Participant Response 1 Students

Of the 23 participants who were approached, 21 students replied, agreeing to take part. The two who did not respond were in Group 3, and were the ones who had left the university without completing a degree. Repeated attempted contact reaped no reply. This was unsurprising since the time immediately post-university can be a pressurised one. It seems reasonable that these people were getting on with their new lives or did not want to be reminded about a previous one.

Subsequently, of the 21 students who replied, a further person dropped out at the point of the initial interview with no explanation, and two more withdrew during the first stage of data recording, both declaring that time restraints prohibited them from continuing. While it was perhaps possible to minimise the effort which they would have to contribute, I decided against persuading in this direction. My personal standards were that, given the nature of the study, consistently in-depth information was vital. If I had accepted a minimal input from them, it would have skewed the findings by offering them a platform to declare bias without taking the time to offer context and depth. I therefore continued with the intense sample. Two further students withdrew from the university and, despite a letter asking if they wished to have an exit interview on their experience, neither replied, with similarities to the first two Group 3 withdrawals in the project.

The remaining 16, however, did go on to participate fully in the study. In addition, some months into the study period, one Mature student who was withdrawing from the institution and a personal contact of one of my participants, wrote a detailed letter describing her experiences as a Mature student and her reasons for withdrawal. Her contribution has only been used for confirmation and has not been critical to any findings.

8.7.2 Staff

All members of the Governors and the Managers groups were willing to participate in the study. The four Academics in the mid-career and Head of School category were keen to take part. However, despite repeated attempts to make contact, the junior members of Academic staff declined to reply. This gave an overall participant group of 12.

8.8 Method

All participants were invited in writing to come for an individual, informal chat with me about the study. In the case of staff, I offered to go to them in writing or by email. This was firstly to explain the rationale behind the research and, secondly

to establish a contract for the participation as outlined earlier. Thirdly, in the case of students, I offered explanations of the particular method of data recording chosen and their role in this. Ultimately the aim developed to construct summaries of the social and academic world of the Mature student from different perspectives. With this in mind, the multi-faceted approach of analysing documentation was adopted, using autobiographical accounts, narratives, questioning, and interviewing.

With the student participants, the use of journals (as described below) had been suggested in initial invitations, but the extent to which these were to be used was more fully described at this point. Suggestions of student issues were listed as reflection points28, while encouraging them to record additional areas of personal significance. The rationale was that this qualitative study, incorporating on-going participation rather than the one-off qualitative interview, would benefit from the generation of a significant level of data for interpretation.

8.8.1 Personal Documentary Data: Journals (Students)

During first semester Mature students were supplied with, and asked to maintain, a journal describing their experiences and, most importantly, the interpretation they put on these. The use of journals, or daily diaries, as a form of data collection is not new in research, having been particularly applied in medical research (Richardson, 1994) and typically in studies of epidemiology (Day et al, 2001). The accuracy of these timely records has shown themselves to capture particular experiences not possible using other, traditional, methods. Recognised benefits have included the ability to track changes in self-development and attitude (particularly appropriate in this study), thus identifying the variability of mood rather than the mean over a period of time (Bolgeret al,2003).

Four journal formats were tested on some of the participants and a small, thick, A5 format was chosen; an easily portable style. A computer version was created as an alternative choice. The journals were subdivided into three identified parts of the

university calendar for first semester and had “reflection points”29 - phases in the University Calendar when particular events were highlighted – and already marked in them. These triggers were to encourage reflection on the personal interaction with systems and services used at particular times of the year. Some of the reflection points asked the participants for a retrospective view, e.g. to remember motivations prior to arrival.

In my opinion, there were five clear advantages of using journals:

 Individual meanings particular to each participant would be highlighted. Therefore their choice of issues would be presented, not those that I might have assumed were significant.

 They encouraged private thoughts; participants were initially more open than at face-to-face interview at least for broad reference, allowing further investigation at interview.

 They allowed control of personal disclosure to the participants in private space prior to interview. Three participants commented favourably on this at interview.

 They focused the semi-structured interview, while still offering the opportunity for rich, deep, detailed descriptions.

 The structure of the 18 aspects of the first semester offered the opportunity for semi-structured comparison between stories.

The ownership of the journals was regulated by the institutional policy on Intellectual Property which allocated the ownership of the data to the researcher and this was explained to the participants.