Challenges and Limitations

Like many research studies, this project also has its own challenges and limitations.

Challenges

Throughout the process, we encountered several challenges. A few of the residents we approached during preliminary door-to-door interviews did not reply or could not commit to our project requirements upon scheduling for an in-depth interview, despite showing positive responses and interests initially. These participants could possibly provide additional inputs that are useful for the research findings. As a result, we had to conduct more preliminary door-to-door interviews to recruit at least 5 participants for this study.

Due to the difficulty in finding participants at the initial phase, the planned schedule was postponed. While the schedule is tight, we had to prioritize the participants’ availability for both the in-depth interview and filming. As such, we divided the team to conduct the in-depth interviews and shifted our personal schedules for the filming in order to accommodate the participants’ schedule and to complete the tasks efficiently.

We also realized that there were some inconsistencies in our participants’ stories during the in-depth interview itself, as well as during the different visits of interview and filming. Hence, we sought clarification from the participants to form a single coherent story from them and to ensure that we represent their stories accurately.

At the initial phase, our group had concerns about probing overly sensitive questions to the participants, such as asking more about their family problems or about their past. Afraid that we might not be able to obtain important insights from the participants because of our concerns, we seeked help from our professor and tutors to advise us on how to improve on asking such sensitive questions to the participants.

Limitations

The study’s representativeness is one limitation that should be taken into consideration. There were only five participants in total, comprising of four males and only one female. In addition, since our focus is on the younger estates, particularly the Northeast region, the participants recruited were mainly from Punggol, Seng Kang and Serangoon. This limits the generalizability of the findings to a wider population of low income Singaporeans aged 65 and below moving towards old age.

Time constraints is another limitation of this project, working with a timeframe of only 10 weeks, we felt that certain issues could be further explored by talking to the family members to have a more holistic understanding of the participants’ situations. Moreover, the participants’ voices could be well represented by incorporating more forms of participatory tactics, such as participatory video and photovoice. The scope that we could cover within 10 weeks was limited to a certain extent. Despite the limitations, our findings made several important contributions to the understanding of different social issues that Singaporeans face in daily life. Future study may explore more of such holistic understanding not just from the participants but with their family members as well, and to use more forms of participatory approaches to represent the participants’ voices with regards to this issue.

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