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Obj. 2.1
Evaluate
semi-structured, focus
groups and narrative
interviews.
The types of interviews used in
Qualitative research:
• Semi-structured
• Focus group
• Narrative interview
1
• This technique is used to collect
qualitative data by setting up a situation
(the interview) that allows a respondent
the time and scope to talk about their
opinions on a particular subject.
• The focus of the interview is decided by
the researcher or research committee
and there may be areas the researcher is
interested in exploring.
KNOWLEDGE
• The objective is to understand the
respondent's point of view rather than
make generalizations about behavior.
• It uses open-ended questions, some
suggested by the researcher (“Tell me
about…”) and some arise naturally
during the interview (“You said a
moment ago…can you tell me more?”).
STRENGTHS?
•
Building a Positive Rapport between
interviewer and interviewee. Very simple,
efficient and practical way of getting data
about things that can’t be easily observed
(i.e. feelings and emotions).
•
High Validity. People are able to talk
about something in detail and depth. The
meanings behind an action may be
revealed as the interviewee is able to
speak for themselves with little direction
from interviewer. Validity increase with
reflexive interviews.
STRENGTHS?
•
•
•
Complex questions and issues can be
discussed/clarified.
The interviewer can probe areas
suggested by the respondent's answers,
picking-up information that had either not
occurred to the interviewer or of which the
interviewer had no prior knowledge. (i.e.
“in your last response, you spoke about
parental pressure that may cause high
levels of stress in I.B. seniors, can you
expound on that?”)
.
LIMITATIONS
• Semi-structured interviews are very
subjectively dependent on the
interviewers personal skill and
experience. (the ability to think of
questions during the interview, for
example).
• The inexperienced interviewer may not
be able to ask prompt questions. If this
is the case, some relevant data may
not be gathered.
LIMITATIONS
• In addition, inexperienced interviewers
may not probe into a situation.
• For example, if the respondents offers
an answer that may lead to new ideas
about a phenomena , the interviewer
needs to probe and find out the
reasons and ask for explanations.
LIMITATIONS
• Semi-structured interviews are
particularly prone to researcher bias and
participant expectations.
• “In particular, the sex , the age , and the
ethnic origins of the interviewer have a
bearing on the amount of information
people are willing to divulge and their
honesty about what they reveal”.
2
• Focus groups are a qualitative data
collection method effective in helping
researchers learn the social norms of a
community or subgroup, as well as the range
of perspectives that exist within that
community or subgroup.
• Although group interviews are often used
simply as a quick and convenient way to
collect data from several people
simultaneously, focus groups explicitly use
group interaction as part of the method.
KNOWLEDGE
They are “focused” in two ways.
• First, the group being interviewed are similar
in some way (e.g., limited resource family
members as a group, family service providers
as a group, local officials as a group).
• Second, the purpose of the interview is to
gather information about a particular topic
guided by a set of focused questions.
• Participants hear and interact with each other
and the researcher, which yields different
information than if people were interviewed
individually. Think about how this can be
beneficial?
STRENGTHS?
•
Focus groups are a highly effective method
for “listening” to participants. This method
truly adds the human aspect to research.
• Focus groups can be used to develop
ideas that can be tested through
interviews, surveys, or other research
techniques.
• They are usually a good starting point for
qualitative investigations.
Important note:
• Focus groups by themselves are usually
never used as a stand alone research
method. It is usually used in conjunction
with other methods (triangulation).
STRENGTHS?
• The Ability Of Group Participants To
Interact With Each Other
•
When participants are stimulated to
discuss, the group dynamics can
generate new thinking about a topic
which will result in a much more in-depth
discussion. Think about when this would
be beneficial?
LIMITATIONS?
• Subjects' compliance. Social
desirability, or respondents' motivation
to provide socially acceptable
responses to comply to norms is
somewhat greater in a group than in the
anonymous process of survey
questionnaire completion (Crowne &
Marlow, 1964).
LIMITATIONS?
• Focus Groups Tend To Become
Influenced By One or Two Dominant
People In The Session, thus making the
output very biased
• The moderator plays an essential role in
handling the situation, but if the
moderator is not experienced enough, it
is very easy for the whole discussion to
be dominated by a few people.
3
• The Narrative Interview is a qualitative
method that encourages and
stimulates interviewees to tell a story
about some significant event in their
life. These are usually called
unstructured interviews.
• Its basic idea is to reconstruct social
events from the perspective of the
researcher.
3
 Conceptually the idea of narrative interviewing is motivated
by a critique of the question-response-schema of most
interviews.
 In the question-response mode the interviewer is imposing
structures in a threefold sense:
(a) by selecting the theme and the topics,
(b) by ordering the questions and
(c) (c) by wording the questions in his or her language.
 Such data is said to reveal more about the interviewer's own
relevance structures than about the issues under
investigating.
3
 In Narrative Interviews, the goal is to achieve the
least amount of researcher influence as possible.
 The Narrative Interview process goes further than
any other qualitative method in avoiding
restructuring in the interview; it is the most
consequent attempt to go beyond the questionsresponse-type interview.
STRENGTHS?
• Useful with projects investigating
specific events, especially critical
issues, such as the how and why of
phenomena.
• Helps explore complexity of individual
experiences in incredible detail. (rich
and valid data)
• Not as prone to researcher bias.
STRENGTHS?
• The primary advantage of in-depth
interviews is that they provide much
more detailed information than what
is available through other data
collection methods, such as surveys.
• Sticking with the aim of qualitative
research, this research methods gives
the researcher an in-depth view of a
personal account of a phenomenon.
STRENGTHS?
• The narrative interview is
helpful when considering a
quality improvement initiative
from the perspective of
subgroups (such as the socially
excluded, the seriously ill, and
cultural bound syndromes
STRENGTHS?
• The narrative interview is
helpful when considering a
quality improvement initiative
from the perspective of
subgroups (such as the socially
excluded, the seriously ill, and
cultural bound syndromes
LIMITATIONS?
• Transcribing can be time
consuming and difficult.
• Data analysis can potentially skew
data and cause potential
researcher bias.
Questions?