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Key Takeaways
- In-depth interviews are semi-structured interviews in which the researcher has topics and questions in mind to ask, but questions are open-ended and flow according to the participant’s response.
- An interview guide is a list of topics or questions that the interviewer hopes to cover during the course of an interview.
- Open-ended questions are questions that a researcher poses but for which he or she does not provide answer options.
- A code is a shorthand representation of some more complex set of issues or ideas. The process of identifying codes in one’s qualitative data is more often referred to as coding.
- An oral history is a less traditional form of data collection that can take the form of an interview.
Its purpose is to make a written record of material that might otherwise be forgotten by those who are unlikely to themselves create a written record of material or produce archival materials.
- A focus group interview consists of multiple respondents participating in an interview at the same time.
- Videography can be an effective means for collecting data, during both researcher/participant interviews and focus groups. It can also be employed to collect data in more natural settings and therefore is a popular tool for those undertaking ethnographic studies.
- Deductive coding is the approach used by research analysts who have a well-specified or pre-defined set of interests. It includes descriptive and interpretive coding approaches.
- Inductive coding begins with the identification of general themes and ideas that emerge as the researcher reads through the data. It includes open and focused/axial coding approaches.
- NVivo and Atlas.ti are computer programs that qualitative researchers use to help them organize, sort, and analyze their data.
- Qualitative interviews allow respondents to share information in their own words and are useful for gathering detailed information and understanding social processes. However, they rely upon respondents’ accuracy and are intense in terms of time, expense, and possible emotional strain
