Individual Qualitative Interviews
Aspects of the Interview Guide were developed with the full team at the ICOI Summit and finalized by Sepali Guruge (Project Director) and Oona St-Amant (Ontario Provincial Lead and critical ethnography lead for the project). The research assistants (RAs) also received comprehensive training on conducting qualitative interviews. These sessions focused on equipping the RAs with the necessary skills to engage with immigrant older adults effectively, ensuring that interviews were conducted ethically and in a culturally sensitive manner. The training covered topics such as building rapport with participants, asking open-ended questions, active listening, and handling sensitive topics. This training was essential in ensuring that the RAs were well-prepared to conduct high-quality, meaningful interviews and gather rich, insightful data for the project.
In collaboration with our community partners, the ICOI research assistants at various study sites conducted interviews with 207 immigrant older adults. In June 2024, we held bi-weekly Nvivo training sessions for five research assistants, ensuring at least one assistant from each province was involved. These research assistants are currently engaged in coding the individual interview data. The sessions, facilitated by a PhD student from the University of Victoria, were conducted via Zoom, recorded, and made available to the trainees for later reference.
REB approval for participant observations
In March 2024, we obtained approval from the TMU Research Ethics Board to carry out participant observation activities. Moving forward, we will focus on securing Research Ethics Board (REB) approval at our partner institutions. We will work closely with the ethics committees at our partner institutions to address any specific requirements or adjustments they may request. Once approval is granted, we will proceed with training our research assistants, who will be hired to engage in participant recruitment and participant observation data collection.