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Going Deeper Versus Wider in Qualitative Sampling
EDITORIAL
Going Deeper Versus Wider in Qualitative Sampling
J
OGNN publishes quite a few qualitative research reports each year on topics ranging from mothers’ experiences of parenting preemies to adolescents’ perspectives on talking with their moms about sex. Yet, we live in a world governed by numbers. We are trained to make judgments about research on the basis of how many people were studied. A study of only 10 or 12 participants just does not seem convincing. Sometimes 12 participants are enough, and sometimes not. Qualitative data collection should “go deep,” because it is designed for deep research questions. Observations, informal conversations, interviews, and document analyses used together can capture each participant’s unique and context-specific viewpoint and story embedded in its cultural and historical milieu. It is not expected that these embedded stories, relatively few in number, represent all individuals with that illness condition or all those from an ethnic group. Instead, each personal constellation is a set of findings unto itself, from which conclusions about similar combinations may be drawn. To go deeply into and make sense of each person’s story is intense and time-consuming. It often requires three or more contacts with that individual and family, and immersion in their daily lives and home environments. Then, the researcher must look across the stories to find patterns of experience, see how they are shaped by differences in history and context, check these patterns with continued data collection and participant feedback, and finally create a word picture that is as multifaceted and complicated as life in today’s world. Twelve of these stories, richly told and brought together in a coherent whole, can reveal something important about the experience under study. I fear that few qualitative researchers in nursing go this deep, yet we persist in the hope that a small sample is sufficient. Due to time constraints and limited skill sets, we are easily convinced to bypass fieldwork, conduct fairly structured interviews in neutral settings, and stop collecting and analyzing data when we begin to sense repetition. At that point, we have
not yet gained an understanding of how those patterns are shaped by and interact with the particulars of human experience, and therefore, we have not yet completed a qualitative study. Yet, these reports— context-free lists of categorized responses from very small samples—continue to appear. If our goal is to discover common views or opinions, and the impact of individual variations and differing life contexts is not a focus, this is a more “shallow” purpose. There is nothing wrong with this goal, but the study is no longer qualitative in nature, even if data will be collected in text form. It needs to be viewed in a quantitative paradigm. Thinking probabilistically, we need to have a sample large enough to overcome within-group variations and say with confidence that the views or opinions apply across the group. A wide rather than deep approach is called for, with more structured data collection and a larger sample. A rare situation calling for a larger sample within the qualitative paradigm occurs when the research purpose is deep, but a single contact per participant is the only option. Then, both a larger sample and a high level of interviewing skill are needed. The single data collection session must be open ended and long enough to enable participants to become comfortable and disclose their complex lives. The breadth of qualitative sampling and the depth of data collection should match the study goals. If we are asking deep questions, we need deep data collection and deep analysis to produce deep answers. If we are asking shallow questions, we can use more limited or even quantitative data collection but need a larger sample. If we are asking deep questions but cannot get to know our participants deeply, we must work to achieve depth in each interview and do more of them. As you develop your critical eye for research evidence, look for matching depth in the purpose, data collection, and findings of qualitative research. Margaret H. Kearney Associate Editor
© 2007, AWHONN, the Association of Women’s Health, Obstetric and Neonatal Nurses
JOGNN 299
Going Deeper Versus Wider in Qualitative Sampling
J
OGNN publishes quite a few qualitative research reports each year on topics ranging from mothers’ experiences of parenting preemies to adolescents’ perspectives on talking with their moms about sex. Yet, we live in a world governed by numbers. We are trained to make judgments about research on the basis of how many people were studied. A study of only 10 or 12 participants just does not seem convincing. Sometimes 12 participants are enough, and sometimes not. Qualitative data collection should “go deep,” because it is designed for deep research questions. Observations, informal conversations, interviews, and document analyses used together can capture each participant’s unique and context-specific viewpoint and story embedded in its cultural and historical milieu. It is not expected that these embedded stories, relatively few in number, represent all individuals with that illness condition or all those from an ethnic group. Instead, each personal constellation is a set of findings unto itself, from which conclusions about similar combinations may be drawn. To go deeply into and make sense of each person’s story is intense and time-consuming. It often requires three or more contacts with that individual and family, and immersion in their daily lives and home environments. Then, the researcher must look across the stories to find patterns of experience, see how they are shaped by differences in history and context, check these patterns with continued data collection and participant feedback, and finally create a word picture that is as multifaceted and complicated as life in today’s world. Twelve of these stories, richly told and brought together in a coherent whole, can reveal something important about the experience under study. I fear that few qualitative researchers in nursing go this deep, yet we persist in the hope that a small sample is sufficient. Due to time constraints and limited skill sets, we are easily convinced to bypass fieldwork, conduct fairly structured interviews in neutral settings, and stop collecting and analyzing data when we begin to sense repetition. At that point, we have
not yet gained an understanding of how those patterns are shaped by and interact with the particulars of human experience, and therefore, we have not yet completed a qualitative study. Yet, these reports— context-free lists of categorized responses from very small samples—continue to appear. If our goal is to discover common views or opinions, and the impact of individual variations and differing life contexts is not a focus, this is a more “shallow” purpose. There is nothing wrong with this goal, but the study is no longer qualitative in nature, even if data will be collected in text form. It needs to be viewed in a quantitative paradigm. Thinking probabilistically, we need to have a sample large enough to overcome within-group variations and say with confidence that the views or opinions apply across the group. A wide rather than deep approach is called for, with more structured data collection and a larger sample. A rare situation calling for a larger sample within the qualitative paradigm occurs when the research purpose is deep, but a single contact per participant is the only option. Then, both a larger sample and a high level of interviewing skill are needed. The single data collection session must be open ended and long enough to enable participants to become comfortable and disclose their complex lives. The breadth of qualitative sampling and the depth of data collection should match the study goals. If we are asking deep questions, we need deep data collection and deep analysis to produce deep answers. If we are asking shallow questions, we can use more limited or even quantitative data collection but need a larger sample. If we are asking deep questions but cannot get to know our participants deeply, we must work to achieve depth in each interview and do more of them. As you develop your critical eye for research evidence, look for matching depth in the purpose, data collection, and findings of qualitative research. Margaret H. Kearney Associate Editor
© 2007, AWHONN, the Association of Women’s Health, Obstetric and Neonatal Nurses
JOGNN 299