Investigating Experience As It Is Lived

Researchers engaging in hermeneutic phenomenological inquiries are charged with the task of investigating the experience of the phenomenon as it is lived and not as it may be conceptualized (van Manen, 1990). As such, data should be systematically collected using methods which allow participants to share their experiences with a particular phenomenon and permit an in-depth investigation into these accounts. In the current study, open-ended face-to-face interviews and daily diaries were used to explore the gay and lesbian students‘ experiences with discrimination. Both methods have been recognized as permitting researchers to interact with, and learn about, individuals‘ experiences at the level of detail required for a hermeneutic phenomenological analysis (Fontana & Frey, 2005; van Manen, 1990). However, as each method is characterized by its own set of limitations (which will be outlined below), I chose to use both in an effort to offset these restrictions. The use of two methods to explore the gay and lesbian students‘ experiences allowed for triangulation to occur wherein it was possible to gain greater insight into the nature of these experiences by integrating the data obtained from both techniques (Atkinson, & Delamont, 2005; Moran-Ellis et al., 2006). Data collected from the interviews and daily diaries was integrated during the analysis. Figure 3 depicts the sequence of interview and daily diary data collection and analysis.

Figure 3. Overview of the sequence of data collection and analysis

The advantage of employing interviews in this study was the flexibility it afforded to thoroughly explore elements of the gay and lesbian students‘ experiences, such as their thoughts, emotions, bodily sensations, and social interactions, in relation to a given event. I used an

Interviews

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interview guide which outlined a number of areas that I wished to ask the participants about;

however, the interviews were not bound by the interview guide and the participants‘ narratives of events were allowed to unfold in a way that was natural to the conversation. I also was able to use follow-up interviews with a handful of participants to have a conversation about the extent to which my findings resonated with their personal experiences. Interviews are considered to be a means through which the researcher and participants mutually accomplish a story about their experiences. It is increasingly being recognized that the content of an interview is largely

dependent on the nature of the interaction that occurs between the researcher and the respondent and that both parties play a key role in what unfolds (Fontana & Frey, 2005). Thus, it is

important to keep in mind that interviews are not a neutral method of data collection, but one in which both the researcher and interviewee are active participants (Fontana & Frey, 2005).

Despite the flexibility associated with interviews, reflection on lived experience, as it occurs during interviews, is necessarily recollective (van Manen, 1990). Research has found that when recalling past events, individuals tend to employ a variety of involuntary and unconscious heuristics that bias their ability to recall the nature of an event exactly as it occurs (Smyth &

Stone, 2003). For instance, individuals tend to recall events in accordance with their beliefs or worldview, the outcome of an event tends to affect how someone remembers a given experience, and recollections of experiences tend to differ according to the environment in which the person is recalling the event (Smyth & Stone, 2003; Shiffman, Stone, & Hufford, 2008; Thomsen &

Brinkman, 2009). Therefore, participants‘ access to their lived experiences when recalled in the interviews may be biased by the heuristics employed by the human mind and, as a result, the thoughts, emotions, and meanings associated with a given memory may change over time (Thomsen & Brinkman, 2009). It was hoped that by collecting data via diary entries completed soon after anti-gay/lesbian behaviours occurred, participants‘ descriptions of their lived

experiences would be less affected by the potential limitations of retrospective accounts, since there would be less time for participants to reflect upon, conceptualize, and categorize the

experience (van Manen, 1990; Shiffman et al., 2008). Thus, the main impetus for including daily dairies was to gain more immediate insight into the participants‘ lived experiences.

Moreover, it may be possible to identify through daily diary entries experiences with subtle anti-gay/lesbian behaviours that may be minimized over time or forgotten (and

consequently not mentioned in interviews; Swim, Hyers, Cohen, & Ferguson, 2001). Thomsen

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and Brinkmann (2009) suggest that the specific memories individuals are able to readily recall may be less representative of their lifeworlds because they tend to be remembered due to their unusualness, importance, and emotional intensity, or because they have been previously shared.

