Evaluate semi-structured, focus groups and narrative interviews .

1. Evaluate semi-structured, focus groups and narrative interviews. Obj. 2.1

2. The types of interviews used in Qualitative research: • Semi-structured • Focus group • Narrative interview

3. 1 SEMI-STRUCTUREDINTERVIEWS • 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.

4. GENERAL 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?”).

5. WHAT ARE THE 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.

6. WHAT ARE THE 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?”) .

7. WHAT ARE THE 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.

8. WHAT ARE THE 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.

9. WHAT ARE THE 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”.

10. 2 FOCUS GROUPINTERVIEWS • 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.

11. GENERAL 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?

12. WHAT ARE THE 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).

13. WHAT ARE THE 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?

14. WHAT ARE THE 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).

15. WHAT ARE THE 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.

16. 3 NARRATIVEINTERVIEWS • 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.

17. 3 GENERALKNOWLEDGE • 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: • by selecting the theme and the topics, • by ordering the questions and • (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.

18. 3 GENERALKNOWLEDGE • 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 questions-response-type interview.

19. WHAT ARE THE 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.

20. WHAT ARE THE 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.

21. WHAT ARE THE 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

22. WHAT ARE THE 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

23. WHAT ARE THE LIMITATIONS? • Transcribing can be time consuming and difficult. • Data analysis can potentially skew data and cause potential researcher bias.

24. Questions?