I have conducted a study and distributed a questionnaire to students and found that they are less motivated to study English.
I decided to do an interview asking the reason behind that from teachers' point of view.
so, How many interviewees are needed for my study?
Thank you!
Please refer to the following links, where the valuable views and discussions/referred publications/suggested number of interview/data saturation, etc. should be helpful.
- How many interviews are needed in a qualitative research? Is there any rule or popular practice?: https://www.researchgate.net/post/How_many_interviews_are_needed_in_a_qualitative_research_Is_there_any_rule_or_popular_practice
- How many interviews are 'enough' in qualitative research? (case study/studies): https://www.researchgate.net/post/How_many_interviews_are_enough_in_qualitative_research_case_study_studies
- How many in depth interviews would you need for a qualitative study in your field?: https://www.researchgate.net/post/How_many_in_depth_interviews_would_you_need_for_a_qualitative_study_in_your_field
Two points in my opinion indicate the number of interviews in a research:
1. the state of advancement of knowledge of the subject. 2. the semantic saturation.
Please refer to the following links, where the valuable views and discussions/referred publications/suggested number of interview/data saturation, etc. should be helpful.
- How many interviews are needed in a qualitative research? Is there any rule or popular practice?: https://www.researchgate.net/post/How_many_interviews_are_needed_in_a_qualitative_research_Is_there_any_rule_or_popular_practice
- How many interviews are 'enough' in qualitative research? (case study/studies): https://www.researchgate.net/post/How_many_interviews_are_enough_in_qualitative_research_case_study_studies
- How many in depth interviews would you need for a qualitative study in your field?: https://www.researchgate.net/post/How_many_in_depth_interviews_would_you_need_for_a_qualitative_study_in_your_field
30 is a magic number.
More specifically, it will depend on nature of what is being studied, breadth and depth of the knowledge of study participants, what are the findings for and how rigorous should the study be, the duration of interviews, is existing body of research rich or scant, and a whole host of other factors.
I concur with the previous answers ... 30 would be good. You also have to consider your saturation point, also.
Looking at the nature of your study, it would be helpful to follow the saturation rule. In that case, if you do 10 interviews and find that no new information is being generated, there is no need to continue. Continuing with interviews when the saturation point is reached not only defeats the purpose of being systematic in scientific research, but also wastes time and energy. Good luck!
When I did mine, couldn't find any limit or preferred number of interviews for qualitative method. It depends on your study, time & resources. I have seen a thesis done with one interview, another with eighteen & I did mine with sixteen interviewees comprising employees at different levels including politicians. I selected four interviewees at each level.
Good luck with your research.
it depend with level of your studies for underG. i could say not more than 4 max 6
The number of participants is entirely dependent on the extent, dimension, and depth of the study. The saturation point can be determined by the snowballing technique.
If you have to ask this question you need to do more reading on qualitative methodology. The comments so far provide some answers but your research topic, philosophical approach and logistics will help determine this.
Generally (but not absolutely) quantitative research seeks limited---standardised---data from lots of cases, while qualitative research seeks lots of data from a limited number of cases; many factors can intervene in your decision on the number of qualitative interviews you might do (e.g. your resources for the study); data saturation---when interviews are no longer delivering new data---is one of them.
Its about how you conduct the interviews and the complexity of the topic.
Definitelt depends on type and scope of your study but i must agree with this 30 figure. It would be sufficient.
I agree with others but you should also look at the journal that you are interested in publishing to see previous articles. Some journals do have a certain expectation on the amount of interviews.
To add to the answers of colleagues above, take a look at this article on how to define saturation, so that you are clear how you conceptualize it throughout your research project. Article Saturation in qualitative research: exploring its conceptual...
Hi!..
A variety of factors may influence the quantity of qualitative data, and this is because not only by interview numbers, but also by the presence of participant observation, where applicable.
Take a loook: http://eprints.ncrm.ac.uk/2273/4/how_many_interviews.pdf
Since you have a well defined objective, I would start interviewing 1 person covering the dimensions you think are possible predictors, trying to find additional dimensions. You continue this with a small number of other interviewees trying to use different strata (high/low achievers; well/not so well integrated persons). You then assess your findings the first time. All areas, where everybody agrees you can assess with simple True/False., Thus you are dynamically changing your instrument focussing more and more and additionally fine-tuning the remaining dimensions. You thus in a holistic way combine interviewing and interpretation.
I agreed with previous comments on this subject. Objectives of the study, the point of saturation, fund, accessibility of the would-be interviewees, time constraint and criticalness of the researcher will determine the number of interviewees for this study.
For instance, your objective may be interested in the roles of gender/race/location/income level/specific and unique experience of the interviewee in the study. Generally, access to the would-be interviewee could involve the use of snowballing or improved snowballing sampling i.e. RDS.
I strongly agreed with Ronald Ronnie G George Moore's comment.
Hi,
If you are targeting one class, 10-15 informative respondents will give enough data saturation. If you are conducting a study of the whole school, consider 7-10 per class to achieve ease of data saturation. The teacher point of view may not give you the right data because the He interacts with students during the lesson and may not understand other underlying factors (family status, religion, environment) which have slight influence on individual performance.
The number will greatly depend on the availability of the respondents and the study question. Also important to consider is knowledge and understanding of the available respondents of the topic of study.
In my honest view, for a qualitative study...the number of interview depends on saturation of new ideas. When you observe that respondents has consistently repeated the same point,then know that you have arrive at saturation and the number of interview should end.
For qualitative or quantitative study at least 30 is the smallest sample size.
it depends on what you want to do. If you want to be representative for a particular sample then you need to know the size of the whole and based on this you could calculate an appropriate sample size. However for qualitative studies it is often not the objective to be representative, but to go in the depth using case studies. Case studies do not depend on sample size calculations, they stand for themselves, are not representative, but reveal fruitful insights into an issue.
An important question is also how much time you have for the study. Here I would recommend to chose smaller numbers and take more effort to enhance quality of investigation. It is difficult to provide precise information, but if you get the feeling that important matter repeats again and again and new aspects do not come up any longer than most likely you have reached sufficient numbers to gain good insights into the issue.
Some sort of saturation will be reached at a moment of interviewing. Here is a sample of how I did it and analysed. For reference purposes it may be of great help Chapter Waqf Development in Light of Islamic Economics in the Muslim...
I am sure that you found an answer to your question but when you do your interviews then all will be more clear. Perhaps start the interviews.
1 interview---or more---could suffice---depending on your research question and your approach to answering it.
A qualitative study does not need 30 persons, 30 is the minimum sample size for a quantitative study to consider the sample normally distributed. For qualitative study, it depends on the topic, how rare or original it is. You can look at my paper with 2 persons:
Para el estudio cualitativo, depende del tema, lo raro o original que sea.
Number is David B. Sachsman depending on your research question and your approach to answering it.
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