I did not set up confidentiality agreements within the groups, but rather reminded people that it is impossible to guarantee confidentiality if they decided to reveal any personal information or stories about previous math experiences. I find this approach to be more ethical than asking everyone to agree to a confidentiality agreement, since if people trust me, they will often carry that trust over to the confidentiality agreement, when in fact their trust in me is not a good indication of the ability or willingness of other group members to keep confidences.
I was looking for adults to participate in the project who were:
There was no requirement for a specific level of math skills, nor was there any restriction on student status. Some participants were taking courses at VIU, others were not.
I recruited in two ways: directly to parents and indirectly to social workers, teachers, and other professionals who I hoped would refer their clients to me. Recruiting began in June, 2007, intensified in September for groups starting in September, and continued into January 2008, as table 1, page 15, shows. It was harder than I expected to recruit participants, and I found it necessary to double my efforts, even after the first two groups started to meet, to continue to attempt to form new groups.
I was worried that it might be hard to recruit participants to come and do math, given that I was looking especially for people who did not have high levels of education, who might well resist doing anything they perceive as academic, especially math. I took several steps to reduce this resistance:
First, I put my picture on the poster because I am well known in the community, and well liked by nearly all of my students and ex-students. Over my 20 years at Cowichan campus I have seen many adult students who might remember my face but not my name.
Second, when I talked to groups of potential participants, I did some activity that involved the kinds of things we would be doing at the group—active, fun, “not real math,” as non-threatening as possible, and with no right answers.
Third, I offered an honorarium to be paid at the initial interview and test and at the final interview and test; there was no honorarium for attending group sessions. When I talked about the research project, I made it clear that people could drop out at any time, with no penalty. Usually when I said that people could drop out at any time without penalty, someone would poke his neighbour in the ribs and mutter something about it being an easy way to make some money—write the test, get paid and never come back. I always took the opportunity to repeat that I was okay with that—come for the preliminary interview and test, and drop out without question or penalty whenever it suited you. I was betting that I could use the initial contact to let people see how informal and un-math-like I could be.