PRCTICE #9: NOT CAPTURING KEY PARTICIPANTS' DEMOGRAPHIC / BACKGROUND INFORMATION IN QUALITATIVE INTERVIEW GUIDES

In a few of our studies, our clients brought us interview guides that did not have questions/space to capture participants’ demographic/background information, only to inquire such information at the data analysis stage when they wished to make comparison of the information coming out from participants with different background characteristics. It was too late then.

?Best Practice

Based on the nature of your study/study objectives, ask yourself what kind of background information you may need for your sample and ensure including questions/spaces to capture such information at the beginning your interview guides e.g., in the form of a table (as seen in the provided example).

Based on the nature of the study, below are more examples of such background information that a researcher may wish to capture in qualitative interviews:

Geographical and Site Information: country, region, district/county, location type (urban/rural, public/private etc.), organization name, etc.

Demographic Information: age, sex, education, occupation, marital status.

Other Information: title/position, length of time in the position etc.

?In addition to adding relevant information about the study sample, such information may be very helpful at the data analysis stage as it may help the researcher explore whether the information coming out of the interviews differed in anyhow among participants with different background characteristics.

We have made it a standard practice to advise our clients to include (if missing in their interview guides) spaces/questions to capture relevant participants background information.

Demographic information for focus group discussion participants can also be captured as shown in the table below. ?

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PS. For more than 8 years that our team has been supporting qualitative studies for clients from more than 25 international organizations, we have been taking note of practices in qualitative tools design that proved to risk the quality of collected information. These series of articles are aimed at discussing each of the 20 practices that we compiled, including how they may risk the quality of collected information. We also provide alternative practices that may maximize quality of collected information. It is our hope that qualitative researchers around the world will keep the proposed tips in mind while designing qualitative tools for their studies so as to maximize the quality of collected information.