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SAGE Biographical Research

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Author: Susan Feldman, Linsey Howie

Pub. Date: 2013
Product: Sage Research Methods
DOI: https://doi.org/10.4135/9781446268537
Methods: Life history research, Biographical research, Narrative research, Oral history research,
Autobiography
Keywords: older people, life review, life histories
Disciplines: Anthropology, Business and Management, Criminology and Criminal Justice, Communication
and Media Studies, Counseling and Psychotherapy, Economics, Education, Geography, Health, History,
Marketing, Nursing, Political Science and International Relations, Psychology, Social Policy and Public Policy,
Social Work, Sociology
Access Date: September 18, 2023
Publishing Company: SAGE Publications Ltd
City: London
Online ISBN: 9781446268537

© 2013 SAGE Publications Ltd All Rights Reserved.

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Looking Back, Looking Forward: Reflections on Us-

ing a Life History Review Tool with Older People

SusanFeldmanMonash University, Victoria, Australia, [email protected]

Trobe University, Victoria, Australiahttp://jag.sagepub.com/content/28/5/62128 ppSAGE Publications, Inc.
2455 Teller RoadThousand OaksCalifornia91320United States of America
October 2009285621621637
Contact SAGE Publications at http://www.sagepub.com

Encoding from PDF of original work

Looking Back, Looking Forward: Reflections on Using a Life History Review Tool with Older PeopleSu-
sanFeldmanLinseyHowieJournal of Applied Gerontology28(5)(2009)621–637© 2009 The Southern Geronto-
logical Society. Reprinted by permission of SAGE Publications via Copyright Clearance Center's Rightslink
service.

The aim of this article is to examine the use of the Self-Discovery Tapestry (SDT) tool, a life history review
instrument, and its application to an Australian qualitative study of community-dwelling older people aged 80
years and more. The researchers set out to engage with older people through an innovative research ap-
proach that acknowledged their experiences and recognized their skills and capacities across the course of
their lives. The article reports and assesses this research instrument as a tool for gathering data in narra-
tive studies involving older people. It proposes that the instrument, with some modifications might be used to
further develop specific knowledge of aging to benefit research, education, and practice in gerontology. By
undertaking to critique the research processes, the authors hope to show the value of incorporating a critical
appraisal approach that may prove useful for strengthening further research in this area of inquiry.

Over the past four decades, gerontologists, social researchers, and allied health professionals have been
concerned with understanding and promoting the quality of older persons’ lives (Feldman & Poole, 1999). The
authors of this article set out to gather data using a life history review tool that respected older people as “ex-
perts” on their own lives and assumed some level of reflection, interest, and ability to analyze the meaning of
their life in their latter years. We selected an instrument that encouraged participants’ narratives to be co-con-
structed in a free-ranging conversation and supported the expression of ideas as they arose. We wanted to

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explore with the participants, their views about their key life transitions and changes, and their adaptations to
change. We anticipated that the participants would be interested to reflect on their lives and would take some
pleasure in doing so. However, we were cognizant of the debates concerned with the value and challenges
of life history review. Bornat (2002, p. 33), for instance, offers a succinct account of the key issues related to
reminiscence and life review research with older people and the potential for the evocation of painful memo-
ries in reviewing a long life (p. 38). Engaging with older people in reminiscence and life history review, Bornat
(2002) reminds us, “involves a certain element of risk” on the part of both the older person and researcher
(p. 41). Furthermore, Coleman, Ivani-Challian, and Robinson (1998, p. 415) observe that not all older people
wish to recall earlier life experiences.

Nevertheless, we considered Butler's (1963, p. 72) opinion that reminiscence and life review are valuable in
revealing a “personal sense and meaning of the life cycle” and “for those who listen there are rewards” and
selected a tool to obtain information specific to the research aims.

