Design of interview schedule

The interview schedule followed the sequence (p. 277) suggested by Robson (2002): it started with me introducing myself and explaining the purpose of the interview (both in writing on the Participant Information Sheet – see Appendix 1 – and verbally), a ‘warm-up’ or non-threatening question (that required a yes or no response), the main body of the interview, a ‘cool-off’ question where participants were asked if they wished to add anything further, and ‘closure’ where they were thanked for their participation.

The interview schedule opened with an introductory question, asking the social worker to confirm that they had been involved in decision-making regarding the placement of siblings. This was included as if they had not been directly involved in this type of decision-making within a real life context, they may have found it difficult to reflect on these experiences during the interview.

As the use of heuristics may be an unconscious process of which the individual is unaware, it may not be possible to gain a view of whether a particular individual uses heuristics by simply asking them. Therefore, Payne and Bettman (2004) proposed the use of what they termed a ‘verbal protocol analysis’ when investigating the use of heuristics in decision-making. This involves asking individuals to ‘think aloud’ whilst performing some sort of decision-making task. By asking participants to ‘think aloud’, it is thought that their descriptions can provide information regarding their cognitive

69

operations and decision strategies (Rieskamp & Hoffrage, 2001). This approach can provide rich qualitative data about how people respond to situations (Robson, 2002). As I could not observe social workers making decisions regarding sibling placement in a real life context, I decided to utilise two vignettes within my interview schedule.

The use of vignettes involves presenting the participant with one or more scenarios and asking them how they would respond if they were confronted with the situations described in the scenarios (Bryman, 2008). The advantage of using this type of method is that it does not limit the participants to a particular response and encourages reflection on their answer. However, one disadvantage is that the participant may feel that they are being judged by their responses (Bryman, 2008). However, as the vignettes used in the present study involved fictional people and situations, it would be hoped that this would provide ‘distance’ between the participant and the scenario, and thus be less threatening.

In order to provide valid responses, it is vital that the vignettes are believable (Robson, 2002). For this reason, the vignettes used in the present study were based on the format used in a section of an anonymised report written by a social worker within my LA, where a sibling relationship was described. I developed two vignettes (see Appendix 2), that were to my knowledge entirely fictional and not based on any children in particular. The first vignette describes two siblings (an older girl and a younger boy) whose relationship could be considered to be negative – their relationship is described as ‘challenging’, there is little evidence of sharing, they are mutually critical of each other and the sister says she ‘hates her brother’.

70

The second vignette could be considered to describe a more positive sibling relationship. This vignette describes three sisters who have ‘strong emotional bonds with each other’, who play together, and are protective and loving towards one another.

During the interview, the social workers were asked to read each of these vignettes or scenarios in turn, imagining that it was a case that they had been given and that they had to make a decision regarding the placement of the siblings. Whilst reading, they were asked to ‘think aloud’ and explain their decision-making. At the end of each vignette, they were asked to state their decision regarding whether they would place the siblings together or apart.

Through the use of these vignettes, I hoped to be able to answer the research questions relating to the use of heuristics, and also identify what information social workers attended to when making this decision.

Following these vignettes, a set of questions were designed which aimed to provide further insight into the social workers’ decision-making and thus answer the research questions (see Appendix 3 for a copy of the interview schedule). These questions related to whether the social worker had received any training regarding sibling placement, what assessment tools (if any) they used when faced with this type of decision, what factors they consider to be important when making these decisions, which other people (if any) might influence their decision-making, and the constraints that they felt made their decision-making more difficult.

71

Three questions were then asked which referred to the use of heuristics: the familiarity heuristic (where a decision matches decisions that the individual has made in the past, McCammon (2004)), the social proof heuristic (where a decision is based on the decisions that other people are making, McCammon (2004)) and the take-the- best heuristic (where a decision is based on one key reason, Gigerenzer & Goldstein, 1999). These three heuristics were selected, as they were the ones most commonly discussed in the research literature relating to human decision-making within psychology (Gigerenzer & Goldstein, 1999).

A final question explained the use of heuristics to the social workers, and asked them to consider whether they used any mental shortcuts or heuristics when making their decisions. Although the use of heuristics has been thought of as process of which the individual is unaware, I felt that the three previous questions which introduce the idea of heuristics may have helped the social workers to identify any potential heuristics or shortcuts that they utilise in their decision-making. It was hoped that this question would allow me to identify any further heuristics which the social workers might rely on as part of their decision-making.