HFES Local Chapters Interviews

Project Background

In April 2024, I joined the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Local Chapters Committee, bringing the team to a grand total of two people: the committee chair, Christy Harper, and me.

As I began assisting Christy with the operations of the committee, I started realizing that we were missing some crucial information about how chapters operated. I proposed to Christy that we do some information gathering, starting with conducting interviews with HFES local chapter leaders.

The project blossomed into semi-structured qualitative interviews, where I interviewed nine current and former HFES chapter leaders representing six chapters across the United States. So far, the results of my research has informed updates to the HFES website, validated the idea to pilot a regional conference in April 2025, and informed efforts by the committee to rethink how local chapter leaders can form their own community and share chapter resources.

This case study summarizes the project and my efforts. The full research readout can be found below:

Objectives

1. Explore how current and past chapter leaders find fulfillment and purpose in chapter leadership.

2. Pinpoint where chapter leaders experience bottlenecks and frustrations.

3. Identify patterns and generate lessons learned from chapter leaders' stories and experiences.

Challenges

• Conducting research on a budget of $0, as a team of one, with a full-time job. As a volunteer, I wanted to do this research because I wanted to provide tangible value as a committee member, but unlike my previous experiences conducting such research, I wasn't getting paid to dedicate my time to it, nor did I have access to any paid tools. As a result, interviews were conducted over a period of three months to accommodate my work schedule, and I had to cram my use of Dovetail into a 7-day free trial.

• Lack of clear research outcomes. Both Christy and I didn't know what we didn't know – but we recognized that we had to start somewhere. The project was structured to be open to different possibilities and explore where they may lead. This constraint turned out to be a strength, encouraging more flexible and exploratory research.

• Providing detail about participants' experiences while also protecting their confidentiality. I knew that getting honest, unfiltered feedback about participants' experiences would be crucial for the success of my research, so I opted to anonymize participant feedback. I knew this meant that I would not be able to provide as many stories in my data analysis and that I would have to be extremely careful about what information I shared so as to protect participants' identities, but I decided that this was a necessary tradeoff to make.

  
  

Research Methods

Data Collection

I conducted semi-structured, one-on-one* remote interviews with current and previous HFES chapter leaders between September and November 2024. A total of nine leaders (8 current leaders + 1 previous leader) representing six HFES local chapters in the US participated in 60-minute interview sessions.

The qualitative data collected included basic chapter information, such as chapter programming, communication methods, and membership dues; participants' motivations for involvement in their local HFES chapter; and participants' experiences leading and participating in local HFES chapters.

I transcribed interviews in the first-person perspective to the best of my ability during my interview (again, research team of one). I used these notes as proxy transcripts and uploaded them to Dovetail for data analysis.

There was one exception to the one-on-one interview rule: one chapter leader joined the session and brought another member of their chapter for the conversation. Both participants were assigned IDs, and an additional session was scheduled to make sure each participant had enough time to share their thoughts.

Data Analysis

After data collection, I conducted preliminary analysis of the qualitative data using process coding by reviewing session notes to identify major themes across sessions.

I started by creating a codebook based on my preliminary notes and grouped them in three categories that aligned with the project's objectives: purpose in chapter leadership, local chapter journeys, and relationship with HFES.

I then coded my notes in Dovetail editing my codebook as necessary. All in all, only one code went unused and was deleted; a few more codes were consolidated and added as needed.

The coded data were then exported to an affinity diagram, where data were grouped by their assigned codes. The patterns that emerged from these groups were used to develop preliminary insights.

Individual data points were then assigned to each preliminary insight to provide granular, participant-level support for each insight, and insights were refined as needed to more accurately reflect their supporting data before being finalized.

More detail about my data analysis methods can be found in the report's appendix.

Recruitment

The majority of participants were recruited from a list provided by Christy Harper of engaged leaders who she nominated for participation. Of the thirteen members on this list who were contacted, seven participated in this research (n=7, response rate of 54%).

The remaining two participants were recruited by direct contact after being mentioned by name during an interview (n=1) and from a discussion post in HFES Connect in the HFES Main Member Community (n=1).

Outcomes

The insights gained from my research clearly indicated that local chapters were struggling to maintain a strong regional identity in a national society with an increasingly globalized culture, and the old model we were working with wasn't working for them anymore. Participants shared local chapter history, growing pains, and their own motivations for continuing to participate, even when they found it demoralizing.

The major findings of the research were as follows:

• Local chapters have traditionally been lively gathering places for local groups of HFE practitioners, but they can quickly fall apart when strong leaders transition out of their roles, sponsoring employees weaken their influence, or chapters lack a strong identity.

• Leaders are intrinsically motivated and eager to participate in the HFE community for their own self-fulfillment. They do not see it as a resume builder, although that certainly is a benefit.