In an earlier narrative study, Howie, Coulter, and Feldman (2004) examined the importance of six older peo-
ple's involvement in traditional arts and crafts across their life span. The participants in this study indicated
how their chosen creative occupations (including paper making, wood crafting, painting, spinning, and weav-
ing) had developed their self-awareness and supported meaningful relationships. In response to questions
about the place of these activities in their lives, the participants spoke of their craftwork as a measure of how
their values, interests, and tastes had changed over the years, and confirmed some enduring qualities that
had served them well in later life. Their occupational identity, a term defined by Kielhofner (2002, p. 119), as
“a composite sense of who one is and wishes to become as an occupational being generated from one's his-
tory of occupational participation,” appeared important to their sense of well-being and commitment to future
action. Results from this study indicated how the participants’ sense of self in older age was maintained, in
part, through engagement in a creative occupation.

The aim of the study under discussion was to gain a more comprehensive understanding of what it is like for
older people to live into their 80s and 90s if they find their ability to maintain occupational interests is compro-
mised. This compromise, we considered might be due to varying circumstances, including diminishing senso-
ry perception or motor function, loss of relationships or changing environments, changes frequently cited as
accompanying the experience of growing older. In addition, we also aimed to record older people's reflections
on their experiences of health, and to elicit if there had been any changes to their meaningful leisure occu-
pations because of changes in health status. The opportunity was also taken to ask what leisure occupations

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they designated as important to their sense of self and their future.

Finding a suitable data-collection method that would best assist participants (all of whom were aged 80 years
and more) to chart their life story, and assist the researchers to make sense of multiple changes and adapta-
tions to change, was crucial to the conduct of the study. But furthermore, conducting a study that highlighted
the stories of older people was also of central importance. Our experience in a previous study (Howie et al.,
2004) confirmed how much these older participants valued the opportunity to reflect on lifelong interests and
creative occupations.

Project Methodology

At the outset of the study, we discussed our experience of, and the range of data collection methods available
to qualitative researchers to support older people to reflect on past life events in the process of telling their
stories (Hendrix & Haight, 2002; Webster & Haight, 2002). We selected narrative inquiry to guide the conduct
of the study as a qualitative research methodology primarily concerned with a person's retrospective telling
of their story (Goodfellow, 1997). Polkinghorne (1995) observed, the outcome of narrative inquiry is a story, a
product that “is a temporal gestalt in which the meaning of each part is given through its reciprocal relation-
ship with the plotted whole and other parts” (p. 18). As a methodology, narrative allows the researcher to an-
alyze and search for meaning in the participants’ subjective accounts of life events – their thoughts, feelings,
actions, and attitudes (Goodfellow, 1997). The researchers were informed by the writing of Ray (1999) who
encourages researchers to value older people's participation in research practices that contribute to under-
standing their lives. We took note of other narrative gerontologists (Gubrium et al., 1994; Kamler & Feldman,
1995; Ray, 1998) who ask researchers to critically examine their own assumptions about their research prac-
tices, and the effects of the research process itself on older participants. We were also informed by concepts
debated in narrative gerontology, which places special value on the alternative perspectives provided by old-
er people, as “a way of seeing issues that might otherwise be overlooked” (Kenyon & Randall, 2001, p. 16;
Randall & Kenyon, 2002).

Consideration was also given to Birren's concept of guided autobiography (Birren & Birren, 1996; Birren &
Deutchman, 1991). This methodology combines a written component within a life review process and is orga-
nized according to common life themes (Birren & Birren, 1996, p. 283). Guided autobiography is a research
strategy that encourages participants to reminisce, to “reconcile past events and behaviours into a coherent

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sense of self” (Birren & Deutchman, 1991, p. 6). The concepts of guided autobiography as illustrated by Bir-
ren's work were integral to our work, but our study differed in that we did not engage with older people in
groups but rather in individual interviews, whereas the focus of Birren's work has been applied more recently
within new technological settings such as the Internet (Vota & de Vries, 2001). With respect to our study, this
particular application as described in the work of Vota and de Vries (2001) reminded us that innovative meth-
ods such as visual or graphic representation had the potential to enhance communication with older people.

