Are you experienced?

The vast majority of work on older people's issues is carried out by people who are not old. They may unwittingly bring ageist assumptions to bear on the questions asked and the interpretations put on the answers. So, when we embarked on our three-year research project, Housing Decisions in Old Age, we recruited a group of older people to work as interviewers. We felt it would make the findings more reflective of the concerns of older people.

Project staff designed a two-term course in social research methods, validated by Lancaster University's Department of Continuing Education. Its goals were to educate students about research theory, address real-life practical issues and equip them with the skills to conduct in-depth interviews. Advertisements were placed in the local press and prospective students were invited to apply with a personal statement about their interest in the topic and reasons for wanting to do the course.

Students' personal statements included:

• "I have natural curiosity. I have developed an interest in this topic as a result of my work for the census."
  
• "I have an interest in older people, especially in their welfare. I feel sometimes their needs are not met or even considered."
  
• "I am facing the dilemmas myself and learning to tackle housing issues. Helping others to do so could be of enormous benefit to the community and to me."

We ran the course in Lancaster and then in London, and a total of 22 people, ranging in age from the early 60s to 75 years old, attended and subsequently received a certificate. Among these 13 women and nine men there were some who had left school at 14 and others who had obtained professional qualifications or degrees. Their working backgrounds were equally varied and included a retired GP, a former home help, a tax inspector, a police officer, a caterer, an engineering manager and a housekeeper.

Clearly, such a broad band of experience and educational attainment presents a huge challenge to adult educators. The two staff who designed and delivered the course found it hard work, not least because they were having to consider research issues such as recruiting the interview sample and designing the interview schedule alongside learning how to teach effectively. They also needed to provide supervision sessions to monitor and improve the quality of students' work – their interviews for the project.

Balancing these demands was difficult, but was offset to an extent by the fact that students had ideas on how and where to find people who might be prepared to be interviewed and also contributed to thinking on the interview schedule.

The students told us they wanted to go on to do other things. We realised we owed it to them to help them find ways of making use of their new skills and enthusiasm

Once students had done the theoretical work they began interviewing selected older people, for which they received a fixed fee. They produced tapes of the interviews so that they could be transcribed for research purposes and assessed as part of the award certificate.

A further unexpected dimension emerged when students who had completed the course, conducted the interviews and received the award, told us that they wanted to go on to do other things. The students spoke of "re-establishing feelings of self worth", and learning about themselves "even at the age of 68". We realised we owed it to them to help them find ways of making use of their new skills and enthusiasm.

Researchers for hire
So our project, which had not set out to become a job creation scheme, had an unplanned consequence: about 10 people in the North-west are now offering themselves as qualified, experienced social research interviewers. We had come to the realisation that they were an excellent resource that providers in the public, private and voluntary sectors could draw on to elicit consumer views. We were also aware that gathering such views is increasingly seen as an essential management tool for many organisations. Some of the group have been interviewing residents of sheltered housing schemes, while others are contributing to work on older people and alcohol abuse.

But that's not the end of it. As far as many of the group are concerned, they don't just want to conduct interviews, they want to influence the issues that get researched, and they want to analyse the information gathered. As a result, funding has been acquired to run another – much smaller – research project on older people as researchers that has included a series of educational sessions on developing research proposals and marketing their skills.