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Practical Research Methods
A user-friendly guide to mastering
research techniques and projects
DR CATHERINE DAWSON
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For my Dad
First published in 2002 by
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# 2002 Dr Catherine Dawson
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Contents
Preface ix
1 How to Define Your Project 1
Asking questions 1
The five ‘Ws’ 4
Summary 13
2 How to Decide Upon a Methodology 14
Understanding the difference between qualitative and
quantitative research 14
Summary 22
Further reading 23
3 How to Choose Your Research Methods 27
Interviewing 27
Focus groups 29
Questionnaires 30
Participant observation 32
Choosing your methods 33
Summary 37
Further reading 38
4 How to Conduct Background Research 40
Primary research and secondary research 40
Summary 45
Further reading 46
5 How to Choose Your Participants 47
Sampling 47
Sample size 49
Summary 53
Further reading 54
6 How to Prepare a Research Proposal 55
The contents of a proposal 56
v

What makes a good proposal? 60
Reasons why research proposals fail 61
Summary 62
Further reading 63
7 How to Conduct Interviews 64
Methods of recording 64
The interview schedule 67
Establishing rapport 70
Asking questions and probing for information 71
Summary 73
Further reading 75
8 How to Conduct Focus Groups 76
The role of the moderator 77
Recording equipment 80
Choosing a venue 81
Recruiting your participants 82
Summary 84
Further reading 85
9 How to Construct Questionnaires 87
Deciding which questionnaire to use 87
Wording and structure of questions 89
Length and ordering of questions 93
Piloting the questionnaire 95
Obtaining a high response 97
Summary 99
Further reading 100
10 How to Carry Out Participant Observation 101
Gaining access 102
Ethics 103
Collecting and analysing information 105
Withdrawal from the ﬁeld 107
Summary 107
Further reading 108
11 How to Analyse Your Data 110
Deciding which approach to use 110
vi / P R A C T I C A L R E S E A R C H M E T H O D S

Qualitative data analysis 111
Quantitative data analysis 121
Measuring data 126
Summary 128
Further reading 129
12 How to Report Your Findings 131
Written reports 131
Written report format 134
Journal articles 140
Oral presentations 142
Summary 143
Further reading 144
13 How to be an Ethical Researcher 146
Treating participants with respect 146
Overt and covert research 147
Code of ethics 150
Summary 154
Further reading 155
Index 157
CON TENT S / vii

Listof Illustrations
Tables
1. The focus group method: advantages and
disadvantages 30
2. Sources of background information 45
3. Sampling techniques 50
4. Sampling dos and don’ts 52
5. Survey timetable 59
6. Research budget 60
7. Recording methods: advantages and disadvantages 66
8. Strategies for dealing with awkward situations 79
9. Open and closed questions: advantages and
disadvantages 88
10. Using computers for qualitative data analysis:
advantages and disadvantages 122
11. Age of respondents 124
12. Making presentations: dos and don’ts 142
Figures
1. Personal proﬁle form 96
2. Interview summary form 113
3. Focus group summary form 114
4. Qualitative data analysis continuum 115
5. Example list of references 138
6. Code of ethics 153
viii

Preface
This book is a practical, down-to-earth guide for people
who wish to conduct research. It is aimed at those new
to research and assumes no prior knowledge of the issues
covered. It will also appeal to those people who have al-
ready conducted some research and who are interested in
finding out more about other research methods that are
available to them.
For the purpose of this book, research is defined as the
deliberate study of other people for the purposes of in-
creasing understanding and/or adding to knowledge. This
deliberate study could cover many different areas. As a re-
searcher, you might be interested in attitudes and beha-
viour – why do people think in a certain way and why
do they behave in a certain way? Or you might be inter-
ested in numbers – how many people use a service? Per-
haps you need to try to predict how this number of
people could be increased so that you can obtain funding
for your service. Or you might be fascinated by the perso-
nal history of a neighbour and have a burning desire to
record her history and pass it on to others.
We all have different reasons for conducting research.
Some of us might have to undertake a project as part of
our course work. Others might have to conduct a study as
part of our employment. Some of us may be fascinated by
something we’ve observed and want to find out more. This
book offers advice on how to turn your ideas into a work-
ix

able project and how to keep motivation levels high, espe-
cially if you have no real inclination to become a research-
er. It discusses the issues involved in thinking about your
research and defining your project, before moving on to
the methods – how do you actually do your research, ana-
lyse your findings and report the results?
Over the decades there has been a great deal of discussion on
what constitutes research, how it should be conducted and
whether certain methods are ‘better’ than others. Although
I have touched upon some of these issues in the relevant
chapters, it is not possible or desirable to go into any greater
detail in this book. Therefore, I have included further read-
ing sections at the end of the relevant chapters for those of
you who wish to follow up these issues.
I have been a researcher since undertaking an MA in Social
Research in 1987. Working within both further and higher
education and as a freelance researcher, I have been involved
in avarietyof projects in the areas of education, housing and
community research. I have taught research methods to
adults returning to education and conducted in-house train-
ing for employees who need to carry out their own research.
Becoming a successful researcher is a continual learning
process in which we all make mistakes. So don’t worry if
your first project doesn’t run as smoothlyas you might wish.
Instead, remember that undertaking a research project can
be fascinating, rewarding and exciting – I hope that you en-
joy it as much as I have done and I wish you every success in
your project.
Dr Catherine Dawson
x / PRACT ICAL RESEARCH MET HODS

1
How to DefineYour Project
Before you start to think about your research, you need to
ask yourself a few questions.
ASKING QUESTIONS
Why have I decided to do some research?
If the answer to this question is because you have been told
to do so, either by your tutor or by your boss, you need to
think about how you’re to remain motivated throughout
your project. Research can be a long process and take up
much of your time. It is important to stay interested in
what you’re doing if you are to complete your project suc-
cessfully. However, if you want to conduct some research
because something has fascinated you, or you have identi-
fied a gap in the research literature, then you are lucky and
should not have a problem with motivation.
How can I remain interestedin my research?
The obvious answer to this is to choose a topic which in-
terests you. Most of you do have this choice within the
limitations of your subject – be creative and think about
something which will fascinate you. However, if you have
had the topic chosen for you, try instead choosing a re-
search method which interests you. As you go on to read
this book you will become more familiar with the different
methods and should be able to find something in which
1

you are interested. For example, mathematics might have
motivated you at school. If so, you may find it interesting
to delve deeper into statistical software. Or you might
have been invited to take part in a focus group for a mar-
ket research company and found it an interesting experi-
ence. Perhaps now you would find it enjoyable to try
running your own focus group? Or maybe you have been
fascinated by a particular group of people and you would
like to immerse yourself within that group, taking part in
their activities whilst studying their behaviour?
What personal characteristics do I have which might help me to
complete my research?
Think about your personal characteristics, likes and dis-
likes, strengths and weaknesses when you’re planning
your research. If you’re very good with people you might
like to think about a project which would involve you con-
ducting in-depth interviews with people who you find fas-
cinating. If you absolutely hate mathematics and
statistics, steer clear of large survey research. Are you
good at socialising? Do people feel at ease with you and
are they willing to confide in you? Or do you prefer to hide
yourself away and number crunch, or spend hours on the
internet? All of these personal characteristics suggest a
leaning towards certain types of research. As you read this
book you will find ideas forming – jot these down so that
you can refer to them later when you come to plan your
research.
What skills and experience do I have which might help in my
research?
If your research is to be employment based, the chances
are you will have work experience which you’ll find useful
2 / PR A C T I C A L R E S E A R C H M E T H O D S

HOW TO DEFINE YOUR PROJ ECT / 3
when conducting your research project. This is valid ex-
perience and you should make the most of it when plan-
ning your research. Even if your project is not
employment based, all of you will have other skills and
experience which will help. For example, if you have been
a student for three years, you will have developed good
literature search skills which will be very useful in the re-
search process. Some of you may have developed commit-
tee skills, organisation skills and time management
expertise. All of these will be extremely useful in your re-
search. Think about your existing skills in relation to your
proposed project as it will help you to think about
whether your knowledge, experience and skills will help
you to address the problem you have identiﬁed.
Many research projects fail because people don’t take en-
ough time to think about the issues involved before rush-
ing to start the work. It is extremely important to spend
time thinking about your project before you move on to
the planning stage. Through careful thought you should
stop yourself wasting time and energy on inappropriate
methods as your research progresses. Consider the follow-
ing example:
EXAMPLE 1: JAMES
James wanted to ﬁnd out about students’ experiences of
housing in his university town. He designed and sent
out a questionnaire to 1,000 students. When the replies
started to come in, he realised that the questionnaires
weren’t generating the type of information in which
he was interested. When he talked through his concerns

with his tutor, it emerged that James was really inter-
ested in attitudes towards, and experiences of, rented
accommodation. His questionnaire had been poorly de-
signed and was not generating this type of information.
He had to scrap the questionnaire and construct an-
other which he combined with a number of one-to-
one interviews to get more in-depth information. He
had spent three months designing and administering a
questionnaire which had not produced the type of infor-
mation he required. If he had spent more time thinking
about the research, especially coming to terms with the
difference between qualitative and quantitative research,
he would have saved himself a lot of time and energy
(see Chapter 2).
THE FIVE‘WS’
When you start to think about your research project, a
useful way of remembering the important questions to
ask is to think of the five ‘Ws’:
What?
Why?
Who?
Where?
When?
Once you have thought about these five ‘Ws’ you can
move on to think about how you are going to collect your
data.

What?
What is your research? This question needs to be an-
swered as specifically as possible. One of the hardest parts
in the early stages is to be able to define your project, so
much research fails because the researcher has been un-
able to do this. A useful tip is to sum up, in one sentence
only, your research. If you are unable to do this, the
chances are your research topic is too broad, ill thought
out or too obscure.
Why?
Why do you want to do the research? What is its purpose?
Okay, you might have been told to do some research by
your tutor or by your boss, but there should be another
reason why you have chosen your particular subject. It
might be solely to do with the fact that you are interested
in the topic. This is a good start as you need to be inter-
ested in your research if you are to keep up your enthu-
siasm and remain motivated. Or you might have
identified a gap in the research literature – this is good
as it shows you have carried out careful background re-
search. Or perhaps you want to try to obtain funding
for a particular service or enterprise and you need to do
some research first to find out if there is demand for what
you are proposing.
Whatever your reason, think very carefully about why you
are doing the research as this will affect your topic, the
way you conduct the research and the way in which you
report the results. If you’re doing it for a university dis-
sertation or project, does your proposed research provide
the opportunity to reach the required intellectual stan-

dard? Will your research generate enough material to
write a dissertation of the required length? Or will your
research generate too much data that would be impossible
to summarise into a report of the required length? If
you’re conducting research for funding purposes, have
you found out whether your proposed funding body re-
quires the information to be presented in a speciﬁc for-
mat? If so, you need to plan your research in a way
which will meet that format.
Who?
Who will be your participants? (In this book, people who
take part in research will be called participants or respon-
dents, rather than ‘subjects’, which is a term that I have
never liked.) At this stage of the research process, you
needn’t worry too much about exactly how many partici-
pants will take part in your research as this will be covered
later (see Chapter 5). However, you should think about
the type of people with whom you will need to get in touch
with and whether it will be possible for you to contact
them. If you have to conduct your research within a par-
ticular time scale, there’s little point choosing a topic
which would include people who are diﬃcult or expensive
to contact. Also, bear in mind that the Internet now pro-
vides opportunities for contacting people cheaply, espe-
cially if you’re a student with free internet access.
Where?
Where are you going to conduct your research? Thinking
about this question in geographical terms will help you to
narrow down your research topic. Also, you need to think
about the resources in terms of budget and time that are

available to you. If you’re a student who will not receive
travel expenses or any other out of pocket expenses,
choose a location close to home, college or university. If
you’re a member of a community group on a limited bud-
get, only work in areas within walking distance which will
cut down on travel expenses.
Also, you need to think about where you’ll be carrying out
your research in terms of venue. If you’re going to con-
duct interviews or focus groups, where will you hold
them? Is there a room at your institution which would
be free of charge, or are you going to conduct them in par-
ticipants’ own homes? Would it be safe for you to do so?
Would you be comfortable doing so? If you’ve answered
‘no’ to either of these last two questions, maybe you need
to think again about your research topic. In 15 years I
have encountered only one uncomfortable situation in a
stranger’s home. It can happen and you must never put
yourself in a dangerous situation. Think very carefully
about whether your chosen topic and method might have
an inﬂuence on personal safety.
When?
When are you going to do your research? Thinking about
this question will help you to sort out whether the research
project you have proposed is possible within your time
scale. It will also help you to think more about your par-
ticipants, when you need to contact them and whether
they will be available at that time. For example, if you
want to go into schools and observe classroom practice,
you wouldn’t choose to do this research during the sum-
mer holiday. It might sound obvious, but I have found

some students present a well-written research proposal
which, in practical terms, will not work because the par-
ticipants will be unavailable during the proposed data
collection stage.
Once you have thought about these five ‘Ws’, try to sum
up your proposed project in one sentence. When you have
done this, take it to several people, including your boss
and/or tutor, and ask them if it makes sense. Do they un-
derstand what your research is about? If they don’t, ask
them to explain their confusion, revise your statement
and take it back to them.
I can’t overemphasise the importance of this stage of the re-
search process. If you get it right now, you will find that the
rest of your work should flow smoothly. However, if you get
it wrong, your problems could well escalate. The following
exercise will help you to think more about these issues.
EXERCISE 1
Have a look at the three projects below and see if you
can spot any potential problems. What questions would
you ask to make the researchers focus in on their pro-
posed project? Do you have any suggestions for the im-
provement of these statements?
Statement 1: This research aims to find out what people
think about television.

Statement 2: My project is to do some research into Alz-
heimer’s disease, to find out what people do when their
relatives have it and what support they can get and how
nurses deal with it.
Statement 3: We want to find out how many of the local
residents are interested in a play scheme for children dur-
ing the summer holiday.
Points to consider
Statement 1: This research aims to find out what people
think about television. This proposed project is both
broad and obscure. My first two questions would be:
what people and what television? Then I would ask:
what is the purpose of this research? Who would be in-
terested in the results? TV companies already employ
market researchers to conduct a great deal of research
into public viewing, and they have much larger budgets
available to them. There’s little point in repeating re-
search if it cannot be improved upon.
However, if the researcher has an interest in this parti-
cular issue, or is perhaps on a media studies course,
there are a number of ways in which this research could
become more manageable. The researcher could focus
in on a particular type of programme and/or a particu-
lar type of person. For example, she could decide to
show an Open University programme to potential OU
students and find out what they thought about the pro-

gramme in a series of focus groups. Or she could
choose children’s programming and find out what tea-
chers think about the educational value of these pro-
grammes. Or she could ask business people what they
think about a programme aimed specifically at the busi-
ness community. Finally, maybe she could ask fellow
students to keep a diary of their television viewing over
a week and then interview them about their viewing ha-
bits.
There are many different possibilities within this field.
The researcher needs to decide exactly where her inter-
ests lie and focus in on those interests.
Statement 2: My project is to do some research into Alz-
heimer’s disease, to find out what people do when their
relatives have it and what support they can get and how
nurses deal with it.
The main problem with this statement is the grammar.
The topic itself is more focused as the researcher has
mentioned, specifically, the areas he wishes to consider
– nurses’ attitudes, carers’ experiences and available
support. His topic is immediately more manageable be-
cause he is only considering nurses or carers who come
into contact with sufferers of Alzheimer’s disease. How-
ever, he needs to think about whether he is going to
consider hospitals, residential homes, or both, and in
what areas. Also, is he going to contact people who
look after their relatives at home?
10 / PRACT ICAL RE SEARCH MET HODS

H O W T O D E F I N E Y O U R P R O J E C T / 11
Although, on the surface, this project appears more
manageable, this researcher has a major point to con-
sider. In the UK all social research which is carried
out on health care premises comes under the jurisdic-
tion of Research Ethics Committees. These committees
were set up to ensure that research does not harm pa-
tients in any way and that it is done in their best inter-
ests. In the USA a similar function is carried out by
Institutional Review Boards. This means that the re-
searcher would have to get his project approved by
the appropriate committee before he could go ahead
with the research, and it is not guaranteed that his pro-
ject would be given approval. As he would have to sub-
mit a full and detailed proposal to the committee, he
could be conducting a lot of preliminary work, only
to be turned down. Researchers need to think carefully
whether this is a route they wish to take, and if so, ob-
tain the appropriate advice before committing them-
selves.
Statement 3: We want to find out how many of the local
residents are interested in a play scheme for children dur-
ing the summer holiday.
This project put forward by a tenants’ association ap-
pears to be straightforward and manageable, although
there are still several issues which need addressing. My
first question for this topic would be: do you really want
to find out how many of the local residents are inter-

ested, or do you want to find out the interests of resi-
dents with children of the appropriate age who would ac-
tually use the scheme? If the latter is the case, this
narrows down the research population and makes it
more manageable.
Finding out whether someone is interested in something
is not actually the same as finding out whether someone
would use the service. For example, I might think a play
scheme is a good idea for other children as it might keep
them off the streets, but not for my little darlings who
are too occupied with their computer. If I said ‘yes, I
am interested’, this could be misleading as I have no in-
tention of using the service. However, if the purpose of
the research is to obtain funding for the scheme, then
the more people who express an interest, the better,
although the tenants’ association would have to be
careful not to produce misleading information.
I would also find out whether the tenants’ association
was interested only in the issue of how many people
were interested in it and would use the play scheme. If
they were doing this research anyway, would it be a va-
luable addition to find out what sort of scheme resi-
dents would like, and what activities their children
would like? Would residents have any reservations
about sending their children? If they do have reserva-
tions, what are they? Who would residents want to
run the scheme? Would they be willing to provide help
and support themselves?

H O W T O D E F I N E Y O U R P R O J E C T / 13
SUMMARY
You must take time to think about your research as this
will save you problems later.
When you’re thinking about your research, ask your-
self the ﬁve ‘Ws’:
– What is my research?
– Why do I want to do the research?
– Who are my research participants?
– Where am I going to do the research?
– When am I going to do the research?
Sum up your research project in one sentence.
Discuss your sentence with your tutor or boss and re-
vise if there is any confusion.