In this article, we critically reflect “ex post facto” on the use of a “visual” life review tool, the Self-Discovery

Tapestry1 (SDT; Meltzer, 2007; Meltzer, Abbott, & Spradling, 2002) used in a study conducted in 2003. We
selected this life review tool after considering the potential need for an explicit structure to support participants
to focus attention on specific topics and as a means to facilitate conversation about critical life events, transi-
tions, relationships, work, and creative occupations. Our choice of the SDT was made after reviewing a num-
ber of approaches to narrative research including those of Polkinghorne (1995), Goodfellow (1997), and Ray
(1998). Polkinghorne alerted us to two kinds of narrative inquiry: (a) paradigmatic-type narrative inquiry that
gathers stories as data to produce common themes across the spread of data collected and (bi) narrative-type
narrative inquiry that “gathers events and happenings as its data” (p. 5) and uses these to produce stories
that explain participants’ experiences of those events. Goodfellow proposed a process-oriented approach to
narrative inquiry. In a more personal account, she provided a chart of procedures entailed in collecting data
about a specific phenomenon, and explained how she arrives at an “expression of understandings” about
the phenomenon in her use of narrative inquiry methodology borrowed from Polkinghorne's work (1995). She
suggests using unstructured interviews, photographs, and letters as possible data collection methods but fur-
ther details are not supplied. How individuals make sense of, and give meaning to their lives, is of prime
concern to Ray (1998) who places special value on qualitative research methodologies that integrate the talk
of older people who offer authentic insights into their lives. According to Ray, taking this research approach
requires a rethinking about how to engage with older people in a meaningful way. None of these approaches
however, suggested the use of specific visual methods or tools to support participant recall or interpretation
of past events.

The SDT was selected by the authors, as the matrix design supports the orderly recording of past events and
experiences across a number of domains (e.g., personal relationships, education, and employment). The tool
provides a graphic representation of participant stories, which was deemed useful during data collection and
analysis particularly as the study we proposed involved researchers with different levels of research exper-
tise. The SDT differed from more conventional narrative or autobiographic methods because it was a visual

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approach that relied on the use of color. Participants were provided with a range of colored fine felt-tipped
pens and were encouraged to select a color for the horizontal lines that best represented life domains and
changes, or as Meltzer describes the process, “topics to be colored” (Meltzer, 2002, p. 172). Color in this
instance represented particular emotional experiences such as happiness or grief with the vertical lines rep-
resenting the significant events in their lives. The SDT provided a very immediate and orderly framework for
reflecting on a long life. The authors found that the visual aspect assisted the older people to recall significant
life events and experiences within a chronological framework laid out before them. It is on the surface a very
useful tool in supporting the recall of these events and emotions over the course of a very long life.

With funding and ethics approval from La Trobe University, Melbourne, to complete the first two stages of a
three-stage longitudinal study, “Older people's narratives of adapting to change in later life,” the researchers
sought participants who were able and interested to reflect on these aspects of their lives. The following dis-
cussion reflects on data collected in the first two stages of the study during face-to-face interviews in which
the participants completed the SDT and a follow-up telephone interview nine months later that asked partici-
pants to reflect on life changes, during the intervening months including health, environmental, or occupation-
al changes.

The Instrument and Its Application

The SDT, a life-review instrument developed by Meltzer (2001; Meltzer et al., 2002) not specifically designed
to be used with older people, was selected after careful consideration of the value and appropriateness of
the tool to support older people recall and record the many and varied experiences associated with a long
life. One researcher (LH) had experience of the SDT with undergraduate occupational therapy students, who
assessed their own occupational lives and used the tool in student research projects with people of varying
ages. After discussion with the author of the instrument, the researchers assessed that the SDT would pro-
vide a supportive structure for the initial narrative interviews with participants, and facilitate dialogue about
their occupational careers, periods of transition, or adaptation to changing circumstances.

