TRATAMIENTO QUIRÚRGICO DE LAS OREJAS PROMINENTES

As mentioned above, the methods used throughout this project have been individual interviews, pair/group interviews, observations at the study site and a SFFG, and I will now go on to discuss the merits and disadvantages of each along with how they have been used here. To get in-depth insight into how students feel about the current context of university drinking cultures it was decided that face-to-face interviews would be the best option as this would allow me to ask for greater detail and ask follow up questions immediately. Whilst a survey was initially considered, it was decided that interviews would provide a more open and honest space in which to

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facilitate discussion and that more narrative responses would be beneficial. As Psychologist Daphne Keats suggests:

Research data from interviews […] differ from data from questionnaires and psychological tests and scales. The distinctive feature of the interview is that it is carried out orally, which means that factors relating to interpersonal communication become important. However, the interview has the advantage that additional information can be obtained by probing the initial responses. Reasons for the response can be explored and all questions can be responded to without loss. This gives a richness to the data, allowing many individual differences in opinions and reasoning to be uncovered (Keats, 2000: 20).

Social scientists Hilary Arksey and Peter Knight also agree that interviews ‘allow answers to be clarified, which is not the case with self-completion questionnaires’ (1999: 32). I therefore conducted 23 individual interviews with students and staff as can be seen in Table A below. I conducted interviews with a further 10 students in a pair or group format (Scarlett was interviewed twice with separate individuals). These interviews were guided by a number of key questions (see appendices A-C), however I also tried to let interviews flow in the direction taken by the participant. The questions did not, therefore, follow a certain order in every interview and immediate follow up questions based on participants answers were asked. Examples of such key questions include: What were your expectations of university before you started?; Do you think there is a Drinking Culture at university?; What is a usual week at university like?; How was Freshers’ Week?; How are you socialising at university?; How are social events organised?; What do you think is the most common representation of students?; Have you seen or heard of any drink safety campaigns at university? I also had a number of sub-questions relating to key questions such as: How did you meet people in Freshers’ Week?; Are people taking photographs on nights out?’; Is there a way students might be better reached by safety information? Whilst the questions obviously follow the same theme and key questions remain

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the same, there were slight differences between questions for undergraduate (see Appendix A) and postgraduate individuals (see Appendix B), friendship groups (see Appendix A) and recent graduates (see Appendix C) to account for their different contexts. Questions for the SFFG worked differently as is discussed below. My key questions were aimed at finding out how students are experiencing university socially and so were catered around how social events are organised, experienced, who with, their different forms, how they were discussed afterwards, what was enjoyed and what was not, in order to get an overall picture of the current context of how my participants experienced university.

Participants were recruited for interviews in a number of ways: I sent out a call for participants to college administrators which was then put in weekly newsletters and emails and sent to all students within the individual colleges of my university study site, the call for participants was also placed on a postgraduate research advertisement page. Specifically within my own department I visited first year undergraduate seminars and spoke to students directly asking them to sign up, and a further call for participants was sent to students studying within the department via email. A poster was also put up around the department. Students signed up by completing a Doodle Poll and leaving me their email address. Recent graduates and college students were recruited through contacts who ‘snowballed’ by inviting friends and colleagues to participate. I also asked individual students who had signed up to bring friends with them. Recruitment was the most challenging part of the process and was, in fact, much more difficult than expected; if I were to conduct the research again I would make allowances for this. However, I asked many students during their interviews why they were interested in the research/had agreed to take part and a common answer was one of altruism and a ‘pay-it- forward’ frame of mind. For example, Alice, Imogen and Jason, and Rajan when asked why they had agreed to take part all wanted to ‘help out’ in some way:

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- Alice: I’m not British, so the drinking culture right here is really different, it’s something that I think I notice more, and then I know that it’s always hard to get people to sign up for things, it’s like I have enough free time, I can do that.

- Imogen: Yeah just helping out because I do sociology anyway so I just thought when it’s me and I’m doing research kind of want people to actually join in, so. And I just made him.

Jason: Enlisted.

Interviewer: That’s good for me.

Jason: I like research anyway ‘cos I do psychology.

- Rajan: I have nothing else going on at this time so I just figured I may as well, ‘cos I don’t know if I ever need some, I always participate in research and stuff or focus groups whatever, ‘cos I always think that if it ever comes to the time where I need to do it I’m going to have to be relying on people like me to repeat the cycle basically.

It was necessary to rely on students’ good nature given that there was no reward for participating; although this did not seem to hinder the amount of time students were willing to give as many interviews overran with participants happy to continue for longer than one hour. I believe that whilst the recruitment process was arduous it would be much more difficult to gain participants without incentive in a context outside of the university, as research and calls for participants are expected occurrences here.

Table A: Individual Student and Staff Interviewees

Interviewee pseudonym Gender Year of Study

Malc Male 1st _{year Undergraduate}

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Nick Male 1st year Undergraduate

Rajan Male 1st _{year Undergraduate}

Elsie Female 1st year Undergraduate

Fox Female 1st _{year Undergraduate}

Alice Female 1st _{year Undergraduate}

Emily Female 1st _{year Undergraduate}

Lola Female 1st _{year Undergraduate}

Gary Male 2nd _{year Undergraduate}

Sarah Female 2nd _{year Undergraduate}

Jen Female 2nd _{year Undergraduate}

Lee Male 3rd _{year Undergraduate}

Fan Female 3rd year Undergraduate

Bronwen Female 2nd _{year Postgraduate}

Collette Female 2nd year Postgraduate

Hector Male 3rd _{year Postgraduate}

Sophia Female Recent Graduate

Katie Female Recent Graduate

Thomas Male Recent Graduate

Ade Male Recent Graduate

Dean Stephanie Female Staff

Staff Participant Female Staff

However, it was even more difficult to gain interviews or even audiences with staff members, such as management and those who have student disciplinary or support roles, who often felt that it was a risk to talk to me about students’ drinking or processes around it. The two staff members that I interviewed formally also varied in their responses to the research, with one

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being interested and open and another defensive - as will be discussed in greater detail later in this chapter. Also, with two non-university participants from the police and from a local drugs and alcohol service who I spoke to informally, it was on the premise that they would be completely anonymous and due to the nature of their work that they would not be recorded. I was, however, able to take notes and so, whilst I have not drawn on the data from these in the same ways I have with other interviews, they have been used to inform my knowledge and understanding and were of significant value.

