College students as catalysts for social change: a case study

Data Management

The goal of the research should be to increase benefit and minimize negative consequences and outcomes for participants (Bresler, 1995). The IRB at the University of North Dakota approved this study on August 20, 2007. Each interview started with an explanation of the purpose of my study and the signing of a consent form.

The four founders and I met as a group initially for me to explain my study and their role in it, and they expressed willingness to fully participate. There were issues that have arisen during my observations and interviews in which the members asked that the information not be included in the study, and I am honoring those requests. During this process and the changing of my role with the group from participant to researcher, I had to reassert research boundaries with the group. As a researcher it was a fine line between holding their trust and yet providing a fair and accurate picture of what I was observing and hearing from others.

Validity

I conducted member checks with the interviewees to see that I did not misinterpret something that was said (Maykut & Morehouse, 1994). Member checks increase the reliability and validity of qualitative research. I did this both by sending written transcriptions and also in discussing issues via email and also in my final interview with the group.

A college professor who has no involvement or familiarity with SLP agreed to serve as a peer examiner and read the first three chapters of my research simply for the purpose of questioning its validity and any assumptions I might have made. Her background is in social & experimental psychology and she has an interest in social movements so additionally she brought that strength to this process.

I also had two additional peer debriefers who read some of my transcripts and helped identify themes and patterns that developed from my interviews. As Patton (2002) states, peer debriefers serve as triangulating analysts who independently analyze the transcriptions and provide feedback and findings to the researcher. One of my two peer debriefers has a master’s degree, in whole systems design, from Antioch University, Seattle, Washington, and one has a bachelor’s degree from North Dakota State University and additional Graduate work from Luther Seminary. After this process I met out in Seattle, Washington, with my two peer reviewers and we discussed emergent patterns and themes. Given time limitations, we were only able to meet once for a peer debriefing with one reviewing the first set of transcripts and the other reviewing transcripts from the second interviews. One of the biggest values of this exercise was in their ability to ask questions or make observations. We also worked on the development of a mind map (see Appendix C). This exercise was valuable to begin to sort the data into categories and get a “balcony” picture of the “dance.”

The most commonly used method of establishing research credibility and validity is triangulation. Triangulation is used to establish different patterns of agreement based on more than one method, observer, or source of data (Gliner, 1994). I used various sources to establish this validity from the weekly questions to observations and interviews. Triangulation also helped establish consistency of the data from different times, contexts and sources.

Data Analysis

Data analysis took place after each set of interviews, and the subsequent transcriptions were made to utilize information as it was gathered. Analyzing the data as they were gathered allowed the building of concepts and theories as proposed by Merriam (1998). For example the concept of parental involvement kept appearing in the various interviews. Comments about generational differences such as leadership style differences appeared as well. This continual analysis allowed me to ask follow up questions about concepts as they arose.

I did 99% of my own transcriptions. I did hire a transcriber to transcribe three interviews at the end of my research as time became critical for writing. She erased the transcripts after sending them to me. As I transcribed I highlighted words and phrases that struck me as important, guided by concepts from the literature review such as social change, leadership traits and civic engagement. I then went back and did some additional literature review on altruism and organizational change as these were concepts that were often mentioned. After transcribing I entered all of the individual cases into HyperRESEARCH, a qualitative research computer application, coding each transcript as I went along. The coding was done on a line by line basis versus the highlighting that focused on broad themes during my transcription. Using all of the data to this point, I developed questions to use in the final group and one-on-one interviews. These questions were areas of clarification and follow up to unanswered questions. I also took all of the codes from the interviews and started re-reading documents and began looking for patterns.

I did member checking with the four founders after the group interview. In sharing my preliminary findings with them there was one area of disagreement regarding my observation that revolved around what I called the self-referential nature of SLP and that this could be perceived as a weakness. Instead the founders felt it was an issue of communication, preferring to view it as a concern but not a weakness. This will be discussed in detail under my conclusions section in chapter five as the “it” of SLP.

After the final one-on-one and group interviews were transcribed, these additional transcripts were coded with key words. I ended up with 112 codes initially. Each code was reviewed against the text using HyperRESEARCH to locate the code. After reviewing these I combined two codes into existing codes. For example, I had a code for “disconnection,” which was better described as the feeling Nick had in his changing role with the group. So I combined it under “changing role.” I also had one code for “curiosity” which was around the issue of SLP being compared to Habitat so I combined it into the “Habitat for Humanity” code. This gave me 110 codes. Each code was then written on an index card and sorted into categories. It became apparent that the codes fell in two main groupings that related to organizational issues and to the individual founders. I then took the codes and put them into clusters, for example “transformation”, “empowerment”, “opportunity”, “recognition” and “catalyst”; all dealt with the program impact and outcome. There were others that seemed to overlap such as “philanthropy”, “sacrificial giving” and “sacrifice” that were clustered together under a broader area of “altruism.” The key data were then organized into categories under the group and individual areas. This then gave me 110 codes, which I grouped into clusters, further into categories and then six themes which feel into two larger domains which are presented in its entirety in Appendix D.

The two overarching domains that emerged are individual qualities of the founders and organizational components. Since the group was founded by the four individuals their personalities, leadership experiences, characteristics and values lead to these traits. There were six main themes I developed from the data. These first three themes all fall under the larger domain of individual qualities of the founders. First, the founders were shaped by individual experiences including strong familial influences. Experiences and influences also include barriers and educational impact. SLP founders exhibited individual traits and values that included a high degree of selflessness. The traits and values of the founders include distributed leadership, naïveté, and commitment to principles, optimism and altruism. The third theme exemplifies how the founders are committed to a common vision, clear purpose and goals. Structural issues include collaborative development and design, clear purpose and goals and networking. The other three themes fall under the larger domain of components of the organization. Programmatic elements are those created by and unique to SLP. These programmatic elements are program issues specific to SLP and include the Core Model, other leadership models, customizable mass production and challenging the comfort zone. The foundational elements are the internal and external factors that influence the operation of SLP. These foundational elements include the core values of the group, social factors, hierarchy, board dynamics and feedback. Finally the numerous outcomes demonstrate the complexity of judging the 'effectiveness' of SLP. Outcomes include SLP acting as a catalyst leading to transformation of individuals, relationships, ownership, empowerment, leadership, inclusiveness and commitment to service. My overall assertion is that the combination of the individual qualities of the founders and the organizational components has created a student organization that is part of a larger social movement of engagement of young people in society. The interaction between the founders and the organization has created the “it” of SLP, the somewhat intangible aspect of the group that is discussed in my conclusion. The analysis portion kept reminding me of concentric circles as so many aspects of the group overlap with each other.

1. Experiences and Influences

3. Structural issues

5. Foundational elements Organizational components

Figure 3. Themes, Domains and Assertion.

Patton (2002) talks about, “The human factor is the great strength and the fundamental weakness of qualitative inquiry and analysis—a scientific two-edged sword” (p. 433). Data analysis is the area that I struggled with the most being a novice researcher and I felt was my biggest challenge. Trying to distill the various components of the program and present them in a logical manner was demanding.