Qualitative Research Workshop
Dr. Manisha Gore-Assistant Professor, SCOPE, SIU
Data Collection Methods
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Qualitative methods
• Commonly used in health research:
• Focus/ed Group Discussions (FGD)
• Indepth Interviews (IDI)
• Key Informant Interviews (KII)
• Case Study
• Observation
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• Rarely used:
• Participatory Maps
• Walkabouts
• Free listing
• Pile Sorting
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Focus/ed Group Discussion
• Guided discussion on a specific topic with a small group of people
• Information/ data collection from several people in a single session
• Eight to ten participants, a neutral moderator and note taker
• Provide quality controls because participants tend to provide checks and balances on one another
that can serve to curb false or extreme views
• The information is built upon each other’s views
• The group need not reach consensus and can have a variety
of opinions
• Homogeneous group is ideal
• Mutually convenient location
• FGD guide is used as a data collection tool
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Downside of FGD
• Inappropriate for exploring individual motivations/behavior.
• Due to peer pressure misleading information may be provided.
• Group consensus may shadow actual scenario like tensions, contradictions.
• Recruitment is difficult, time consuming and not always successful.
• Data difficult to analyze.
• Dissemination of data as feedback to community is difficult.
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In-Depth Interviews
• Guided conversation between two individuals
• Important: Objective, interviewee, context
• May be open-ended, closed-ended and combined
• Not always formal and no standard way to do it
• Range from unstructured conversational to rigid Q & A format
• Structured: Aimed at standardizing responses across participants, time constraints,
unforeseen topics not permitted
• Semi-structured: Suggested themes. Although it is important to pre-plan the key questions,
the interview should also be conversational, with questions flowing from previous responses
when possible.
• Unstructured: excellent for understanding key issues, the direction of interview can be
decided by interviewer but driven by responses.
• More conversational and may appear to be informal.
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Downside of In-Depth Interviews
• Time-consuming, as must be transcribed, organized, analyzed in detail
• If the interviewer is inexperienced, it affects the complete process and data quality
• It is a costly research method compared to other methods
• More reliance on respondents' accuracy
• Intensity in terms of possible emotional strain
• Interviewer bias and confidentiality are difficult to be assured
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Key Informant Interviews
• Tool used- usually an interview schedule with open ended questions.
• Detailed and rich data could be collected with relatively easy and inexpensive way.
• Provides opportunity to build relationship with informants as well as community under
study in turn.
• Helps raise awareness, interests around issues under study.
• Possible to contact informants, if needed for clarifications.
• Often snowball sampling is very helpful in identifying informants
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Downside of Key Informant Interviews
• Selecting right key informant is challenging especially in unknown communities
• Difficult to schedule interviews with hard to reach key informants
• Difficult to generalize results to larger community unless enough informants are
included
• May provide biased results as totally dependent on only the key informants
• Personal relationships may influence outcome
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Case Study
• A case study is a research method common in social science. It is based on an in-depth investigation of a single
individual, group, or event. Case studies may be descriptive or explanatory.
• Excellent methods for understanding community dynamics (both for individuals and community)
• Very intensive, complex to conduct and
• Useful in hypothesis Formulation and Comparisons.
• Increase in Knowledge about individuals or community.
• Comprehensive information in nature
• Tools used for data collection include interview schedules, observation, records, case histories, diaries,
questionnaires and photo documentation.
• No specific sampling required. It studies a social unit in its entire perspectives.
• Requires continuous analysis all through the process
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Downside of Case Study
• Very well trained researcher is needed
• Expensive
• Researcher bias is very difficult to be minimized as it is more subjective method
• Ethical challenges may compel researchers to intervene which hampers the data
• Costly and time consuming
• Limited representativeness and generalization is impossible
• Low validity and reliability
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Observation
• Easy method as needs no specific expertise
• Unstructured or structured observations
• Data captured in textual format
• Aspects of interest and related processes, behaviors and structural details
captured
• Provides high accuracy as observer directly interacts with observed
• Describes phenomenon exactly as it occurs in the natural environment
• Minimum cooperation of observed is required
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Downside of Observation
• Though easy, lack of competence of observer may hamper validity and reliability of
observation.
• Little control over physical situation, environment.
• Unmanageable data.
• Possibility of distortion.
• Everything is not observed: There are various personal behaviors the researcher cannot
observe
• Often feelings, emotions, opinions remain unobserved.
• Past life remains unknown: method has no technique to study the past life of observed
• Difficult to replicate if needed- cannot control extraneous variables
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Participatory map
Participatory Map is a participatory data collection method for geographically related
information such as
• water sources,
• health centers,
• markets,
• homes of key persons,
• settlement patterns,
• landmarks,
• fields,
• grazing areas.
It is also one of the first activities that a ethnographic study team carries out in a settlement
to set the tone of participation and ‘break-the-ice.’
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Walkabouts
• Walkabout is a type of direct observation that emphasizes recording actual
events, situations and behaviors rather than reported or recalled events and
situations.
• The Walkabout can focus on people (activities of men or women), locations
(water collection site), and/or events (family meal).
• A checklist or guide is always developed by the study team before the exercise
relating to specific issues of concern.
• Observer records as much behavior as possible, including actions, conversations,
and descriptions of the locale and persons observed.
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Free listing
• Free listing is a systematic data collection method where an informant is asked to list
all the different components of some issue of interest (for example, all the different
illnesses that children get; or, the main difficulties faced by persons living in the
camp/community).
• This method is used as a preliminary exploration of an issue of interest and is often
carried out at the beginning of a study.
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Pile sorting
• Pile sorting is a systematic data collection technique used to understand
how issues of interest (and/or their components) are inter-related in a
culture by allowing informants to group together items (e.g., childhood
illnesses, community problems) according to their own system of
categorization.
• This helps understand how important issues are perceived by the
beneficiary population prior to developing ideas or solutions to address
them.
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Preparation for data collection
• Careful team formation
• Familiarity with methods and field
• Review of existing literature
• Use of focused rapport building exercises
• Taking support from important community members
• Having an account of required logistic arrangements
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Efficiency in data collection
•Use of instruments like
- Logs
- Matrices
- Checklist
- Maps
•Thorough knowledge about the topic of research
•Documenting the process in detail
•Knowledgeable researcher
•Timing and length of interview
•Bracketing (Keeping aside researcher’s bias)
•Understanding Cultural differences
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Thankyou
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