Reflection on Doing Qualitative Research: Interviewing Silent Women

Abstract

Work-family balance has become one of the most researched topics in the work and family literature. Deemed as an emotion-laden topic, investigation of the issue poses challenges and obstacles. This paper describes the challenges the researcher experienced in collecting data for her doctoral dissertation on work-family balance experience of professional Omani women, in the Sultanate of Oman. Situated in a culture where women were historically described as ‘the silent one’, getting them to open up about their experience poses an additional challenge. Ethnographic open-ended interview had been used as primary data collection tool.

DOI: 10.5901/jesr.2014.v4n2p234