The QOLI (See Appendix A-6) contains 32 items and normally takes only five minutes to complete. Participants were asked to rate each of the following 16 areas of life in terms of importance to their overall happiness and their satisfaction with the area: health, self-esteem, goals-andvalues, money, work, play, learning, creativity, helping, love, friends, children, relatives, home, neighborhood and community. Participants also had the opportunity to further explain their satisfaction ratings by listing specific problems that interfered with their satisfaction in any of the 16 areas. Administration of this inventory to participants closely followed the instructions provided in the manual including the availability of an assistant to answer any questions that might arise about the meaning of particular words or about how the test should be completed.

The Informal Interview: A Qualitative Approach

Quantitative research assumes a reality composed of social facts that can be hypothesized, and then statistically quantified, massaged, and measured in order to make limited generalizations (Fingaret, 1982). Qualitative research, on the other hand, focuses upon multiple realities, presenting a holistic pattern of interrelated differences and similarities awash in context. The use of quantitative questionnaires and qualitative interviews provides for interplay between reality as screened through consciousness and reality as vested in action. The Impact Survey entails answers to specific facts about adult learners’ lives. The QOLI requires participants to think about and rate their level of “life satisfaction.” The informal interview, or “unstructured talk,” encourages confidences, stimulates insights and can be genuinely enjoyable and helpful to participant and researcher alike.

Interview Procedures

The success of informal interviews in yielding information of value depends to a great extent upon the expertise of the researcher in establishing a “comfort level” that will allay fears and encourage participants to talk about sensitive issues. Since none of the research assistants were trained researchers, procedures were developed to assist them through the first few interviews and insure that there was consistency across the board. Interview procedures (See Appendix A-9) consisted of interview preparation, protocol, process, and prompt sheet.

During the interview training, each research assistant was provided with their award recipients’ stories and photographs as printed in Success Story booklets. They were asked to familiarize themselves with each award recipient’s history before making the initial contact. We learned over the course of the study that many potential participants worked split shifts and others were uneasy about receiving a call from a stranger. Persistence usually won out; only three of the participants who were contacted refused to take part in the study.

The interview protocol provided a scenario for the research assistants. They were trained to stress the significance of the project, explain that the information supplied by award recipients was extremely valuable and describe how a coding system would provide confidentiality for the facts and opinions provided by them in the course of the taped interview. After scheduling the place and time for the interview, research assistants were supposed to send out consent forms. Early in the process, we found out that it was best for the research assistant to bring the consent form to the interview and have the participant sign it at the time he or she was given a code name.