Have a look at a paper written on this very subject:

NCRM Methods Review paper, ‘How many qualitative interviews is enough?’, Sarah E. Baker and Rosalind Edwards gather responses to the question of ‘how many’ from prominent social scientists and early career researchers. The riposte to the question of ‘how many’ from most contributors is ‘it depends’. In considering what ‘it depends upon’ however, the responses offer guidance on the epistemological, methodological and practical issues to take into account when conducting research projects. This includes advice about assessing research aims and objectives, validity within epistemic communities and available time and resources.

There are expert voice contributions from Patricia and Peter Adler, Les Back, Howard S. Becker, Julia Brannen, Alan Bryman, Kathy Charmaz, Norman Denzin, Andrea Doucet, Uwe Flick, Jennifer Mason, Daniel Miller, Luisa Passerini, Charles C. Ragin and Paul ten Have. Early career reflections are from Ben Baumberg, Mark Doige, Tracey Jensen, Laura Sandino and Bindi Shah.

The ‘How many qualitative interviews is enough?’ NCRM Methods Review paper can be downloaded for free from: http://eprints.ncrm.ac.uk/2273/

yaa, Thanks Mira Febriana.

Is Slovin formula for Qualitative research? bez It is looks like to determine the quantitative sampling.

Am I right??? Thanks

You are right, Sloving formula only determine quantitative sampling in order to define confidence levels and margins of error.

What kind of interview would you like to do? The common analysis of qualitative research is by observer impression not strictly related with sample.

Mine is unstructured interview. The sampling is PhD students. yaa, I am following the data saturation to collect the sampling. probably, i am not sure if there is a researcher investigated about the number of interviewers that may reach to the point of data saturation.

yaa, Mira Febriana: I would like to thanks you to share 2 papers which i really need.

Regards :)

I feel tht the size of sample is very imp. just TEN may not be sufficient for total population? One has to take a sample which represents at least to get important inputs. People are craze saying percentage basis. if the population is bigger, then the study with big sample will give confused results. i feel tht the sample is the crux for the conclusions. we can lesser sample with one or two specific characteristics for the sample vis-a-vis total population. when we talk of qualitative and qualitative? take the sample study and verify the statements stated in the survey to get the qualitative output? we know that the in survey people are very casual in responding and also try to hide their lapses. verification or evaluation of the data given in the quantitative survey gives better results?

What I've learned is that in qualitative research, it's not really about numbers. The information the researcher may get from his/her informants or respondents may or may not affect the population. However, it does not mean that the data will be insignificant. It would mean that the data gathered work for this particular group of people. The most significant concern in qualitative research is that the data gathered will help in theory building or in developing or improving the theory that the researcher used in his/her study. In my experience, I had 10 pairs of respondents in my qualitative research. I did not base it on a population count then getting a sample size because, primarily, it's not quantitative research. I hope this will help you.

I just finished my qualitative study. In total, I recruited 32 respondents. I didn't state how many respondents I would have. It depends how much information I need. I stopped when I considered that I got sufficient information I need.

There is no easy way to decide on the number of participants as qualitative research deals with inductive method of inquiry. Therefore if you feel that you can induce some new themes from another participant then go ahead and do the interview. There is a concept of 'saturation' (as you have mentioned) whereby you stop at the nth no of participant if you feel that there is no more new information or theme emerged after interviewing the last participant. This meana that you have reached the point of saturation.

I AM CONFUSED. when the total population is high / large, then small sample how they can give a real rep[representative conclusion? whether it is qualitative or not? may be it helps to study various aspects but may not give the output tht represents whole population. after the study one can say what they got but will it be applicable to all the population is my question?

between 12 - 20, provided you reach satisfaction in data informations. some researchers need until 25 subjects.

yaaa, Wshah a.wahab

I ever heard about this number. Do you have a reference to share????

regarding sample Mira has already stated that it is theoretical? that means it is not proved or may be right or wrong? not based on practical study? the method need to be more practical and quality information needs to be brought in? for example- if u ask the teachers how many times you go to library- their answer will be every day. But in reality it is once in a month? as a part of qualitative- the researcher can go and wait in library for three or four days and see what is the reality? whether the statement is real or wrong? the quality of information collected through interview or questionnaire is checked and quality of information is scrutinized? quality or any thing small representation never can be attributed to the larger population? therefore take small sample and say it is restricted to ---???-- and then give results. if u take very small sample, people claim as standard outcome for total population but it is not true?

Did i say case study? Again let it be any method, quality component gives objective output? Therefore in my opinion quality can be adopted for any type of method

In my opinion you can make sure that your research is either qualitative or quantitative or triangulate. , if it is a qulitative type of research then no need to go for the quantifying(how many cases) the data whatever you having. But regarding your study you can select atypical case/s and go for the participant observation. All the best.