The idea of occupational careers was first proposed by Black (1976) in the occupational therapy literature.
More recently it has been further developed in the occupational science literature (Meltzer, 2001; Russel,
2001). It is a term used in the literature on life course trajectories and is associated with shifts in worker or
other roles during a person's life course, which are influenced by personal, social, gender, class, or other vari-
ables. The concept of occupational careers replaced the previous use of roles in the occupational science

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literature. Occupational theorists have observed that people's ability to meet challenges to their usual or pre-
ferred occupations over a life time is accompanied by adaptations that serve to maintain a sense of purpose
and meaning, a process that supports a notion of “personal authenticity” (Yerxa, 1967) or “occupational iden-
tity” (Christiansen, 1999; Howie et al., 2004).

The SDT was created as a tool for data collection in Meltzer's (2001) doctoral dissertation, which examined
the occupational histories of 100 older adults of a mature age, higher degree, or tertiary students (women
and men). Drawing on life-course theories and research in adult learning and occupational therapy theory, the
instrument also used continuity theory and critical events theory (Atchley, 1999). The latter theory signals the
impact of significant life events, such as the birth of a child, divorce or illness on “usual patterns of behaviour,”
and proposes that turmoil and confusion accompany critical events along with “conflict, introspection, and ul-
timately resolution through a life review process” (Meltzer et al., 2002, p. 52). Atchley's (1999, p. 11) version
of continuity theory, asserts “[d]espite significant changes in health, functioning and social circumstances, a
large proportion of older adults show considerable consistency over time in their patterns of thinking, activity
profiles, living arrangements, and social relationships.” Thus these theories uphold investigations into endur-
ing aspects of human behavior, and adaptations made in response to disruptions or changing life circum-
stances. It was these elements that we aimed to capture through use of the SDT tool.

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Figure 1: Example of “Mary's” completed tapestry

The SDT is a single page form presented as a grid (with each square representing 1 year) and resembling
a tapestry when the grid is filled in with colored pens. Meltzer (2007, p. 174) reflects on how the tapestry is
analogous to “weaving one's life,” the warp and the weft representing the continuous threads and significant
interruptions experienced in a long life. Figure 1 is an example of the tapestry of one participant – “Mary” –
taken from our longitudinal study.

Meltzer (2002) describes the SDT as “an event-matrix with the column on the left divided into four sections
or domains” containing 24 “common life experiences” (p. 50). The domains documented by Meltzer, but not
identified as such on the instrument, are interpersonal relationships (family, work, religious), occupations (ed-
ucation, employment, individual learning, and interests), personal meaning (personal and family health prob-
lems and financial hardship), and disposition (turmoil/confusion as well as being creative, happy or unhappy).
In completing the tapestry, continuous experiences or events are recorded on the horizontal row and inter-
sected by vertical lines indicating critical or significant events (Figure 2).
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On review of the tapestry, the researchers confirmed its applicability to an older population over the age of 80
years, particularly after discussions with the author Phyllis Meltzer. The original SDT, however, only includ-
ed a 90-year span, and following permission from the author, the researchers made adaptations to allow for
the inclusion of an additional ten years incorporating a life span of up to 100 years. In addition, we enlarged
the tapestry to include additional space to record important events, jobs and careers, sports, and hobbies.
To facilitate ease of reading, we also increased the size of the columns and rows, and printed the tool onto
white card, rather than the buff-colored tapestry of the purchased kit ([email protected]). We assessed that
enlarging the tapestry would assist participants to fill in the grid more easily. “Mary's” tapestry illustrates the
completed grid (Figure 1).

Figure 2: Example of one section of tapestry grid

Participants

Purposive sampling guided the recruitment of older people who assessed themselves as in good health, who
were actively engaged in meaningful, leisure occupations and were able to reflect on their history of occupa-

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tional participation. Participants were recruited through the distribution of brochures and information sheets
to networks of community organizations, clubs, craft guilds, and learning centers catering for older people.
It was also expected that potential participants may be recruited through word of mouth. Eleven participants
aged 81 to 99 years were recruited into the study, the final sample comprising ten women and one man. One
participant died during the course of the study and was not included in the data analysis. Participants were
living independently at home in suburban Melbourne, in country Victoria and regional towns in Australia.