Thus, less salient and more mundane experiences of homonegativity that may otherwise be pushed aside as a function of everyday living and survival may be captured (Swim, Hyers, Cohen, Fitzgerald, & Bylsma, 2003; Shiffman et al., 2008). Unfortunately, the daily diaries did not provide me with the opportunity to further probe elements of the participants‘ experiences that were unclear; however, keeping a diary did help the participants reflect upon and describe significant aspects of their experience (van Manen, 1990).

When collecting diary data, it is possible to employ event-based sampling (i.e., a diary entry is made immediately after a predefined event occurs), time-based sampling (i.e., a diary entry is made according to a time schedule), or a combination of the two approaches (Shiffman et al., 2008). In the current study, a time-based sampling approach was used wherein participants were asked to complete their diary entries prior to going to bed each evening because the

technology to facilitate an event-based submission process was not available. However, participants were asked to send me a text message via their cellular phones with a brief description of their experience with a homonegative behaviour immediately after an event occurred in an effort to capture their lived experience before they had any time to reflect upon the incident. Further, participants were specifically asked to submit their entries electronically to allow the time that participants completed their entries to be tracked and to reduce the likelihood of hoarding. Shiffman et al. (2003) reported that one of the most significant problems plaguing paper-and-pencil diary entries was that upwards of 85 to 90% of participants tend to complete their entries immediately before meeting the researcher. However, the longer participants wait to complete their entries, the greater the likelihood that their perceptions of lived experience will be affected by the limitations associated with retrospective recall. Thus, electronic submission was incorporated as a means of increasing participants‘ accountability in terms of when they

completed their entries. Figure 4 depicts the sequence of data collection.

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Figure 4. Overview of the methods employed and sequence of data collection.

Procedures specific to open-ended interviews. Following ethical approval, a purposeful sample consisting of 20 gay and lesbian university students (10 gay men, 10 lesbian women) were recruited to participate in open-ended interviews. To be eligible to participate in the study, participants had to meet the following inclusion criteria: self-identify as a gay, lesbian, or queer person; attend the University of Saskatchewan as either an undergraduate or graduate student;

and be fluent in English. In addition, the students had to feel that they had either been the direct target of homonegativity or, if they had not experienced homonegativity directly, could comment on how they had been affected by the existence of homonegativity. Phenomenological studies often employ sample sizes of approximately 10 participants (Munhall, 2007); thus, the current study included more participants than is typical for studies of this nature.

To recruit participants, a maximum variation-type sampling approach (Patton, 2002) was employed through which I hoped to recruit a diverse range of gay and lesbian students, including those who were not out, did not belong to local gay and lesbian organizations, came from a variety of disciplines, and were in various phases of their educational journey. As such, I placed an advertisement on a university-wide electronic bulletin board, and individuals who were eligible and interested in participating in the study were encouraged to contact me directly (see Appendix A for a copy of the advertisement). In addition, some individuals were recruited through word-of-mouth and learned about the study from their friends who had already participated in an interview. Before scheduling the interview at a time and location that was convenient, I briefly confirmed with the participants (generally through an email conversation) that they were indeed eligible to participate. It should also be noted that a gay man who was not involved in the study reviewed the interview guide before any interviews were conducted to ensure that the language used in the guide was appropriate.

exploring past

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During the first (and primary) phase of interview data collection, I conducted 20 face-to-face interviews with 10 gay and 10 lesbian participants; all participants chose to meet in a meeting room I had available at the university. Prior to beginning the interviews, I explained the purpose of the study to the participants and informed them of their rights as participants in the study. I then obtained written informed consent from them and asked for their permission to record the interview (see Appendix B for the Consent Form). All interviews were digitally recorded. The interviews began by allowing the participants to share with me their experiences as a gay or lesbian student at the university and to comment on the extent to which they felt safe or welcome at the university. I then asked them additional questions from the interview guide (see Appendix C), including whether they had any experiences with blatant homonegativity, intentional or unintentional subtle discrimination, or homopositive behaviours. They also were asked to describe any common mistakes they perceived heterosexuals to make when interacting with them. Given the emphasis on understanding the participants‘ lived experiences, they were probed to provide descriptions of concrete occurrences which they had experienced (Thomsen &