2
How to Decide Upona
Methodology
Once you have answered the five ‘Ws’ you can go on to
think about how you’re going to do your research. The
first thing you need to do is to think about your research
methodology. This is the philosophy or the general princi-
ple which will guide your research. It is the overall ap-
proach to studying your topic and includes issues you
need to think about such as the constraints, dilemmas
and ethical choices within your research. Now that you
have read Chapter 1, some of these issues will be fresh
in your mind. Your research methodology is different to
your research methods – these are the tools you use to
gather data, such as questionnaires or interviews, and
these will be discussed in Chapter 3.
UNDERSTANDING THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN
QUALITATIVE AND QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH
When you start to think about your research methodol-
ogy, you need to think about the differences between qua-
litative and quantitative research.
Qualitative research explores attitudes, behaviour and ex-
periences through such methods as interviews or focus
groups. It attempts to get an in-depth opinion from par-
ticipants. As it is attitudes, behaviour and experiences
14

H O W T O DE C I D E U P O N A M E T H O D O L O GY / 15
which are important, fewer people take part in the re-
search, but the contact with these people tends to last a
lot longer. Under the umbrella of qualitative research
there are many different methodologies. Examples of
some of these methodologies are summarised below. If
you wish to pursue any of these in more depth, useful re-
ferences are included at the end of this chapter.
Quantitative research generates statistics through the use
of large-scale survey research, using methods such as
questionnaires or structured interviews. If a market re-
searcher has stopped you on the streets, or you have filled
in a questionnaire which has arrived through the post, this
falls under the umbrella of quantitative research. This
type of research reaches many more people, but the con-
tact with those people is much quicker than it is in quali-
tative research.
Qualitative versus quantitative inquiry
Over the years there has been a large amount of complex
discussion and argument surrounding the topic of re-
search methodology and the theory of how inquiry should
proceed. Much of this debate has centred on the issue of
qualitative versus quantitative inquiry – which might be
the best and which is more ‘scientific’. Different meth-
odologies become popular at different social, political,
historical and cultural times in our development, and, in
my opinion, all methodologies have their specific
strengths and weaknesses. These should be acknowledged
and addressed by the researcher. At the end of this chap-
ter references are given if you are interested in following
up any of these issues. Certainly, if you were to do so, it

would help you to think about your research methodology
in considerable depth.
Deciding which methodology is right for you
Don’t fall into the trap which many beginning (and ex-
perienced) researchers do in thinking that quantitative re-
search is ‘better’ than qualitative research. Neither is
better than the other – they are just different and both
have their strengths and weaknesses. What you will find,
however, is that your instincts probably lean you towards
one rather than the other. Listen to these instincts as you
will find it more productive to conduct the type of re-
search with which you will feel comfortable, especially if
you’re to keep your motivation levels high. Also, be aware
of the fact that your tutor or boss might prefer one type of
research over the other. If this is the case, you might have
a harder time justifying your chosen methodology, if it
goes against their preferences.
EXAMPLES OF QUALITATIVE RESEARCH
METHODOLGIES
Action research
Some researchers believe that action research is a re-
search method, but in my opinion it is better under-
stood as a methodology. In action research, the
researcher works in close collaboration with a group
of people to improve a situation in a particular setting.
The researcher does not ‘do’ research ‘on’ people, but
instead works with them, acting as a facilitator. There-
fore, good group management skills and an under-
standing of group dynamics are important skills for
16 / P R A C T I C A L R E S E A R C H M E T H O D S

HO W TO D E C I D E U P O N A M E T H O D O L O G Y / 17
the researcher to acquire. This type of research is pop-
ular in areas such as organisational management, com-
munity development, education and agriculture.
Action research begins with a process of communica-
tion and agreement between people who want to change
something together. Obviously, not all people within an
organisation will be willing to become co-researchers,
so action research tends to take place with a small
group of dedicated people who are open to new ideas
and willing to step back and reflect on these ideas.
The group then moves through four stages of planning,
acting, observing and reflecting. This process may hap-
pen several times before everyone is happy that the
changes have been implemented in the best possible
way. In action research various types of research meth-
od may be used, for example: the diagnosing and eval-
uating stage questionnaires, interviews and focus
groups may be used to gauge opinion on the proposed
changes.
Ethnography
Ethnography has its roots in anthropology and was a
popular form of inquiry at the turn of the century when
anthropologists travelled the world in search of remote
tribes. The emphasis in ethnography is on describing
and interpreting cultural behaviour. Ethnographers im-
merse themselves in the lives and culture of the group
being studied, often living with that group for months
on end. These researchers participate in a groups’ activ-
ities whilst observing its behaviour, taking notes, con-
ducting interviews, analysing, reflecting and writing

reports – this may be called fieldwork or participant ob-
servation. Ethnographers highlight the importance of
the written text because this is how they portray the cul-
ture they are studying.
Feminist research
There is some argument about whether feminist inquiry
should be considered a methodology or epistemology,
but in my opinion it can be both. (As we have seen,
methodology is the philosophy or the general principle
which will guide your research. Epistemology, on the
other hand, is the study of the nature of knowledge
and justification. It looks at from where knowledge
has come and how we know what we know.) Feminist
researchers argue that for too long the lives and experi-
ences of women have been ignored or misrepresented.
Often, in the past, research was conducted on male
‘subjects’ and the results generalised to the whole popu-
lation. Feminist researchers critique both the research
topics and the methods used; especially those which em-
phasise objective, scientific ‘truth’. With its emphasis on
participative, qualitative inquiry, feminist research has
provided a valuable alternative framework for research-
ers who have felt uncomfortable with treating people as
research ‘objects’. Under the umbrella of feminist re-
search are various different standpoints – these are dis-
cussed in considerable depth in some of the texts listed
at the end of this chapter.
Grounded theory
Grounded theory is a methodology which was first laid
out in 1967 by two researchers named Glaser and

H O W T O D E C I DE U P ON A M E T H OD O L O G Y / 19
Strauss. It tends to be a popular form of inquiry in the
areas of education and health research. The emphasis in
this methodology is on the generation of theory which
is grounded in the data – this means that it has emerged
from the data. This is different from other types of re-
search which might seek to test a hypothesis that has
been formulated by the researcher. In grounded theory,
methods such as focus groups and interviews tend to be
the preferred data collection method, along with a com-
prehensive literature review which takes place through-
out the data collection process. This literature review
helps to explain emerging results.
In grounded theory studies the number of people to be
interviewed is not specified at the beginning of the re-
search. This is because the researcher, at the outset, is
unsure of where the research will take her. Instead,
she continues with the data collection until ‘saturation’
point is reached, that is, no new information is being
provided. Grounded theory is therefore flexible and en-
ables new issues to emerge that the researcher may not
have thought about previously.
So, how do you decide which is the best methodology for
your research? Perhaps the easiest way to do this is to de-
cide first of all whether you should consider qualitative or
quantitative research. Have another look at the five ‘Ws’
discussed in Chapter 1. If you have not already done so,
go through each question in relation to your own research.
Once you have done this, clues will start to emerge about
what is the best form of inquiry for you.

First of all, have a look at the words you have used. Cer-
tain words help to suggest a leaning towards qualitative
research, others towards quantitative research. For exam-
ple, if you have written ‘how many’, ‘test’, ‘verify’, ‘how
often’ or ‘how satisfied’, this suggests a leaning towards
quantitative research. If you have written words such as
‘discover’, ‘motivation’, ‘experiences’, ‘think/thoughts’,
‘problems’, or ‘behave/behaviour’, this suggests a leaning
towards qualitative research. However, you may find that
you have written a combination of these words which
could mean two things. Firstly, you might want to think
about combining both qualitative and quantitative re-
search, which is called triangulation. Many researchers be-
lieve this is a good way of approaching research as it
enables you to counteract the weaknesses in both qualita-
tive and quantitative research. Secondly, it could mean
that your ideas are still unclear and that you need to focus
a little more.
To help you understand the thought processes involved in
these decisions, let’s return to the exercise given in the
previous chapter:
EXAMPLE 2: Revised statements
Original statement 1: This research aims to find out what
people think about television.
After having thought about how to focus her topic,
make the project more manageable and produce a
worthwhile piece of research, the researcher came up
with the following revised statement:
20 / PRACT ICAL R ESEARCH MET HODS

H O W T O D E C I D E U P O N A ME T H O D OL O G Y / 21
Revised Statement 1: This research aims to find out what
primary school teachers think about the educational value
of ‘The Teletubbies’ television programme.
This research topic is now well-focused. When the stu-
dent suggested this research it was also very topical –
The Teletubbies had been released only four weeks prior
to the research and complaints about their language
were filling the national media. The main clue to the
methodology is the word ‘think’. The student wishes
to get an in-depth opinion, but is not concerned with
speaking to a large number of primary school teachers.
This suggests a qualitative form of inquiry.
Original statement 2: My project is to do some research
into Alzheimer’s disease, to find out what people do when
their relatives have it and what support they can get and
how nurses deal with it.
This researcher decided to narrow down his topic. Also,
he found out some more information about whether his
research needed to go to a Research Ethics Committee
by checking out the website www.corec.org.uk. This site
gives details about the committees, a list of meeting
dates, guidance notes and application forms for those
researchers interested in putting forward a proposal.
Revised statement 2: The aim of this research is to
find out how many relatives of Alzheimer’s patients use
the Maple Day Centre, and to ascertain whether the ser-
vice is meeting their needs.
Again this topic is now much better focused. The
research population is limited to relatives of Alzhei-
mer’s patients who use the Maple Day Centre. One clue

to the methodology is in the words ‘how many’ which
suggests a quantitative study. However, he is also inter-
ested in finding out whether the service meets their
needs, which requires some more in-depth inquiry. This
suggests a combination of qualitative and quantitative
inquiry.
Original Statement 3: We want to find out how many of
the local residents are interested in a play scheme for chil-
dren during the summer holiday.
The tenants’ association thought carefully about the is-
sues in which they were interested, eventually coming
up with the following revised statement:
Revised Statement 3: This research aims to find out how
many people from our estate are interested in, and would
use, a children’s play scheme in the school summer holiday.
Again, the clue in this example is ‘how many’. The
tenants’ association wanted to obtain funding for their
play scheme and felt that it was important to gather sta-
tistics which they could take to possible funding organi-
sations. This suggests a quantitative study.
SUMMARY
The research methodology is the philosophy or general
principle which guides the research.
Research methods are the tools you use to gather your
data.
Qualitative research explores attitudes, behaviour and
experiences.

H O W T O D E C I DE U P ON A M E T H OD O L O G Y / 23
Examples of qualitative methodologies include action
research, ethnography, feminist research and grounded
theory.
Quantitative research generates statistics through the
use of large-scale survey research.
Neither qualitative nor quantitative research is better –
they are just diﬀerent. Both have their strengths and
weaknesses.
Your own intuition and the words you use will give
pointers to whether qualitative or quantitative research
is more appropriate for your chosen project.
The term ‘triangulation’ is used when a combination of
qualitative and quantitative forms of inquiry are used.
FURTHER READING
The theoretical and philosophical issues raised in this
chapter are detailed and complex and cannot be discussed
in depth in this book. However, if you wish to pursue any
of these topics, some of the useful publications are listed
below under the relevant topics.
Qualitative research
Over recent years there has been a great deal of innova-
tion in the use of qualitative methodologies. Listed below
are some of the more traditional texts and a selection of
the newer, innovative texts.
Denzin, N.K. and Lincoln, Y.S. (eds.) (2000) Handbook of
Qualitative Research, 2nd
edition, Thousand Oaks, CA:
Sage.
Higgs, J., Armstrong, H. and Horsfall, D. (2001) Critical

Moments in Qualitative Research, Oxford: Butterworth-
Heinemann.
Hollway, W. and Jefferson, T. (2000) Doing Qualitative Re-
search Differently: Free Association, Narrative and the
Interview Method, London: Sage.
Schwandt, T. (1997) Qualitative Inquiry: A Dictionary of
Terms, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Van Maanen, J. (ed.) (1983) Qualitative Methodology,
Beverly Hells, CA: Sage.
Quantitative research
De Vaus, D.A. (1991) Surveys in Social Research, 3rd
edi-
tion, London: UCL Press.
Fowler, F. (2001) Survey Research Methods, 3rd
edition,
Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Marsh, C. (1982) The Survey Method: The Contribution of
Surveys to Sociological Explanation, London: George
Allen and Unwin.
Sapsford, R. (1999) Survey Research, London: Sage.
Action research
Alvesson, M. and Sko¨ ldberg, K. (2000) Reflexive Metho-
dology: New Vistas for Qualitative Research, Thousand
Oaks, CA: Sage.
Brooks, A. and Watkins, E. (eds.) (1994) The Emerging
Power of Action Inquiry Technologies, San Francisco:
Jossey-Bass.
Dadds, M. and Hart, S. (eds.) (2001) Doing Practitioner
Research Differently, London: Routledge Falmer.
McNiff, J. (2000) Action Research in Organisations, Lon-
don: Routledge.
Reason, P. and Bradbury H. (eds.) (2000) Handbook of
24 / P R A C T I C A L R E S E AR C H M E T H O D S

H O W T O D E C I D E U P O N A ME T H O D O L O G Y / 25
Action Research: Participative Inquiry and Practice,
Ethnography
Atkinson, P. (1992) The Ethnographic Imagination, Lon-
don: Routledge.
Davies, C.A. (1999) Reﬂexive Ethnography: a guide to re-
searching selves and others, London: Routledge.
Hammersley, M. and Atkinson, P. (1995) Ethnography:
Principles in Practice, 2nd
edition, London: Routledge.
Thomas, J. (1993) Doing Critical Ethnography, Newbury
Park, CA: Sage.
Van Maanen, J. (1988) Tales of the Field: On Writing Eth-
nography, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Wolcott, H.F. (1999) Ethnography: a way of seeing, Wal-
nut Creek, CA: Altamira.
Feminist research
Alcoﬀ, L. and Potter, E. (eds.) (1993) Feminist Epistemol-
ogies, London: Routledge.
Fonow, M.M. and Cook, J.A. (eds.) (1991) Beyond Meth-
odology: Feminist Scholarship as Lived Research, Bloo-
mington: Indiana University Press.
Harding, S. (ed.) (1987) Feminism and Methodology, Mil-
ton Keynes: Open University Press.
Harding, S. (1991) Whose Science? Whose Knowledge?
Thinking From Women’s Lives, Milton Keynes: Open
University Press.
Stanley, L. and Wise, S. (1983) Breaking Out: Feminist
Consciousness and Feminist Research, London: Routle-
dge and Kegan Paul.
Stanley, L. and Wise, S. (1993) Breaking Out Again: Fem-

inist Ontology and Epistemology, London: Routledge.
Grounded theory
Dey, I. (1998) Grounding Grounded Theory: Guidelines for
Qualitative Inquiry, San Diego: Academic Press.
Glaser, B. and Strauss, A. (1967) The Discovery of
Grounded Theory, Chicago: Aldine.
Strauss, A. and Corbin, J. (1990) Basics of Qualitative Re-
search: Grounded Theory Procedures and Techniques,
Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

3
How to ChooseYour
Research Methods
As we have seen in the previous chapter, research methods
are the tools you use to collect your data. Before you de-
cide which would be the most appropriate methods for
your research, you need to find out a little more about
these tools. This chapter gives a description of the meth-
ods of interviewing, focus groups, questionnaires and par-
ticipant observation. Chapters 7–10 will go on to describe
in detail how to use each of these methods.
INTERVIEWING
In social research there are many types of interview. The
most common of these are unstructured, semi-structured
and structured interviews. If you want to find out about
other types of interview, relevant references are given at
the end of this chapter.
Unstructured interviews
Unstructured or in-depth interviews are sometimes called
life history interviews. This is because they are the fa-
voured approach for life history research. In this type of
interview, the researcher attempts to achieve a holistic un-
derstanding of the interviewees’ point of view or situation.
For example, if you want to find out about a Polish man’s
experiences of a concentration camp during the war,
27

you’re delving into his life history. Because you are unsure
of what has happened in his life, you want to enable him
to talk freely and ask as few questions as possible. It is for
this reason that this type of interview is called unstruc-
tured – the participant is free to talk about what he or
she deems important, with little directional influence from
the researcher. This type of interview can only be used for
qualitative research.
As the researcher tries to ask as few questions as possible,
people often assume that this type of interviewing is the
easiest. However, this is not necessarily the case. Re-
searchers have to be able to establish rapport with the par-
ticipant – they have to be trusted if someone is to reveal
intimate life information. This can be difficult and takes
tact, diplomacy and perseverance. Also, some people find
it very difficult to remain quiet while another person talks,
sometimes for hours on end. Researchers need to remain
alert, recognising important information and probing for
more detail. They need to know how to tactfully steer
someone back from totally irrelevant digressions. Also,
it is important to realise that unstructured interviewing
can produce a great deal of data which can be difficult
to analyse.
Semi-structured interviews
Semi-structured interviewing is perhaps the most com-
mon type of interview used in qualitative social research.
In this type of interview, the researcher wants to know
specific information which can be compared and con-
trasted with information gained in other interviews. To
do this, the same questions need to be asked in each inter-

H O W T O C H O O S E Y O U R R E S E A R C H M E T H O D S / 29
view. However, the researcher also wants the interview to
remain ﬂexible so that other important information can
still arise.
For this type of interview, the researcher produces an in-
terview schedule (see Chapter 7). This may be a list of spe-
ciﬁc questions or a list of topics to be discussed. This is
taken to each interview to ensure continuity. In some re-
search, such as a grounded theory study, the schedule is
updated and revised after each interview to include more
topics which have arisen as a result of the previous inter-
view.
Structured interviews
Structured interviews are used frequently in market re-
search. Have you ever been stopped in the street and
asked about washing powder or which magazines you
read? Or have you been invited into a hall to taste cider
or smell washing-up liquid? The interviewer asks you a
series of questions and ticks boxes with your response.
This research method is highly structured – hence the
name. Structured interviews are used in quantitative re-
search and can be conducted face-to-face or over the tele-
phone, sometimes with the aid of lap-top computers.
FOCUS GROUPS
Focus groups may be called discussion groups or group in-
terviews. A number of people are asked to come together
in a group to discuss a certain issue. For example, in mar-
ket research this could be a discussion centred on new
packaging for a breakfast cereal, or in social research this
could be to discuss adults’ experiences of school.

