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Is there no “I” in team? Potential bias in key informant interviews when asking individuals to represent a collective perspective

This paper sought to understand the extent to which, and how individuals use personal or collective language when asked to articulate sense of place from a collective perspective. Understanding a collective sense of place could illuminate place-based connections in natural resource industries, where...

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Autores principales: Fleming, Whitney, King, Brittany, Robinson, Kerrick, Wade, Eric, Erickson, Brian, Delie, Jackie, de Ycaza, Ricardo, Trimbach, David, Spalding, Ana, Biedenweg, Kelly
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8759660/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35030200
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0261452
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author Fleming, Whitney
King, Brittany
Robinson, Kerrick
Wade, Eric
Erickson, Brian
Delie, Jackie
de Ycaza, Ricardo
Trimbach, David
Spalding, Ana
Biedenweg, Kelly
author_facet Fleming, Whitney
King, Brittany
Robinson, Kerrick
Wade, Eric
Erickson, Brian
Delie, Jackie
de Ycaza, Ricardo
Trimbach, David
Spalding, Ana
Biedenweg, Kelly
author_sort Fleming, Whitney
collection PubMed
description This paper sought to understand the extent to which, and how individuals use personal or collective language when asked to articulate sense of place from a collective perspective. Understanding a collective sense of place could illuminate place-based connections in natural resource industries, where it is as groups or as institutions that organizations interact with the environment rather than as individuals. While there are well known methods for collecting information about sense of place at the individual level, there is a gap in understanding the best method to collect information at a collective level. We examined the use of key-informant interviews as a method to understand collective sense of place. In Bocas del Toro, Panama, ecotourism and environmentally based organizations are becoming more prolific due to abundant natural resources, making it an interesting case study for understanding sense of place from an organizational perspective. The use of personal and collective language is examined though in-depth semi-structured interviews from 15 environmentally-oriented organizations with a total of 17 interviews. This study specifically examined whether and how key informants, when prompted to speak for their organization, spoke collectively, reflecting a collective perspective versus their own. Methods included both quantitative analysis of personal versus collective language use frequency, and qualitative examinations of how individuals used personal versus collective language. Our results indicated no difference in the frequency with which individuals use personal versus collective language. We found that how individuals situated their perspectives into an organization reflects a complex personal and collective point of view reflecting five themes of personal versus collective language use: 1) sole personal perspective, 2) sole collective perspective, 3) distinction between collective and personal perspective; 4) organization perspective with insertion of “I think”; and 5) personal and collective perspective about organization and greater community. Our research identifies a previously undiscussed potential bias of key informant interviews. These findings have implications for how researchers approach collecting information beyond the individual level.
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spelling pubmed-87596602022-01-15 Is there no “I” in team? Potential bias in key informant interviews when asking individuals to represent a collective perspective Fleming, Whitney King, Brittany Robinson, Kerrick Wade, Eric Erickson, Brian Delie, Jackie de Ycaza, Ricardo Trimbach, David Spalding, Ana Biedenweg, Kelly PLoS One Research Article This paper sought to understand the extent to which, and how individuals use personal or collective language when asked to articulate sense of place from a collective perspective. Understanding a collective sense of place could illuminate place-based connections in natural resource industries, where it is as groups or as institutions that organizations interact with the environment rather than as individuals. While there are well known methods for collecting information about sense of place at the individual level, there is a gap in understanding the best method to collect information at a collective level. We examined the use of key-informant interviews as a method to understand collective sense of place. In Bocas del Toro, Panama, ecotourism and environmentally based organizations are becoming more prolific due to abundant natural resources, making it an interesting case study for understanding sense of place from an organizational perspective. The use of personal and collective language is examined though in-depth semi-structured interviews from 15 environmentally-oriented organizations with a total of 17 interviews. This study specifically examined whether and how key informants, when prompted to speak for their organization, spoke collectively, reflecting a collective perspective versus their own. Methods included both quantitative analysis of personal versus collective language use frequency, and qualitative examinations of how individuals used personal versus collective language. Our results indicated no difference in the frequency with which individuals use personal versus collective language. We found that how individuals situated their perspectives into an organization reflects a complex personal and collective point of view reflecting five themes of personal versus collective language use: 1) sole personal perspective, 2) sole collective perspective, 3) distinction between collective and personal perspective; 4) organization perspective with insertion of “I think”; and 5) personal and collective perspective about organization and greater community. Our research identifies a previously undiscussed potential bias of key informant interviews. These findings have implications for how researchers approach collecting information beyond the individual level. Public Library of Science 2022-01-14 /pmc/articles/PMC8759660/ /pubmed/35030200 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0261452 Text en © 2022 Fleming et al https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Fleming, Whitney
King, Brittany
Robinson, Kerrick
Wade, Eric
Erickson, Brian
Delie, Jackie
de Ycaza, Ricardo
Trimbach, David
Spalding, Ana
Biedenweg, Kelly
Is there no “I” in team? Potential bias in key informant interviews when asking individuals to represent a collective perspective
title Is there no “I” in team? Potential bias in key informant interviews when asking individuals to represent a collective perspective
title_full Is there no “I” in team? Potential bias in key informant interviews when asking individuals to represent a collective perspective
title_fullStr Is there no “I” in team? Potential bias in key informant interviews when asking individuals to represent a collective perspective
title_full_unstemmed Is there no “I” in team? Potential bias in key informant interviews when asking individuals to represent a collective perspective
title_short Is there no “I” in team? Potential bias in key informant interviews when asking individuals to represent a collective perspective
title_sort is there no “i” in team? potential bias in key informant interviews when asking individuals to represent a collective perspective
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8759660/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35030200
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0261452
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