Five social science students from the University of the West of England (UWE) were invited, as volunteers, to participate in this study to enable them to gain first-hand experience of primary social research methods. Two additional volunteers, from UWE's Social Science in the City™ Tart Café seminar series also helped with the facilitation and recording of thoughts and feelings of Lockleaze residents. Both volunteers have a background in social work and have been involved in the collation of stories and interviewing of older people in their former professional working lives. Another volunteer, Peter Archer, a freelance journalist with an interest in oral history, also took part in recording experiences.

Training prior to the event

As part of their degree at UWE, social science undergraduates are trained in quantitative and qualitative research methods. They were given additional training prior to the Lockleaze event. This included discussion and practice relating to building rapport between researchers and research participants, exploring ethical issues relating to the study, training in verbal and non-verbal communication, and listening and recording skills. Students were trained in interviewing techniques, which allowed for the building up trust, rapport and the elicitation of as much information as possible. They were advised to keep their questions open and to avoid questions that closed down opportunities to reflect.

We also discussed matters relating to team-working, the maintenance of role and boundaries relating to that role, and the importance of careful listening and the use of prompts to elicit further information. The students were primed on the aims of the event and were given the opportunity to discuss critical methodological issues as these relate to focus groups, the facilitation of discussion and one-to-one interviewing techniques.

The research process is itself a social encounter and the subjectivity and feelings of researcher and ‘researched’ entered into ‘focus group’ discussions and one-to-one interviews. What the student researcher chooses to represent is as crucial as the researcher's perceptions of those being ‘researched’. This is the case for all social research but acquires additional dimensions depending upon matters of class, gender, ethnicity and age. In the context of the latter, three of the student researchers were female and two were male.