You need to remember that a qualitative interview is not an oral questionnaire. It's better viewed as a structured conversation, which leaves room for interviewees to convey their own ideas (which some of them may well do without you needing to probe). Interviewees faced with a lot of questions often feel machine gunned - you should be aiming to have the accuracy of a sniper, with questions that both home in on the really salient issues, but also act as a springboard for interaction.Better also to have a good interaction that maintains energy levels, even if you have to come back with follow-up questions, than grind your respondent to their knees with an interrogative onslaught.
I agree with Salam Hamid Abbas that there is no general rule on the number of questions, and that it depends on the nature of the research goals.
I suggest that you look at books on qualitative interviewing to see some examples of the kind and number of questions that are asked. My personal recommendation is Rubin & Rubin, Qualitative interviewing the art of hearing data.
For qualitative research, the number and the actual questions are not predetermined.
These days, people are so busy,so the questions is more suitable for quantitative research. For instance, surveys requiring more than 10 minutes of time or with more than 20 questions is doomed for failure to get good response rate.. SEE our high;y well received publication on the topic.
Article Challenges and Innovations in Surveying the Governmental Pub...
It's depend on the number of parameters. Mostly for qualitative research, we should select only those parameters that are more close to research problem.
Technically, it depends on the type of qualitative research you are doing. If it is phenomenology you only need one question for the whole study about the lived experiences of the participants on a particular phenomenon being studied of one's life.
For qualitative research, number of questions are not pre-decided. For instance, if you are using Grounded Theory approach, you go in the filed with your topic and themes in mind and your conversation is open-ended. You continue asking questions till you reach saturation.
For qualitative research, while designing the questionnaire, keep your objectives and hypotheses in mind. The questions should be such that they will fulfil the objectives and help you test the hypotheses. Primary data is what makes your research which will be supported or otherwise by secondary data. Keeping in mind the time to fill in the questionnaire, they should be just enough in number focusing on objectives and for testing the hypotheses. Hope you find this useful.
In case you have research questions, you need to make sure you get them answered with your data. Organise your questions you seek to answer and link them to your research questions, link that to your research aim. Imagine possible upcoming answers and how you are going to analyse them.
Depending on the research design and sampling technique applicable to the study Problem and objectives determined to be examined. For instance if snow bowling sampling technique is used then researcher might not be able to ascertain the exact number of questions to ask his respondents and some other non probabilistic sampling techniques too. Summarily no standard in research to ascertain the number of questions to ask respondents in both qualitative and quantitative study but it has to be precise, relevant and all encompassing to the cover the research objectives.
My thinking is that qualitative methods are more difficult than quantitative. With quant, all you have to do is count things, and if your answers do not make sense you can then fiddle with your statistics until you find what you want. Qual methods do not count, they help you understand, therefore you start by asking yourself 'what is it?' that you want to understand. Then you can select your approach. Historiography for example is VERY different to phenomenology but both try to understand something. As one reply said, a shared experience. so first, what do you want to understand?
Valuble comments received to my question in different angles, Thanks for all the researcheres for sharing your philosophical stances.
Dear Sanath Divakara I think that there is no precise rule for determining number of questions in qualitative researchm but it depends on saturation point: a stage where no more data can be added.
Agreed, Omid. 'Saturation point' is the key. With phenomenology interviews this is about 7 people; with historiography it may be just 2 documents
Dear Sanath, you have really got the idea of 'science', it is really a philosophy. Read Sir Arthur Eddington, The Philosophy of Physical Science.
There is no specific number of questions. Usually qualitative data is gathered using, in depth interviews or focus groups interviews. Time may be the factor which limits the number of questions.
I recommend reading Corbin & Strauss (2015) and Kathy Charmaz (2013).
Essentially, grounded theory is useful for research centered on “discovering theories, concepts, hypotheses, and propositions directly from the data rather than from a priori assumptions” (Taylor, Bogdan, and DeVault 2015, p. 174). Thus, grounded theory “can be used to gain new insights to old problems as well as to study new and emerging areas in need of investigation” (Corbin and Strauss 2015, p. 11).