Data Collection

Interviews took place in the participant's home; the purpose and the procedures associated with the SDT were
carefully explained. The participants were encouraged to fill in the horizontal row to reflect the continuous
elements in their lives (e.g., years in school, work in paid employment, hobbies), and record discontinuities
or critical events (marriage, birth of a child) with a vertical line from top to bottom of the grid at the year the
critical (or significant) event took place. Lengthy discussion, reminiscences, and storytelling characterized this
process. As previously illustrated, “Mary's” tapestry (Figure 1) indicated as critical events her sister's illness,
her husband's addiction and later accident, along with her low moods, new jobs, moves to new homes, and
decision to undertake further study.

Participants were provided with a range of colored fine felt-tipped pens and were encouraged to select a
color for the horizontal lines that best represented life domains and changes, or as Meltzer describes the
process, “topics to be colored” (Meltzer, 2002, p. 172). Contrary to the researchers’ expectations, the partici-
pants chose not to fill in the SDT themselves and requested assistance from the researchers to complete the
grid once they had selected a color that resonated with the experience (e.g., black for low moods). Having
completed the SDT, respondents participated in a second telephone interview at a later date that was specifi-
cally designed to elicit a narrative of adapting to change over the life course and also to reflect on the process
of completing the tool.

Data Analysis

Each participant's tapestry was reviewed in conjunction with the interview transcripts. Their tapestries pro-
vided an immediate visual representation of both continuous and shorter term experiences interspersed with

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significant life events. In terms of this study's focus on adapting to changing circumstances and abilities, the
researchers could readily observe the influence of key events across the life course on education, relation-
ships, health, patterns of interest, and salient experiences. This information was further enhanced by a dis-
tilled verbal account of the participants’ reflections on important and life-changing events. The tapestry along
with the verbatim transcriptions of the interviews provided rich data to support the development of a core story
that the researchers created for each participant. Participants were provided with a copy of their completed
core story and SDT.

Following this process, the researchers identified themes common across each participant's core story. The
authors followed conventions for paradigmatic analysis of narratives outlined by Polkinghorne (1995) and
through a thematic analysis of the stories developed a critical argument with respect to these participants’
experiences of adapting their leisure interests in the face of changing capacities and circumstances.

Findings and Discussion

Findings

The findings of the study confirmed the central place of older people's leisure interests and participation in
supporting a sense of well-being in times of change and necessary adaptation to variations in health and
other life circumstances (Howie, 2005). These findings are reflected in the views reported by Coleman et al
(1998) about the capacity of older people to preserve “the central commitments, meanings and themes of
their lives despite loss of practical roles” (p. 393). Our study also revealed that for some participants there
was considerable sorrow associated with diminishing health, losses, and ability to maintain activity levels. For
some this was coupled with a fear of dependency and being a burden to others, whereas others expressed a
longing to remain active.

Discussion

This section is organized according to the central methodological and procedural issues emerging from the

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conduct of the study: (a) Assumptions about the tool, (b) Practical issues and applicability of the tool, (c) The
challenge of memory and recall, and (d) Lessons and future applications of the tool:

Assumptions about the tool. Reflecting on a long life and recalling significant events and relationships was
not necessarily an easy experience for the participants. Unlike one researcher's experience (LH) of using the
SDT with young adults, who delight in recording their lives on the tapestry, participants in this study found
completing the tapestry less rewarding. At the outset of this study we anticipated without question that the
participants would want to share their experiences of aging given their willingness to participate. We recog-
nized the importance of reflecting on our own role in conducting this study and the attitudes and assumptions
we brought to researching the lives of older people. Our experience indicated that the participants would rel-
ish the opportunity to spend time recalling past events, and the impact of these on their capacity to adapt to
changing circumstances. Given our past research experience (Howie et al., 2004), we also presumed the par-
ticipants would appreciate receiving the narrative we created from the SDT and the interview. Recognizing the
pivotal role of participants in research and providing participants with some tangible acknowledgement of their
involvement in the study was something we strove to achieve given our backgrounds in feminist approaches
to research (Reinharz, 1992), and understanding of participatory action research (Reason, 2000). In selecting
the research methodology we were also confident that it offered a framework that would “counter the negative
images of aging,” a point made by Ray (1999, p. 179) specifically in her research with older women. We were
therefore interested in the participants’ ambivalence towards the SDT and the core story we had compiled for
them.

