Interview participants
10.2 Interview participants
Nine sonographers volunteered to participate in an interview with the researcher. There were seven females and two males. Six of the participants resided in a major city from a range of cities around Australia. Interviews were conducted either in person or by telephone between January 2008 and June 2008. Three interviews were conducted face-to-face, the others by telephone, due to cost and distance constraints. No further participants were sought as these volunteers provided data sufficiently rich to enhance both the quantitative and qualitative findings from the survey. In addition, personal recruitment of interviewees may have added additional bias to the findings. All interviewees had been qualified for more than twenty years at time of interview and all had worked in a charge position or educational capacity, either presently or in the past.
Although the potential bias of this seniority was noted, the benefits to the interview data were considered to be more important. Participating sonographers were asked their opinion on a range of questions as follows:
What do you think is the main reason for CPD?
Do you think that CPD makes a difference to sonographers? How? Or Why not?
What happens in your work place?
Do you feel better about yourself because you are doing more study? If yes, in what way?
What do you think your boss thinks about your extra study?
What is good about CPD? What is bad?
What kinds of problems have hindered you getting your CPD?
Have you any suggestions for improving CPD?
Who do you think should be providers of CPD?
Many people indicated that CPD did not lead to a change of work practice and if reflection occurred it did not lead to CPD. Why do you think this is so? All interviewees were provided with the initial list within the week prior to interview, to allow
them time to consider which questions or issues were most important to them and to think about a suitable reply. As was acknowledged in Chapter 4, this could potentially lead to discussion with other sonographers about the questions, but I felt that this would only add to the depth of information coming from the interviews. Because of the flexibility, not all participants answered all questions and not all questions were put to the interviewee in the same order. Answers given by some participants led to further questioning about the planning of CPD and the need for encouragement, both for others and for self.
The interviews were recorded with each participant’s permission, however, notes from all interviews were also written during the interview. During interview, care was taken not to unduly lead the interviewee in their answers and not to comment negatively or positively on their views.
Where necessary, to fill out an answer, the interviewee was gently encouraged to offer more information by leading words such as ‘how’, ‘in what way’ and similar. Interviews had a duration of between 35 minutes and one hour. The written interview notes were typed out immediately, the recording was used for verification of small sections in the notes. After typing, the transcription was emailed to the participant for confirmation that the true meaning of the dialogue had been captured. On receipt of this confirmation the recording was erased. The interviews were quite freeform, in that they were allowed to follow the path of whichever issue concerned the interviewee most. For this reason, the interview notes from all participants were not collated according to question, rather they were studied intensively and repeatedly until major topics emerged, however these topics did follow the questions quite closely. The findings were validated by a non-sonographer colleague who independently followed the same process of examination of the notes of the interviews. Where a difference of opinion occurred, discussion and consensus ensured an accurate portrayal of findings (Smith, 2000). Each interviewee is referred to by a pseudonym.