How to Interview and Conduct Focus Groups: (Concise Guides to Conducting Behavioral, Health, and Social Science Research Series)

This book shows students and early-career researchers how to prepare for and conduct interviews and focus groups.
 
Interviews and focus groups are essential tools of qualitative research.This book shows researchers how to plan for and conduct interviews and focus groups, and how to use them in various qualitative research designs. It also explains how to code, analyze, and report the data once it's been gathered. By following the advice in this book, you will hone your inductive logic skills and learn how to convey the authentic voices of your interview subjects. In addition, you will learn professional skills for using technology ethically and appropriately.

Helpful tools in the book include example interview protocols, tips for recruitment and requesting consent, group facilitation guidelines, instructions for creating codebooks, and samples of different writing and publishing formats. This book is part of APA's Concise Guides to Conducting Behavioral, Health, and Social Science Research series. Aimed at undergraduate students in research methods courses or others with a lab or research project, each book describes a key stage in the research process. Collectively, these books provide a solid grounding in research from start to finish.
 

Table of Contents:
Series Foreword
Arthur M. Nezu
Introduction
Chapter : Qualitative Research Essentials
Chapter 2: Interviews
Chapter 3: Focus Groups
Chapter 4: Combining Interviews and Focus Groups and Mixing Methods
Chapter 5. Addressing Rigor, Validity, and Reliability
Chapter : Transcribing and Coding
Chapter 7. Analyzing Qualitative Data
Chapter 8: Writing up and Publishing Results
Conclusion
Appendix A: Summary of Action Steps
Appendix B: Resources for Qualitative Researchers
References
Index
About the Author
About the Series Editor

About the Author :
Jen Katz-Buonincontro, PhD, MFA, is professor and associate dean of research in the School of Education at Drexel University in Philadelphia, PA. She also serves as president for the Society for the Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity and the Arts (APA Division ). Helping children and adults learn to think and act in creative ways that optimizes their academic and professional success is the central motivation of her research, teaching and service. Her research aims to clarify and build sociocognitive theories of creative agency to ultimately advance educational research with knowledge and applied teaching tools.

Review :
With great sense of an experienced researcher and educator, Jen Katz-Buonincontro leads us through the "why" and "how" of qualitative research practices, from reflecting and deciding upon theoretical perspectives and research design, to the nuts-and-bolts of crafting interview protocols, coding, analyzing, and presenting rich qualitative data. Written with candor and in a conversational tone, the book emphasizes the role of reflexivity and positionality in building respectful relationship between researchers and interviewees, an ingredient ultimately leading to uncovering and telling delightful truths about people and their experiences. This comprehensive guide to interviewing and conducting focus groups, full of useful tips and resources, is a must-have for new and seasoned qualitative researchers alike.? --Magdalena G. Grohman, PhD, Associate Director and Researcher at Center for Values in Medicine, Science, and Technology, The University of Texas at Dallas I highly recommend How to Interview and Conduct Focus Groups to university instructors who are teaching interview methods and students who are learning them. Katz-Buonincontro describes key differences between one-on-one interviews and focus group interviews and provides detailed strategies for conducting interviews, transcribing them, and coding and analyzing interview data. She also explains the key roles of theory and researcher identity in the research process and how to prepare one's qualitative results for publication. This will be a very useful guide for novice researchers! --Peter Youngs, PhD, Professor, Department of Curriculum, Instruction, and Special Education, University of Virginia, Charlottesville