ADVANTAGES
Can receive a wide range of
responses during one meeting.
Participants can ask questions of
each other, lessoning impact of
researcher bias.
Helps people to remember issues
they might otherwise have
forgotten.
Helps participants to overcome
inhibitions, especially if they
know other people in the group.
The group effect is a useful
resource in data analysis.
Participant interaction is useful
to analyse.
DISADVANTAGES
Some people may be
uncomfortable in a group setting
and nervous about speaking in
front of others.
Not everyone may contribute.
Other people may contaminate
an individual’s views.
Some researchers may find it
difficult or intimidating to
moderate a focus group.
Venues and equipment can be
expensive.
Difficult to extract individual
views during the analysis.
The discussion is led by a moderator or facilitator who in-
troduces the topic, asks specific questions, controls di-
gressions and stops break-away conversations. She
makes sure that no one person dominates the discussion
whilst trying to ensure that each of the participants makes
a contribution. Focus groups may be video-recorded or
tape-recorded.
TABLE 1. THE FOCUS GROUP METHOD:
ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES
QUESTIONNAIRES
There are three basic types of questionnaire – closed-
ended, open-ended or a combination of both.

1. Closed-ended questionnaires
Closed-ended questionnaires are probably the type with
which you are most familiar. Most people have experience
of lengthy consumer surveys which ask about your shop-
ping habits and promise entry into a prize draw. This type
of questionnaire is used to generate statistics in quantita-
tive research. As these questionnaires follow a set format,
and as most can be scanned straight into a computer for
ease of analysis, greater numbers can be produced.
2. Open-ended questionnaires
Open-ended questionnaires are used in qualitative re-
search, although some researchers will quantify the an-
swers during the analysis stage. The questionnaire does
not contain boxes to tick, but instead leaves a blank sec-
tion for the respondent to write in an answer. Whereas
closed-ended questionnaires might be used to find out
how many people use a service, open-ended question-
naires might be used to find out what people think about
a service. As there are no standard answers to these ques-
tions, data analysis is more complex. Also, as it is opi-
nions which are sought rather than numbers, fewer
questionnaires need to be distributed.
3. Combination of both
Many researchers tend to use a combination of both open
and closed questions. That way, it is possible to find out
how many people use a service and what they think about
that service on the same form. Many questionnaires begin
with a series of closed questions, with boxes to tick or
scales to rank, and then finish with a section of open-
questions for more detailed response.

Recently, some market research companies have started
to distribute their questionnaires via the internet. This
suggests that soon there might be a new category of ques-
tionnaire – the interactive questionnaire, which allows re-
spondents to work with the researcher in both the
development and completion of the questionnaire.
PARTICIPANT OBSERVATION
There are two main ways in which researchers observe –
direct observation and participant observation. Direct ob-
servation tends to be used in areas such as health and psy-
chology. It involves the observation of a ‘subject’ in a
certain situation and often uses technology such as video
cameras or one-way mirrors. For example, the interaction
of mother, father and child in a specially prepared play
room may be watched by psychologists through a one-
way mirror in an attempt to understand more about fa-
mily relationships. In participant observation, however,
the researcher becomes much more involved in the lives
of the people being observed.
Participant observation can be viewed as both a method
and a methodology (see Chapter 10). It is popular
amongst anthropologists and sociologists who wish to
study and understand another community, culture or con-
text. They do this by immersing themselves within that
culture. This may take months or years, as they need to
build up a lasting and trusting relationship with those
people being studied. Through participation within their
chosen culture and through careful observation, they
hope to gain a deeper understanding into the behaviour,
motivation and attitudes of the people under study.

Participant observation, as a research method, received
bad press when a number of researchers became covert
participant observers; entering organisations and partici-
pating in their activities without anyone knowing that
they were conducting research (see Chapter 13). Overt
participant observation, where everyone knows who the
researcher is and what she is doing, however, can be a va-
luable and rewarding method for qualitative inquiry.
CHOOSING YOUR METHODS
By now you should have thought quite seriously about
your research methodology. This will help you to decide
upon the most appropriate methods for your research.
For example, if you’re leaning towards quantitative re-
search, survey work in the form of a questionnaire or
structured interviews may be appropriate. If you’re inter-
ested in action research, it might be useful to find out
more about semi-structured interviewing or focus groups.
In quantitative research you can define your research
methods early in the planning stage. You know what
you want to find out and you can decide upon the best
way to obtain the information. Also, you will be able to
decide early on how many people you need to contact
(see Chapter 5). However, in some types of qualitative re-
search it may be difficult to define your methods specifi-
cally. You may decide that semi-structured interviews
would be useful, although you’re not sure, in the planning
stages, how many you will need to conduct. You may find
also that you need to use other methods as the research
progresses. Maybe you want to run a focus group to see
what people think about the hypotheses you have gener-

ated from the interviews. Or perhaps you need to spend
some time in the ﬁeld observing something which has aris-
en during the interview stage.
De¢ning needs and means
It is not necessary to use only one research method,
although many projects do this. A combination of meth-
ods can be desirable as it enables you to overcome the dif-
ferent weaknesses inherent in all methods. What you must
be aware of, however, when deciding upon your methods,
are the constraints under which you will have to work.
What is your time scale? What is your budget? Are you
the only researcher, or will you have others to help you?
There’s no point deciding that a large scale, national post-
al survey is the best way to do your research if you only
have a budget of £50 and two months in which to com-
plete your work.
Also, you need to think about the purpose of your re-
search as this will help point to the most appropriate
methods to use. For example, if you want to describe in
detail the experiences of a group of women trying to set
up and run a charity, you wouldn’t send them a closed-
ended questionnaire. Instead, you might ask to become
involved and set up a piece of action research in which
you can decide to use interviews and focus groups. Or
you might decide to hold two semi-structured interviews
with each of the women involved, one at the beginning of
their project and one at the end. If your goal is detailed
description, you do not need to try to contact as many
people as possible.

H O W T O C H OO S E Y OU R R E S E A R C H M E T H O D S / 35
Let us return to the three examples in the exercises given
in the previous two chapters to find out which would be
the most appropriate methods for the research.
EXAMPLE 3: APPROPRIATE METHODS
Revised Statement 1: This research aims to find out what
primary school teachers think about the educational value
of ‘The Teletubbies’ television programme.
This researcher is interested in attitude and opinion.
She thinks about running a series of semi-structured in-
terviews with a small sample of primary school tea-
chers. However, the researcher is concerned that some
of the teachers may not have seen the programme and
might be unable to comment, or might comment purely
on ‘hearsay’. So she decides to gather together a group
of teachers and show them one episode of The Teletub-
bies. Then she discusses the programme with the tea-
chers in a focus group setting. This method works
well and the researcher decides to hold five more focus
groups with other primary school teachers.
Revised Statement 2: The aim of this research is to
find out how many relatives of Alzheimer’s patients use
the Maple Day Centre, and to ascertain whether the ser-
vice is meeting their needs.
This researcher decides to produce a questionnaire
with a combination of closed and open-ended ques-
tions. The first part of the questionnaire is designed
to generate statistics and the second part asks people
for a more in-depth opinion. He has approached mem-
bers of staff at the Maple Day Centre who are happy to

distribute his questionnaire over a period of one month.
Revised Statement 3: This research aims to find out how
many people from our estate are interested in, and would
use, a children’s play scheme in the school summer holi-
day.
.Members of the tenants’ association approach the
local school and ask the head teacher if a questionnaire
could be distributed through the school. The head tea-
cher feels that it is not appropriate so the tenants’ asso-
ciation have to revise their plans. They’re worried that
if they distribute a questionnaire through the post they
won’t receive back many responses. Eventually, they de-
cide to knock on each door on the estate and ask some
simple, standard questions. They’re able to conduct this
type of door-to-door, structured interview as they are a
large group and are able to divide the work amongst
everybody on the committee.
If, at this stage, you are still unsure of the most appropri-
ate methods for your research, read the following chapters
as these explain in more detail how to go about using each
method. This will give you more of an insight into what
would be required of you if you were to choose that meth-
od. As I stressed earlier, you need to think about your own
personality, your strengths and weaknesses, your likes and
dislikes. If you’re a nervous person who finds it difficult to
talk to strangers, face-to-face interviewing might not be
the best method for you. If you love working with groups,
you might like to find out more about focus group re-
search. If a particular culture has fascinated you for years
and you know you could immerse yourself within that cul-

HO W TO CH O O S E Y O U R R E S E A R C H M E T HO D S / 37
ture, perhaps participant observation would interest you.
If you love number crunching or using statistical software,
a closed-ended questionnaire may be the best method for
you.
Remember to think about choosing a method or meth-
od(s) with which you are happy as this is important to
keep your motivation levels high.
SUMMARY
Research methods are the tools that are used to gather
data.
Three types of interview are used in social research:
– Unstructured or life history interviews.
– Semi-structured interviews.
– Structured interviews.
Interviews can be conducted face-to-face or over the
telephone.
Focus groups are held with a number of people to ob-
tain a group opinion.
Focus groups are run by a moderator who asks ques-
tions and makes sure the discussion does not digress.
Questionnaires can be closed-ended, open-ended or a
combination of both.
Participant observation is used when a researcher
wants to immerse herself in a speciﬁc culture to gain
a deeper understanding.
The chosen research methodology should help to indi-
cate the most appropriate research tools.

Research methods must be chosen within budget and
time constraints.
The purpose of the research will provide an indicator
to the most appropriate methods.
You should think about your personality, strengths
and weakness, likes and dislikes when choosing re-
search methods.
FURTHER READING
Balnaves, M. and Caputi, P. (2001) Introduction to Quan-
titative Research Methods: An Investigative Approach,
London: Sage.
Bernard, H.R. (2000) Social Research Methods: Qualita-
tive and Quantitative Approaches, Thousand Oaks,
CA: Sage.
Bryman, A. (2001) Social Research Methods, Oxford: Ox-
ford University Press.
Burgess, R.G. (1985) Issues in Educational Research: Qua-
litative Methods, London: The Falmer Press.
Burns, R.B. (2000) Introduction to Research Methods, 4th
edition, London: Sage.
Denscombe, M. (1998) The Good Research Guide: for
small-scale social research projects, Buckingham: Open
University Press.
Eichler, M. (1988) Non-sexist Research Methods, Boston:
Allen & Unwin.
Fowler, F. (2001) Survey Research Methods, 3rd
edition,
Mason, J (1996) Qualitative Researching, London: Sage.
McNeill, P. (1990) Research Methods, 2nd
edition, Lon-
don: Routledge.

H O W T O C H OO S E Y OU R R E S E A R C H M E T H O D S / 39
Nielson, J.M. (1990) Feminist Research Methods, Boulder:
Westview Press.
Robson, C. (1993) Real World Research, Oxford: Black-
well.

4
How to Conduct
Background Research
Once you have decided upon a research project and you’re
able to sum up your proposed research in one sentence,
it’s time to start planning your project. The first thing
you need to do is your background research. This will help
you to become more familiar with your topic and intro-
duce you to any other research which will be of benefit
to you when you begin your own project.
PRIMARY RESEARCH AND SECONDARY RESEARCH
There are two types of background research – primary re-
search and secondary research (see Table 2). Primary re-
search involves the study of a subject through firsthand
observation and investigation. This is what you will be
doing with your main project, but you may also need to
conduct primary research for your background work,
especially if you’re unable to find any previously pub-
lished material about your topic. Primary research may
come from your own observations or experience, or from
the information you gather personally from other people,
as the following example illustrates.
40

H O W T O C O N D U C T B A C K GR OU N D R E S E A R C H / 41
EXAMPLE 4: JENNY
I was interested in looking at truancy in schools. The
idea came about from my own personal experience as
a teacher. I had noticed how some children didn’t fit
the classic description of a truant and I wanted to find
out more as I thought it might help me to deal with
some of the problems children were experiencing. So I
guess you’d say my own experience provided me with
some initial data. Then I decided to go and have a dis-
cussion with some of my colleagues and see if they’d
noticed anything like me. It was really useful to do this
because they helped me to think about other things I
hadn’t even thought of. One of them told me about a
new report which had just come out and it was useful
for me to go and have a look at it as it raised some
of the issues I was already thinking about. Actually this
made me change the focus of my work a little because I
soon found out that there had been a lot of work on one
area of what I was doing, but not so much on another
area. It was really useful to have done this before I
rushed into my research as I think I might have wasted
quite a bit of time.
In the above example, Jenny mentions a recently pub-
lished report which she has read. This is secondary re-
search and it involves the collection of information from
studies that other researchers have made of a subject. The
two easiest and most accessible places to find this informa-
tion are libraries and the internet. However, you must re-

member that anybody can publish information over the
internet and you should be aware that some of this infor-
mation can be misleading or incorrect. Of course this is
the case for any published information and as you develop
your research skills so you should also develop your criti-
cal thinking and reasoning skills. Do not believe every-
thing you’re told. Think about the information you are
being given. How was it collected? Were the methods
sound? What motives did the publishers have for making
sure their information had reached the public domain?
Using web sites
By developing these skills early in your work, you will
start to think about your own research and any personal
bias in your methods and reporting which may be present.
The web sites of many universities now carry information
about how to use the web carefully and sensibly for your
research and it is worth accessing these before you begin
your background work.
When you’re surﬁng the net, there are some extra precau-
tions you can take to check the reliability and quality of
the information you have found:
Try to use websites run by organisations you know and
trust.
Check the About Us section on the web page for more
information about the creator and organisation.
Use another source, if possible, to check any informa-
tion of which you are unsure. For example, if you’re
interested in medical information you can check the

H OW TO CO N D U C T B A C K G R O U N D R E S E AR CH / 43
credentials of UK doctors by phoning the General
Medical Council.
Look for a stamp of approval such as the Which? logo
which will appear on sites that have received the re-
quired level of approval from Which?
You should check the national source of the data as in-
formation may differ between countries.
For some topics specific websites have been set up that
contain details of questionable products, services and
theories. For example, in medical research you could
visit www.quackwatch.com, which contains non-recom-
mended sources of health advice, questionable theories
and details of money-making scams.
Interlibraryloans
If you are a student your institutional library will prob-
ably offer an interlibrary loan service which means that
you can access books from other university libraries if
they are not available in your library. A useful website
is www.copac.ac.uk which provides free access to the on-
line catalogues of 21 of the largest university research li-
braries in the UK and Ireland. This is a useful service if,
when referencing, you find that a small amount of infor-
mation is missing (see Example 5 below).
EXAMPLE 5: GILLIAN
Nobody told me the importance of keeping careful re-
cords of my background research. I just thought it was
something you did and then that was it, you got on with

your own research and forgot about what you’d done.
Of course then I had to write my report and in the
‘background’ section I wanted to include loads of things
I’d read when I first started the work. I found my notes,
but I didn’t know where they’d come from. It was so
frustrating. Basically I had to start all over again. Even
then I still forgot to write down the name and location
of the publisher, so I had to go back to them again. My
advice would be to look at how bibliographies are
structured and imprint that in your brain so you don’t
forget anything.
Keeping records
When you begin your background research, keep accurate
records of what data was gathered from which source as
this will save you plenty of time and frustration later,
especially when you come to write your research proposal,
or final report. A useful way to organise your background
research is to have two files – one for primary research
and one for secondary research. Each file can be divided
into topics with the relevant notes slotted into each.
Primary research
For the primary research file, notes from each contact can
be separated by a contact sheet which gives the name of
the person, the date and time you met and a contact num-
ber or address.
Secondary research
In the secondary research file, each page of notes can be
headed by details of the publication in the same format
that will be used in the bibliography – author and initials;
date of publication; title of publication; place of publica-
44 / PRACT ICAL RESEARCH MET HODS

HOW TO C ON D UC T BACKGROUND RE SEARCH / 45
tion and publisher. If it is a journal article, remember to
include the name of the journal; the page numbers of the
article and the volume and number of the journal. It is
also useful to include the location of this publication so
that it can be found easily if needed again (website or li-
brary shelf location).
TABLE 2: SOURCES OF BACKGROUND
INFORMATION
PRIMARY SECONDARY
Relevant people Research books
Researcher observation Research reports
Researcher experience Journal articles
Historical records/texts Articles reproduced online
Company/organisation records Scientiﬁc debates
Personal documents (diaries, etc) Critiques of literary works
Statistical data Critiques of art
Works of literature Analyses of historical events
Works of art
Film/video
Laboratory experiments
SUMMARY
There are two types of background research – primary
and secondary research.
Primary research involves the study of a subject
through ﬁrsthand observation and investigation.
Secondary research involves the collection of informa-
tion from studies that other researchers have made of a
subject.

For most research, the easiest and quickest way to ac-
cess secondary sources are libraries or the internet.
Any information obtained from secondary sources
must be carefully assessed for its relevance and accu-
racy.
Notes from primary and secondary sources should be
carefully filed and labelled so that the source can be
found again, if required.
When noting details for books, reports or articles
which may appear in the final report, include all the
details which would be needed for the bibliography.
FURTHER READING
Gash, S. (1999) Effective Literature Searching for Re-
search, 2nd
edition, Aldershot: Gower.
Hart, C. (2001) Doing a Literature Search, London: Sage.
Spence, G. (2001) A Simple Guide to Internet Research,
Harlow: Prentice Hall.