As for the # of questions, this would be based on the specific qualitative methodology. Sample size would be based on achieving saturation. Typically, in GT, it is viewed as:
· Categories are ‘saturated’ when gathering fresh data no longer sparks new theoretical insights, nor reveals new properties of these core theoretical categories (Charmaz, 2013).
· When assessing whether you have saturated your categories, consider asking such questions as the following:
o Which comparisons do you make between data within and between categories?
o What sense do you make of these comparisons?
o Where do they lead you?
o How do your comparisons illuminate your theoretical categories?
o In what other directions, if any, do they take you?
o What new conceptual relationships, if any, might you see? Good Luck!
Thank you so much for sharing valuable knowledge that helped me to get comprehensive understanding. I feel qualitative research is more difficult than quantitative. Qualitative research gives broader knowledge concern to all the areas of the research and that is interesting. Selecting question for data collection should be handled strategically with the limited time prevail for questioning.
There is not a number determined for interview guide or focus group guide, it all depends of your specific objectives. All your objectives must be included in your questions. But always you have to be present that less questions are the best in a data collection process in qualitative studies due to you need to request more details and examples and go to obtain more deep information about each topic that your respondents are telling you.
I agree with Cristina Di Silvestre that fewer questions are typically preferable over more questions when you are doing a semi-structured interviews. As Christina says, you can always to request more details, once you hear the participant's initial response to your basic question. The official name for this process is "probing."
There is no limit to the number of questions that you may ask, however your questions should answer your research question(s). Have your key interview questions, then you can ask probing or follow-up questions for clarification or for more detailed responses.
No specific limit for number of questions. unlike quantitative, this approach requires a lot of probing questions until there is saturation of recurring patterns.
The question is, what do you want to understand? I recommend Emmel's book on qualitative sampling: https://uk.sagepub.com/en-gb/eur/sampling-and-choosing-cases-in-qualitative-research/book235588
I interviewed only two American older adults but could publish the article:
Article A Brief Research Report on Understanding the Meaning of Driv...
I think that it depends on the aim of your study.
Your objectives determine the number of questions to construct. The fundamental question is: are your objectives adequately addressed? This is the more reason why a lot of followup questions may be required to ensure the data is sufficient to enable the research achieve its objectives.
The number of objectives is key in determining the number of questions and therefore the size (in terms of pages) of the interview schedule. However, it is important to keep it as brief as possible so that respondents don't feel nagged. However, you can still have follow up questions to your key questions in what is called probing
You need to remember that a qualitative interview is not an oral questionnaire. It's better viewed as a structured conversation, which leaves room for interviewees to convey their own ideas (which some of them may well do without you needing to probe). Interviewees faced with a lot of questions often feel machine gunned - you should be aiming to have the accuracy of a sniper, with questions that both home in on the really salient issues, but also act as a springboard for interaction.Better also to have a good interaction that maintains energy levels, even if you have to come back with follow-up questions, than grind your respondent to their knees with an interrogative onslaught.
Primary data collection is done when you get the information from the participant in a qualitative or quanti tative research inquiry. The number of questions would depend on the type of qualitative research design you will use in your study. For example, in phenomenology, you only have one question which is specific to the lived experiences by a participant on a particular event or phenomenon in one's life.
there is no specific number of respondent as far as quantitative research is concern, the only this you learn that your done with your inquiry is when you already saturated - meaning your inquiry has been repeatedly answered by your respondents, hope this will enlighten you, thank you.
En investigación cualitativa, las preguntas son orientadoras y motivadoras para el participante y la pregunta puede ser una o más, que respondan a los objetivos y terminan cuando las respuestas se repiten.
No. Of questions depends in objective what you are going to study. It cannot be answers specifically by no
It all depends on your research objectives. The objectives aided by the research questions should be able to guide you on the number of questions you need to collect sufficient and accurate data that addresses each objective while providing satisfactory responses to the research questions.
