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Analysis and the effect of personal experience in a study of survival of serious illness
Harriet Denz-Penhey
Faculty of Health Studies, Eastern Institute of Technology Hawke's Bay, New Zealand
Abstract
This paper discusses one methodological issue in relation to a grounded theory study: the effect of my own experience on the analysis of data collected from other people who had had similar experiences, and how I addressed colleagues' concerns of bias. The study in question was `What can we learn from people who had a very poor medical prognosis but who did much better than expected?' (Denz-Penhey, 1996). The study used interview data and grounded theory method to explore what was common in the stories of survivors of serious illness.
This externally funded study had been extensively peer reviewed prior to being undertaken and many modifications in line with suggestions by more experienced researchers had improved the study design. However, there were always lingering doubts in the minds of some of my colleagues, both methodologists and clinicians, that my own experience of recovery from serious illness must have affected my analysis of the data in my study. The discipline in which I undertook this study was general practice. Their dominant research philosophy was positivist with the accompanying belief in their own objectivity and a strong tendency to disregard as subjective or anecdotal, and therefore biased and unreliable, anything which did not fit their own objective `truth'. Thus a study which took seriously patients' stories and experiences was a problem to these research colleagues. When the study was to be undertaken by a person with personal experience in the area there were comments such as `How are you going to deal with your own obvious bias?' `How do we know you are not going to just project your own experiences on to the data and find what you want to find?'
When I asked myself whether my own experience had affected my analysis my inner response was that it had little effect. However, the philosophical and methodological standpoint I occupied made this a problematic response. I believed it was not possible for one's personal experience not to affect one's analysis. In addition, if someone did claim that their prior experience did not affect their analysis I would strongly suspect unrecognised preconceptions and also personal projections of the researcher's own psychological activity upon the data and resultant description or theory. It was necessary to admit that my own experience must have affected the analysis in some way. If this was the case the question then to be asked was whether the theory developed in the study might be judged as valid.
Glaser (1978, 1992), co-originator of the method I used, has chosen to avoid the word validity. He has outlined four criteria for what he considered a well constructed theory. The categories must fit all the data they purport to cover in the eyes of the study participants, the researchers and practitioners in the field. The theory must work. That is, it `should be able to explain what happened, predict what will happen and interpret what is happening in an area of substantive or formal inquiry' (1978, p. 4). Where the theory fits and works it is relevant. The fourth criteria of Glaser is modifiability. The theory must be able to be modified in the light of new data.
The questions then became how did I avoid projecting my own preconceptions and psychological issues upon my data and theory, and did I meet the criteria for a well formed theory? Firstly, I recognised that, of course, I did have expectations of the data and, given my background, I was sensitised to a number of possible concepts that might be suitable categories, if they arose in the data. Secondly, I knew that there would be data which did not fit with my experience. I suggest that my experiences with mutually exclusive discourses impacted on the process of analysis. Here, I address the way the method as laid out by Strauss and Corbin (1990) affected how my experience was used in the analysis. I then lay out the way I endeavoured to develop a shared reality. I finish the paper by discussing Glaser's criteria for a well-constructed theory.
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