Glaser, B. & Strauss, A. 1967. The discovery of grounded theory: Strategies for qualitative research. Chicago: aldine

Guba, E. 1990. The paradigm dialo. Beverly Hills. CA;sage

Maxwell, J.A. 1992. Understanding and validity in Qualitative research. Havard Educational Review, Vol.62. No.3.

if you can understand Bahasa Malaysia, try this book. i have read this one. and its really usefull..penyelidikan Kualitatif: Pengenalan kepada teori dan method, 2009. Othman Lebar. UPSI: Tanjong Malim

All the best...

ya, thanks for all (Julio Rodriguez and Eshah a. wahab) to share the useful books and articles.

Dr Yogesh@ tht is fine

Thanks for your question regarding the number of participants for interviews. As far as research is concern it depend on a number of variables you are looking at. if you were to conduct a population census you have to count everyone but if it a stock assessment survey at sea you all take sample different fish species rather counting all the fish at sea. The reason is so obvious that data validation will always deal will your research methodology to give desired results. Now what you can if have 20 participants you can for example take 10% or 2 people. Thank you so much i hope advise will help.

Please try to do

You will interview students as a case study about 30-40 by pupossive samping random and rating scle about 400 by taro yamane

How many participants should be interview in the Qualitative research?

It depend on the variation of population such as sex,class, subject and we will interview until saturated of the data

I have directed a number of qualitative dissertations, and my students always ask about this. If we are talking about fairly in-depth interviews, I suggest that my students indicate a range of about 8 to 12 informants or until saturation. In nearly 3 dozen dissertations, I have found that the students reach saturation within this range. And of course, this is something that you should discuss with the chair of your dissertation committee.

I agree that it depends on the variation of population; if your students are all from the same school (university?), that will cut down on variation, but still, your topic -writing apprehension- could vary by things such as: what year they are in in school, what their major is, what their education was previous to being at this level (if they went to private high school vs. public or other variations in quality and focus on writing), and perhaps gender. If you select a homogenous sample (you can read about sampling at the Qualitative Research Guidelines Project, a great site: http://www.qualres.org/index.html) then you will reach saturation sooner. I also agree that if you begin with around 8 or 10 to 12 informants and then explore whether you reach saturation from there you will probably reach saturation pretty soon. The more focused your research question, the sooner you will reach saturation as well. That is, if you define a research question that is not too broad and not too vague, you will reach saturation sooner.

interview about 25 - 50 that good for your Qualitative research you can find raw data

Hi, in another similar topic, a member provided a reference of a very interesting methodological article wich provides good insights into your query, so i share it here: "How Many Interviews Are Enough? : An Experiment with Data Saturation and Variability" Greg Guest, Arwen Bunce and Laura Johnson, Field Methods 2006 18: 59. http://fmx.sagepub.com/content/18/1/59.

You need to interview until you reach theoretical saturation. This will depend on the complexity of your topic, your approach, and the type of people you are interviewing. My view is that certainly no fewer than 20, but 50 is probably too many. Basically the approach is to realise when you are hearing nothing new, then do a few more to be absolutely sure.

It's better not to worry about the number of participant. Just going the flow of the data collecting and analysis activities until you reach saturation. Don't forget to vary your participants

Have a look at a paper written on this very subject:

NCRM Methods Review paper, ‘How many qualitative interviews is enough?’, Sarah E. Baker and Rosalind Edwards gather responses to the question of ‘how many’ from prominent social scientists and early career researchers. The riposte to the question of ‘how many’ from most contributors is ‘it depends’. In considering what ‘it depends upon’ however, the responses offer guidance on the epistemological, methodological and practical issues to take into account when conducting research projects. This includes advice about assessing research aims and objectives, validity within epistemic communities and available time and resources.

There are expert voice contributions from Patricia and Peter Adler, Les Back, Howard S. Becker, Julia Brannen, Alan Bryman, Kathy Charmaz, Norman Denzin, Andrea Doucet, Uwe Flick, Jennifer Mason, Daniel Miller, Luisa Passerini, Charles C. Ragin and Paul ten Have. Early career reflections are from Ben Baumberg, Mark Doige, Tracey Jensen, Laura Sandino and Bindi Shah.

The ‘How many qualitative interviews is enough?’ NCRM Methods Review paper can be downloaded for free from: http://eprints.ncrm.ac.uk/2273/

Thanks to all my friends who share their opinion and some referee. For my study, I have reached to the data saturation withing 19 participants. At the same time, I have found some authors who said that we can reach the data saturation ranging from 15 until 25 participants.

As i read on d diff. Samples 8-12