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Procedure

Individual Singaporean predisposition of self-disclosure to childhood sexual abuse has perennially been one of maintaining the familial reputation or “face,” with consequential household silence or denial of the atrocity committed (Back et al., 2003; Elliot et al., 1997; “Many Cases,” 2005).

Given this background, a study of this sensitivity, where a face-to-face semi-structured interview followed the participant’s completion of the psychological test measures, can potentially be extremely threatening and embarrassing. Hence, the publicity information in the recruitment of participants for this study is specific and clear in referring to the interview process, in order to not mislead nor embarrass the participants as they present for the study.

Subsequently, all participants who presented themselves for the study were again informed of the semi-structured interview. All gave their consent for their sessions to be audio-taped.

After an initial brief interview to ensure that the participant qualified for this study, an “Introduction to the Study” paper was handed to each participant (See Appendix F), and its contents read aloud by the researcher, in order to ensure that the participant is aware of the nature of the research.

The participant was also informed that the information they provided is confidential. Each participant was also instructed that he or she may at any time discontinue their participation.

Next, each participant was requested to complete the following measures in the order as prescribed; namely,

(1)A Background Data Questionnaire;

(2)The COPE instrument for a Work-Related situation;

(3)The COPE instrument for their childhood sexual abuse situation(s); and

(4)The Symptom Checklist-90-Revised (SCL-90-R).

After completion of the Background Data Questionnaire, participants completed the first situational COPE instrument regarding how they usually cope with a normal stressful work-related situation. Participants also completed the same COPE situational measure, but time-limited to retrospectively determine which specific coping techniques were most frequently used in response to their CSA experience(s) up to the present.

The SCL-90-R was the final psychometric tool administered.

Lastly, a semi-structured interview was conducted for each participant in a 45 to 90 minutes session. All participants in this study attended the interview. After the first round of interviews, 3 females and five males were called for a second interview, in order to clarify information they had talked about in their first interview.

There were over 22 hours of audio-taped interviews, which subsequently were transcribed in verbatim, totalling 380 pages. A list of questions in the semi-structured interview is reproduced in Appendix G.

On completion of the interview, a “Debriefing Sheet” (See Appendix H) was handed to the participant. The Sheet contains a reassurance of confidentiality by the researcher of the contents of the interview. It included a note to the participants that psychological services are available at the NIE Psychology Clinic (location and a contact number was stated on the Sheet), if they have any personal issues that they will like to discuss with someone.

A final note of thanks to the participants concluded this debriefing paper.

Justification of a Mixed Method Research

The purpose of the present research was to understand the lived experiences of women and men who had been sexually abused in their childhood and to derive some appreciation for the ways they survived and coped with their abuse. Numerous studies examining the impact of intervening variables have used quantitative, correlational designs.

However, conclusions on the effects of CSA cannot be made simply on the basis of correlational data between current symptomatology and childhood experiences (Runtz & Schallow, 1997). Sexual abuse occurs within the broader context of the individual’s life, and what may appear to be the effects of CSA in an individual’s life may in fact be due to other more recent experiences (Spaccarelli, 1994).

Roth, Lebowitz, and DeRosa (as cited in Leahy, Pretty, & Tenenbaum, 2003) proposed that a qualitative strategy is more suited to producing detailed, in-depth information that incorporates individual meaning and perspective which influences behaviour, and which can become the target of therapeutic change.

The methodology gives researchers access to a participant’s meaning systems, frame of reference, personal beliefs, cognitive schemas, values, cultural realities, and personal motivations (Franklin & Jordan, 1995; Hesse-Biber & Leavy, 2006; Marshall & Rossman, 1999).

Such attributes are particularly useful in understanding the nature and variety of coping mechanisms involved in CSA, some of which have proven difficult to assess through traditional measurement tools.

In order to facilitate this approach, a mixed method of research was decided, as qualitative research investigations enable the researcher to access deep structural processes, with supplementary integration of quantitative data (Camic, Rhodes, & Yardley, 2003; Hanson, Creswell, Clark, Petska, & Creswell, 2005; Hoshmand, 1989).

Hence, the mixed research design adopted here is the concurrent embedded design, where quantitative and qualitative data were collected and analysed at the same time, but priority is given to results derived from the qualitative data. The quantitative data is embedded within the qualitative data, and is used to support results from qualitative research (Hanson et al., 2005).

The hypotheses for the quantitative part of the study were formulated after the qualitative analyses.

A Grounded Theory Approach

The focus of qualitative analysis in this research is based on grounded theory as first articulated by two sociologists Barney G. Glaser and Anslem L. Strauss in 1967, and later developed by B. G. Strauss and Juliet Corbin in the nineties (Camic et al., 2003;Strauss & Corbin, 1998).

