Findings
After formulating a list of questions and possible responses, we went out into the field and asked our colleagues and Irish citizens if they would answer a few questions about St. Patrick's Day and if they were okay with us filming them.
We thought that since we are Americans studying in a new culture that it would be interesting to study a different perspective on what we consider to be the most famous Irish holiday: St. Patrick’s Day. We set up our line of questioning to cater to both Irish citizens and American citizens, and were hoping to get a cross section of participants for our final video. What we found beyond a misconception about the holiday and its origins was an even deeper seeded difference in the sharing and privacy of an individual and their inner thoughts and opinions. |
As we went out to ask our first subject, we immediately hit a brick wall at the pharmacy on Dublin City University’s campus. Both the pharmacist and the clerk were visibly uneasy about sharing information and being on camera. After a considerable amount of persuasion, the pharmacist agreed to be on camera answering questions but refused to allow the footage to be seen by anyone outside of our small class, especially anywhere on the web. Discouraged, we trekked over to the reception desk at DCU and asked the receptionist if she would be willing to participate. She was uncomfortable as well and again, after some persuasion and a little help from JP, she agreed to be videotaped after work and refused to allow us to use the footage for anything other than film editing practice.
As we regrouped and quickly reflected as to why we might be having such a hard time getting permission to use these Irish citizens footage, Brent made an excellent point of checking into the cultural aspect of privacy and what differences there might be. As we started walking back towards the dorms, we ran into two girls who had overheard our conversation. One was an American citizen and she volunteered to be interviewed, while the other one immediately said that she was “camera shy” and would not be on film. This was yet another example of the stark differences in opinion and willingness to be filmed answering personal opinion and belief probing questions.
After class, we went back out and tried to approach some different Irish people and see if they were still unwilling. This time, we had some luck. We were able to video record, with full usage consent, five Irish citizens and additionally three were willing to be audio recorded. Upon reflection, we realized that we were approaching people while they were at work. We assumed that because they didn't look busy, they would be willing to be on camera for two quick minutes. The second time we went out, we approached mainly people who were not working and that is where we saw the results we needed. We realized that it was wildly inappropriate for us to assume that people working reception-service type jobs where there is "down-time" would be available to be filmed, and were able to take away a really good lesson in approaching possible participants in a much more professional manner.
Continuing into the research process, we sat down and watched all of the clips back-to-back. We started to try to tally data and collect what we found. This was extremely difficult! All the answers were either inconsistent or the participants eventually cleared up their own misunderstandings of why we celebrate St. Patrick's Day. We met with Leigh numerous times to try to find a common thread of misconception that we could pull from our data and research. After watching the videos a few more times, we realized that our line of questioning was the root of the problem with our data. We were asking elicitation questions that eventually lead some of our participants into clearing up these misconceptions on their own (Fisher, 2010). This made it hard to collect data because while someone may have started out with a misconception, by the end of our interviews, many were able to figure it out by correctly interpreting our follow-up questions. For example, when we asked, "Do you know what religion St. Patrick has to do with?" Our participants were able to easily make a background knowledge connection between Catholics having Saints, and therefore St. Patrick must be Catholic.
Once we figured out that our questions were what was making our data so inconsistent, we realized that if we focused on just the snake myth, our questioning during those clips was actually geared more towards elaboration (Fisher, 2010). For example, if someone responded about the snake myth, we asked, "Can you tell me more about that story?" In retrospect, more open-ended questions where people are free to come up with their own thoughts and ideas elicited much more open responses where people really toyed with their own misconceptions about the snake myth.
Eventually, we decided that there was a small trend in eleven of twenty-two subjects who all mentioned the snake myth that surrounds St. Patrick and what he did in Ireland. Three of these eleven were Irish citizens, but this did not change how they interpreted the snake myth. Once we met with Kristen, this idea really started to take shape. We came up with a base concept of myth interpretation: conceptual vs. literal.
We found that only 18% or 2 out of 11 subjects interpreted the snake myth in a conceptual way where they explicitly said that the snakes have a religious meaning. The remaining 82% or 9 out of 11 subjects were not able to conceptualize the religious snake symbolism and mentioned this myth in a literal context. During our research, we found that, "Theories of myth interpretation may be roughly divided into two major groupings: literal and symbolic," (Dundes, 1988). Looking at the misconception of how people interpret myths, we found it very interesting that adults hear myths and believe them at face value. They still interpreted the St. Patrick myth to be literally talking about snakes.
