Researcher: Dee McRae

Site: Houston/Smithers

Like the others, I chose to interview participants and I audiotaped the conversations. Our interviews were very similar and ran from 45 minutes to over two hours.

One place we differed was in our way of finding participants. As Kate, in Duncan, had been the first to try to attract participants, we had talked with her and we were aware that the mass-media campaign (news story, posters and several people chatting up the research) had not brought in the huge numbers we had all expected.

I decided to talk to people I knew of (not people I knew directly) and friends of friends. I did not offer any money to the participants. Seven people were identified and contacted in the Houston/Smithers research area. Kate Nesbitt, who is the Learner Friend for the project was originally going to do some of the interviews. (See page 71 for more on the role of the Learner Friend in this project.(11)) Two of the potential participants were unavailable (out of the area for the time period of the interviews) and two failed to be interviewed (one due to personal problems and one did not show up at the arranged time and did not reschedule). Another participant did not show up for the first meeting but did make the second meeting.

To practice my interview skills and to consider the questions more fully, Kate Nesbitt and I went through a practice interview. This assisted me in refining my questions and it also directed her for the journaling portion of this project. Three interviews were done in the area. Two took place at The Learning Centre in Houston and the other in the participant’s home. Two of the interviews were extensive, lasting two hours. Time constraints due to other jobs, tape transcriptions and collaborative team deadlines made it difficult to arrange more interviews.

I found this way of contacting participants productive because we found in them another voice. This group was interested in participating and committed to assisting in the research project. They knew well ahead of the actual interview about the research and the sorts of things I would be asking them. They had thought about how they learned and considered their responses during and prior to the interview. Two of the participants said that since they knew I was going to be interviewing them they had observed how they learned new material so had already done some analysis when it came time for the interview. One participant did a great deal of analysing as the interview progressed. All of the participants were committed to doing the interview, no matter how much time it took.

11 The term Learner Friend is an evolution from that of Research Friend that has been used to describe Marina Niks’ role with the community of Adult Literacy/ABE practitioners in British Columbia since 1999. This work of the Research Friend has been made possible by a grant from the federal-provincial Adult Literacy Cost-Shared Program.