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Chapter Two: Research Methods

The research sample

2.1 Children and young people - Qualitative research seeks to provide explanations about experiences, attitudes and behaviours rather than quantify their extent in the population being researched. The research sample was therefore designed to elicit views from a range of children and young people who had recently attended Children's Hearings. The design of the sample aimed to reflect the diversity of children and young people attending Children's Hearings in terms of gender, age, residence type ( e.g. at home with parents or residential accommodation) and whether they lived in an urban or rural area. Glasgow was the urban area used in this research and Argyll the rural area.

2.2 Children and young people were selected by SCRA from its Referrals Administration Database ( RAD) as those who were attending Hearings in either Glasgow or Argyll in the periods, in 2005, selected for recruitment. All children 5 years old or over scheduled to attend Hearings in these periods were selected. These children and young people and their parents/carers, were approached prior to their Hearings in SCRA's Glasgow and Argyll Hearings Centres and asked if they would take part in the project as described in the 'Consent/Ethics' section below.

2.3 From this recruitment process, 38 children and young people consented to take part in the project. Some children and young people who initially consented to take part later changed their minds or were not available for interview. The final sample (see Table 1) comprised of 29 children and young people who were interviewed. In summary, the children and young people in the sample:

• Ages ranged from 5 to 18 years at the time of the interviews
• Nine were aged below 12 years old
• Twenty-one were from an urban area and eight were from a rural area
• Seventeen were boys and 12 were girls

2.4 Though qualitative research studies vary in terms of sample size, the sample size used for this research is consistent with other qualitative studies undertaken to explore the experiences of children and young people. For example, a study of sexual exploitation amongst looked after and accommodated young people conducted at the University of Glasgow involved a sample of 28 young people (see Dillane et al, 2005) and a study of homelessness amongst young lesbian, gay and bisexual people conducted by the National Centre for Social Research which involved a sample of 33 (see O'Connor and Molloy, 2001). However, it is important to reiterate that while such qualitative samples aim to reflect the diverse characteristics of a given research population they are not designed to be statistically representative of that population. This means that while it is probable that the findings discussed in this report would be replicated in another similar sized sample, we have refrained from making statements about incidence or prevalence within the population as a whole as this would not be appropriate.

Table 1: Interviews with children and young people

2.5 Adults - Each child and young person who agreed to take part in the research, was asked to nominate an adult professional who they had worked with who would be asked to take part in a telephone interview. The adults nominated included social workers, key workers from residential care including children's units and secure units, teachers, counsellors, youth workers, children's rights workers and carers. Not all of those nominated were available for interview, and the final sample of those interviewed comprised of 13 adults, one of who was nominated by three young people. Those interviewed did however reflect the diverse range of adults nominated by children and young people.

Consent/Ethics

2.6 Consent - Informed consent was obtained by direct approach to children and young people (regardless of age) and their parent/relevant persons or carers in the Hearings Centres immediately prior to their Hearings. The research was discussed with the children and young people and those accompanying them, and they were provided with leaflets on the project with contact details of the researchers and how information about them would be used, and consent forms which they were asked to sign if they were willing to take part (Annex 2). During this stage the children and young people were also asked to nominate an adult professional who would be interviewed about their case but who would not be provided with any information that the child or young person had disclosed.

2.7 All information reported on children and young people and the adults who took part in the project was anonymised. During their interviews, the children and young people were asked to give a pseudonym for use when reporting their views.

2.8 Disclosure of harm - A Memorandum of Understanding was agreed by SCRA, Save the Children and Who Cares? Scotland which included a protocol to be followed in the event of actual or risk of harm disclosed by any child or young persons in the study. All those directly involved in the project had Disclosure Scotland clearance.

2.9 Rewards - Each child and young person interviewed was rewarded with a £10 gift voucher of their choice from either HMV, Argos, Woolworth's or Toys 'R' Us. Although children and young people were advised that this reward would be available during the consent process, the choice of reward was not discussed in detail until after the interview had been completed.

2.10 All the children and young people and adult professionals who took part, will be provided with a summary report of the research.

