With the aim of upgrading the quality of data obtained from the FGDs and the
2Each of the 100 personal interviews conducted was evaluated. The evaluation form is the last section of each interview schedule (see appendices).
3The sample size was 50 slum dwellers and 50 students.
4In these items, respondents were asked to reply strongly agree, agree, strongly disagree, disagree or to respond no opinion.
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survey, a number of techniques and strategies were employed. They had been learned in the course of interviewing experiences in the Philippines covering various topics with various groups of respondents, such as population
education with high school students, hybrid coconuts with farmers, working media organisations with mass media practitioners, upland concerns with non government organisation leaders, and sexual experiences with university students and homosexual men. In studies of sexual experiences, aside from personal interviews, a number of group discussions had also been conducted with students and homosexual men. Further knowledge had also been gained from a qualitative data analysis course taken at the Australian National
University, and from the wealth of published experiences and insights offered by researchers who had studied human sexual behaviour in other parts of the world. Findings gathered from the series of FGDs held prior to the survey also provided a rich source of practical knowledge on, for example, how to
encourage adolescent men to participate in the research.
The various data collection strategies and techniques employed in the field research were standardised and strictly observed because one person
undertook almost all tasks associated with the data gathering. In a situation where many fieldworkers are conducting discussions and interviews there is likely to be variation in the ways in which strategies and techniques are implemented. The differing personal and professional characteristics of the fieldworkers including mood, idiosyncracies and perspectives are also likely to affect research findings (Nachmias and Nachmias, 1981; Chadwick et al., 1984). The field research was also helped by carefully-designed instrumentation. The construction and development of variable definitions, questions and scaled statements was based upon the instruments, evidence and experiences of past studies on sexual behaviour, and upon findings obtained from group
intercourse were defined in clear and accurate terms according to the purposes and aims of the survey. For example, dating was defined as an activity where a male and female without blood relations go out all alone to exclude double or group dating and other dating patterns because dyadic dating was of interest. Having settled on these definitions, participants in the FGDs, questionnaire
respondents and personal interviewees were informed of them.5
Questions were also constructed to be concise and straightforward.
Double-barrelled and leading questions were avoided, and clarity was aspired to in every question. For example, in questions pertaining to prevention used at first intercourse, two questions were asked - one which queried measures taken against pregnancy, and the other on measures taken against sexually
transmitted diseases. Asking only one question on use of prevention without taking into account the purposes for which measures were used - against pregnancy or STDs - could have introduced ambiguity into the data. Topics discussed in face-to-face interviews were arranged so that less sensitive and more general questions (religiosity, sex role beliefs, premarital sexual attitudes) preceded the more sensitive and personal ones (dating and sexual behaviour). The series of scaled statements were asked in both a positive and a negative fashion to avoid response set.6 Other steps undertaken to ensure the quality of the data are discussed in the following paragraphs.
3.3.1 Focus group discussions
At the beginning of each discussion, several points were stressed. First, participants were informed of the subject matter that would be covered, and
5Unfortunately only the terms dating and sexual intercourse were defined in the self-completed questionnaire interviews. The definitions of dating or coital partners (for example, steady girlfriend and friend) were not included.
6A response set is the tendency to answer all questions in a specific direction regardless of the questions' content (Bailey, 1978). This may be a problem when a series of statements is presented together with the same response format.
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then the importance of the study, particularly its relevance to the Philippines' current and future population and AIDS problems, was emphasised. The need to determine whether unmarried Filipino adolescent males are indeed engaged in sexual intercourse was stressed. Discussants were then told that the
proceedings were to be recorded, but that they would be kept strictly confidential. Discussants were discouraged from referring to each other by name. They were told that no special knowledge was required to participate. All of these strategies were meant to establish initial rapport and assure discussants that their participation would not expose them to any risk.
Maintaining the flow of the discussion and interaction among discussants was difficult, particularly among the slum dwellers, since some said very little. The only option left was to sustain the interaction among active participants and obtain as much data as possible, while referring to reticent participants once in a while in an effort to encourage them to talk. Statements made by some discussants (students or slum dwellers) were passed on to others to see if they also perceived, believed or observed the same. This technique was
intended to verify specific areas of collective agreement and disagreement.
3.3.2 Survey: self-completion questionnaires and personal interviews
Once again, face-to-face interviewing was the primary method of data collection employed in the survey. The self-completed questionnaire7 - administered only among the university students - was utilised for two purposes: as a means of screening potential respondents for the personal interviews, and to obtain data on sexual behaviour that could be compared with data gathered from face-to-face interviews. Contrary to popular belief, the verbal self-reports of respondents on their dating and sexual experiences
7The self-completed questionnaires also yielded some data on dating and coital behaviour from 308 students. These data are presented in Chapter Four.