5
How to ChooseYour
Participants
As you continue planning your research project you need
to think about how you’re going to choose your partici-
pants. By now you should have decided what type of peo-
ple you need to contact. For some research projects, there
will be only a small number of people within your research
population, in which case it might be possible to contact
everyone. This is called a census. However, for most pro-
jects, unless you have a huge budget, limitless timescale
and large team of interviewers, it will be diﬃcult to speak
to every person within your research population.
SAMPLING
Researchers overcome this problem by choosing a smaller,
more manageable number of people to take part in their
research. This is called sampling. In quantitative research,
it is believed that if this sample is chosen carefully using the
correct procedure, it is then possible to generalise the re-
sults to the whole of the research population. For many
qualitative researchers however, the ability to generalise
their work to the whole research population is not the goal.
Instead, they might seek to describe or explain what is hap-
pening within a smaller group of people. This, they believe,
might provide insights into the behaviour of the wider re-
search population, but they accept that everyone is diﬀerent
47

and that if the research were to be conducted with another
group of people the results might not be the same.
Sampling procedures are used everyday. Market research-
ers use them to find out what the general population think
about a new product or new advertisement. When they re-
port that 87% of the population like the smell of a new
brand of washing powder, they haven’t spoken to the
whole population, but instead have contacted only a sam-
ple of people which they believe are able to represent the
whole population. When we hear that 42% of the popula-
tion intend to vote Labour at the next General Election,
only a sample of people have been asked about their voting
intentions. If the sample has not been chosen very care-
fully, the results of such surveys can be misleading. Imagine
how misleading the results of a ‘national’ survey on voting
habits would be if the interviews were conducted only in
the leafy suburbs of an English southern city.
Probabilitysamples and purposive samples
There are many different ways to choose a sample, and the
method used will depend upon the area of research, re-
search methodology and preference of the researcher. Ba-
sically there are two main types of sample:
probability samples
purposive samples.
In probability samples, all people within the research po-
pulation have a specifiable chance of being selected. These
types of sample are used if the researcher wishes to ex-
plain, predict or generalise to the whole research popula-
tion. On the other hand, purposive samples are used if

H O W T O C H O O S E Y O U R P A R T I C I P A N T S / 49
description rather than generalisation is the goal. In this
type of sample it is not possible to specify the possibility
of one person being included in the sample. Within the
probability and purposive categories there are several dif-
ferent sampling methods.
The best way to illustrate these sampling methods is to
take one issue and show how the focus of the research
and the methodology leads to the use of different sam-
pling methods. The area of research is ‘school detention’
and in Table 3 you can see that the focus and sampling
techniques within this topic can be very different, depend-
ing on the preferences of the researcher, the purpose of
the research and the available resources.
SAMPLE SIZE
The first question new researchers tend to ask is ‘how
many people should I speak to?’ This obviously depends
on the type of research. For large scale, quantitative sur-
veys you will need to contact many more people than you
would for a small, qualitative piece of research. The sam-
ple size will also depend on what you want to do with your
results. If you intend to produce large amounts of cross
tabulations, the more people you contact the better.
It tends to be a general rule in quantitative research that
the larger the sample the more accurate your results.
However, you have to remember that you are probably re-
stricted by time and money – you have to make sure that
you construct a sample which will be manageable. Also,
you have to account for non-response and you may need
to choose a higher proportion of your research population

PROBABILITY SAMPLES
The researcher is interested in
finding out about national detention
rates. He wants to make sure that
every school in the country has an
equal chance of being chosen
because he hopes to be able to make
generalisations from his findings. He
decides to use a simple random
sample. Using this method the
researcher needs to obtain the name
of every school in the country.
Numbers are assigned to each name
and a random sample generated by
computer. He then sends a
questionnaire to each of the selected
schools. The researcher would have
to make sure that he obtained the
name of every school in the country
for this method to work properly.
The researcher wants to find out
about national detention rates, but is
interested also in finding out about
school policy concerning detention.
He decides that to do this he needs to
visit each selected school. To cut
down on travel costs, he decides to
use a cluster sample. Using this
method, geographical ‘clusters’ are
chosen and a random sample of
schools from each cluster is
generated using random number
tables found at the back of some
statistics books. Using this method
the researcher only needs to travel to
schools within the selected
geographical regions. The researcher
would have to make sure that he
chose his clusters very carefully,
especially as policy concerning
detention might vary between
regions.
PURPOSIVE SAMPLES
The researcher decides that he wants
to interview a sample of all pupils
within a school, regardless of whether
they have been on detention or not.
He decides to use a quota sample to
make sure that all groups within the
school are represented. He decides to
interview a specified number of
female and male school pupils, a
specified number of arts, sciences and
social science pupils and a specified
number within different age
categories. He continues approaching
students and interviewing them until
his quota is complete. By using this
method only those pupils present at
the same time and in the same place
as the researcher have a chance of
being selected.
The researcher is interested in
carrying out semi-structured
interviews with pupils who have been
on detention over the past year.
However, he finds that the school has
not kept accurate records of these
pupils. Also, he doesn’t want to
approach the school because he will
be seen by the pupils as an authority
figure attached to the school. He
decides that a snowball sample would
be the most appropriate method. He
happens to know a pupil who has
been on detention recently and so
speaks to her, asking for names of
other pupils who might be willing to
talk to him. The researcher should
obtain permission and have a
chaperone or guardian present at the
interviews. He needs to be aware also
that friends tend to recommend
friends, which could lead to sampling
bias.
TABLE 3: SAMPLING TECHNIQUES

PROBABILITY SAMPLES
The researcher has decided that he
wishes to conduct a structured
interview with all the children who
have been on detention within a year
at one school. With the head
teacher’s permission, he obtains a
list of all these pupils. He decides to
use a quasi-random sample or
systematic sample. Using this method
he chooses a random point on the
list and then every third pupil is
selected. The problem with this
method is that it depends upon how
the list has been organised. If, for
example, the list has been organised
alphabetically, the researcher needs
to be aware that some cultures and
nationalities may have family names
which start with the same letters.
This means that these children would
be grouped together in the list and
may, therefore, be underrepresented
in the sample.
The researcher has decided that he
wishes to concentrate on the
detention rates of pupils by GCSE
subject choice and so decides upon a
stratified random sample. Using this
method the researcher stratifies his
sample by subject area and then
chooses a random sample of pupils
from each subject area. However, if
he found that there were many more
pupils in the arts than the sciences,
he could decide to choose a
disproportionate stratified sample
and increase the sample size of the
science pupils to make sure that his
data are meaningful. The researcher
would have to plan this sample very
carefully and would need accurate
records of subjects and pupils.
PURPOSIVE SAMPLES
The researcher has heard of a local
school which has very few detentions,
despite that school having a
detention policy. He decides to find
out why and visits the school to speak
to the head teacher. Many interesting
points arise from the interview and
the researcher decides to use a
theoretical sampling technique. Using
this method the emerging theory
helps the researcher to choose the
sample. For example, he might decide
to visit a school that has a high
detention rate and a school that has
no detention policy, all of which will
help to explain differing detention
rates and attitudes towards them.
Within this sampling procedure, he
might choose to sample extreme cases
which help to explain something, or
he might choose heterogeneous
samples where there is a deliberate
strategy to select people who are alike
in some relevant detail. Again the
researcher has to be aware of
sampling bias.
The researcher is a teacher himself
and decides to interview colleagues,
as he has limited time and resources
available to him. This is a
convenience sample. Also, at a
conference he unexpectedly gets to
interview other teachers. This might
be termed haphazard or accidental
sampling. The ability to generalise
from this type of sample is not the
goal, and, as with other sampling
procedures, the researcher has to be
aware of bias which could enter the
process. However, the insider status
of the teacher may help him to
obtain information or access which
might not be available to other
researchers.
H O W T O C H O O S E Y O U R P A R T I C I P A N T S / 51

TABLE 4: SAMPLING DOS AND DON’TS
DO
Take time and effort to work
out your sample correctly if
you’re conducting a large
scale survey. Read the
relevant literature suggested
in this book. Time taken at
the beginning will save
much wasted time later.
Discuss your proposed
sampling procedure and size
with your tutor, boss or
other researchers.
Be realistic about the size of
sample possible on your
budget and within your time
scale.
Be open and up front about
your sample. What are your
concerns? Could anything
have been done differently?
How might you improve
upon your methods?
Use a combination of
sampling procedures if it is
appropriate for your work.
DON’T
Rush into your work
without thinking very
carefully about sampling
issues. If you get it wrong it
could invalidate your whole
research.
Ignore advice from those
who know what they’re
talking about.
Take on more than you can
cope with. A badly worked
out, large sample may not
produce as much useful data
as a well-worked out, small
sample.
Make claims which cannot
be justified nor generalised
to the whole population.
Stick rigorously to a
sampling technique that is
not working. Admit your
mistakes, learn by them and
change to something more
appropriate

HO W TO CH O O S E Y O U R P A R T I C I P AN T S / 53
as your sample to overcome this problem. If you’re inter-
ested in large-scale quantitative research, statistical meth-
ods can be used to choose the size of sample required for
a given level of accuracy and the ability to make general-
isations. These methods and procedures are described in
the statistics books listed at the end of this chapter.
If your research requires the use of purposive sampling
techniques, it may be diﬃcult to specify at the beginning
of your research how many people you intend to contact.
Instead you continue using your chosen procedure such as
snowballing or theoretical sampling until a ‘saturation
point’ is reached. This was a term used by Glaser and
Strauss (1967) to describe that time of your research when
you really do think that everything is complete and that
you’re not obtaining any new information by continuing.
In your written report you can then describe your sam-
pling procedure, including a description of how many
people were contacted.
SUMMARY
If it is not possible to contact everyone in the research
population, researchers select a number of people to
contact. This is called sampling.
There are two main types of sampling category – prob-
ability samples and purposive samples.
In probability samples, all people within the research
population have a speciﬁable chance of being selected.
Only within random samples do participants have an
equal chance of being selected.

Purposive samples are used if generalisation is not the
goal.
The size of sample will depend upon the type and pur-
pose of the research.
Sample sizes should take into account issues of non-re-
sponse.
Remember that with postal surveys it might be difficult
to control and know who has filled in a questionnaire.
Will this affect your sample?
In some purposive samples it is difficult to specify at
the beginning of the research how many people will
be contacted.
It is possible to use a mixture of sampling techniques
within one project which may help to overcome some
of the disadvantages found within different procedures.
FURTHER READING
Bryman, A. and Cramer, D. (1990) Quantitative Data
Analysis for Social Scientists, London: Routledge.
Clegg, F. (1989) Simple Statistics, Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
De Vaus, D. (1991) Surveys in Social Research, 3rd
edition,
London: UCL Press.
Henry, G. (1990) Practical Sampling, Newbury Park, CA:
Sage.
Huff, D. (1994) How to Lie With Statistics, NY: Norton.
Field, A. (2000) Discovering Statistics Using SPSS for Win-
dows: Advanced Techniques for Beginners, London: Sage.
Owen, F. and Jones, R. (1994) Statistics, 4th
edition, Lon-
don: Pitman.

6
How to Prepare a
Research Proposal
For most types of research you will need to produce a re-
search proposal. This is a document which sets out your
ideas in an easily accessible way. Even if you have not been
asked specifically to produce a research proposal by your
boss or tutor, it is a good idea to do so, as it helps you
to focus your ideas and provides a useful document for
you to reference, should your research wander off track a
little.
Before you start work on your research proposal, find out
whether you’re required to produce the document in a
specific format. For college and university students, you
might be given a general outline and a guide as to how
many pages to produce. For those of you who are produ-
cing a proposal to send to a funding organisation you
might have to produce something much more specific.
Many funding organisations provide their own forms for
you to complete. Some provide advice and guidance about
what they would like to see in your proposal. The larger
funding bodies produce their proposal forms on-line so
that they can be filled in and sent electronically, which
makes the process a lot quicker and easier.
55

THE CONTENTS OFA PROPOSAL
All research proposals should contain the following infor-
mation:
T|tle
This should be short and explanatory.
Background
This section should contain a rationale for your research.
Why are you undertaking the project? Why is the research
needed? This rationale should be placed within the con-
text of existing research or within your own experience
and/or observation. You need to demonstrate that you
know what you’re talking about and that you have knowl-
edge of the literature surrounding this topic. If you’re un-
able to find any other research which deals specifically
with your proposed project, you need to say so, illustrat-
ing how your proposed research will fill this gap. If there is
other work which has covered this area, you need to show
how your work will build on and add to the existing
knowledge. Basically, you have to convince people that
you know what you’re talking about and that the research
is important.
Aims and objectives
Many research proposal formats will ask for only one or
two aims and may not require objectives. However, for
some research these will need to be broken down in more
depth to also include the objectives (see Example 6). The
aim is the overall driving force of the research and the ob-
jectives are the means by which you intend to achieve the
aims. These must be clear and succinct.

EXAMPLE 6: AIMS AND OBJECTIVES
Aim
To identify, describe and produce an analysis of the interact-
ing factors which influence the learning choices of adult re-
turners, and to develop associated theory.
Objectives
The research seeks to determine:
1. The nature, extent and effect of psychological influences on
choices, including a desire to achieve personal goals or meet
individual needs.
2. The nature, extent and effect of sociological influences on
choices, including background, personal and social expecta-
tions, previous educational experience and social role.
3. The nature and influence of individual perceptions of
courses, institutions and subject, and how these relate to
self-perception and concept of self.
4. The influence on choice of a number of variables such as
age, gender, ethnicity and social class.
5. The role and possible influence of significant others on
choice, such as advice and guidance workers, peers, relatives
and employers.
6. The nature and extent of possible influences on choice of
available provision, institutional advertising and marketing.
7. The nature and extent of possible influences on choice of
mode of study, teaching methods and type of course.
8. How and to what extent influencing factors change as
adults re-enter and progress through their chosen route.
H O W T O P R E P A R E A R E S E A R C H P R O P O S A L / 57

Methodology/methods
For research at postgraduate level you may need to split
the methodology and methods section into two. However,
for most projects they can be combined. In this section
you need to describe your proposed research methodology
and methods and justify their use. Why have you decided
upon your methodology? Why have you decided to use
those particular methods? Why are other methods not ap-
propriate? This section needs to include details about
samples, numbers of people to be contacted, method of
data collection, methods of data analysis and ethical con-
siderations. If you have chosen a less well known metho-
dology, you may need to spend more time justifying your
choice than you would need to if you had chosen a more
traditional methodology. This section should be quite de-
tailed – many funding organisations find that the most
common reason for proposal failure is the lack of metho-
dological detail.
T|metable
A detailed timetable scheduling all aspects of the research
should be produced. This will include time taken to con-
duct background research, questionnaire or interview
schedule development, data collection, data analysis and
report writing (see Table 5). Research almost always takes
longer than you anticipate. Allow for this and add a few
extra weeks on to each section of your timetable. If you
finish earlier than you anticipated, that’s fine as you have
more time to spend on your report. However, finishing
late can create problems especially if you have to meet
deadlines.

TABLE 5: SURVEY TIMETABLE
DATE
5 January – 5 February
6 February – 7 March
8 March – 9 April
10 April – 21 April
21 April – 1 May
1 May – 1 July
2 July – 3 August
ACTION
Literature search
Primary research (talk to relevant
people)
Develop and pilot questionnaire
Continue literature search
Analyse pilot work and revise
questionnaire
Ask relevant people for comments
Send out questionnaire
Categorise returned questionnaires
Send out reminder letter for non-
responses. Continue to categorise
returned questionnaires.
Data input
Data analysis
Write report
Prepare oral presentation
Budget and resources
If you’re applying to a funding body you need to think
about what you will need for your research and how much
this is likely to cost (see Table 6). You need to do this so
that you apply for the right amount of money and are not
left out of pocket if you have under-budgeted. Funding
bodies also need to know that you have not over-budgeted
and expect more money than you’re going to use. If you
are a student you may not have to include this section in
your proposal, although some tutors will want to know
that you have thought carefully about what resources
are needed and from where you expect to obtain these.
Some types of research are more expensive than others
and if you’re on a limited budget you will have to think
about this when deciding upon your research method.
H O W T O P R E P AR E A R E S E A R C H P R O P O S A L / 59

TABLE 6: RESEARCH BUDGET
RESOURCE
1 good quality personal recorder
with battery indicator light, self-
turning mechanism and headphones
10 90-minute audio cassette tapes
20 long-life batteries
40 second class postage stamps
Stationery – paper, envelopes, paper
clips, ring binder, scissors
Travel expenses – petrol, overnight
stay at five locations
Advert in local paper
Leaflets (1000)
Total Expenditure
COST
£109.99
£6.99
£8.99
£7.60
£8.76
Petrol to be notified at
usual college mileage
allowance
Total accommodation
£199.95
£3.70
£21.90
£367.88 + petrol (to be
notified)
Dissemination
What do you expect to do with the results of your re-
search? How are you going to let people know about what
you have found out? For students it will suffice to say that
the results will be produced in an undergraduate disserta-
tion which will be made available in the institution li-
brary. For other researchers you may want to produce a
written report, make oral presentations to relevant
bodies, produce a web site or write a journal article.
WHAT MAKES AGOODPROPOSAL?
Relevance, either to the work of the funding body or to
the student’s course.

H O W T O P R E P A R E A RE S E A R C H P R O P O S A L / 61
The research is unique, or offers new insight or devel-
opment.
The title, aims and objectives are all clear and succinct.
Comprehensive and thorough background research
and literature review has been undertaken.
There is a good match between the issues to be ad-
dressed and the approach being adopted.
The researcher demonstrates relevant background
knowledge and/or experience.
Timetable, resources and budget have all been worked
out thoroughly, with most eventualities covered.
Useful policy and practice implications.
REASONS WHY RESEARCHPROPOSALS FAIL
Aims and objectives are unclear or vague.
There is a mismatch between the approach being
adopted and the issues to be addressed.
The overall plan is too ambitious and difficult to
achieve in the timescale.
The researcher does not seem to have conducted en-
ough in-depth background research.
Problem is of insufficient importance.
Information about the data collection is insufficiently
detailed.
Information about the data analysis method is insuffi-
ciently detailed.

Timescale is inappropriate or unrealistic.
Resources and budget have not been carefully thought
out.
This topic has been done too many times before – in-
dicates a lack in background research.
SUMMARY
Most research projects will require the production of a
research proposal which sets out clearly and succinctly
your proposed project.
Before you write your proposal, check whether you
need to produce it in a specific format.
The standard research proposal should include the fol-
lowing:
– title
– background (including literature search)
– aims and objectives
– methodology/methods
– timetable
– budget and resources
– dissemination.
Research proposals stand a better chance of being ac-
cepted if you’re able to prove that you have the re-
quired knowledge and/or experience to carry out the
research effectively.
It is important to make sure that your proposed meth-
ods will address the problem you have identified and
that you are able to display an understanding of these
methods.

H O W T O P R E P AR E A R E S E A R C H P R O P O S A L / 63
FURTHER READING
Locke, L.F., Spirduso, W.W. and Silverman, S.J. (1999)
Proposals That Work: a guide for planning dissertations
and grant proposals, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Punch, K.F. (2000) Developing Eﬀective Research Propo-
sals, London: Sage.

