexual violence); impacts of sexual violence; coping strategies; experiences of reporting or engaging with services; experiences of the criminal justice system; and gaps in support. Each case study has been written up in this structure and, whilst there are some similarities across the three
case studies, the aim is not to generalise or make connections by theme. Instead, the stories of the survivors are presented in this thesis and a discussion of some of the common issues, challenges or impacts across the three interviews are discussed where relevant. However, the aim of the analysis was not to combine the findings, but to present them as individual experiences. As Gomm, Hammersley and Foster (2000, p.4) explain, the main concern of the case study approach is usually with understanding the case studied in itself ‘however the wider relevance of the findings may be conceptualised in terms of the provision of vicarious experience as a basis for ‘naturalistic generalisation’. Delmar (2010, p.117) describes this as:
‘the transfer of results from one study for the interpretation of similar situations. To achieve this, it is necessary to apply not only explicit comparisons between situations but also ‘tacit knowledge’ based on personal experience’.
Given the emphasis on the interpretation of the data, an Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) framework was adopted to analyse these case studies, drawing on Smith (2004) and Jeffrey and Barata (2016). As Jeffrey and Barata (2016, p.6) explain:
‘IPA aims to explore detailed perceptions or accounts of personal lived experiences, while recognizing and emphasizing the active role of interpretation by both participant and researcher in making sense of those personal accounts’.
‘The participant is trying to make sense of their personal and social world; the researcher is trying to make sense of the participant trying to make sense of their personal and social world’.
It aims to say something in detail about the experiences of a particular group rather than to make general claims. Although primarily an approach associated with psychology, it can be applied to other social research where the focus is on individual experience and the way these are described and constructed. For feminists examining violence in the lives of marginalised groups, this is particularly applicable and aligns with the case study approach. The experiences of the three women interviewed were given the central focus and their words used to reflect their experiences, but interpretation of those experiences through close analysis of those words then followed, paying particular attention to gender and age, reflecting the feminist-gerontological theoretical approach guiding the research. In keeping with the central tenets of IPA, and following the model used by Jeffrey and Barata (2016, p.6), the critical analysis came after the empathic reading of the text and is therefore incorporated into the discussion section, ‘allowing the analysis section to remain closely grounded in participants’ words’. Jeffrey and Barata (2016, p.6) suggest that:
‘combining these two levels of interpretation allowed us to simultaneously capture the embodied, phenomenological meaning of the text and hidden meaning through the use of language, including the reproduction of oppressive discourses and ways in which experience is constrained by gendered power relations’.