Data Collection and Methods

The actual data collection began on 1st _{April 2018 in Vaasa. Data was ascertained by personal}

observation, focus group discussions and individual interviews. Combining these data collection strategy was to supplement each strategy’s weakness with the strength in triangulation to achieve rich data and ensure consistency required for trustworthiness of qualitative studies. A semi- structured interview guide was used to guide data collected through focus group discussion and individual interviews. The strategy utilized the flexibility of qualitative methods, for example, it did not follow the same step by step system of asking participants the same questions, questions were asked irregularly based on what respondents said in the boundaries of the semi-structured questionnaires. Questions were rephrased in both English and the Ghanaian Language (Twi) for participants understanding of the question and expressed themselves in the same accord.

3.3.1 Participant Observation

Observations are the descriptions of activities, actions, behaviours, communications and any other observable human experiences of participants in the study context (Patton, 2015; Maxwell, 2005). On the field I took on both insider and outsider position to participate and observe. I positioned myself as an insider to participate, because it is a requirement of ethnographers to enter the field and have personal experiences to understand the context. Positioning myself as an outsider made me observe and record events as exactly as I saw them in their context. As ethnography demands I engaged in persistent observation as soon as I set foot on the field. My observations in Vaasa, Finland began in August 2017 at Ghanaian gatherings, church, birthdays, house parties and personal visits to families and in informal conversation. To observe as an insider on two occasions, I personally took charge for taking care of seven immigrant parents` children at church during Sunday service. I also offered to take five children from three different families out to play with one of their fathers for two hours whiles their parents were in meetings. My background as a Ghanaian immigrant helped me to understand and relate to the immigrant parents’ old cultural and their new cultural experiences. I felt very welcomed by all the people whom I had conversations with. I participated with them in their games and attended almost all their church meetings. This strategy is in line with literature and has successfully been used by Malinowski (1884-1941) to

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work among the population of the people of Trobiand Island. Participant observation helped me to identify potential participants to include in the interview sample through informal conversations. It also helped to establish rapport and familiarity which also built up the participants trust and made them comfortable to participate in the study. To establish a link between the characteristics and useful elements for the objectives of the study to focus on them in detail to achieve depth (Lincoln and Guba, 1985), the observation notes were used to guide further data collection and questions in both Focus group discussion and Individual interviews.

3.3.2 Focus Group Discussion

After participant observation, a focus group discussion constituting seven parents was conducted to gain insight and opinions of individuals who would have been ignored during personal observations. For participants to fully express themselves, Languages used were the Ghanaian Language (Twi) and English Language. They could also mix the two as they wished (Bronislaw Malinowski 1884-1942). Discussion themes included, how they adapt to the demands of the new parental culture? If there were any changes and how they feel about the changes? What coping mechanisms do they employ to keep going? How they communicate with their children and with the child help centre in their new environment? During the discussions all that participants said were recorded, observations of their confidence and enthusiasms about what they said, their emphasis on certain information, agreed and disagreed were all noted. Also, I was careful about looking out for social desirability bias, a situation where participants seem to give positive responses to please the researcher or gave an overly general honest answer with the notion to keep me from forming negative impression about them. Probing questions were used to deal with these biases (Patton, 1999). Also, during the discussion children were playing around and could run to their parents. How parents communicated with them both verbal and non-verbal in these instances were also noted. The strategy gave me opportunity to follow up participants who had more to say for individual interviewees

3.3.3 Individual Interviews

As mentioned above some participants who the researcher found to possess more information were selected for in depth face-to-face interview guided by the same semi-structured interview guide to collect more data. Also, here participants were encouraged to freely express themselves within Twi or English depending on the respondent’s choice (Bronislaw Malinowski 1884-1942).

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Interviews were conducted within the limits of the study boundaries. Listening was conducted by nodding my head as the study goes on to create trust, rapport and mutual commitment within the interview time (Tim, 2002). During interviews with parents, their children did not see me as a stranger because a kind of rapport had already been developed during personal observation when I took care of them at church services on two Sundays.

Also, as mentioned earlier in the Focus group discussion, social desirability bias was checked for consistency in what participants said in the group discussion and the individual interviews (Patton, 1999). Again, I was careful in dealing with researcher bias, by positioning myself as a student and relying on only what participants said and observed because my position could affect the quality of the data at all stages of the study (Lincoln and Cuba, 1985; Patton, 1999). However, to discover the unexpected and uncover the unknown (Gerson and Horowitz cited in Tim, 2002) I made room for participants by asking if they had further information they would like to add. Almost all of them gave additional information that was useful for the present study and an insight for future study considerations.