Engaging participants in qualitative research: methodological reflections on studying active older lives in Scotland and Australia

ABSTRACT

Deliberations on methodology in qualitative research have typically offered guidance for increasing involvement by subjects or focus on the reasons why people choose not to take part in the research. This paper provides a different contribution to advancing knowledge and practice in qualitative methodologies. It examines the reasons why people choose to participate in qualitative research. Drawing together our reflections on three research projects with older athletes in Australia and Scotland, the paper examines: the importance of shared insider experience and physical capital by the researchers and participants alike, participant empowerment and enthusiasm to share their passion as older athletes and; the opportunity for the research to counter perceptions of invisibility – of leisure interests, older people and active older women more particularly as key factors in engaging participants in the research process. Specifically, we link the sociological concept of capital and the notion of the gambit to qualitative studies in sport, health and leisure. As a sociological reflection on both the design and methods of qualitative research and the subjective experiences of our participants, the research has wider significance and application to critical qualitative methodologies more broadly and investigations of older people’s leisure experiences more specifically.

KEYWORDS:

• Qualitative research
• physical capital
• cultural capital
• recruitment strategies
• social change

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. The terms hillwalkers and mountaineers will be used interchangeably, a common feature of Scottish mountaineering culture https://www.smc.org.uk/

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by internal funding from the authors' respective institutions.

Notes on contributors

Emmanuelle Tulle

Emmanuelle Tulle, PhD, is Professor of Sociology at Glasgow Caledonian University where she leads the Sport and Physical Activity Research Group. She is also a member of the International Sociology of Sport Association Executive Board. She is a sociologist of ageing and sport. Her empirical work has been inextricably linked with the concern to re-imagine aged embodiment from a theoretical standpoint informed by phenomenology, social reproduction, governmentality and more recently gender performativity. Her empirical terrain encompasses running, physical activity and mountaineering.

Catherine Palmer

Catherine Palmer is Professor of Sociology at the University of Tasmania. Catherine’s research marries empirical and theoretical insight across a range of topics including sport and alcohol and fitness philanthropy. Her work has appeared in Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise & Health, International Journal for the Sociology of Sport, Sport in Society, Journal of Gender Studies, Social & Cultural Geography, Sociology of Sport and she has received significant funding for her research from national and international funding bodies.