I've been doing some research into what people inBritain think of doctors,the ones who work in generalpractice - the first call for medical care - andcomparing this with the situation in a couple of othercountries.I want to talk about the rationale behindwhat I decided to do.
Now I had to set up my programme of research inthree different countries so I approachedpostgraduates in my field in overseasdepartments,contacting them by email,to organisethings for me at their end.I thought I would havetrouble recruiting help but in fact everyone was very willing and sometimes their tutors gotinvolved too.
I had to give my helpers clear instructions about waht kind of sample population I wantedthem to use.I decided that people under 18 should be excluded because most of them arestudents or looking for their first job,and also I decided at this stage just to focus on men whowere in employment,and set up something for people who didn't have jobs and for employedwomen later on as a separate investigation.
I specifically wanted to do a questionnaire,and interviews with a focus group.With thequestionnaire,rather than limiting it to one specific point,I wanted to include as much varietyas possible.I know questionnaires are a very controlled way to do things but I thought I coulddo taped interviews later on to counteract the effects of this.And the focus group may alsoprove useful in future,by targeting subjects I can easily return to,as the participants tend to bemore involved.