Brinkmann, 2009). In relation to any experiences with discrimination that were mentioned, participants were asked to describe their thoughts, emotions, and bodily sensations at the time the behaviour occurred, as well as the impact they perceived the behaviour to have on them or the interaction in which they had been involved when the event occurred. The interviews concluded by asking the participants to define blatant and subtle homonegative behaviour (including how it feels to be the target of a blatant versus a subtle homonegative behaviour and the key features that distinguish these types of behaviours) and reflect upon how they find meaning in the homonegativity that was directed toward them.

The interview questions were developed in keeping with a hermeneutic

phenomenological approach and were informed by past research exploring homonegativity directed toward gay and lesbian students (as documented in Chapters One and Two of this study). Sample interview questions included: What has been your experience with negative behaviours being directed toward you on the basis of your sexual orientation [as gay or lesbian]?

What impact did the experience have on you? How has the experience affected you? Could you describe in detail an experience in which you weren‘t one hundred percent sure whether someone meant to treat you negatively on the basis of your sexual orientation? How do you find meaning in or make sense of homonegative behaviours?

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At the conclusion of the interview, participants were asked to complete a few

demographic questions to allow me to contextualize the sample. Specifically, they were asked about their age, sex, academic major, whether they were an undergraduate or graduate student, year of university, ethnic background, marital status, and sexual orientation. To assess the extent to which participants have contact with and are involved in the gay and lesbian community, they also were asked to answer the seven items that comprise the Involvement in the Gay Community Scale (IGCS) developed by Tiggemann, Martins, and Kirkbride (2007). Each item was rated using a five-point Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree; 5 = strongly agree). Finally, to obtain a sense of how open the participants were about their sexual orientation, they were asked to indicate the extent to which they were out to various people in their lives and how accepting these people were of their sexual orientation. See Appendix D for the demographics

questionnaire.

After completing the demographics questionnaire, the gay and lesbian students were debriefed and provided with a list of resources which they were free to contact if they felt

distressed about anything that was discussed during the interview (see Appendix E). Participants also were asked whether they wished to review a copy of the transcript from the interview (see Appendix F). Seven participants opted to review their transcript and later released the transcript to me for inclusion in the study via a transcript release form (see Appendix G). Before leaving, the participants also were asked if I could contact them again in the future in case I had any additional questions for them or wanted to meet with them to discuss my interpretations of the results. In addition, they were asked if they would be interested in learning about the daily diary component of the study.

The interviews ranged in length from 50 to 100 minutes. I took field notes during the interviews, wrote memos documenting the thoughts I had in relation to the theoretical and methodological aspects of the study, and kept a journal about my own personal responses to the interviews (Birks, Chapman, & Francis, 2008). I conducted all the interviews, as I was the person who was the most knowledgeable about the information that needed to be obtained from each interview and wanted to ensure that the depth of the data collected was adequate. Towards the end of the interview data collection period with both the lesbian and gay participants, relatively little new information about the participants‘ experiences with homonegative behaviour

emerged, which suggested that the phenomenon had been thoroughly explored and saturation

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had been achieved (at least for many content areas of the interviews; Patton, 2002). Finally, the participants received a $20.00 gift certificate for agreeing to participate in the interview

immediately after it concluded; however I informed the participants before the interview began that they could stop the interview at any point, and I would give them the gift certificate at that time.

