
Unit 4: Research design
Face-to-face interviews
- You must prepare your questions in advance.
- It is a good idea to record your interviews
- Interviews take up time, so plan for an hour or less (roughly 10 questions)
- Stick to your questions, but be flexible if relevant or interesting issues arise during the interview
Focus groups
- These take time to arrange, so prepare in advance (use an intermediary to help you if you can)
- Who will be in your focus group? (think about age, gender)
- Size of focus group (8-10 is typical)
- Consider whether or not to have separate focus groups for different ages or genders (for example when discussing sex and sexuality)
SMILE - Research design by Learning from WOeRk, University of Plymouth modified by Marion Kelt, Glasgow Caledonian University is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.