THE
PROCESS
In order to proceed with this research, Morritt decided to use an in-depth interview format. This type of interview would enable an interaction involving the interviewer and the interviewee, where general topics were discussed in order to reveal the participants' perspectives. Although extensive and detailed, this format was extremely important for discerning how the participant felt about their experiences, by what words and examples they used to describe them.
There were three interview sessions to this research process:
Session One: Story Telling
Morritt began her research by having the participants tell their own stories, in their own way about their computer experiences. She used open-ended questions. Afterwards, Morritt would use follow-up questions like "what", "who", "when", "where", "why", etc., followed by clarification questions, to help the participant stay focussed on the subject matter and to ensure that Morritt understood the participant fully.
Session Two: Photographs
The second component of this research involved Morritt using the 'thematic lenses' or photographs. The participants were asked to comment on photographs of people and computers, and provide their own interpretation of what they had seen.
The criteria used for Morritt's selection of photographs were:
Session Three: Compilation
Morritt's third interview session was a dialogue with each participant, where she discussed additions, deletions and corrections to the narrative she had written about their experiences. The information from the narratives was gathered during the first and second interviews. These follow-up interviews helped Morritt to obtain corrective feedback on previously obtained information. This enabled the participants to have some control over what had been interpreted about the findings and conclusions.
After obtaining more input from the participants, Morritt proceeded to explain the conceptual framework behind this study to the participants. She defined her own version of the Feminist Standpoint theory for them, along with its advantages and disadvantages. Morritt also explained her objectives of this study and then asked the participants if they would like to share any of their experiences about feminism.
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