Data collection

2.11 The data was collected through the use of qualitative in-depth face to face interviews with the children and young people. Qualitative research was particularly appropriate for this study given the exploratory nature of the research. The interviews involved interactive probing and questioning methods which enabled flexibility in the structure and content of interviews. This facilitated exploration of individual circumstances and experiences in ways that were responsive to the accounts of individual children and young people. The interviews varied in length but were typically around 30-45 minutes. Sometimes interviews were longer because the child or young person's concentration levels varied and it took time to re-engage them. A longer interview did not necessarily guarantee better quality data and it was evident that some younger children became tired after a while which meant that the interview had to stop.

2.12 The interviews with children and young people were conducted using a topic guide which was developed by the research partner organisations in collaboration with the research commissioners and formed part of the research interview schedule (attached as Appendix 3). This described the key themes to be covered in each interview, and sub topics within each theme to be explored. All the interviews were tape recorded with the child or young person's consent and transcribed verbatim.

2.13 In common with other research conducted with children and young people a series of activities and props were developed to aid the conduct of the interviews. These were developed by the research team and tested with young people from Who Cares? Scotland. They included:

• Vignettes - taped scenarios to outline typical Hearings;
• World's worst/best Hearing - asking the child or young person to describe these on the basis of their experiences and perspectives;
• Hot air balloon - to enable the child or young person to reflect on who was involved in their Hearings and how they took part;
• People mind map - to identify key people providing support in the child or young person's life;
• Emotion cards - to assist the child or young person to focus on how they felt about Hearings and why;
• The perfect advocate - using cards labelled with characteristics to enable the child or young person to describe the qualities most important to them.

2.14 The extent to which these activities and props were used, and to which children and young people engaged with them varied between interviews. For example, some younger children preferred to draw things which were then used by the interviewer to explore and probe their experiences. Some older young people however preferred simply to talk, though emotion cards and perfect advocate characteristic cards enabled the interviewer to probe in more detail. In some cases using both the topic guide and the activities/props proved challenging because the child or young person was reluctant to talk. In a small number of cases literacy levels were a factor. For some, especially younger children, there were problems of recall even though a Hearing may have taken place with the last two to three weeks.

2.15 Children and young people were able to choose where the interview was conducted. In most cases, with the obvious exception of those in residential care at the time of the interview, children and young people chose to be interviewed at home. This often provided a further challenge for the interviewer in terms of privacy, since there were invariably other people, including parents, carers and siblings in the house at the time of the interview. Whilst some adults were happy to absent themselves from the process, others made it clear that they wished to remain in the room. In such circumstances it was sometimes a struggle to prevent them from interjecting in the discussion. For example when arriving at the home of one young man it was evident that his mother was drunk. She remained in the room and interrupted the interview until he asked her to go to another room because he could not concentrate. On the other hand, some children and young people chose to have someone else present. For example, one young woman wanted her boyfriend to sit alongside her though he took no part in the discussion, whilst another wanted her brother to remain in the room.

2.16 Other interviews were conducted within residential units, either children's units or secure units. While the setting was obviously different it was still necessary to negotiate with the child or young person and others present at the outset in order to ensure the maximum level of privacy that they were comfortable with.

2.17 A further difficulty was that children and young people and or their parents sometimes forgot that an appointment had been made and there was no-one at the home when the researcher arrived. This meant that a second appointment had to be made which usually proved successful, though in one case a young man failed to make the appointment on three occasions. In another instance, the researcher arrived at a children's unit at a time agreed with a young woman, but she decided she no longer wished to participate at that point.

2.18 The interviews with adult professionals were mainly conducted over the telephone. They were typically around 30 minutes in length. In some cases they were tape recorded and transcribed and in other cases notes were taken and a summary note produced for analysis.

Data analysis

2.19 The data collected from interviews was analysed using the Framework method of qualitative data analysis developed by the National Centre for Social Research (Ritchie and Lewis, 2003). Framework enables a systematic approach to the analysis of qualitative data through the three key stages of the analytic hierarchy, data management, descriptive accounts and explanatory accounts.

2.20 In this study we used Framework to analyse the data from the children and young people's interviews. The first stage involved familiarisation with the data and devising a thematic framework. Transcripts then were scrutinised in relation to the key topics in the thematic framework. The next stage involved charting the data in relation to those topics which broadly corresponded to the research questions. A series of thematic charts were drawn up for each interview and the data summarised under each topic. Finally, key emerging themes and patterns were identified. The charts allowed for detailed exploration of the data, exploring the range of views and experiences, comparing and contrasting the experiences of individual children and young people and seeking explanations for similarities and differences within the data.

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