7
How to Conduct Interviews
As we have seen in Chapter 3, there are three main types of
interview which tend to be used in social research – un-
structured interviews, semi-structured interviews and
structured interviews. For each type you will need to think
about how you are going to record the interview, what type
of questions you need to ask, how you intend to establish
rapport and how you can probe for more information.
METHODS OFRECORDING
If you’ve decided that interviewing is the most appropriate
method for your research, you need to think about what
sort of recording equipment you’re going to use. You
should think about this early on in your research as you
need to become familiar with its use through practice.
Even if you decide not to use tape-recording equipment,
and instead use pen and paper, you should practice taking
notes in an interview situation, making sure that you can
maintain eye contact and write at the same time. If, how-
ever, you’re conducting a structured interview, you will
probably develop a questionnaire with boxes to tick as
your method of recording (see Chapter 9). This is perhaps
the simplest form of recording, although you will have to
be familiar with your questionnaire, to make sure you can
do it quickly and eﬃciently.
64

HOW TO C ON D UC T I NTE RVIEWS / 65
Using atape recorder
A suitable tape recorder is one of personal stereo size
which uses normal size cassettes and has a built-in micro-
phone. A battery indicator light is crucial – it enables you
to check that the recording continues throughout the inter-
view without drawing attention to the machine. A recorder
which automatically turns at the end of the tape is useful as
you can have twice as long uninterrupted interviewing.
Tape-Recording Checklist
Are you familiar with your equipment? Do you know
how it works? Have you spent time practising?
Is your equipment working properly? Test it prior to
the interview.
Have you checked the batteries? They can run out very
quickly and this will have an influence on the quality of
recording.
Do you have two spare cassettes?
Do you have spare batteries?
Is the room free from background noise, such as traf-
fic, noisy central heating systems and drink machines?
If not, how will these noises affect the recording? Are
you prepared to take notes?
Is the recorder placed on a smooth, non-vibratory surface?
Is the recorder close enough to pick up both voices? It
is important to hear your own voice as well as that of
the interviewee so that you know what answers have
been given to which questions.

TABLE 7: RECORDING METHODS: ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES
RECORDING
METHOD
Tape recorder
Video recorder
Note-taking
Box-ticking
ADVANTAGES
Can concentrate on listening to what they
say.
Able to maintain eye contact.
Have a complete record of interview for
analysis, including what is said and
interaction between interviewer and
interviewee.
Have plenty of useful quotations for report.
Produces the most comprehensive recording
of an interview.
Gives a permanent record of what is said
and includes a record of body language,
facial expressions and interaction.
Don’t have to rely on recording equipment
which could fail.
Is the cheapest method if on a very limited
budget.
Interviewees may think they have something
important to say if they see you taking notes
– while you write they may add more
information.
Simple to use.
Easy to analyse.
Easy to compare information with that
obtained from other interviews.
DISADVANTAGES
Rely on equipment – if it fails you have no
record of interview.
Can become complacent – don’t listen as much
as you should because it’s being recorded.
Some interviewees may be nervous of tape-
recorders.
The more equipment you use the more chances
there are that something will go wrong.
This method can be expensive and the
equipment hard to transport.
Cannot maintain eye contact all the time.
Can be hard to concentrate on what they’re
saying and to probe for more information.
Can be tiring.
Will not have many verbatim quotations for
ﬁnal report.
Inﬂexible – no scope for additional
information.
Forces interviewees to answer in a certain way.
May leave interviewees feeling that they have
not answered in the way they would have liked
to have done.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Overcome equipment failure by practice
beforehand and checking throughout
interview, without drawing attention to
machine.
Could take a few notes as well – helps you
to write down important issues and you
will have some record if equipment fails.
If you want to use video equipment it is
preferable to obtain the help of someone
experienced in the use of the equipment.
That way you can concentrate on the
interview while someone else makes sure
that it is recorded correctly.
Need to make sure that you have a
suitable venue for this type of recording.
You will need to develop a type of
shorthand which you can understand and
you will need to learn to write very
quickly.
You have to make sure that the
questionnaire is very carefully designed so
that you cover as many types of answer as
possible.
66/PRACTICALRESEARCHMETHODS

H O W T O C O N D U C T I N T E R V I E W S / 67
Does the recorder continue to run throughout the in-
terview? Try not to draw attention to the machine, but
check the battery indicator light every now and again.
Be aware of when the tape is about to finish.
It is useful to take a pen and notepad with you to the in-
terview, even if you intend to use a recorder. You might
find it useful to jot down pertinent points to which you
want to return later, or use it to remind yourself of what
you haven’t yet asked. Also, you might encounter some-
one who doesn’t want to be recorded. This could be be-
cause the research is on a sensitive issue, or it might be
that the interviewee has a fear of being recorded.
Taking notes
If you intend to take notes, buy yourself a shorthand no-
tepad and develop a shorthand style which you’ll be able
to understand later (see Chapter 10). It is advisable to
write up all notes into a longer report as soon as possible
after the interview while it’s still fresh in your mind. It can
be tiring taking notes in long interviews, so only arrange
one or two per day. You must learn to try and maintain
some eye contact while you’re writing, and make sure that
you nod every now and again to indicate that you’re still
listening. Try also to get one or two verbatim quotations
as these will be useful for your final report.
THE INTERVIEW SCHEDULE
For most types of interview you need to construct an in-
terview schedule. For structured interviews you will need
to construct a list of questions which is asked in the same
order and format to each participant (see Chapter 9). For

semi-structured interviews the schedule may be in the
form of a list of questions or a list of topics. If you’re
new to research, you might prefer a list of questions that
you can ask in a standard way, thus ensuring that you do
not ask leading questions or struggle for something to
ask. However, a list of topics tends to offer more flexibil-
ity, especially in unstructured interviews where the inter-
viewee is left to discuss issues she deems to be important.
By ticking off each topic from your list as it is discussed,
you can ensure that all topics have been covered. Often
interviewees will raise issues without being asked and a
list of topics ensures that they do not have to repeat them-
selves. Also, it allows the interviewee to raise pertinent is-
sues which you may not have thought about. These can
then be added to the schedule for the next interview.
If you’re nervous about working with a list of topics rather
than a list of questions, a good way to overcome this is to
ask a few set questions first and then, once you and the
interviewee have both relaxed, move on to a set of topics.
With practice, you will feel comfortable interviewing and
will choose the method which suits you best.
If you take time to produce a detailed interview schedule,
it helps you to focus your mind on your research topic,
enabling you to think about all the areas which need to
be covered. It should also alert you to any sensitive or con-
troversial issues which could arise. When developing an
interview schedule for any type of interview, begin with
easy to answer, general questions which will help the in-
terviewee feel at ease. Don’t expect in-depth, personal dis-
closure immediately.

HOW TO DEVELOP AN INTERVIEW SCHEDULE
Brainstorm your research topic – write down every
area you can think of without analysis or judgement.
Work through your list carefully, discarding irrele-
vant topics and grouping similar suggestions.
Categorise each suggestion under a list of more gen-
eral topics.
Order these general topics into a logical sequence,
leaving sensitive or controversial issues until the
end – ask about experience and behaviour before
asking about opinion and feelings. Move from gen-
eral to speciﬁc.
Think of questions you will want to ask relating to
each of these areas. If you’re new to research you
might ﬁnd it useful to include these questions on
your schedule. However, you do not have to adhere
rigidly to these during your interview.
When developing questions, make sure they are
open rather than closed. Keep them neutral, short
and to the point. Use language which will be under-
stood. Avoid jargon and double-barrelled questions
(see Chapter 9).
If you need to, revise your schedule after each inter-
view.
Become familiar with your schedule so that you do
not have to keep referring to it during the interview.
HOW TO C ON D UC T I NTE RVIEWS / 69

ESTABLISHINGRAPPORT
A researcher has to establish rapport before a participant
will share personal information. There are a number of
ways to do this.
Treat interviewees with respect. Make sure you arrive
on time. Don’t rush straight into the interview unless
the interviewee pushes to do so. Accept a cup of tea, if
offered, and make polite conversation to help put both
of you at ease.
Think about your appearance and the expectations of
the person you’re about to interview. If the interviewee
is a smartly turned out business person who expects to
be interviewed by a professional looking researcher,
make sure you try to fulfil those expectations with your
appearance and behaviour.
Think about body language. Try not to come across as
nervous or shy. Maintain appropriate eye-contact and
smile in a natural, unforced manner. Remember that
the eyes and smile account for more than 50% of the
total communication in a greeting situation. If you es-
tablish rapid and clear eye-contact, you’ll be more ea-
sily trusted.
During the interview, firm eye contact with little move-
ment indicates that you’re interested in what is being
said. Also, it indicates honesty and high self-esteem.
On the other hand, if your eyes wander all over the
place and only briefly make contact with the eyes of
the interviewee, low self-esteem, deceit or boredom

can be indicated. Don’t rub your eyes as this could in-
dicate you’re tired or bored. Conversely, watch the eyes
of your interviewees which will tell you a lot about how
the interview is progressing.
Don’t invade their space. Try not to sit directly opposite
them – at an angle is better, but not by their side as you
will have to keep turning your heads which will be un-
comfortable in a long interview.
By watching the eye movements and body language of the
interviewees, and by listening to what they’re saying,
you’ll soon know when you’ve established rapport. This
is when you can move on to more personal or sensitive
issues. If, however, you notice the interviewees becoming
uncomfortable in any way, respect their feelings and move
on to a more general topic. Sometimes you might need to
offer to turn off the recorder or stop taking notes if you
touch upon a particularly sensitive issue.
Negotiate a length of time for the interviews and stick to
it, unless the interviewees are happy to continue. Make
sure you thank them for their help and leave a contact
number in case they wish to speak to you at a later date.
You might find it useful to send a transcript to the inter-
viewees – it is good for them to have a record of what has
been said and they might wish to add further information.
Do not disclose information to third parties unless you
have received permission to do so (see Chapter 13).
ASKING QUESTIONS ANDPROBING FOR INFORMATION
As the interview progresses, ask questions, listen carefully

PROBING FOR MORE DETAIL
That’s interesting; can you explain that in more de-
tail?
I’m not quite sure I understand. You were saying?
Can you elaborate a little more?
Could you clarify that?
Could you expand upon that a little?
When you say ‘ . . . . . . ’, what do you mean?
to responses and probe for more information. You should
probe in a way which doesn’t influence the interviewee.
When you probe, you need to think about obtaining clar-
ification, elaboration, explanation and understanding.
There are several ways to probe for more detail, as the fol-
lowing list illustrates. It’s useful to learn a few of these
before you begin your interviews.
Pauses work well – don’t be afraid of silence. You’ll find
that most people are uncomfortable during silences and
will elaborate on what they’ve said rather than experience
discomfort. Also, you may find it helpful to summarise
what people have said as a way of finding out if you have
understood them and to determine whether they wish to
add any further information.
Another useful tactic is to repeat the last few words a per-
son has said, turning it into a question. The following
piece of dialogue from an interview illustrates how these
techniques can be used so that the researcher does not in-
fluence what is being said.

Janet: ‘Well, often I find it really difficult because I just
don’t think the information’s available.’
Interviewer ‘The information isn’t available?’
Janet: ‘No, well I suppose it is available, but I find it really
difficult to read so it makes me think it isn’t available.’
Interviewer ‘In what way do you find it difficult to read?’
Janet: ‘Well, the language is a bit beyond me, but also the
writing’s too small and it’s a funny colour.’
Interviewer: ‘You say the language is a bit beyond you?’
Janet ‘Yes, I suppose really that’s why I need to do this,
so that it won’t be beyond me anymore.’ [laughs]
Interviewer ‘Why do you laugh about that?’
Janet: ‘Well, I don’t know, I suppose maybe I’m embar-
rassed, you know, about not being able to read and write
so well, you know, I always blame my eyesight and things
being a funny colour and everything, but I suppose the
bottom line is I just can’t read proper. That’s why I’m
doing this, you know, going to college and all that. I wer-
en’t exactly naughty at school, I just didn’t really bother,
you know, I didn’t really like it that much, if I’m honest
with you.’
This piece of dialogue illustrates how, with careful prob-
ing, the researcher can discover a greater depth of infor-
mation which wasn’t initially offered by the interviewee.
SUMMARY
Practise with the recording equipment before the inter-
view takes place. It might be useful to conduct some
pilot interviews so that you can become familiar with
the recording equipment.
Develop an interview schedule, starting with general,

non-personal issues.
Check the recording equipment works and make sure
you have enough tapes, batteries, paper, pens, etc.
Check that you have a suitable venue in which to carry
out the interview, free from noise and interruptions.
Make sure you know how to get to the interview and
arrive in good time.
Dress and behave appropriately.
Establish rapport.
Negotiate a length of time for the interview and stick
to it, unless the interviewee is happy to continue.
Ask open questions, listen to responses and probe
where necessary.
Keep questions short and to the point.
Avoid jargon, double-barrelled questions and leading
questions.
Listen carefully and acknowledge that you are listen-
ing.
Check recording equipment is working without draw-
ing attention to it.
Repeat and summarise answers to aid clarity and un-
derstanding.
Achieve closure, thank them and leave a contact num-
ber in case they wish to get in touch with you about
anything that has arisen.

Respect their conﬁdentiality – do not pass on what has
been said to third parties unless you have requested
permission to do so.
FURTHER READING
Arksey, H. and Knight, P. (1999) Interviewing for Social
Scientists: An Introductory Resource with Examples,
Keats, D. (2000) Interviewing: A Practical Guide for Stu-
dents and Professionals, Buckingham: Open University
Press.
Kvale, S. (1996) Interviews: An Introduction to Qualitative
Research Interviewing, London: Sage.
Minichello, V., Aroni, R., Timewell, E. and Alexander, L.
(1990) In-depth Interviewing: Researching People, Mel-
bourne: Longman Cheshire.
Mishler, E. (1986) Research Interviewing, Harvard: Har-
vard University Press.
Rubin, H.J. and Rubin, I.S. (1995) Qualitative Interview-
ing: The Art of Hearing Data, Thousand Oaks, C.A.:
Sage.
Wengraf, T. (2001) Qualitative Research Interviewing: Bio-
graphic Narrative and Semi-Structured Methods, Thou-
sand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Yow, V.R. (1994) Recording Oral History: A Practical
Guide for Social Scientists, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

8
How to Conduct Focus Groups
As we saw in Chapter 3, a focus group is where a number
of people are asked to come together in order to discuss a
certain issue for the purpose of research. They are popular
within the fields of market research, political research and
educational research. The focus group is facilitated by a
moderator who asks questions, probes for more detail,
makes sure the discussion does not digress and tries to
ensure that everyone has an input and that no one person
dominates the discussion.
If you are interested in running focus groups for your re-
search you will need to acquire a basic understanding of
how people interact in a group setting and learn how to deal
with awkward situations (see Table 8). However, the best
way to become a successful moderator is through experience
and practice. If possible, try to sit in on a focus group run
by an experienced moderator. Once you have done this,
hold your own pilot focus group, either with friends or ac-
tual research participants. You might find it useful to video
tape this focus group so that you can assess your body lan-
guage, see how you deal with awkward situations, analyse
how you ask questions, and so on. Don’t be disappointed
if your first few groups do not go according to plan. Even
the most experienced moderators have bad days.
76

H O W T O C ON D UC T F OC US G R O U P S / 77
THE ROLE OF THE MODERATOR
As moderator you must spend some time helping partici-
pants to relax. In all focus groups you need to explain the
purpose of the group, what is expected of participants
and what will happen to the results. Negotiate a length
for the discussion and ask that everyone respects this as
it can be very disruptive having people come in late, or
leave early. Usually one and a half hours is an ideal
length, although some focus groups may last a lot longer.
Assure the participants about anonymity and confidenti-
ality, asking also that they respect this and do not pass on
what has been said in the group to third parties. You may
find it useful to produce and distribute a Code of Ethics
(see Chapter 13).
Asking questions
General, easy to answer questions should be asked first.
Don’t expect any type of personal disclosure early in
the group. As moderator, listen carefully to everything
people say, acknowledging that you are listening by mak-
ing good eye contact and taking notes regarding issues to
which you may return later. Make sure that no one person
dominates the discussion as this will influence your data.
Some moderators prefer to use a list of questions as their
interview schedule, whereas others prefer to use a list of
topics (see Chapter 7 for more information on developing
an interview schedule). The overall aim is a free-flowing
discussion within the subject area, and once this happens
the input from the moderator may be considerably less
than it would be in a one-to-one interview.

Seeking responses
In focus groups you need to try to get as many opinions as
possible. You will find that in most focus groups, most
people will talk some of the time, although to varying de-
grees. In some groups, some people may need gentle per-
suasion to make a contribution. You have to use your
discretion about how much you do this as there might
be occasions when somebody is unwilling or too nervous
to contribute. You often find that, even though you have
negotiated a time, people enjoy the discussion and want to
continue, although at this stage you must make it clear
that people can leave, if they wish. Often, some of the
most useful and pertinent information is given once the
‘official’ time is over. Also, you will find that people talk
to you on an individual basis after the group has finished,
especially those who might have been nervous contribut-
ing in a group setting. It is useful to take a notepad and
jot down these conversations as soon as possible after the
contact as the information might be relevant to your re-
search.
Finishing the focus group
When you have finished your focus group, thank the par-
ticipants for taking part and leave a contact name and
number in case they wish to follow up any of the issues
that have been raised during the discussion. It’s good
practice to offer a copy of the report to anybody who
wants one. However, this might not be practical if the final
report is to be an undergraduate dissertation. You could
explain this to the participants and hope that they under-
stand, or you could offer to produce a summary report
which you can send to them.

