Data collection or gathering

The data collection phase in a phenomenological research study has been termed as “gathering” rather than collection. Dahlberg et al. (2008, p. 172) define this term as an activity wherein researchers seek:

“descriptions, utterances, characterizations, narrations, depictions and other possible expressions of studied phenomena”

Data gathering was undertaken by semi-structured interviews of a cohort of seven independent midwives. This fulfilled the second stage of the descriptive method of gathering experiences that are examples of the phenomena. Giorgi (2009) maintains that what is needed from a phenomenological interview is as concrete a description as possible that the interviewee has lived through.

Phenomenological interviewing consists of in-depth open dialogue and questions which maintain a focus on the experience and recreate many dimensions of that experience (Giorgi 2009; Kleiman 2004) providing a richness of detail and context that shape that experience (Clarke 2006). It remains however that even phenomenologically orientated questions may reveal ‘too abstract’ responses (Giorgi 2009, p.122). During my data gathering, paying heed to Giorgi’s concerns, I remained observant of whether the interviewees were revealing an aspect of how they were present in the situation. Giorgi (2009, p.122) asserts that if this is not the case then it is perfectly legitimate for the interviewer to direct them back to this focus. On a number of occasions interviewees did become more abstract, for example describing others’ experiences or theorising their own experience. This was predominantly notable in my first interview with Fiona. Despite utilising a lifeworld evoking question concerning experiences, some of her interest of the phenomenon was theoretical and enmeshed with her colleagues’ views. During these events I attempted to direct her back to her individual experience. I was however mindful to be directive rather than ‘leading’, as the latter could be construed as the researcher attempting to elicit specific responses and introducing bias (Giorgi 2009). In subsequent interviews, I was mindful to explain the methodology in brief to the interviewees emphasising the importance of eliciting their detailed personal experiences and not their theoretical interests or others’

experiences. It is acknowledged that this still happened on occasions however this enabled a certain amount of context to enrich the midwives’ descriptions.

To stay faithful to the spirit of phenomenological research I placed emphasis on the co-operative research-interviewee relationships and open-ended dialogue with the aim of fully appreciating the midwives’ lifeworld experiences (Dahlberg 2011). I made efforts to make the interviews as flexible as possible by asking clarifying questions in order to illuminate the full meaning of the midwives’ descriptions (Bondas 2011). These I ensured enabled clarity of the description, rather than leading the interviewee, examples are as follows:

“Can you possibly describe that in more detail?” and

“When you said ‘felt’ can you describe exactly where and how you experienced this feeling?”

Finlay (2011, p. 29) asserts that researchers frequently fail to pose follow-up questions, and in the process are unsuccessful in eliciting: “more descriptions in detail” and as a consequence fail to present “more lifeworld variants”. Finlay (2011, p. 197) asserts a way forward and advocates that researchers should aim to “get into the moment” to elucidate how the phenomenon is experienced by the person: “emotionally/cognitively/bodily and in the context of their life”. As far as possible during the interviews I attempted to adopt this embodied approach, and attempted to simultaneously dwell with the knowledge the interviewers gave whilst probing for meanings. This is described as being phenomenologically orientated during the interview process (Finlay 2011). Throughout the interview process I paid heed to three processes to enable phenomenological orientation: “openness”, “empathy” and “attentive listening” (Finlay 2011, p.208). Openness was achieved by

suspending certain pre-suppositions of the phenomena, this has been interpreted as being objective, however Finlay (2011a, p. 208) maintains that this is an attitude of openness and “receptivity”, accomplished by emptying the self in order to be “filled” by the other. The process of clarifying and narrating my personal interests in the phenomenon made it easier to be open to the emerging phenomenon. My interests and the conceptual literature review were put to one side with ease. One example of this is when a number of the interviewees described their intuitive knowing as being perceived through verbal and non-verbal cues. It was not until the writing up of discussion chapter that I realised that this facet of the phenomenon had been mentioned, albeit superficially within the literature (see section 2.4, p.41). Its emergence however in the course of obtaining the descriptions appeared new, naïve and fascinating (Giorgi 2009).

Empathy was accomplished by attempting to develop an attitude of “being with the other” in a relational space (Finlay 2011, p. 208). Finlay (2011) refers to this as engaging reflexively with both our own body and our intersubjective encounter with the interviewee. I became aware of my own emotions utilising this technique, feeling excitement, wonder and sadness. This was particularly resonant with Louisa, one of the interviewees. During Louisa’s experience of intuition and bereavement I became aware of my own silent tears and Louisa noticed and handed me a tissue. This was a poignant example of “being with the other”.

