Qualitative Sampling

Question:
how do you sample your respondents?

My response:
Need to be intimate with the contextual structure e.g how they can be accessed, how do they organised among themselves. I had 2 options: accessing through teaching hospitals and support groups. The later option proved to be less troublesome, do not have to go through the trouble of getting ethical approval from hospital ethic committee. Now I knew that would be two active support groups: BCWA and Kanwork. I ve tried both but only successful with Kanwork. The sampling techniques goes like this: find potential informents who fullfilled sampling criteria, ask recom from Kanwork comm members and earlier respondents, then snowballing. To unsure I got the right one, ask few questions before going into deep interview. hope this helps.

Question:
About my sampling, at first I use , the site gatekeeper that is the nurse working at CRC, Hospital Putrajaya to recommend survivors whom she thought would be appropriate for my study (i.e., meet the inclusion criteria ) and ask each individual for consent to give me the individual's name; then I would contact the individual. The snowball technique took over when interviewees recommends other survivors who might qualify for the study. In the middle of the interviewing process, I realise that interviewees whom I had acquainted with through Kanwork, were much more open. The rapport was instant with them and I strongly feel that this rapport is necessary for the sharing of sensitive and personal stories - some of these stories wouldnt and couldnt be told even to people closest to them. Their familiarity and trust with me as the interviewer allow them to open up more. So in my sampling, out of 10, only 3 were not Kanwork members. In my case, all of the interviewees live in Klang Valley area which is attractive because it put less strain on the researcher's tight schedule of study leave timeline, was less expensive to conduct and made partcipant checks of transcripts more reasonable. Do you think this is defendable?

My response:
Regarding your queries, several points of concern:
1. Just be mentally prepared that sometimes snowballing does not work, this depends on your criteria that you predetermined. In that case, just keep on asking thoser in the know, the gatekeeper or those who have informal network of friends.
2. Please read Prof Maznah;s article on inside-outside positionality. In your case, you are 'inside', as you get involved with Kanwork. But sometimes, as long as you could break the psychological barrier, you are better in 'outside' position, for example there's some info about Kanwork, probably not so positive, she can freely express it. But if your are 'inside' meaning you are identified with Kanwork, that info will not be expressed for concern of social desirability. Anyway, just declare your bias in your methodology chapter.
3. Your effort of familiarization to 'enter their own world' is commendable, but please observe the principle of neutrality, do not get emotionally involved as a researcher need to be neutral but at the same time reflexive (Mason). If this happens, just take a little break in order to gain your composure.
4. Regarding your stmt "In my case, all of the interviewees live in Klang Valley area which is attractive because it put less strain on the researcher's tight schedule of study leave timeline, was less expensive to conduct and made partcipant checks of transcripts more reasonable" please do not mention this in your thesis or in the viva. You should defend your choice of Klang Valley, this is your boundary. E.g you might say KV was chosen because of its uniqueness, it is where the best example of urbanised society. No, it is not defendable. Please read Cresswell (1998, p. 249) regarding 'bounded system', study myust be bounded by time and place.