TABLE 8: STRATEGIES FOR DEALING WITH
AWKWARD SITUATIONS
SITUATION
Break-away
conversations
Digressions
Silences
Dominance
Leadership
Disruption by
participants
Defensiveness
STRATEGY
Say: ‘I’m sorry, would you mind rejoining the group as this
is really interesting?’
Say: ‘That’s interesting, what do the rest of you think
about . . . ’ (back to the topic)
Remain silent. Someone will speak as they will begin to
feel uncomfortable. If no one does, ask the question again.
First of all stop making eye-contact and look at other
people expectantly. If this fails, say: ‘Thank you for your
contribution. Can we get some opinions from the rest of
you please?’ Or ‘What do the rest of you think about that?’
(This should counteract the one dominant argument by
receiving other views on the same issue.)
If it is obvious from the start that you have a clear leader
who will influence the rest of the group, try to give them
another role which takes them away from the discussion,
such as handing out refreshments or taking notes. If,
however, leadership tendencies aren’t immediately
obvious, but manifest themselves during the discussion, try
to deal with them as with ‘dominance’, above. If this still
fails, as a last resort you might have to be blunt: ‘Can you
let others express their opinions as I need to get as wide a
variety as possible?’ I’ve actually had to cut short one
group and rearrange it when that person wasn’t present.
The other members were happy to do this as they were free
to express themselves and their opinions were quite
different from those of their self-appointed ‘leader’.
On rare occasions I have come across individuals who want
to disrupt the discussion as much as possible. They will do
this in a number of ways, from laughing to getting up and
walking around. I try to overcome these from the start by
discussing and reaching an agreement on how participants
should behave. Usually I will find that if someone does
become disruptive, I can ask them to adhere to what we all
agreed at the beginning. Sometimes, the other participants
will ask them to behave which often has a greater
influence.
Make sure that nobody has been forced to attend and that
they have all come by their own free will. Be empathetic –
understand what questions or topics could upset people
and make them defensive. Try to avoid these if possible, or
leave them until the end of the discussion when people are
more relaxed.
H O W T O C O N D U C T F O C U S G R O UP S / 79

RECORDING EQUIPMENT
Some market research organisations have purpose built
viewing facilities with one-way mirrors and built in video
recorders. These facilities can be hired at a price which,
unfortunately, tends to be beyond the budgets of most stu-
dents and community groups.
Your local college or university might have a room which
can be set up with video recording equipment and the in-
stitution may provide an experienced person to operate
the machinery. If your institution doesn’t provide this fa-
cility, think about whether you actually need to video your
focus group as the more equipment you use, the more po-
tential there is for things to go wrong. Most social re-
searchers ﬁnd that a tape recording of the discussion
supplemented by a few handwritten notes is adequate
(see Chapter 7 for further discussion on diﬀerent methods
of recording).
Your tape recorder needs to be powerful enough to pick
up every voice. Ideally, it needs to be small and unobtru-
sive with an inbuilt microphone and a battery indicator
light so that you can check it is still working throughout
the discussion, without drawing attention to the machine.
A self-turning facility is useful as you get twice as much
recording without having to turn over the tape.
The recorder should be placed on a non-vibratory surface
at equal distance from each participant so that every voice
can be heard. Before the participants arrive, place it in the

H O W T O C O N D U C T F O C U S G R O U P S / 81
centre of the room and test your voice from each seat,
varying your pitch and tone. Participants in focus groups
tend to speak quietly at the beginning, but once they be-
gin to relax, they tend to raise their voices. Be aware of
any noise which could disrupt the recorder, such as tick-
ing clocks or traffic outside.
CHOOSING A VENUE
It is extremely important to make sure you choose the
right venue for your focus group as this will affect parti-
cipation levels, the level of discussion and the standard of
recording. You should ask yourself the following ques-
tions when considering a venue:
Is the venue accessible in terms of physical access for
those with mobility difficulties?
Is it accessible in terms of ‘mental’ access, that is,
would the type of people you intend to recruit feel
comfortable entering that building?
Is the building easy to find and the room easy to locate?
Is free parking available close by?
Is it accessible by public transport?
Is the room big enough to accommodate the number of
people you intend to recruit?
Are there enough chairs and are they comfortable?
Is there anything which could distract the participants
(loud noises, telephones, doorbells, people entering the
room, people walking past windows, etc)?

Is there anything which could disrupt the recording
(ticking clocks, drink machines, traffic outside, etc)?
Once you have chosen your venue, you need to arrive early
to make sure that the seating is arranged in an appropri-
ate manner. There is no set rule for this – think about
your participants and arrange it accordingly. For exam-
ple, business people might prefer a boardroom style seat-
ing arrangement, whereas adult learners may prefer an
informal seminar style arrangement.
RECRUITING YOUR PARTICIPANTS
Without participants you have no focus group. It is essen-
tial, therefore, that you take time to ensure that you
achieve a high turn out for your focus group. Think about
the following points when recruiting your participants:
The ideal number of participants is nine or eleven. Odd
numbers work better than even numbers as it is harder
for people to pair up in breakaway conversations.
Over-recruit by between three and five people as some
participants, despite reassurances to the contrary, will
not attend.
Offer incentives. If you cannot afford to pay partici-
pants, offer refreshments such as wine, soft drinks
and nibbles. Do not provide too much wine as a drun-
ken discussion is not productive.
The goal is to achieve a free-flowing, useful and inter-
esting discussion. Think about whether the people you
are recruiting would be able to chat to each other in
everyday life. People must have some sort of common

H OW TO CO N D U C T F O C U S G R OU P S / 83
bond to be able to feel comfortable in a group and this
will probably be the focus of your research.
When someone has agreed to take part in a focus
group, contact them a week in advance to let them
know about the venue, date and time. Telephone them
the day before to make sure they have remembered
and are still able to attend.
Never force, bully or cajole someone into taking part.
If someone else is arranging the focus group for you,
make sure they do nor force or cajole people into par-
ticipating. Someone who does not want to attend
usually makes it clear during the discussion. This can
have a detrimental eﬀect on the whole group.
If someone is in a position of power they should not be
included in the group as it may stop others airing their
opinions, although this is not always possible, as Ex-
ample 7 illustrates.
EXAMPLE 7: SIMON
I was conducting a focus group with workers in a toy
factory. Everyone in the group worked on a production
line, but unfortunately their supervisor, who’d arranged
for me to run the group, insisted on sitting in on the
group. I’d worked in that factory as a temp over the
summer holidays and I knew that the supervisor was
viewed as a bit of tyrant. I’d tried desperately to make
sure she didn’t come to the discussion, but there was
nothing I could do. Sure enough, throughout the discus-
sion if someone said something which was against com-

pany policy she would contradict them or say that it
simply wasn’t true. In the end people just stopped talk-
ing. I had to go and see each person after the group and
I got some really interesting information when the
supervisor wasn’t present. But of course it wasn’t re-
corded properly and I was unsure of how I could use
that information in my research. I wanted to arrange
another group, but I just knew it would be impossible
without the supervisor present. In the end I had to for-
get about that place and hold another focus group in
another factory.
SUMMARY
Find a suitable venue and check availability. Is it acces-
sible physically and mentally?
Visit the venue and check it is free from background
noises, distractions and interruptions.
Obtain appropriate recording equipment and practise.
Try your recording equipment in the venue to test suit-
ability.
Contact participants and check availability for time
and place.
Over-recruit to ensure enough participants.
Telephone participants the day before the focus group
to check they’re still intending to participate.
Arrive at the venue early and arrange the seating in a
way which will suit the group.
Test the recording equipment from each seat.

H OW TO CO N D U C T F O C U S G R OU P S / 85
Lay out refreshments away from the recorder.
Greet participants with drinks and nibbles.
Introduce yourself; explain what the group is about,
what is expected of the participants, who the research
is for and what will happen to the results.
Negotiate a discussion length and ask that no one
leaves early.
Discuss issues of conﬁdentiality, anonymity and perso-
nal disclosure.
Start recorder and begin with general, easy to answer
questions.
Watch for group dynamics and deal with them accord-
ingly.
Listen and take notes.
Ask questions and probe for more detail.
Wind up within negotiated time, unless participants
wish to continue.
Thank participants and give them your name and con-
tact number in case they wish to follow up any of the
issues with you.
Send a summary report to anyone interested.
FURTHER READING
Greenbaum, T.L. (2000) Moderating Focus Groups: A
Practical Guide for Group Facilitation, Thousand Oaks,
CA: Sage.
Krueger, R.A. (1994) Focus Groups: a Practical Guide for

Applied Research, (2nd edition) Thousand Oaks, CA:
Sage.
Krueger, R.A. (1998) Developing Questions for Focus
Groups, Focus Group Kit, volume 3, Thousand Oaks,
CA: Sage.
Krueger, R.A. (1998) Moderating Focus Groups, Focus
Group Kit, volume 4, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Krueger, R.A. and King, J.A. (1998) Involving Community
Members in Focus Groups, Focus Group Kit, volume 5,
Krueger, R.A. (1998) Analyzing and Reporting Focus
Group Results, Focus Group Kit, volume 6, Thousand
Oaks, CA: Sage.
Morgan, D.L. (ed.) (1993) Successful Focus Groups: Ad-
vancing the State of the Art, Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Morgan, D.L. (1997) Focus Groups as Qualitative Re-
search, (2nd edition) Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Morgan, D.L. (1998) The Focus Group Guidebook, Focus
Group Kit, volume 1, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

9
How to Construct
Questionnaires
Once you have decided that a questionnaire is the most
appropriate data collection method for your research, be-
fore you go on to construct the questionnaire you need to
think about what, exactly, you want from your research.
Too often researchers rush into designing a questionnaire
only to find that it is not yielding the type of information
they require.
DECIDING WHICHQUESTIONNAIRE TOUSE
If you’re sure that a questionnaire is the most appropriate
method for your research, you need to decide whether you
intend to construct a closed-ended, open-ended or combi-
nation questionnaire. In open questions respondents use
their own words to answer a question, whereas in closed
questions prewritten response categories are provided (see
Table 9) Also, you need to think about whether your ques-
tionnaire is to be self-administered, that is, the respondent
fills it in on his own, away from the researcher, or whether
it is to be interviewer administered. Self-administered ques-
tionnaires could be sent through the post, delivered in per-
son or distributed via the internet. It is also important to
think about the analysis of your questionnaire at this stage
as this could influence its design (see Chapter 11).
87

TABLE 9: OPEN AND CLOSED QUESTIONS:
ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES
OPEN QUESTIONS
Tend to be slower to
administer.
Can be harder to record
responses.
May be difficult to code,
especially if multiple answers
are given.
Do not stifle response.
Enable respondents to raise
new issues.
Respondents tend to feel that
they have been able to speak
their mind.
In self-administered
questionnaires, respondents
might not be willing to write
a long answer and decide to
leave the question blank.
How do you know the
meaning of a blank answer
when you come to the
analysis?
Can use open questions to
find out all the possible
responses before designing a
closed-ended questionnaire.
CLOSED QUESTIONS
Tend to be quicker to
administer.
Often easier and quicker for
the researcher to record
responses.
Tend to be easy to code.
Respondents can only answer
in a predefined way.
New issues cannot be raised.
Respondents can only answer
in a way which may not
match their actual opinion
and may, therefore, become
frustrated.
Is quick and easy for
respondents to tick boxes –
might be more likely to
answer all the questions.
Can include a section at the
end of a closed-ended
questionnaire for people to
write in a longer response if
they wish.

H O W T O C O N S T R U C T Q U E S T I O N N A I R E S / 89
WORDING AND STRUCTURE OF QUESTIONS
When constructing each question think about the words
you use. Avoid jargon and technical terms whenever possi-
ble. Try not to use words which may have a double mean-
ing or be misinterpreted, as some words have different
meanings for different groups of people. Don’t use emotive
words. Make sure the question is not ambiguous. And,
above all, avoid questions which will cause annoyance,
frustration, offence, embarrassment or sadness. You
should never make someone feel uncomfortable, for what-
ever reason, as a result of filling in your questionnaire.
Questions should be kept short and simple. This will
avoid many of the problems outlined above. Check that
a question is not double-barrelled, that is, two ques-
tions in one. If it is, ask two questions rather than
one. Also, avoid negative questions – the type which
have ‘not’ in them as this can be confusing, especially
when a respondent is asked to agree or disagree.
Make sure that your questions don’t contain some type
of prestige bias. This phrase refers to questions which
could embarrass or force respondents into giving a
false answer. They might do this if they do not want
to look ‘bad’ in front of the researcher, or they might
do it because it is expected behaviour. Questions about
income or educational qualifications might illicit this
type of response, so you need to be careful about
how you try to obtain this information.
Some issues may be very sensitive and you might be bet-
ter asking an indirect question rather than a direct ques-
tion. Promising confidentiality and anonymity may

help, but many respondents can, understandably, be
sceptical about these promises. If you ask an indirect
question in which respondents can relate their answer
to other people, they may be more willing to answer
the question.
Using closed-ended questions
If you are constructing a closed-ended question, try to
make sure that all possible answers are covered. This is
particularly important for time and frequency questions
such as ‘how often do you . . .’ You need to make sure that
all the frequencies are covered so that respondents aren’t
constrained in their answers and tick a box which isn’t
right for them. Also, you want to make sure that you
don’t artificially create opinions by asking someone a
question about which they don’t know, or don’t care.
You need to make sure that you include a ‘don’t know’
category in this case.
Avoiding leading questions
Don’t asking leading questions. The question ‘How often
do you wash your car?’ might seem innocuous enough.
However, it makes two assumptions. Firstly, it assumes
that the respondent has a car and secondly, it assumes
the respondent washes his car. It could be considered a
prestige bias question. Would a respondent feel bad if they
didn’t have a car and therefore would tick ‘four times a
week’ anyway? Would they feel bad if they don’t ever wash
their car but feel the researcher expects them to? If you
need to ask this question, you should ask a filter question
first to find out whether the respondent actually owned a
car. Then you would need to ask: ‘If you wash your car,

EXERCISE 2
Read the following questions and decide what is wrong
with them. Think about how you might overcome the
problems you have identiﬁed.
1. Do you go swimming?
Never &
Rarely &
Frequently &
Sometimes &
2. What do you think about the Green Peace attempt to
blackmail the Government?
3. What is wrong with the young people of today and
what can we do about it?
4. How many books have you read in the last year?
None &
1 – 10 &
10 – 20 &
20 – 30 &
Over 30 &
5. What is the proﬁt of your company, to the nearest
one hundred pounds?
H OW TO CO N S T R UC T QU E S T I O N N AI R E S / 91
how many times a year?’ By wording the question in this
way and by being careful about the frequency list, you’re
not leading the respondent into answering in a certain
way.
Have a look at Exercise 2 which will help you to think
about some of the issues involved in the wording and
structuring of questions.

6. What do you think should be done about global
warming?
Points to Consider
1. The problem with this question is in the categories
supplied for the answer. Everybody has a different
idea as to what words such as ‘sometimes’ and ‘fre-
quently’ mean. Instead, give specific time frames
such as ‘twice a year’ or ‘once a month’. Also, the
order of answers should follow a logical sequence –
in the example above, they do not.
2. This is a very leading question which uses an emotive
word – blackmail. It assumes that Green Peace is
blackmailing the Government and assumes that
someone knows about the issues and would be able
to answer. A filter question would have to be used
in this case and the word ‘blackmail’ changed.
3. This question is double-barrelled, leading and am-
biguous. It asks two questions in one and so needs
to be split up. The word ‘wrong’ is emotive and sug-
gests there is something not normal about the young
people of today. It asks the respondent to distance
themselves and comment from the moral high
ground.
4. This question may contain prestige bias – would peo-
ple be more likely to say they have read plenty of
books when they might not have read any? Also,
the categories for the answers need modification –
which box would you tick for someone who answered
‘20’?

6. This question assumes knowledge and could only be
asked of someone who has the figures to hand. It also
asks for what could be confidential information
which a respondent might be reluctant to give. The
word ‘profit’ has different meanings for different
people, especially if the question is asked by an inter-
viewer, rather than read by the respondent. In an of-
ten quoted case, when this question was used, the
respondent took it to mean ‘prophet’ and as such
was unable to answer the question.
6. In this question it is assumed that the respondent
thinks something should be done about global warn-
ing and that they are able to comment on the issue.
Indeed, global warming in itself is a contested issue.
This question leads the respondent into having an
opinion about something on which they might not
otherwise have one.
HOW T O CONS TRUCT QUESTI ON NAIRES/ 93
LENGTH AND ORDERING OF QUESTIONS
When you’re constructing a questionnaire, keep it as
short as possible. If it has to be longer because of the nat-
ure of your research, think about whether your respon-
dents will actually take the time to fill it in. Some
people will do so if they feel there is some personal benefit
to be gained. This is why long consumer behaviour sur-
veys offer entry into large prize draws for completed ques-
tionnaires. If your budget is limited, you might be able to
offer a copy of the final report or other information which
may be of use to the respondent as an incentive.

Be realistic about how long a questionnaire will take to fill
in. Saying it will take a ‘moment’ is not helpful. Include
filter questions with answers such as ‘If no, go to question
28’. Psychologically it’s good for respondents to be able
to jump sections as it stops people becoming frustrated by
unnecessary or irrelevant questions.
As with interviewing or focus groups, when designing a
questionnaire start with easy questions which respondents
will enjoy answering, thus encouraging them to continue
filling in the questionnaire. If you begin with complex
questions which need long responses, your respondents
will be less likely to fill in the form. If you’re constructing
a combined questionnaire, keep your open-ended ques-
tions for the end as, once someone has spent time com-
pleting the rest of the questionnaire, they are more
likely to continue with those questions which take a little
more effort to complete.
When constructing a questionnaire, you need to make it
as interesting as possible and easy to follow. Try to vary
the type and length of questions as variety provides inter-
est. Group the questions into specific topics as this makes
it easier to understand and follow. Layout and spacing are
extremely important. If your questionnaire looks clut-
tered, respondents will be less likely to fill it in.
Collecting personalinformation
Opinion is divided about where personal information
should be included on a questionnaire. I tend to include
it at the end, as I believe people are more likely to fill in
this information when they have already invested time

and energy in completing the rest of the form. As the re-
searcher, you need to think about collecting only that type
of personal information which is completely relevant to
your research. Be sensitive to the type of information peo-
ple will be reluctant to give. An example of a personal
proﬁle section is provided in Fig.1. This form may seem
short, but it is important not to ask for too much personal
information as respondents will become suspicious and
want to know why you want the information. You also
need to assure them that you understand and will comply
with the Data Protection Act (see Chapter 13).
PILOTING THE QUESTIONNAIRE
Once you have constructed your questionnaire, you must
pilot it. This means that you must test it out to see if it is
obtaining the results you require. First of all, ask people
who have not been involved in its construction to read it
through and see if there are any ambiguities which you
have not noticed. Once this has been done, alter the ques-
tions accordingly, then send out a number of question-
naires to the type of people who will be taking part in
the main survey. Make sure they know it is a pilot test
and ask them to forward any comments they may have
about the length, structure and wording of the question-
naire. Go through each response very carefully, noting
comments and looking at the answers to the questions
as this will help you to discover whether there are still am-
biguities present. Alter the questionnaire again. If you
have had to undertake major alterations, you may need
to pilot the questionnaire again.

