Having already undertaken initial research for submission to the Draft National Plan for Women (2001-2005), the group had earlier documented a number of poverty indicators and recommendations.  These were gathered via focus groups held during the draft plan preparation and by holding information evenings during the research process throughout the Peninsula (specifically, in Malin, Glengad, Carndonagh, Buncrana, Moville, Burt, Clonmany and Newtowncunningham).  Knitting these indicators together with other qualitative and quantitative research previously undertaken in Ireland and elsewhere, it was decided to create a structured questionnaire for personal interviews (not intended to be longer than one hour) with built-in scope for recording spontaneous responses from the participants.  A number of case studies were also planned for inclusion in the final report.  

It was also agreed that before completion of the report preliminary findings would be presented at a general meeting, the time and venue of which was to be decided at a later date (this was finally arranged for International Rural Women’s Day on the 15/10/02 and the outcome is reported in Chapter 12).  In addition, a copy of the report was guaranteed for every participant; these mechanisms were considered to be of prime importance in ensuring not only transparency but in maintaining the spirit of participation at every stage of the research process.  
1.3 Questionnaire Design

Having decided that reinventing the wheel was not on the agenda, a large databank of possible questions was assembled to fit the areas under investigation. A number of sources were used for this, notably The Northern Ireland Life and Times Survey (1998, 1999), Women and Employment Survey (1979), Poverty and Social Exclusion Survey of Britain Questionnaire (Gordon, Levitas,  Pantazis,  Payne,  Townsend,  Bradshaw,  Middleton,  Bramley,  Bridgwood,  Maher, & Rowlands, O. (1999), and from The Living in Ireland Survey 1998 (Layte, Maitre, Nolan, Watson, Whelan, Williams & Casey, 2001).  Some of the items and questions were subsequently adapted and changed by IWIN to suit their perception of local needs, language and culture.  The use of laminated response cards was considered by the group and agreed to be a helpful and useful aid to the administration of the questionnaire; the ultimate wording to be used on these was decided at a planned training day (discussed below).

In addition to the brief on poverty and isolation, the IWIN group wanted to investigate the particular advantages and disadvantages to living in Inishowen, women’s participation in employment, and other issues related to childcare and health.  The themes of the research were finally decided to fall under seven broad headings:  Life in Inishowen, Isolation, Poverty, Employment, Childcare, Education and Health.   It was also decided that it would be useful to incorporate a psychological measure of subjective well being into the questionnaire – the Satisfaction with Life Scale (Diener, Emmons, Larsen, & Griffin, 1985) was chosen because it was easy and fast to complete and has achieved high levels of validity in many settings around the world.

Reluctantly, concerns around crime, social networks, exploitation, domestic violence and self-employment had to be omitted (at least this time round) if the questionnaire was not to take up an unworkable amount of time for both the researchers and the respondents.  Despite attempting to reduce the number of questions, a total of 101 items still remained on the proposed questionnaire and it was decided to explore the time element of administering this at the training day for the researchers.  

It soon became clear that 101 questions were completely ‘out of the question’ if the interview time-span was to be kept to an hour or less.   The wording and format of the initial response cards also came under scrutiny and they were duly redesigned by agreement.  A series of further meetings succeeded (with some regret at the loss of scope) in reducing the draft questionnaire to 41 items.  A pilot study (ten respondents) was carried out at the beginning of May, as a result of which the questionnaire was further adjusted and amended to include four extra items, making a total of 45 questions in all (see Appendix B).

1.4 The Research Team

Ten members of IWIN had originally agreed to collect the data for the project; unfortunately, only five were available to undertake the research in the end.  It was agreed that they would be paid expenses and childcare costs (where appropriate). A few members of the team had some prior knowledge of research processes generally but all welcomed the opportunity to have direct and tangible experience of guided role play in relation to the proposed interviews before engaging in a pilot study.  The training day organised in conjunction with the research analyst and a representative from Second Chance Education for Women proved to be a huge success and a very worthwhile team-building exercise.  

1.5 The Research Sample

A total of 100 women living in Inishowen volunteered, as a result of the initial information evenings held in the Peninsula, to take part in this research.  Although not a random sample of the population and, therefore, not generalisable to the entire population, it can reasonably be claimed that it represents a fair cross section of Inishowen women in terms of residence, age, marital status, parenthood and employment.  In addition, it is worth mentioning that these women also form part of a wider family circle that comprises a total of 199 adults and 166