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could be checked and verified in the course of the personal interview. Kinsey et al. (1948: 64) noted that the effectiveness of an interview largely depends on the ability and experience of the interviewer and the quality of his or her interviewing. Indeed the interviewer's role should be active rather than
passive. It is, however, only in the context of face-to-face interviewing that the investigator can ask a respondent to clarify and explain his answers. In a self- completed questionnaire survey, it is virtually impossible to ask a follow-up question on what a respondent means by, for example, a girlfriend or a friend. It is primarily because of the absence of direct interaction in such surveys that the strategies and techniques to be discussed in subsequent paragraphs are mostly those used in personal interviews.
At the beginning of the self-completed questionnaire survey in each class and prior to each face-to-face interview, a number of points were mentioned intended to impress on respondents the need to gather a true picture of the extent and nature of adolescent men's sexual experiences in Metro Manila. Respondents were first informed of the importance of the study, particularly its pertinence to the population and AIDS programs in the country. The need for truthful and honest responses was also emphasised in the context of the strict confidentiality of information provided. Respondents were also told that apart from them, other adolescents were also being interviewed.
The following strategies and techniques were adopted. Answers first given by respondents were not accepted at face value. They were probed,
explanations were asked for and summaries of answers were dictated back to respondents for verification. When there was a disparity between the initial and final answer, the respondent was asked which one represented his own experience or belief, and that answer was recorded on the interview schedule. In some cases, first answers were largely unclear. For example, one
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respondent, when asked what religious activities he engaged in every week, replied that he went to church. An attempt to summarise what had been said by suggesting that you mentioned that you go to church every week (with emphasis on every week) in relation to your religion brought a correction: he used to do that a year ago. Another example concerned a report on first coital partner. An interviewee reported that he had had his first intercourse with a steady
girlfriend. On further clarifying his relationship with his first sexual partner it transpired that the female was only a friend at the first coitus, and later became his steady girlfriend. These examples indicate that first answers may not
necessarily be accurate, and it is the interviewer's job to probe effectively.
With close-ended questions such as the scaled attitudinal or belief items, respondents were asked to explain why they agreed or disagreed with a statement. Again, there were a few instances when the original answer was incongruent with the explanation. In such cases, respondents were asked which answer more closely approximated their attitude or belief, and the selected answer was recorded. The technique of seeking an explanation from
respondents as to why they agreed or disagreed with an attitudinal or belief statement was vital in establishing the validity of answers.
Self-reports on sexual behaviour were dealt with in much the same way as answers to attitudinal or belief items. Answers were probed and respondents were asked to explain. In the course of asking a respondent about his sexual experiences, one fact was tied up with other previously reported ones as the interview progressed, and mentally the sexual history or script of the
individual was drawn. Having obtained an overall picture of a respondent's sexual experiences, an effort was made to identify the gaps in his history. The whole strategy entailed relating the experience at first date or coitus to recent and then lifetime experiences. It was effective in enabling a check on whether
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one fact was more or less consistent with others. For instance, one respondent reported three lifetime coital partners, but in a previous answer and
explanation regarding his first coital experience, he indicated that it had been his only one. Without relating these two responses, the accuracy of both would have been doubtful.
In dealing with verbal reports on sexual experiences, it is thus important that the interviewer takes each reported behaviour not on a piecemeal basis, but as a reported fact that is interrelated with other reported facts. Cognisance was also taken of the reality that there were self-reports, the accuracy of which could not be verified, because they were inherently subject to recall errors. For example, asking respondents the number of lifetime coital partners they had had appeared to yield inaccurate answers because not all adolescents counted the number of partners they had ever had coitus with, while a few others had lost count because they said there had been too many. The data on lifetime coital partners consequently need to be taken more as estimates than as exact figures. With other questions, such as those which sought self-reports on dating or coital experiences, both on debut and more recently, respondents seemed, not unexpectedly, to have recalled their answers with some degree of accuracy. First dating or coital experience probably tended to be easily
remembered because it constituted a significant event for many adolescents. 'Current' dating or coital experiences were relatively recent, having occurred in the last four weeks or in the last six months respectively.
One reality faced in conducting the face-to-face interviews was that respondents, because of their differing upbringings and personalities and probably also because the topic was premarital sex, could not all be expected to be vocal and articulate. Some respondents talked less by just giving direct
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respondents gave very terse answers. Despite continued efforts at encouraging them to share more of their experiences, beliefs and knowledge, they were reserved throughout the interviews. In such situations, the interviewer had little control. The overwhelming majority of personal interviewees, however, tended to talk more. A number of them even volunteered explanations without being asked. It was from these respondents that more in-depth data were
obtained.