Before I answer, I recommend you study several dissertations from your institution and read up on John W. Creswell.
I agree with the objectives answer by my peers, but the minimum will be one question.
Keep in mind that each question will require substantial research. Therefore, the more questions you have, the more time, funds, research, and analyzing may be needed. Your methods selection should correlate to your objectives...i.e., if a case study is appropriate, it will require rich research--and that applies to just one question.
I am actually on the same page with those who say number of questions in a questionnaire is a function of your objectives of your study.
The following publications/link (some more discussions) may further help. More specifically, there are some helpful suggestions/views, namely: …..there is a not a simple golden number of questions that can be given as a limit for questionnaires…..participants who feel the outcomes of the research will directly benefit them may feel more motivated to complete the questionnaires….. (see: Using Questionnaires, Adams and Cox, 2008, pp. 18-21). Furthermore, in terms of the number of questionnaires……collect more than 100 questionnaires is likely to make your research more robust and offer opportunities for generating a wider range of insights......if there are contexts in which the population is relatively small, and is unrealistic to expect more than 20-30 questionnaire responses, consider other approaches, such as interviews……(see: Rowley, 2014, p. 317).
- Adams, A. and Cox, A. L. (2008) Questionnaires, in-depth interviews and focus groups, in Cairns, P. and Cox, A.L. (eds.) Research Methods for Human Computer Interaction. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, pp. 17-34.
- Neri de Souza, F., Neri de Souza, D. and Costa, A. P. (2016) Asking questions in the qualitative research context, The Qualitative Report, 21, 13, pp. 6-18.
- Rowley, J. (2014) Designing and using research questionnaires, Management Research Review, 37, 3, pp. 308-330.
- How many questions are needed for qualitative research? Is there any rule or common trend?: https://www.researchgate.net/post/How_many_questions_are_needed_for_qualitative_research_Is_there_any_rule_or_common_trend
as far as the questions is concerned, it depends on the objective of your research, there might be answers which you do expect that your respondents might say, that is part of the dynamics of the qualitative researches
There is no preset questions in qualitative research. Only you will have a concept to explore. All opinions and responses are considered from all dimensions with out reservation. Invite as many responses may be individually or by conducting FG interviews. No question of having prescribed no. of questions to explore.
In qualitative studies, the research aims/objectives are reformulated in the form of interrogative statements. The number of objectives, of course, differs from a master thesis to a doctoral dissertation, and to that of a one publishable research article. And similar is the case with the number of questions. There are many qualitative studies that focus on answering one (key/main) research question. Therefore, when it comes to collecting data, you need to break down this key research question into smaller ones. Each specific question focuses on one particular, specific issue. In other words, the answer to your main research question, for example, might demand of you to ask 10 specific questions or more, so you need to go for that. Sometimes, the questions increase depending on the answers you receive (probe questions).
I would recommend the references provided by our great colleague Kenneth Lui-ming Ngie
Hope this helps, and best wishes to you!
it should be based on the objectives of your study as qualitative type of research is different from quantitative approach; other aspects such as method of the analysis also need to be considered.
Depend upon the variables you choose and nature of questions you frame.
I disagree with the replies that suggest the nuimber of questions depends on hoew you feel about it, and how far you want to go. My argument is that our inquiry must be structured, and structure can from from perspective. There are several perspectives to guide qualitative inquiry. You may chose to seek value in your subject and thus look at it through the lens of Hartmann vaLues. Or you may wish to take a person-centred vista in which case you would look from the emic then etic perspectives, and of course the emic-etic lens and the etic-emic lens.
The question really must first be, what is the knowledge gap I wish to resolve, and then will qualitative or quantitative methods best help me do this. You may find that both can inform the question, so you would consider multi-methods
And then you need to determine how these will flow. Here is a really cool text I found this week: Roller, M. R., & Lavrakas, P. J. (2015). Applied qualitative research design: A total quality framework approach. New York: Guilford Press.
Please place high value on qualitative methods and make every effort to use them properly.
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