The central focus of grounded theory is that social theories should be “grounded in data from the field, especially in the actions, interactions, and social process of people” (Creswell, 1998, p. 56).

As the aim of this grounded theory study is to describe and compare the coping strategies adult Singaporean men and women use to deal with their experience(s) of having been sexually abused during childhood, research participants are selected on the basis of their ability to contribute towards an evolving theory on the central focus of this study (Camic et al., 2003; Creswell, 1998).

The coding process consisted of three main phases, open coding, followed by focused coding, and lastly, axial coding. Open coding entailed classifying segments of data with a short name that simultaneously summarised and accounted for each piece of data (Charmaz, 2006).

In line with Glaser’s recommendation of staying close to the data itself (as cited in Charmaz, 2006), coding principally with gerunds and action words were used to help detect processes. The earliest transcribed interview data was first coded word by word, segment by segment, and given initial codes to the phenomena of adult coping strategies for CSA.

Some questions asked at this stage were: What is this data a study about? What does the data suggest? Pronounce? From whose point of view? What theoretical category does this specific datum indicate? (Charmaz, 2006; Creswell, 1998). This phase of immersion in the first interview data is known as open or substantive coding, where repeated sorting, coding, and constant comparisons was conducted to determine whether the open codes generated through one data source also appear elsewhere in the same transcript.

The characteristics of these open codes were also compared to determine similarities or differences (Camic et al., 2003; Hesse-Biber & Leavy, 2006).

This was followed by focused coding. This phase was more directed, selective and conceptual, as the most significant or frequent open codes from the earlier phase were used to sift through the interview data again, in order to determine which of the open codes make the most analytic sense to categorise the data incisively and completely (Charmaz, 2006).

It is important to emphasize that the participants’ language, from their personal varied coping strategies, guided the development of the codes and subsequent category labels or themes (Strauss & Corbin, 1998).

As a consequence of the open and focused coding processes, concepts of coping strategies began to form, and these were grouped to coalesce into differing categories of coping styles (Creswell, 1998). Hence, an avoidance coping category represented a phenomena, composed of events, happenings, and instances surrounding avoidance coping.

Again using the constant comparative approach, attempts to “saturate” the categories, i.e., to look for instances from the data that represented the category, until new information obtained does not further provide insight into the category.

The final axial coding phase involved relating a category to their sub-categories (Creswell, 1998). For example, an avoidance coping sub-category included an analysis of its characteristics, its responses to issues, events, and problems, and its outcome of actions and interactions that form the multiple perspectives of an avoidance coping category (Charmaz, 2006; Strauss & Corbin, 1998).

Other coping categories or phenomenon have different constituent sub-categories. From this process, firm categories emerged.

The above process began with the first interview transcript, and with each succeeding transcript, data was coded, following closely the process described above. As additional transcripts were being coded, the process became more selective and refined as focus was on the “saturation” of categories.

Once categories have been constituted, and all the transcripts had been coded, the process of integrating the categories into preliminary hypotheses or theories is known as theoretical or selective coding (Strauss & Corbin, 1998). This phase, very practically, sought to derive a coping hypothesis as a result of childhood sexual abuse from the respective coping strategies derived from the earlier focused and axial coding (Charmaz, 2006; Strauss & Corbin, 1998).

Concurrent to the whole research process above, writing informal analytic and self-reflective memos ensued, making implicit thoughts explicit, thereby expanding the body of data (Charmaz, 2006; Strauss & Corbin, 1998). Memos consisted of questions, speculations, and reflections about the data, and links to existing theory and research.

Some noteworthy memos written during the research process referred to amnesia, dissociated thoughts, invisible friends, disclosure of abuse, gender identity and orientation struggles. Memo-writing and thinking through aspects of the codes and categories formed the most stimulating part of this research.

Finally, Creswell (1998) described the final phase of this study as developing a provisional template or diagram that explicate the conditions influencing the central phenomenon, viz., the coping differences between female and male survivors of childhood sexual abuse.

Justification for the use of the Mann-Whitney U Tests

As the population distribution for this study is small (i.e., 10 women and 12 men) and non-normal, a non-parametric approach was utilised to analyse the data. The Mann-Whitney U test was chosen. The test converts the scores on the test variable to ranks, and evaluates an enunciated hypothesis applied to the mean ranks of two independent groups to ascertain whether they differ significantly from each other.

Because analyses for the Mann-Whitney U test are conducted on ranked scores, the distribution of the test variable for the two populations do not have to be of any particular form.

Relevant material of my postgraduate thesis will be summarized in this blog over the coming weeks. Appendices, statistical tables, and bibliographical details are excluded.

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Coram Deo — before the face of God. This blog reflects on Scripture, world events, science, music, psychology, and the human mind — always through the lens of Christian faith. All of life is lived before the face of God.