Procedures specific to daily diaries. The same participants who took part in individual interviews were invited to submit daily diary entries for a ten-day period following their initial interview. All, but one participant, agreed to participate in the daily diaries. At the conclusion of the interview, I explained the nature and purpose of the diary study to the participants and informed them of their rights as participants in this phase of the study. Those who were

interested in participating were then asked to provide written informed consent (see Appendix H for the Consent Form).

On the first day of the daily diary data collection period (which was based on the

preferred start date of the participant), I emailed a set of instructions to the participant describing the procedures of the daily diaries in detail (see Appendix I—namely, each night before going to bed, the participants were asked to complete an online diary entry through a website describing any experiences they had that day with blatant or subtle homonegativity, homopositive

behaviours, or situations in which they felt uncomfortable disclosing their sexual orientation). A series of six questions comprised the diary entry (see Appendix J for complete versions of the questions): Did you experience any gay/lesbian behaviours today? How many

anti-gay/lesbian behaviours did you experience today? Please describe in detail your experience with this anti-gay/lesbian behaviour. What impact did this experience have on you? What meaning do you find in this experience or how do you make sense of this experience? What other thoughts, comments, or observations do you have about this incident? Even if participants did not have any experiences with homonegativity that day, they were asked to submit a diary entry stating so. I sent a personalized email to the participants each night at approximately 7:00 p.m. reminding them to complete their nightly diary entry to increase compliance.

In general, the majority of participants submitted a diary entry each night. Four participants forgot to submit an entry one night during the data collection period, while three participants forgot to submit an entry two nights throughout the 10-day period. In each case, the participants informed me the next day that they had not experienced any homonegativity the

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previous day. Two participants did not submit a diary entry on several nights during the data collection period; however, they did submit an entry on the days they encountered an

anti-gay/lesbian behaviour and confirmed with me (approximately every three days) that they had not experienced any homonegativity on the days they had not submitted an entry.

In order to briefly capture the participants‘ thoughts and feelings immediately after experiencing an event they deemed to be homonegative, they were asked to text me a few words describing the behaviour and how it made them feel. The purpose of these text messages were to help capture their initial thoughts and feelings directly following an encounter with

discrimination, and any keywords they had texted to me earlier were included in the nightly reminder email. It was hoped that by reminding participants about their immediate reactions following the homonegative event, they would be better able to describe their lived experiences in the diary entries. Only three participants opted to text after experiencing a homonegative event, but all participants completed their diary entries on the days they encountered

homonegativity. Since I treated the participants‘ decision not to text me as the equivalent of choosing not to answer a particular question (as they were informed was their right at the outset of data collection), I did not ask them to explain their decision for not texting.

The participants were offered the opportunity to meet with me after their data collection period ended to debrief and approximately four participants chose to check in with me to discuss their experiences with the diary study. Of those I spoke to, many commented that they became more observant of homonegativity in their daily lifeworlds by virtue of keeping the daily diaries.

The number of homonegative behaviours encountered by each participant during the 10-day daily diary data collection period ranged from 0 to 6. Two participants did not encounter any homonegative behaviours during the diary collection period, three participants encountered one behaviour, six participants encountered two behaviours, three participants encountered three behaviours, four participants encountered four behaviours, and one participant encountered six behaviours. Participants received a $30.00 gift certificate of their choice for participating in the daily diaries at the conclusion of their 10-day data collection period. They were provided with the option of meeting me in person at the university to receive their gift certificate or having it mailed to them.

Procedures specific to follow-up interviews. Approximately six months after I conducted the initial interviews with participants and had completed analyzing the interview and daily diary

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data, four participants were asked to participate in a follow-up interview. The purpose of this interview was to verify the accuracy of my interpretations of their interview and daily diary data.

For these second interviews, I invited participants who indicated in the first interview they would be interested in meeting with me again and were articulate in sharing their experiences. In

For these second interviews, I invited participants who indicated in the first interview they would be interested in meeting with me again and were articulate in sharing their experiences. In