Pair and group interviews were conducted where participants who had signed up to the research brought friends and in one case a partner along to be interviewed and as Arkey and Knight suggest ‘collective interviews can be used to explore the dynamics of intact social groupings’ (1999: 33). As with all interviews participants were given time at the start of the interview to read over the information sheet and consent form and ask any questions they might have to ensure they were comfortable taking part in the research. Students were asked to choose their pseudonym and identify their year of study. Demographically the majority of participants were white and aged between 18 and 24; information was not collected on ethnicity, nationality, sexuality or class as recruitment had been so difficult and I did not want to dissuade people from participating (see below) but also because I am not making claims as to the representativeness of the data. However, such information often arose naturally in interviews as students became comfortable and rapport was built (see below) and I have been able to refer to this in the thesis. Following this process no participant from the individual or pair/group interviews declined participation or withdrew at any point, two individuals declined participation of the Facebook Focus Group, and one participant withdrew a statement from their interview. Interviews with friends were very different in nature as there was already rapport and (genuine) friendship between the participants and they often seemed to bolster each other’s confidence being more open and eager to talk. Keats defines ‘rapport’ as ‘the term

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given to that comfortable, cooperative relationship between two people in which there are maintained both feelings of satisfaction and an empathetic understanding of each other’s position’ (2000: 23), she also suggests that building this comfort with participants is one of the first tasks to which a researcher must attend. However, it did mean that interviews were harder to ‘control’ as participants would often fall into their usual habits such as talking about other friends, talking over one another, and talking without filling in the details. For example Scarlett and Thea throughout their interview would converse and laugh with one another, and whilst the conversation would often have stemmed from a question it was not always relevant:

Scarlett: It’s your student email though. Thea: Oh, that never gets checked. Scarlett: I do I check mine all the time. Thea: I’m going to have to start checking it.

Scarlett: You should you know, you find out some useful information on it.

Thea: I know you always say ‘have you seen this email?’ I’m like ‘[Scarlett] I don’t check them’.

Scarlett: I’m an email person.

Thea: I’m not I’m just not text to be honest.

Scarlett: I’ve got to start emailing people to get in touch with them.

Thea: How funny, can we start having conversations via email and still text. Scarlett: Yeah, I did that with [Dan] once actually.

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Scarlett: He sent me something over email and we just started emailing each other like hi how are you, what do you want to do later, are you ok? Funny.

As the interviewer you have to get the conversation back on track without disrupting the rapport and informal context, particularly when at other times the conversation between friends is more natural than that of participant-interviewer and vice versa. Further, when studying the ‘normal’ practices of a culture it can be useful to hear the realities of friendship, storytelling and practices involved in drinking culture, particularly where friends contradict each other and negotiate the ‘truth’ between them, as was the case with Becky, Betty and Ryan for example.

Interviewer: Oh no. So was there one event that each of you liked the most or did you all enjoy different bits?

Becky: I think, did we all like the same thing? Betty: James Bond night.

Becky: James Bond night

Betty: I had to leave early actually Becky: because [Fiona] was sick Ryan: The big night out

Becky: The big night out Ryan: The orange t-shirt one

Betty: The big night out, the orange t-shirt night was good

Becky: yeah the big night out, I did enjoy that. I think Saints and Sinners was my favourite.

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Betty: Saints and Sinners was really good, yeah. Becky: It’s because we all socialised, I think that night Betty: It was like the second night in of Freshers’.

Becky: Yeah, all the awkwardness went and we was just quite comfortable with each other, I think.

Betty: Yeah the awkwardness was gone after pre-drinks. Becky: No it was and it wasn’t

Betty: Yeah, but that’s because you pre-pre-drunk Becky: Yeah, true.

It is also interesting to note that Becky, who was the participant who signed up and brought Betty and Ryan with her, opens the question back out to the others. Both Becky and Betty begin to speak for the group and for others, which has been a common theme amongst both individual and group interviews here, before either re-phrasing as a question to the group or being contradicted or corrected. Becky and Betty also dominated the discussion throughout the interview, with Ryan occasionally having input or being directed questions by his friends. This was also the case in the interview with friends Zed and Yasmin, with me having to direct questions specifically to Yasmin. It is worth noting however that whilst one individual might speak for the group, concerns were raised if others did not agree and similarly assent was shown by nodding, laughter and statements of agreement.

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Table B: Pair and Friendship Group Interviewees

Interviewees Gender Year of Study

Zed and Yasmin Male, Female 1st _{year Undergraduates}

Scarlett and Thea Female, Female 1st _{year Undergraduates}

Scarlett and Amo Female, Male 1st _{Undergradaute and 2}nd

year Undergraduate

Imogen and Jason Female, Male 1st _{year Undergradautes}

Becky, Betty and Ryan Female, Female, Male 1st _{year Undergradautes}