Out of the two participants that did interpret the snakes in a conceptual way, only one correctly conceptualized them to symbolize the Pagan religions in Ireland at that time. Our research highlights that a very large percentage of adults, both Irish and American, have a misconception of the meaning of mythical symbolism, specifically the St. Patrick snake myth, and do so in a literal way.
As we regrouped and quickly reflected as to why we might be having such a hard time getting permission to use these Irish citizens footage, Brent made an excellent point of checking into the cultural aspect of privacy and what differences there might be. As we started walking back towards the dorms, we ran into two girls who had overheard our conversation. One was an American citizen and she volunteered to be interviewed, while the other one immediately said that she was “camera shy” and would not be on film. This was yet another example of the stark differences in opinion and willingness to be filmed answering personal opinion and belief probing questions.
After class, we went back out and tried to approach some different Irish people and see if they were still unwilling. This time, we had some luck. We were able to video record, with full usage consent, five Irish citizens and additionally three were willing to be audio recorded. Upon reflection, we realized that we were approaching people while they were at work. We assumed that because they didn't look busy, they would be willing to be on camera for two quick minutes. The second time we went out, we approached mainly people who were not working and that is where we saw the results we needed. We realized that it was wildly inappropriate for us to assume that people working reception-service type jobs where there is "down-time" would be available to be filmed, and were able to take away a really good lesson in approaching possible participants in a much more professional manner.
Continuing into the research process, we sat down and watched all of the clips back-to-back. We started to try to tally data and collect what we found. This was extremely difficult! All the answers were either inconsistent or the participants eventually cleared up their own misunderstandings of why we celebrate St. Patrick's Day. We met with Leigh numerous times to try to find a common thread of misconception that we could pull from our data and research. After watching the videos a few more times, we realized that our line of questioning was the root of the problem with our data. We were asking elicitation questions that eventually lead some of our participants into clearing up these misconceptions on their own (Fisher, 2010). This made it hard to collect data because while someone may have started out with a misconception, by the end of our interviews, many were able to figure it out by correctly interpreting our follow-up questions. For example, when we asked, "Do you know what religion St. Patrick has to do with?" Our participants were able to easily make a background knowledge connection between Catholics having Saints, and therefore St. Patrick must be Catholic.
Once we figured out that our questions were what was making our data so inconsistent, we realized that if we focused on just the snake myth, our questioning during those clips was actually geared more towards elaboration (Fisher, 2010). For example, if someone responded about the snake myth, we asked, "Can you tell me more about that story?" In retrospect, more open-ended questions where people are free to come up with their own thoughts and ideas elicited much more open responses where people really toyed with their own misconceptions about the snake myth.
Eventually, we decided that there was a small trend in eleven of twenty-two subjects who all mentioned the snake myth that surrounds St. Patrick and what he did in Ireland. Three of these eleven were Irish citizens, but this did not change how they interpreted the snake myth. Once we met with Kristen, this idea really started to take shape. We came up with a base concept of myth interpretation: conceptual vs. literal.
We found that only 18% or 2 out of 11 subjects interpreted the snake myth in a conceptual way where they explicitly said that the snakes have a religious meaning. The remaining 82% or 9 out of 11 subjects were not able to conceptualize the religious snake symbolism and mentioned this myth in a literal context. During our research, we found that, "Theories of myth interpretation may be roughly divided into two major groupings: literal and symbolic," (Dundes, 1988). Looking at the misconception of how people interpret myths, we found it very interesting that adults hear myths and believe them at face value. They still interpreted the St. Patrick myth to be literally talking about snakes.
Out of the two participants that did interpret the snakes in a conceptual way, only one correctly conceptualized them to symbolize the Pagan religions in Ireland at that time. Our research highlights that a very large percentage of adults, both Irish and American, have a misconception of the meaning of mythical symbolism, specifically the St. Patrick snake myth, and do so in a literal way.
By: Angela Marocco, Brent Zeise, Katie Anderson MAET Year 2 Overseas 2012