1. Are you: Female &
Male &
2. What is your age?
under 26 & 56 – 55 &
26 – 35 & 56 – 65 &
36 – 45 & Over 65 &
3. What do you consider to be your ethnic origin?
(These categories were used in the 1991 Census and
have been reproduced here for ease of comparison.)
White & Pakistani &
Black – Caribbean & Bangladeshi &
Black – African & Chinese &
Black – Other & Other Ethnic Group &
Indian &
4. Which of the following categories apply to you?
(Tick all those which apply)
Housewife/husband &
Full-time student &
Self-employed &
In part-time, paid employment &
In full-time, paid employment &
Other (please specify) _________ &
Fig. 1. Personal profile form

This may seem a rather long and laborious process, but it
is incredibly important, especially if you’re intending to
send out a large number of questionnaires.
OBTAINING A HIGHRESPONSE
Questionnaires are big business and as more and more
fall through our letterboxes we become less willing to
spend the time completing them. You need to make yours
stand out so that all your careful planning and construc-
tion is not wasted. There are many simple measures you
can take to try to ensure a high response rate.
Is the questionnaire relevant to the lives, attitudes and
beliefs of the respondents?
Can the respondents read if they are to be given a self-
administered questionnaire?
Are there any language issues? Do you need to trans-
late the questionnaire into another language?
Are your intended respondents likely to co-operate?
For example, illegal immigrants may be less likely to
ﬁll in a questionnaire than legal immigrants.
Is the questionnaire well constructed and well laid out?
Is it clear, concise and uncluttered?
Are the instructions straightforward and realistic
about how long it will take to complete?
Has the respondent been told who the research is for
and what will happen to the results?
Has the respondent been reassured that you under-
stand and will comply with the Data Protection Act?
Has the questionnaire been piloted to iron out any pro-
blems?
Can your respondents see some personal beneﬁt to be

QUESTIONNAIRE DESIGN CHECKLIST
Make your questionnaire as short as possible.
Make sure people will be able to answer your ques-
tions.
Don’t assume knowledge or make it seem that you
expect a certain level of knowledge by the way your
questions are worded.
Start with easy to answer questions. Keep complex
questions for the end.
Ask for personal information at the end.
Use a mix of question formats.
Don’t cause offence, frustration, sadness or anger.
Avoid double-barrelled questions.
Avoid words with emotional connotations.
Avoid negative questions.
Avoid jargon and technical words.
Avoid words with multiple meanings.
Avoid leading questions.
Avoid vague words such as ‘often’ and ‘sometimes’.
Provide all possible responses in a closed question.
Consider as many alternatives as possible.
Use specific time frames when asking about beha-
viour.
Use specific place frames, e.g. ‘In which country
were you born?’
gained by completing the questionnaire?
Is return postage included?
Has a follow-up letter and duplicate questionnaire
been sent in cases of none response?

SUMMARY
Think about how you’re going to analyse your survey
prior to constructing your questionnaire.
Decide whether you’re interested in behaviour, beliefs,
attitudes or characteristics or a combination of the
above.
Make sure you have made the right decisions concern-
ing open-ended questions, closed-ended questions or a
combination of both.
Decide whether your questionnaire is to be self-admi-
nistered or interviewer administered.
Think about how you intend to distribute your ques-
tionnaire, e.g. by hand, through the post or via the in-
ternet.
Construct the questionnaire adhering to the checklist
produced above.
Include a covering letter with information about who
the research is for and what will happen to the results.
Include instructions on how to complete the question-
naire.
Include details about how the questionnaire is to be re-
turned (making sure you enclose a pre-paid envelope if
you need the respondent to return the form to you).
Make sure you include a date by which time you would
like the questionnaire returned.
Pilot the questionnaire and instructions to check that
all can be understood.

Amend accordingly and re-pilot.
Send out/administer questionnaire.
Send out follow-up letters and questionnaires to non-
responders.
FURTHER READING
Hague, P.N. (1993) Questionnaire Design, London: Ko-
gan Page.
Nesbary, D. (1999) Survey Research World Wide Web,
Boston: Allyn & Bacon.
Oppenheim, A.N. (1992) Questionnaire Design, Interview-
ing and Attitude Measurement, London: Pinter.
Salant, P. and Dillman, D.A. (1995) How to Conduct Your
Own Survey, New York: Wiley.
Tourangeau, R., Rips, L.J. and Rasinski, K. (2000) The
Psychology of Survey Response, Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.

10
How to Carry Out
Participant Observation
Participant observation can be viewed as a methodology,
rather than a method, as it took shape within particular
historical and social circumstances within anthropology
and sociology. It is a procedure for generating under-
standing about the way of life of others. However, as there
are many practical ‘how to’ issues involved in the use of
participant observation, I am going to discuss it as a re-
search method. But as you will see, there are several meth-
odological issues which are raised in the following
discussion, especially concerning ethics and the personal
role of the researcher.
Participant observation can be carried out within any
community, culture or context which is diﬀerent to the
usual community and/or culture of the researcher. It
may be carried out within a remote African tribe or in
hospitals, factories, schools, prisons and so on, within
your own country. The researcher immerses herself into
the community – the action is deliberate and intended
to add to knowledge.
The researcher participates in the community while obser-
ving others within that community, and as such she must
101

be a researcher 24 hours a day. In practice most research-
ers find that they play more of a role as observer, than
they do as a participant.
GAINING ACCESS
Participant observation, as a research method, cannot
work unless you’re able to gain access to the community
that you wish to study. Before you spend a lot of time plan-
ning your project you need to find out whether you can ob-
tain this access. The level of negotiation required will
depend upon the community, culture or context. If it is a
culture with which you already have a certain amount of
familiarity, and vice versa, you should find it easier to gain
access. However, if it is a secret or suspicious community,
you may find it much harder to gain access.
If you do expect to encounter difficulties, one way to over-
come this problem is to befriend a member of that com-
munity who could act as a gatekeeper and help you to get
to know other people. Obviously, it is important to spend
time building up the required level of trust before you can
expect someone to introduce you into their community. If
it is not possible to befriend a member of the community,
you may have to approach the person or committee in
charge, firstly by letter and then in person. You have to
be persuasive. First impressions are important and you
need to make sure that you dress and act appropriately
within the community. You must not appear threatening
in any way. Some people will be suspicious of the motives
of a researcher, especially if they’re not familiar with the
research process. In the early stages it is better to answer
any questions or suspicions directly and honestly rather
102 / PRACTICAL RES EARCH METHODS

HOW TO CARRY OUT PARTIC IPANT OBSER VATION/ 103
than try to avoid them or shrug them oﬀ.
ETHICS
Because of the nature of participant observation, there
tends to be more issues involving ethics and morals to
consider. As you intend to become part of a speciﬁc
group, will you be expected to undertake anything illegal?
This could happen with research into drug use or crime
syndicates where people may not trust you until you be-
come one of them and join in their activities. Would you
be prepared to do this and put up with any consequences
which could arise as a result of your activities?
If the group is suspicious, do you intend to be completely
honest about who you are and what you’re doing? Are you
prepared to lie if it means you can gain access? How would
you deal with any problems which may arise as a conse-
quence of your deception?
What if your participation within a group causes pro-
blems, anxiety or argument amongst other members?
Would you know how to deal with the situation? Would
you be prepared to withdraw and ruin all your hard work
for the sake of your informants? These issues and others
are covered in more depth in Chapter 13. Also, there are
many personal considerations and dilemmas which you
need to think about before undertaking participant obser-
vation, as illustrated below:

PERSONAL CONSIDERATIONS WHEN
ENTERING THE FIELD
Some people will not accept you. Are you prepared for
rejection and can you handle it when it happens? Are
you able to banish rejection anxieties from the outset?
Are you prepared to spend many months studying
others and not indulging in talk about yourself? Some
researchers overcome this problem by making sure that
they have someone outside the community who they
can talk to if they need to.
Will your contact be traumatic or upsetting? If so,
can you handle this?
If you’re going to come across people with very diﬀerent
social and political beliefs, can you remain neutral and
keep your opinions to yourself? Some researchers may
try arguing their point in the hope that they will get
more information and it will deepen their understand-
ing. However, you must be careful not to compromise
your position.
Are you prepared for the emergence of as yet uncon-
scious emotional factors? You may ﬁnd out things
about yourself which you do not like, especially in terms
of your own prejudices.
Are you prepared to be used as a scapegoat if things go
wrong within the community under study? Often it is
easier for the community to blame an outsider and
104 / PR A C T I C AL R E S E A R C H M E T H O D S

many researchers are happy to go along with this be-
cause they know they will be leaving the community
at some point.
Can you handle the feelings of guilt which may arise as
a result of the roles you’ve got to play?
Are you prepared to pretend to have feelings which may
not be real? Some researchers would argue that you
should not do this because it is being dishonest. The le-
vel to which you are prepared to do this has to be your
own choice.
Are you aware of your own likes and dislikes? Can you
put stereotypes and prejudices aside?
COLLECTING AND ANALYSING INFORMATION
At the beginning of a participant observation study it is
hard to understand what everything means. At ﬁrst some-
thing may appear very signiﬁcant, but later it might be-
come a minor detail. However, you will not know this
until you have started to analyse what is going on. So it
is important from the outset to start taking copious notes.
You need to have a good memory as in many situations it
is not possible to take notes at the time. You need to have
a notepad with you at all times so that you can write down
your thoughts as soon as possible after the encounter.
All researchers ask questions. However, in the beginning
stages of a participant observation study, it is better to
seek information by not asking questions. This is because
it is hard for you to know what to ask at this stage. In-

stead, you will find that people come to you and ask ques-
tions. This in itself is valuable information and can tell
you a lot about those people, so all questions should be
noted and analysed.
Field notes
Field notes are your main way of recording data. These
might be practical details about events, times, dates and
places. Or they might be methodological notes concerning
your role, your influence on the encounter, your relation-
ship with the informants, sampling procedures and so on.
As time moves on your notes will be to do with a prelimin-
ary analysis and the forming of hypotheses which you can
go on to check out with your informants. They may be
observations on what a specific encounter might mean.
Also, as your research progresses you will start to code
and classify your notes (see Chapter 11).
Taking notes is a very personal process and you need to
find a method which will suit you. Many researchers de-
velop their own form of shorthand, but if you do this keep
it simple because, if your contact is over a long period of
time, you may not understand the shorthand you used at
the beginning. Most researchers keep a day-to-day diary
in addition to all the other field notes. You will also need
to keep all transcripts of interviews, photographs, maps,
tapes, video recordings, diagrams and plans. Everything
needs to be recorded and stored systematically so good or-
ganisational skills are important if you wish to undertake
participant observation.

HOW T O CARRY OUT PART ICIPANT OBSE RVATION/ 107
Most of your analysis takes place in the field so that you
can cross check and verify your hypotheses. At this stage
you will find that you will have a number of key infor-
mants who will be able to help you with this process. This
is very useful as they will tell you if you’re on the wrong
track.
WITHDRAWAL FROM THE FIELD
When you have been immersed in a particular culture for
a long period of time, it can be hard to break away. In-
deed, some researchers have found that they do not want
to break away, although this only happens rarely. If, how-
ever, you have remained connected to your role as re-
searcher, you will know when it is time to break away,
write up your results and pass on what you have learnt.
It is important to leave your community on good terms.
Many researchers find that it is helpful to stay in touch
with their contacts – these people will want to see what
is written about them. They will be interested and may
still have comments to make. You may also wish to return
to your community several years later and conduct a fol-
low-up study.
Finally, you must make sure that you try not to do any-
thing which will give researchers a bad name and cause
problems for other researchers who may wish to follow
in your footsteps (see Chapter 13).
SUMMARY
In participant observation, the researcher immerses
herself into a community, culture or context. The ac-

tion is deliberate and intended to add to knowledge.
A participant observer is a researcher 24 hours a day.
To gain access a researcher must be non-threatening,
displaying appropriate behaviour and body language
and wearing appropriate dress.
A useful way of gaining access is to find a gatekeeper
who can introduce you to other members of the com-
munity.
A researcher needs to do much soul-searching before
going into the field as the experience can raise many
ethical, moral and personal dilemmas.
It is sometimes quicker and more economical to wait
for questions to come to the researcher, rather than
ask questions of informants in the early stages of a
study.
Field notes may record practical details, methodologi-
cal issues, personal thoughts, preliminary analyses and
working hypotheses.
Data analysis takes place in the field so that hypotheses
can be discussed with key informants.
The community should be left on good terms and any
written reports should be given back to the people for
their interest and personal comments.
FURTHER READING
Bulmer, M. (ed.) (1982) Social Research Ethics, London:
Macmillan.
Burgess, R.G. (ed.) (1986) Field Research: A Sourcebook

and Field Manual, London: Allen and Unwin.
Crabtree, B.F. and Miller, W.L. (eds.) (1992) Doing Qua-
litative Research, Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Golde, P. (ed.) (1970) Women in the Field: Anthropological
Experiences, Chicago: Aldine.
Jorgenson, D. (1989) Participant Observation: A Metho-
dology for Human Studies, Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
Whyte, W.F. (1997) Creative Problem-Solving in the Field:
Reﬂections on a Career, Walnut Creek: Alta Mira.

11
How toAnalyseYour Data
The methods you use to analyse your data will depend on
whether you have chosen to conduct qualitative or quanti-
tative research, and this choice will be influenced by per-
sonal and methodological preference and educational
background. It could be influenced also by the methodo-
logical standpoint of the person who teaches on your re-
search methods course.
DECIDING WHICH APPROACH TOUSE
For quantitative data analysis, issues of validity and relia-
bility are important. Quantitative researchers endeavour
to show that their chosen methods succeed in measuring
what they purport to measure. They want to make sure
that their measurements are stable and consistent and that
there are no errors or bias present, either from the respon-
dents or from the researcher.
Qualitative researchers, on the other hand, might ac-
knowledge that participants are influenced by taking part
in the research process. They might also acknowledge that
researchers bring their own preferences and experience to
the project. Qualitative data analysis is a very personal
process. Ask two researchers to analyse a transcript and
they will probably come up with very different results.
This may be because they have studied different subjects,
110

H O W T O A N A L Y S E Y O U R D A T A / 111
or because they come from different political or methodo-
logical standpoints. It is for this reason that some re-
searchers criticise qualitative methods as ‘unscientific’ or
‘unreliable’. This is often because people who come from
quantitative backgrounds try to ascribe their methods and
processes to qualitative research. This is a fruitless exer-
cise. The two approaches are very different and should
be treated as such.
Analysing data
Also, the two are analysed in quite different ways. For
qualitative data, the researcher might analyse as the re-
search progresses, continually refining and reorganising
in light of the emerging results. For quantitative data,
the analysis can be left until the end of the data collection
process, and if it is a large survey, statistical software is the
easiest and most efficient method to use. For this type of
analysis time has to be put aside for the data input process
which can be long and laborious. However, once this has
been done the analysis is quick and efficient, with most
software packages producing well presented graphs, pie
charts and tables which can be used for the final report.
QUALITATIVE DATA ANALYSIS
To help you with the analysis of qualitative data, it is use-
ful to produce an interview summary form or a focus group
summary form which you complete as soon as possible
after each interview or focus group has taken place. This
includes practical details about the time and place, the
participants, the duration of the interview or focus group,
and details about the content and emerging themes (see
Figures 2 and 3). It is useful to complete these forms as

soon as possible after the interview and attach them to
your transcripts. The forms help to remind you about
the contact and are useful when you come to analyse
the data.
There are many different types of qualitative data analysis.
The method you use will depend on your research topic,
your personal preferences and the time, equipment and fi-
nances available to you. Also, qualitative data analysis is a
very personal process, with few rigid rules and procedures.
It is for this reason that each type of analysis is best illu-
strated through examples (see Examples 8–11 below).
Formats for analysis
However, to be able to analyse your data you must first of
all produce it in a format that can be easily analysed. This
might be a transcript from an interview or focus group, a
series of written answers on an open-ended questionnaire,
or field notes or memos written by the researcher. It is
useful to write memos and notes as soon as you begin
to collect data as these help to focus your mind and alert
you to significant points which may be coming from the
data. These memos and notes can be analysed along with
your transcripts or questionnaires.
You can think of the different types of qualitative data
analysis as positioned on a continuum (see Fig.4) At the
one end are the highly qualitative, reflective types of ana-
lysis, whereas on the other end are those which treat the
qualitative data in a quantitative way, by counting and
coding data.

Interviewee: ________________ Date of Interview:________________
Place: ________________________ Time of Interview:________________
Duration of Interview: __________
Where did the interview take place? Was the venue sui-
table? Does anything need to be changed for future in-
terviews?
How easy was it to establish rapport? Were there any
problems and how can this be improved for next time?
Did the interview schedule work well? Does it need to
be altered or improved?
What were the main themes which arose in the inter-
view? Did any issues arise which need to be added to
the interview schedule for next time?
Is the interviewee willing to be contaced again? Have I
promised to send any information or supply them with
the results or a copy of the transcript?
Fig. 2. Interview summary form

Date: ________________________ Time:_________________________________
Venue: ______________________ Duration: ___________________________
Group: ______________________
Diagram of seating plan with participant codes:
Where did the focus group take place? Was the venue
suitable? Does anything need to be changed for future
focus groups?
How many people took part and who were they? Did
they work well as a group or were there any adverse
group dynamics? What can I learn from this for the
next group?
Did the interview schedule work well? Does it need to
be altered or improved?
What were the main themes which arose during the fo-
cus group? Does anything need to be added to the in-
terview schedule for the next focus group?
Are any of the participants willing to be contacted
again? Have I promised to send any further informa-
tion or the ﬁnal report to anyone?
Fig. 3: Focus group summary form

Highly Almost
Qualitative Quantitative
eg thematic and eg discourse and eg content analysis
comparative conversational
analysis analysis
reflexive uses a combination code and count
intuitive of reflexivity and mechanical
takes place counting can be left until
throughout end of data
data collection collection
Fig. 4. Qualititative data analysis continuum
H O W T O A N A L Y S E YO UR D A T A / 115
For those at the highly qualitative end of the continuum,
data analysis tends to be an on-going process, taking place
throughout the data collection process. The researcher
thinks about and reflects upon the emerging themes, adapt-
ing and changing the methods if required. For example, a
researcher might conduct three interviews using an inter-
view schedule she has developed beforehand. However,
during the three interviews she finds that the participants
are raising issues that she has not thought about pre-
viously. So she refines her interview schedule to include
these issues for the next few interviews. This is data analy-
sis. She has thought about what has been said, analysed the
words and refined her schedule accordingly.
Thematic analysis
When data is analysed by theme, it is called thematic ana-
lysis. This type of analysis is highly inductive, that is, the
themes emerge from the data and are not imposed upon it
by the researcher. In this type of analysis, the data collec-

tion and analysis take place simultaneously. Even back-
ground reading can form part of the analysis process,
especially if it can help to explain an emerging theme.
This process is illustrated in Example 8.
EXAMPLE 8: RICHARD
Richard was interested in finding out what members of
the public thought about higher education. During a fo-
cus group with some library workers, he noticed that
some people had very clear ideas about higher educa-
tion, whereas others had very little idea. This was im-
mediate, on the spot analysis. He asked the group
why they thought this was the case and it emerged that
the people who had clear ideas about higher education
had either been to college or university themselves, or
knew someone close to them who had been through
higher education. This theme had emerged from one
group. Richard decided to follow it up by interviewing
people who had never been to college or university to
see how different their perceptions might be.
Closely connected to thematic analysis is comparative ana-
lysis. Using this method, data from different people is com-
pared and contrasted and the process continues until the
researcher is satisfied that no new issues are arising. Com-
parative and thematic analyses are often used in the same
project, with the researcher moving backwards and for-
wards between transcripts, memos, notes and the research
literature. This process is illustrated in Example 9.

