How to Interview and Conduct Focus Groups

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.
 

Jen Katz-Buonincontro, PhD, is Associate Professor and Associate Dean of Research in the School of Education at Drexel University. Her scholarship traces inborn versus learnable beliefs about creativity and talent in philosophical tracts and political rhetoric, documents the process of learning how to problem solve, and integrates the arts into leadership curriculum and STEM education. She served as President of APA’s Division 10 and as Associate Editor for the journal Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts. She also serves as Past Chair of the Arts and Learning Special Interest Group of the American Education Research Association.

Series Preface
Introduction
Chapter 1: Qualitative Research Essentials
Chapter 2: Interviews
Chapter 3: Focus Groups
Chapter 4: Combining Interviews and Focus Groups With Each Other and With Other Types of Data
Chapter 5. Addressing Rigor, Validity, and Reliability
Chapter 6: Transcribing and Coding
Chapter 7. Analyzing Qualitative Data
Chapter 8: Writing up and Publishing Results
Appendix: Resources for Qualitative Researchers
References
About the Author