Some scholars say that researchers should stop, when they there is saturation point in a study. Is there any other opinion the number of participants in a qualitative study sufficient for in-depth interview technique for data collection?
Hi,
Typically, in-depth interviews involve a small number of participants, ranging from 5-30 participants. However, it's important to note that the goal of in-depth interviews is not to achieve statistical significance but to gain an in-depth understanding of the research topic through rich and detailed data collection. Therefore, the sample size should be determined based on the saturation point, which is the point where new data no longer provide additional insights into the research question. Saturation can be reached after interviewing as few as five participants or as many as 30 participants.
Regards,
Uday Bhale
To my understanding, normally distributed data is needed, this could be more than 30 to 40 observations..Regards.
I would support your initial statement that saturation is the standard approach to determining sample size for in-depth interviewing. The work of Guest and his colleagues suggest that somewhere around 12 is a common point of saturation, so this might a good initial target, with room for more participants if the you need them. In particular, the more diverse your sample is with regard to your research topic, the more participants you will need.
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