Competencies
- Ability to organize and conduct effective individual and focus group interviews with attention to appropriate selection and recruitment of participants, interview logistics, and interview structure.
- Ability to develop appropriate interview questions with consideration of wording, type, sequencing, and number.
Focus groups and interviews are qualitative research methods that excel at assessing lived experiences, opinions and social phenomena (Rowley, 2012). Instead of answering questions that demand (fairly) exact answers such as “How many students,” or “Did this type of change occur between the pre- and post-intervention times?”, these methods can provide valuable information to more general questions, such as “What was it like to attend ____?”, or “How can this program/department better serve you?” Qualitative methods are best used to answer “What,” “Why,” and “How” questions to provide information that can be used for decision-making purposes (Braun & Clarke, 2006).
Individual Interviews
As the name implies, this form of qualitative assessment requires researchers/practitioners to work with one participant at a time. This is helpful to ensure that all participants provide responses to all questions; however, it requires more time to collect data. Researchers conducting interviews begin with a brief description of their purpose before asking participants a series of questions known as an interview protocol. Individual interviews typically last between 30 and 90 minutes. Any shorter and the quality of the data may be reduced. Any longer and the participant may begin to tire, affecting their responses.
Focus Groups
Researchers can also utilize a focus group methodology by establishing a small group of participants to meet and complete interview questions at the same time. Focus groups offer the opportunity to gain more information more quickly, not just because practitioners gain multiple perspectives at once, but because the interaction between participants can generate more meaningful content than might occur if participants were interviewed individually. However, there is a risk that the group will not act cohesively and interact, or that some participants will not speak much at all. These concerns can be addressed through appropriate facilitation of the group’s conversation. Additionally, using a focus group methodology means that researchers/practitioners can only ask fewer questions than they might during an individual interview, because now participants are sharing the same amount of time in order to provide their answers. Focus groups are usually between 1 and 2 hours to ensure enough time is given to elicit meaningful responses without tiring participants.
How Much Structure?
Both focus groups and individual interviews exist along a continuum of structure (Rowley, 2012). On one end, structured interviews contain many questions that typically require short answers. This type also demands that the interviewer ask the questions in the exact same order to each interviewee. At the other end, unstructured interviews may have no formal questions, instead relying on general topics or prompts relevant to the information required by the interviewer. There may be no order to how the prompts are offered. This may be useful to encourage a participant to actively explore certain themes of interest without the researcher leading them on (Rowley, 2012). The most common type of interview protocol is semi-structured, in which there may between 6-12 questions and perhaps a few sub-questions (Rowley, 2012). There may be a basic order to the questions, but the interviewer is able to switch the order in the moment to create better flow.
The Interviewer
Unlike in quantitative methods, such as surveys, which do not typically require interaction with participants, in qualitative methods, the researcher’s identity and behavior matter! The role of the interviewer during an interview or focus group is that of facilitator. In an individual interview, the researcher must be able to draw forth additional information from participants, especially if they are brief in their responses. Conversely, if the participant is wordy, it is the interviewer's job to redirect to ensure all questions are answered in a timely fashion. In focus groups, the interviewer can facilitate conversation between participants to start the process of cohesion, which will ultimately lead to more, richer information.
Additionally, the interviewer must reflect on potential biases they hold towards the topic or participants. At times, biases manifest as specific behaviors that must be prevented to avoid influencing the participants and, ultimately, the data. The interviewer should strive for a middle ground of neutral, but interested, support in their interactions with participants.
Lastly, interviewers must also practice their listening skills. Even if the researcher knows or has developed rapport with the participant, it is best to not let this relationship overtake the interview (Jacob & Furgerson, 2012). The richest, most helpful part of a participant’s story may be lost if the interviewer interjects at the wrong time (Jacob & Furgerson, 2012). Participants may be influenced by the level of communication from the researcher, which can cause an interview to become a conversation that does not glean much important data. It may even be helpful to remain silent and nod to show that you are listening, or at times use minimal encourages (“Mmhmm” or “Yeah”), rather than using more lengthy interjections.
Sampling and Recruitment
When organizing an interview-based research project, a common question that arises is how many participants to recruit. The simplest answer is that it depends! How will you analyze your results? What methodology are you using? The goal for sampling is to reach “data saturation,” meaning that the researchers should complete enough interviews that any additional ones would not yield any new, meaningful data (Dworkin, 2012). In a project using a thematic analysis methodology, anywhere from 6-20+ participants may be appropriate; whereas, in grounded theory, a minimum of 25 participants is needed, and more would be ideal (Braun & Clarke, 2006; Dworkin, 2012).
Once you have determined your approximate sample size, the next decision to make is how your participants will be recruited. Depending on the program you are assessing, this process may be straightforward. For example, you may simply send a recruitment email to a list of attendees to an event or program. Other rules for effective sampling apply here, too, such as ensuring that your sample is representative of the population, and, similarly, that the sample contains diversity in its composition.
Physical Distance, Focus Groups, and Interviews
In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, conducting assessment that requires contact with participants may seem daunting. However, advances in video conferencing make it convenient and safe to conduct interviews or focus groups. Qualitative research can be conducted via the HIPAA-compliant version of Zoom, found below. It can be helpful to utilize Zoom even if it is possible to conduct face-to-face interviews, because Zoom allows for recording and transcription of the meeting. https://ufl.zoom.us/
Transcription
After the interview is completed, it should be transcribed into a text document and reviewed to increase familiarity with the content. Zoom has an automatic transcription feature that can be used to convert audio recordings to rich text format (RTF) files. Although this feature makes the process much easier than transcribing manually, the output file should be reviewed carefully for mistakes and formatted where appropriate to increase readability. Once complete, these proofread transcript files become “the data” that is analyzed to elicit results.
Data Security
In qualitative research, there are multiple files produced for analysis. All of these must be secured with the same attention that a single quantitative data set would be safeguarded. Zoom meetings are recorded and stored on their HIPAA-compliant servers; however, transcription files must be kept on password-protected devices.
Analyzing Interview and Focus Group Data
The overarching goal in the analysis of qualitative data is to uncover common themes, experiences, and sentiments behind participant statements that reveal meaningful information related to the purpose of the study. Typically, researchers using qualitative methods send a preliminary set of themes and findings to participants in order to verify that they still reflect the participants’ meanings and voices. More information about analysis will be provided in the next module.