TPC-Journal-V4-Issue1

61 The Professional Counselor \Volume 4, Issue 1 personal feelings of invisibility, the first author decided to make a conscious effort to suspend self-knowledge about invisibility in order to entirely engage in the experiences of the participants. While bracketing personal experiences was challenging, it was an important step in ensuring that as the researcher, the author (a) treated the participants with empathy, (b) put forward the lived experience of the participants and not personal experi- ence, and (c) maintained the trustworthiness needed to support the essence of the study, while also reporting the findings. To avoid inferring assumptions or biases related to the topic, the first author used reflexive journaling throughout the data collection, data analysis and reporting of findings. Journaling allowed the author to main- tain the trustworthiness, or the ability to ensure that the voices of the participants, and not the author’s own, were present in the study (Hunt, 2011). During reflexive journaling, the author wrote about experiences as the primary researcher, including experiences during the interviews, about feelings, thoughts, and reactions to newly discovered information, as well as emerging awareness of the phenomenon. The author often referred back to personal writing with the goal of separating perceptions from the actual information relayed by partici- pants. Reflexive journaling increased the level of self-awareness and allowed the author to maintain trustworthi- ness throughout the study. Method Participants Purposeful sampling was used in qualitative research to select participants who could provide a description of the phenomenon being studied (Creswell, 2007). A snowball sampling process was used to select participants for the study. That is, initial participants were identified, interviewed, and then asked to provide the names of other individuals who might be interested in participating in the study. Individuals selected as participants had to be willing to recall and describe their experiences related to the phenomenon. Seven African-American males, ages 34–47, participated in the study. All participants identified as middle class, and five had an educational level beyond high school graduation (four master’s level and one doctorate level). Five of the participants were born in the southeast US and two were born in the northeast US. The par- ticipants also reported their familial status: one participant was single, five were married with children, and one participant was in a committed live-in relationship. Data Collection Procedures The participants’ subjective, personal perspective and interpretation of the phenomenon was explored. The participants engaged in semi-structured interviews by responding to interview questions and engaging in dis- cussion related to the phenomenon. The semi-structured interview questions used in this study derived from re- viewed literature on invisibility and racial identity development (Cross, 1991; Cross & Vandiver, 2003; Dubois, 1903; Parham, 1999). Interview questions focused on the derivation of the participants’ identity development, invisibility experiences (i.e., have you ever felt invisible?), ability to cope with invisibility, overall behaviors resulting from invisibility syndrome, and potential counseling to improve and/or nurture identity development. Participants signed Institutional Review Board-approved documents prior to participating in interviews for the study. Participants agreed to allow direct information from the interviews to be utilized within the study. Data was collected in April and May 2011. Interviews were held either face-to-face or through telephone con- ference. Face-to-face interviews took place at various locations (e.g., library, office). Interviews and discussion lasted approximately 1–1.5 hours. All interviews were audio recorded and transcribed.