Like Meltzer (2002), who found that younger adults she interviewed enjoyed completing the tapestry, partic-
ipants in our study gained insights into their own lives. However, although the tool was invaluable in ascer-
taining the key life transitions and adaptations to change across the participants’ life span, these older partic-
ipants did not celebrate the instrument in the way that we, as researchers had anticipated or hoped.

Practical issues and applicability of the tool. Despite modifying the SDT to accommodate older participants
in this specific study, it remained difficult for them to complete without considerable assistance. For instance,
choosing a colored pen to resonate with an experience, and an inability to “stay within the lines” of the matrix
caused frustration and concern to some participants and most participants asked the researcher to fill in the
matrix for them. Some participants were also concerned to “get the facts right.”

The challenge of memory and recall. The longevity of the participants meant that for some it was difficult to
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recall exact dates and sequence of events. Even recalling major events such as weddings, births, the death
of a spouse required extra effort and many could not indicate times of turmoil or confusion or when they were
happy or unhappy. The timing of past events did not appear to matter to them so much as completing the
tapestry “correctly.”

The participants’ reactions to completing the tapestry ran counter to the researchers’ past experiences of en-
gaging with community-dwelling participants of a similar age and health status. The participants explained
that defining responses to life events was not a simple matter. Situations and emotions merged in their mem-
ory, and dates could not always be recalled. Indeed, some could not see any purpose in making such clear
distinctions. Indeed, on completion of the study when we attempted to attribute dates to key life events, or
periods of contentment or unhappiness in our own lives, we also struggled to achieve the task. Knowledge of
younger adults’ responses to the SDT had not alerted us to the difficulties an older population might face in
completing the tapestry (Meltzer, 2001). Data were collected by experienced and senior women researchers
in the field of aging and a mature-aged honours student. Perhaps in knowing that several researchers were
involved in the study, we had been too eager to use an instrument that would support a systematic approach
to data collection. Although some readers may assess that the obvious reason for lack of enthusiasm for
using the SDT was associated with the compliance of older participants who had in reality lost interest, the
authors resist this interpretation believing that the complexity of the task itself, of staying within the lines, com-
bined with using a range of colors to represent complex life events and dates were a stumbling block to full
engagement in the tool.

We reflected that memories are not compartmentalized chronologically in ages and stages, a requirement for
completing the SDT. A passage from Narayan (1995) led us to reconsider memory, as it is used in reminis-
cence and narrative research with older people. Working with memory requires particular sensitivities on the
part of the researcher, a sentiment reiterated by Ray (1998). Narayan (1995) observed, at age 80,

Memory is one thing that needs to be curbed rigorously: For most of us recollection is painful – a
past moment brings on an overwhelming mood of sadness. To forget the past and live in the present,
relishing the quality of every moment as it comes and letting it also pass without regret, realising the
inevitability of the Eternal Flux, is the practical way to exist in peace. (p. 25)

We assert that researchers who work with this tool need to think carefully about the uncertain future facing this
population in contrast to younger or midlife adults. Self-discovery for a younger population may have greater
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meaning for people “looking back in order to gather themselves to move forward” to the next phase of their
lives (R. E. Ray, personal communication, January 16, 2008; Bornat, 2002).

