The RRC has a history of integrated quantitative approaches where we have both developed and further validated measures related to the study of resilience, and conducted large surveys that have included a broad variety of measures. While we do ask youth to complete long questionnaires, we do this one-on-one with a researcher whenever possible. We also try to make the process highly interactive and personable. We train our researchers to administer this questionnaire so it feels like a conversation. We always read each question aloud to the youth, giving them the option of whether they want to record the responses or if they would prefer we do. This circumvents the youth having to disclose to the researchers that they are unable to read or write which helps to set the tone for the process.

When undertaking taking qualitative research, the RRC believes that the interview should be a conversation rather than a traditional question-answer interview. As such, we use semi-structured interview guides and train our researchers extensively so that they understand the core questions we are trying to answer. This gives them the confidence and freedom to “follow” the youth where they guide us as researchers. In our experience, if a topic or question is not relevant or important to youth, they do not elaborate, while if something is of importance to them or has greatly influenced or impacted them, they have a lot to say about the topic.