1. Introduction to Doctoral Research Qualitative Research: Interviews and Focus Groups David Piggott

2. Data collection methods (or tools)  Interviews: Length/depth/openness; Degree of structure; ‘Validity’ and ‘reliability’.  Focussed group interviews (see Merton, 1987): Composition; Power relationships; Recording context.

3. Intensive or Extensive? (Sayer, 2010) Sample size (generalisability) Depth of response (dialogue) Interviews Focus Groups Surveys Scripted interviews Life history Structured

4. Interviews  Seven stages (Kvale, 2009: p. 88): 1. Thematizing (what to study and why); 2. Designing (consider all 7 steps); 3. Interviewing (questions and interpersonal relationships); 4. Transcribing (accuracy vs. time); 5. Analysing (content analysis, discourse analysis etc.); 6. Verifying (‘validity’ and ‘reliability’); 7. Reporting (ethics, conventions, audience). ? Ontology Epistemology Methodology

5. Conduct an interview  Guiding question: What problems do postgraduate students face during induction at the University of Lincoln?  Before you start: 1. Decide how structured you want your interview to be (i.e. how deductive or leading); 2. Consider who to interview (e.g. common interests or experiences, existing relationships); 3. Consider how to ensure the data are ‘valid’ and ‘reliable’ (or argue why this isn’t possible).

6. FGIs Why use FGIs? (see Wilkinson, 1998) ReasonExample Safety in numbersResearch with children and young people Cede control to participantsExploratory research (‘inductive’ research) To gain insight about group interaction and collective construction of discourse Research on voting intentions and strategies in politics To empower participantsCritical feminist research “a FGI is taken as a source of new ideas and new hypotheses, not as demonstrated findings with regard to the extent and distribution of… patterns of response” (Merton, 1987)

7. Conduct a FGI (4 participants, 1 facilitator, 1 optional observer)  Guiding question: How do postgraduate students feel about increases in tuition fees?  Before you start, consider: 1. Composition (pre-existing group vs. random selection); 2. Power relationships (do you intervene to prevent individual domination of discussions or not?); 3. Recording context (would it be of value to employ a second researcher to make notes on body language etc.?); 4. In reality you would also make the same considerations taken with interviews.

8. Further reading Books  Kvale, S. (2009) InterViews: An Introduction to Qualitative Research Interviewing. London: Sage.  Barbour, R. and Kitzinger, J. (1999) Developing Focus Group Research: Politics, Theory and Practice. London: Sage. Articles  Wilkinson, S. (1998) Focus Group Methodology: A Review, International Journal of Social Research Methodology, 1, pp. 181-203.