Lessons and future application of the tool. In making sense of the participants’ difficulties with completing the
tapestry, we concluded we had underestimated the emotional demands on the participants in the process of
reviewing their long lives and translating their experiences onto the matrix. But why, we asked, had the SDT
constrained these participants rather than operate as a generative tool? As the researchers and participants
had worked together over many months during the conduct of this study and were familiar with each other,
we had no reason to believe that the older people lacked interest in this aspect of the study or had lost in-
terest in completing the work. Were the difficulties associated with the nature of memory and recall in older
age? Were the difficulties associated with the tool itself, or the participants’ concern that they could be judged
as “failures” given their completed matrix? Because the majority of the participants were women, we asked
whether gender played a part in their concern about how they would be perceived based on their final matrix.
We were cognizant of the possible effect associated with this cohort of older participants, which meant that
they maybe more likely to comply with instructions rather than reject them. Other writers including Coleman
et al (1998, p. 412) and Bornat (2005, p. 320) respond in part to our queries in their acknowledgement that
not all older people will necessarily delight in revisiting their past lives or retelling their stories. Nonetheless
our questions proved to be a springboard for further reflection about the tool.

We had often heard older people, when invited to participate in previous studies, respond with the question,
“why would you want to interview me”? They would then proceed to generously give of their time and views.
In this study, we were asking participants to reflect deeply on a wide range of significant events, actions, re-
lationships, and feelings, the completed tapestry displaying their life at a glance. We had not involved the
participants in the design of the study or the analysis of the matrix, and reflected whether this involvement
might have led to a more positive appreciation of the tool.

So what have the authors learnt from this experience? Although we had trialed the tool and altered it to be
more accessible for older participants, it is possible that a more participatory research approach would allow
older adults themselves to decide how and why they would reflect on their lives and what tools they would
use (Ray, 2007). Focus group research with older people would establish the value and appropriateness of
the tool in exploring changes across the life course. A matrix-based instrument that allows for more spon-
taneous recall of events, memories, and dispositions identified by participants rather than insisting on linear

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recall could be more encouraging and less threatening to this age group.

The authors offer the following recommendations for researchers contemplating the use of the SDT or de-
veloping a new life history tool for use with older populations. A demand to recall and complete details of
specific events should avoid the need for exact dates, times and places, and the sequence of events. We
acknowledge that gathering retrospective information from across the life course is valuable. This knowledge
can inform practice and improve relationships across the generations because we gather insight into people's
histories and how past life events shape present and future lives. However, our reading of contemporary lit-
erature and research has alerted us to the pitfalls associated with using life course review involving the recall
of key life events (Bornat, 2005).

Conclusion

In this study, we were again reminded that working with older people requires that we think about method-
ologies that are inclusive of the older person as collaborators in the research process, and account for the
power dynamic inherent in any research relationship (Bornat, 2002). Ray (2007, p. 87) reminds us that as
researchers we “cannot take for granted that participation in research is inevitably a positive development”
for older people and questions “who stands to benefit?” from these processes. Coleman et al. (1998, p. 394)
ask about the extent to which older people's perspectives are incorporated into an understanding of what
life history review means for people in the latter stage of life. We emphasize that it is critical that research
methodologies for studies involving older people facilitate meaningful relationships between the participant
and researcher to make sense of older people's narratives as they choose to tell them. Our experience has
shown that research tools appropriate to one generation may be contraindicated for use with another cohort,
a point also made by Coleman et al. (2002).

Our study raised questions for us as researchers and as midlife women. To what extent had we understood
and integrated into our lives, our own history of critical life events, and the impact of changing relationships
and environments, and experiences of loss? We contemplated Ray's (1998) reference to Gullette's discussion
on “age identity.” She stated the following.

Most researchers, including those who write historical biographies, are doubly constrained in their

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interpretations of lives: first by their dependence on the age constructs of their own era and second
by their ignorance of the social constructs under which the subject of the biography lived. (p. 105)

This article has demonstrated the value of adopting a critical appraisal approach of research practices to ad-
vance the use of specific tools in engaging older people in research on their life experiences. We hope that
in revealing our critical thinking about our research that we might contribute to the education of students, re-
searchers, and practitioners in the field of qualitative research.

Note

1. The Self-Discovery Tapestry can be accessed from Life Course Publishing or by emailing tapestryk-
[email protected].

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