Attentive listening is a combination of both openness and empathy. Having skills as a midwife and an educator I was competent in being open and receptive of others. I found this technique enabled me to “slow down” and dwell with the interviewee, Finlay (2011, p.209) describes this as a process of critical listening involving “curiosity, contemplation and compassion”. I attempted to reside with the

phenomenon at all times however, I acknowledge there were occasions when I became captivated by the various experiences that were being related and it took sheer willpower to prevent myself becoming “subject orientated” (Hallberg et al. 2010, p. 4897 ). This is where the researcher can lose focus on the phenomenon and become distracted by the subject, in my case the clinical issues involved in the description rather than the experience in all its wholeness:

“There is a big risk if we are captivated by the various individual experiences which are reported, especially the hard or otherwise extreme ones; that is, if we are too subject oriented. A key thing then is to move from the nuances of personal experiences to the essential features of the phenomenon—to be phenomenon oriented”

(Hallberg et al. 2010, p. 4897). One such example occurred when Polly described an experience when she utilised her bodily felt form of intuition to help advise a couple to have an emergency caesarean section. She related how later during the woman’s caesarean section, within this experience, the placenta was affected which confirmed her intuition had been correct. At this juncture I had a desire to explore more about the clinical issues relayed in this description, however stayed with Polly’s experience which subsequently revealed rich details of how she integrated her experience within her lifeworld as a midwife. This enabled greater depth of the experience to emerge, thus demonstrating how I made the effort to pay enough attention to the individual’s experience to elicit the:

“richness of detail and context that shape that experience” (Finlay 2011, p. 113) rather than deviate on a subject or clinical based trail.

Many lessons were learnt during the interviews. One of the main ones was the skill of returning the interviewees to the phenomenon without interrupting their narrative or leading the interviewee. The other lesson was to have the ability to respond appropriately to the interviewees. It was challenging to find the level between giving the interviewees positive feedback that their narratives were relevant and interesting and leading them to believe this was exactly the data that was preferential to me. Sides of the phenomena were illuminated that were unexpected and provided new insights to the phenomenon, being phenomenologically inclined however, I was mindful to let these descriptions unfold. This was particularly evident when one of the midwives described the perception of a dream; again, I focused on the rich details of all of their experiences rather than probing this particular one.

The interviews terminated when the interviewees had nothing more to tell. This was usually signposted by a period of silence. I would then pose a final question as to whether they wished to add anything else (Bondas 2011). Other elements concerning the ethics of data gathering are presented in the ethical considerations section (see section 3.2.14, p.114).

The interviews were tape recorded and personally transcribed. At first consideration, transcribing appears to be a straightforward technical task; however, the process involves decisions about the level of detail to include (Bailey 2008). This includes whether or not to omit:

“non-verbal dimensions of interaction, “data interpretation (e.g. distinguishing ‘I don’t, no’ from ‘I don’t know’) and data representation (e.g. representing the verbalization ‘hwarryuhh’ as ‘How are you?’)”.

It can be concluded from this that transcripts are not necessarily neutral recordings of interviews however, include some level of a researchers’ interpretations of data. In the interests of transparency and rigour I include an excerpt of an interview with Debby detailing the degree of transcribing utilised:

Debby: Ok, in that situation, um I was caring for a primip who had a breech baby on

board and was planning a a home birth um, and I remember I woke up one morning and I just felt I've got to go where she lived she was in (place area) so quite,

Me: Hmm

Debby: quite some distance from me and I just thought I've got to go, and, and it,

this was very early in the morning and I just got up and drove to her house and sat outside until it felt like a reasonable time that I could knock on the door and (laughs). From this excerpt it can be seen that the original interview has been described exactly as it was recorded verbatim. Repeated words and some of the narrative however make it at times difficult to follow. For this reason, whilst the original recordings were transcribed verbatim to preserve their originality, data excerpts in the findings chapters were slightly revised by deleting repeated words, and adding punctuation to aid comprehension. Laughing and other expressions and pauses were included as they may hold meaning when describing the data. What was removed however was the mentioning of place names to provide confidentiality. The following excerpt presents how the transcription was later utilised to illustrate the findings chapter:

“I was caring for a primip who had a breech baby on board who was planning a home birth. And I remember I woke up one morning and I just felt I've got to go: she lived quite some distance from me. And I just thought I've got to go. This was very early in the morning and I just got up and drove to her house and sat outside until it felt like a reasonable time that I could knock on the door.” (laughs) Debby.

Any emotional expression, such as laughing, sighing or crying was included to enable transparency for the reader and a window in which to fully appreciate the lifeworlds of the midwives. Staying true to the spirit of descriptive phenomenology no attempt was made to interpret their emotions. It did however enable the depth of meaning to unfold from their words (Dahlberg et al. 2008). To provide transparency, an example of a transcript is presented in appendix five (p.331). The transcript details are included within the ‘meaning units’ column.

This completes the data gathering phase which resulted in rich descriptions of experiences from the midwives’ lifeworlds. Once the data has been collected and transcribed, it is ready for analysis (Giorgi 2009) and is then utilised for further “understanding and evidence” in the data analysis stage (Todres and Holloway 2004, p. 86) which introduces the next section.