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Introduction to Doctoral Research

Introduction to Doctoral Research. Qualitative Research: Interviews and Focus Groups David Piggott. Data collection methods (or tools). Interviews: Length/depth/openness; Degree of structure; ‘Validity’ and ‘reliability’. Focussed group interviews (see Merton, 1987): Composition;

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Introduction to Doctoral Research

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  1. Introduction to Doctoral Research Qualitative Research: Interviews and Focus Groups David Piggott

  2. Data collection methods (or tools) • Interviews: • Length/depth/openness; • Degree of structure; • ‘Validity’ and ‘reliability’. • Focussed group interviews (see Merton, 1987): • Composition; • Power relationships; • Recording context.

  3. Intensive or Extensive? (Sayer, 2010) Life history Interviews Focus Groups Structured Depth of response (dialogue) Scripted interviews Surveys Sample size (generalisability)

  4. Interviews • Seven stages (Kvale, 2009: p. 88): • Thematizing (what to study and why); • Designing (consider all 7 steps); • Interviewing (questions and interpersonal relationships); • Transcribing (accuracy vs. time); • Analysing (content analysis, discourse analysis etc.); • Verifying (‘validity’ and ‘reliability’); • Reporting (ethics, conventions, audience). Ontology Epistemology Methodology ?

  5. Conduct an interview • Guiding question: What problems do postgraduate students face during induction at the University of Lincoln? • Before you start: • Decide how structured you want your interview to be (i.e. how deductive or leading); • Consider who to interview (e.g. common interests or experiences, existing relationships); • Consider how to ensure the data are ‘valid’ and ‘reliable’(or argue why this isn’t possible).

  6. FGIs “a FGI is taken as a source of new ideas and new hypotheses, not as demonstrated findings with regard to the extent and distribution of… patterns of response” (Merton, 1987)

  7. Conduct a FGI (4 participants, 1 facilitator, 1 optional observer) • Guiding question: How do postgraduate students feel about increases in tuition fees? • Before you start, consider: • Composition (pre-existing group vs. random selection); • Power relationships (do you intervene to prevent individual domination of discussions or not?); • Recording context (would it be of value to employ a second researcher to make notes on body language etc.?); • In reality you would also make the same considerations taken with interviews.

  8. Further reading Books • Kvale, S. (2009) InterViews: An Introduction to Qualitative Research Interviewing. London: Sage. • Barbour, R. and Kitzinger, J. (1999) Developing Focus Group Research: Politics, Theory and Practice. London: Sage. Articles • Wilkinson, S. (1998) Focus Group Methodology: A Review, International Journal of Social Research Methodology, 1, pp. 181-203.

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