H O W T O AN A L Y S E Y O U R D A T A/ 117
EXAMPLE 9: RICHARD
Once Richard had discovered that members of the pub-
lic who had close contact with higher educational insti-
tutions had clearer perceptions than those who had no
contact, he felt two issues were important. First, he
wanted to find out how close the contact had to be
for people to have very clear perceptions of university,
and second, he wanted to find out where perceptions
came from for those people who had no contact with
higher education. Through careful choice of intervie-
wee, and through comparing and contrasting the data
from each transcript, he was able to develop a sliding
scale of contact with higher education. This ranged
from no contact, ever, for any member of the family
or friends, through to personal contact by the intervie-
wee attending higher education.
Having placed each interviewee somewhere on the scale,
he then went back to the transcripts to look for hints
about how their perceptions had been formed. At the
same time he consulted existing research literature
which addressed the issue of influences on personal per-
ception to see if this would give him further insight into
what was arising from his data. After this process, if
data was missing or he was unable to understand some-
thing which had been said, he would conduct another
interview until he felt that his analysis, and his under-
standing, were complete.

Content analysis
For those types of analyses at the other end of the quali-
tative data continuum, the process is much more mechan-
ical with the analysis being left until the data has been
collected. Perhaps the most common method of doing this
is to code by content. This is called content analysis. Using
this method the researcher systematically works through
each transcript assigning codes, which may be numbers
or words, to speciﬁc characteristics within the text. The
researcher may already have a list of categories or she
may read through each transcript and let the categories
emerge from the data. Some researchers may adopt both
approaches, as Example 10 illustrates. This type of analy-
sis can be used for open-ended questions which have been
added to questionnaires in large quantitative surveys, thus
enabling the researcher to quantify the answers.
EXAMPLE 10: TINA
In her research on students’ attitudes towards alcohol,
Tina, from her own experience, felt that money, social
life, halls of residence and campus bars would all be sig-
niﬁcant. She assigned code numbers to these issues and
then went through each transcript, writing the code
number above the relevant section when any of these is-
sues were mentioned. Sure enough, they did appear to
be important and were discussed in every interview, even
with non-students. However, she also found that many
other issues were being discussed which she had not
thought about previously, such as peer pressure and dis-
tance from home. As each new issue was mentioned, she
ascribed another code and went back to previous tran-

H OW TO A N A L Y S E Y O U R D A T A / 119
scripts to see if it had arisen but had been missed during
the initial analysis. Although she had to return to the
transcripts many times, this meant that by the end of
the process Tina had completed a thorough analysis of
her data.
Discourse analysis
Falling in the middle of the qualitative analysis continuum
is discourse analysis, which some researchers have named
conversational analysis, although others would argue that
the two are quite different. These methods look at patterns
of speech, such as how people talk about a particular sub-
ject, what metaphors they use, how they take turns in con-
versation, and so on. These analysts see speech as a
performance; it performs an action rather than describes
a specific state of affairs or specific state of mind. Much
of this analysis is intuitive and reflective, but it may also
involve some form of counting, such as counting instances
of turn-taking and their influence on the conversation and
the way in which people speak to others.
EXAMPLE 11: JULIE
Julie wanted to find out about women’s experiences of
premenstrual tension (PMT). As PMT is a relatively
new phrase to describe this condition, Julie was inter-
ested in finding out how women spoke about the pro-
blems they were experiencing, both in the present day
and in the past. She wanted to look closely at what wo-
men from different generations said about themselves

and how they talked to each other about their problems.
She decided to conduct five interviews and one focus
group, and then analyse them using discourse analysis,
which meant that she would break down each transcript
into tiny parts. In the interview transcripts she looked
for cultural, social and historical clues. In the focus
group transcript she was interested in looking at how
the women took turns to talk about the subject, espe-
cially amongst the different age groups. She thought
about her own position as a female researcher and
how this might affect both what was being said and
her interpretation of the data. Her final report con-
tained large amounts of transcript to illustrate the
points she had raised.
Processing the data
These examples show that there are different processes in-
volved in qualitative data analysis.
You need to think about the data from the moment you
start to collect the information.
You need to judge the value of your data, especially
that which may come from dubious sources.
As your research progresses you need to interpret the
data so that you, and others, can gain an understand-
ing of what is going on.
Finally, you need to undertake the mechanical process
of analysing the data.

It is possible to undertake the mechanical process using
computing software which can save you a lot of time,
although it may stop you becoming really familiar with
the data. There are many dedicated qualitative analysis
programs of various kinds available to social researchers
that can be used for a variety of diﬀerent tasks. For exam-
ple, software could locate particular words or phrases;
make lists of words and put them into alphabetical order;
insert key words or comments; count occurrences of
words or phrases or attach numeric codes. Some software
will retrieve text, some will analyse text and some will help
to build theory. Although a computer can undertake these
mechanical processes, it cannot think about, judge or inter-
pret qualitative data (see Table 10).
QUANTITATIVE DATA ANALYSIS
If you have decided that a large survey is the most appro-
priate method to use for your research, by now you should
have thought about how you’re going to analyse your
data. You will have checked that your questionnaire is
properly constructed and worded, you will have made
sure that there are no variations in the way the forms
are administered and you will have checked over and over
again that there is no missing or ambiguous information.
If you have a well-designed and well-executed survey, you
will minimise problems during the analysis.
Computing software
If you have computing software available for you to use
you should ﬁnd this the easiest and quickest way to ana-
lyse your data. The most common package used by social
scientists at this present time is SPSS for windows, which

TABLE 10: USING COMPUTERS FOR QUALITATIVE DATA
ANALYSIS: ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES
ADVANTAGES
Using computers helps to
alleviate time-consuming and
monotonous tasks of cutting,
pasting and retrieval of field
notes and/or interview
transcripts.
Computers are a useful aid to
those who have to work to tight
deadlines.
Programs can cope with both
multiple codes and over-lapping
codes which would be very
difficult for the researcher to
cope with without the aid of a
computer.
Some software can conduct
multiple searches in which more
than one code is searched much
more quickly and efficiently than
by the researcher.
Programs can combine codes in
complex searches.
Programs can pick out instances
of pre-defined categories which
have been missed by the
researcher during the initial
analysis.
Computers can be used to help
the researcher overcome
‘analysis block’.
DISADVANTAGES
In focus groups the group moves
through a different sequence of
events which is important in the
analysis but which cannot be
recognised by a computer.
Programs cannot understand
the meaning of text.
Software can only support the
intellectual processes of the
researcher – they cannot be a
substitute for these processes.
Participants can change their
opinions and contradict
themselves during an interview.
A computer will not recognise
this.
The software might be beyond
an individual’s budget.
User-error can lead to
undetected mistakes or
misleading results.
Using computers can lead to an
over-emphasis on mechanical
procedures.

H OW TO A N A L Y S E Y O U R D A T A / 123
has become increasingly user-friendly over the last few
years. However, data input can be a long and laborious
process, especially for those who are slow on the key-
board, and, if any data is entered incorrectly, it will influ-
ence your results. Large scale surveys conducted by
research companies tend to use questionnaires which
can be scanned, saving much time and money, but this op-
tion might not be open to you. If you are a student, how-
ever, spend some time getting to know what equipment is
available for your use as you could save yourself a lot of
time and energy by adopting this approach. Also, many
software packages at the push of a key produce profes-
sional graphs, tables and pie charts which can be used
in your final report, again saving a lot of time and effort.
Most colleges and universities provide some sort of statis-
tics course and data analysis course. Or the computing de-
partment will provide information leaflets and training
sessions on data analysis software. If you have chosen this
route, try to get onto one of these courses, especially those
which have a ‘hands-on’ approach as you might be able to
analyse your data as part of your course work. This will
enable you to acquire new skills and complete your re-
search at the same time.
Statisticl techniques
For those who do not have access to data analysis soft-
ware, a basic knowledge of statistical techniques is needed
to analyse your data. If your goal is to describe what you
have found, all you need to do is count your responses and
reproduce them. This is called a frequency count or uni-
variate analysis. Table 11 shows a frequency count of age.

TABLE 11: AGE OF RESPONDENTS
AGE GROUP
Under 20
20-29
30-39
40-49
50-59
Over 59
FREQUENCY
345
621
212
198
154
121
From this table you would be able to see clearly that the
20-29 age group was most highly represented in your sur-
vey. This type of frequency count is usually the ﬁrst step in
any analysis of a large scale survey, and forms the base for
many other statistical techniques that you might decide to
conduct on your data (see Example 12).
However, there is a problem with missing answers in this
type of count. For example, someone might be unwilling
to let a researcher know their age, or someone else could
have accidentally missed out a question. If there are any
missing answers, a separate ‘no answer’ category needs to
be included in any frequency count table. In the ﬁnal re-
port, some researchers overcome this problem by convert-
ing frequency counts to percentages which are calculated
after excluding missing data. However, percentages can be
misleading if the total number of respondents is fewer
than 40.
124 / P RACTICAL RESE ARCH ME THODS

H O W T O A N AL Y S E Y O U R D A T A / 125
EXAMPLE 12: TOM
Tom works part-time for a charity which provides infor-
mation and services for blind and partially sighted peo-
ple in the town. He was asked to find out how many
people use the service and provide a few details about
who these people are and what they do in life. Tom de-
signed a short questionnaire which could be adminis-
tered face-to-face and over the telephone by the
receptionist. Anyone who called in person or telephoned
the centre over a period of a month was asked these ques-
tions. If they had already completed a questionnaire they
did not have to do so again.
Tom did not have access to any computing facilities,
so he decided to analyse the questionnaires by hand. He
conducted a count of gender, age, occupation, postcode
area of residence and reason for attending or telephon-
ing the centre. From this information, members of staff
at the centre were able to find out that their main custo-
mers were women over the age of retirement. This meant
that they were able to arrange more activities which sui-
ted this age group. Tom found out also that one of the
main reasons for contacting the centre was for more in-
formation on disability benefits. A Braille booklet and a
cassette recording containing all the relevant informa-
tion was produced and advertised locally.
It took Tom one month to design and pilot the question-
naire, another month to administer the questionnaire
and two months to analyse the results and write the re-
port.

Finding aconnection
Although frequency counts are a useful starting point in
quantitative data analysis, you may find that you need to
do more than merely describe your findings. Often you
will need to find out if there is a connection between
one variable and a number of other variables. For exam-
ple, a researcher might want to find out whether there is a
connection between watching violent films and aggressive
behaviour. This is called bivariate analysis.
In multivariate analysis the researcher is interested in ex-
ploring the connections among more than two variables.
For example, a researcher might be interested in finding
out whether women aged 40-50, in professional occupa-
tions, are more likely to try complementary therapies
than younger, non-professional women and men from
all categories.
MEASURINGDATA
Nominal scales
To move beyond frequency counts, it is important to un-
derstand how data is measured. In nominal scales the re-
spondent answers a question in one particular way,
choosing from a number of mutually exclusive answers.
Answers to questions about marital status, religious af-
filiation and gender are examples of nominal scales of
measurement. The categories include everyone in the sam-
ple, no one should fit into more than one category and the
implication is that no one category is better than another.
Ordinal scales
Some questions offer a choice but from the categories gi-

ven it is obvious that the answers form a scale. They can
be placed on a continuum, with the implication being that
some categories are better than others. These are called
ordinal scales. The occupationally based social scale
which runs from ‘professional’ to ‘unskilled manual’ is
a good example of this type of scale. In this type of scale
it is not possible to measure the difference between the
specific categories.
Interval scales
Interval scales, on the other hand, come in the form of
numbers with precisely defined intervals. Examples in-
cluded in this type of scale are the answers from questions
about age, number of children and household income.
Precise comparisons can be made between these scales.
Arithmetic mean
In mathematics, if you want to find a simple average of the
data, you would add up the values and divide by the num-
ber of items. This is called an arithmetic mean. This is a
straightforward calculation used with interval scales where
specific figures can be added together and then divided.
However, it is possible to mislead with averages, especially
when the range of the values may be great. Researchers,
therefore, also describe the mode which is the most fre-
quently occurring value, and the median which is the mid-
dle value of the range. The mode is used when dealing with
nominal scales, for example it can show that most respon-
dents in your survey are Catholics. The median is used
when dealing with both ordinal and interval scales.
Quantitative data analysis can involve many complex sta-

tistical techniques which cannot be covered in this book.
If you wish to follow this route you should read some of
the data analysis books recommended below.
SUMMARY
The methods you use to analyse your data will depend
upon whether you have chosen to conduct qualitative
or quantitative research.
For quantitative data analysis, issues of validity and re-
liability are important.
Qualitative data analysis is a very personal process.
Ask two researchers to analyse a transcript and they
will probably come up with very diﬀerent results.
After having conducted an interview or a focus group,
it is useful to complete a summary form which con-
tains details about the interview. This can be attached
to the transcript and can be used to help the analysis.
Qualitative data analysis methods can be viewed as
forming a continuum from highly qualitative methods
to almost quantitative methods, which involve an ele-
ment of counting.
Examples of qualitative data analysis include thematic
analysis, comparative analysis, discourse analysis and
content analysis.
The analysis of large-scale surveys is best done with the
use of statistical software, although simple frequency
counts can be undertaken manually.
Data can be measured using nominal scales, ordinal
scales or interval scales.

H O W T O A N AL Y S E Y O U R D A T A / 129
A simple average is called an arithmetic mean; the
middle value of a range is called the median; the most
frequently occurring value is called the mode.
FURTHER READING
QualitativeAnalysis
Corbin, J. and Strauss, A. (1990) Basics of Qualitative Re-
search: Grounded Theory Procedures and Techniques,
Newbury Park, CA: Sage
Dey, I. (1993) Qualitative Data Analysis: A User Friendly
Guide for Social Scientists, London: Routledge.
Kelle, U. (ed.) (1995) Computer-Aided Qualitative Data
Analysis: Theory, Methods and Practice, London: Sage.
Miles, M.B. and Huberman, A.M. (1994) Qualitative
Data Analysis: An Expanded Sourcebook, Thousand
Oaks, CA: Sage.
Silverman, D. (2001) Interpreting Qualitative Data: Meth-
ods for Analysing Talk, Text and Interaction, 2nd
edi-
tion, London: Sage.
Weitzman, E.A. and Miles, M.B. (1995) Computer Pro-
grams for Qualitative Data Analysis: A Software Source-
book, Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
QuantitativeAnalysis
Analysis for Social Scientists, London: Routledge
Analysis with SPSS Release 10 for Windows: A Guide
for Social Scientists, (new edition) Hove: Routledge.
Clegg, F. (1989) Simple Statistics, Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Field, A. (2000) Discovering Statistics Using SPSS for

Windows: Advanced Techniques for Beginners, London:
Sage.
Owen, F. and Jones, R. (1994) Statistics, 4th
edition, Lon-
don: Pitman.

12
How to ReportYour Findings
Once you have completed your research and analysed
your data, there are three main ways of reporting your
findings – written reports and journal articles, both of
which can be reproduced on-line, and oral presentations.
WRITTENREPORTS
If you are a student your college or university may have
strict rules and guidelines which you have to follow when
writing up your report. You should find out what these
might be before you start your research as this could influ-
ence your research methodology, as Jeanne found out (see
Example 13).
EXAMPLE 13: JEANNE
I am a mature student and had worked for many years
in a women’s refuge prior to taking up my course.
Naturally when it came to doing my dissertation I
wanted to do some research within the refuge. I was in-
terested in issues of women helping themselves to run
the refuge rather than having inappropriate activities
imposed upon them, sometimes by social workers
who really had no experience of what the women were
going through. That’s when I found out about action
131

research. I decided I would be able to work with the wo-
men to achieve acceptable goals for everyone.
In my opinion the research went really well. During the
evaluation stage all the women said they were happy
with both the process and the outcome. We were all
happy and I was pleased with what we’d achieved. Then
it came to writing my dissertation. I had known all
along that writing up a piece of action research would
be difficult, but I had got my head around it and
worked out how it could be done. Then I found out that
my university had set rules for the format of a disserta-
tion, and worse my tutor had not even mentioned this
when I started my research. So, I had to try and fit my
research into what I saw as a really old fashioned, scien-
tific format which really didn’t suit my work. I felt this
was unfair and wouldn’t do justice to the research I had
actually carried out. I felt that I would have to spend so
long justifying my methodology, that there wouldn’t be
any room for anything else.
At the moment, I’ve decided to argue my case at the
examination committee and the Students’ Union has
agreed to represent me. I can’t help feeling this will pre-
judice people against me. It has made me wonder what
research is for and who it should benefit.
As pressures of work increase, tutors may not have the
time to impart all the required information to each indi-
vidual student. As a student you need to make sure that
you have all the relevant information to hand. If you have

H O W T O R E P O R T Y O U R F I N D I N G S / 133
not been given a copy of the dissertation guidelines ask
your tutor if they are available and from where they can
be obtained. It is then up to you whether you want to fol-
low these guidelines and conduct a piece of research which
will fit well into the set format, or whether you have a
burning passion to conduct something a little more inno-
vative and become a trailblazer in the process. If the latter
appeals to you, always talk over your ideas with your tutor
first as you could waste time and effort in conducting a
piece of research which will not be considered suitable
by the examiners.
If you are not a student you may have more flexibility in
the style and structure of your report. However, remem-
ber that one of the purposes of your report is to convince
people that you have produced a good, sound piece of re-
search and the more professional your report looks the
better your chances of success.
Remember the audience
An important point to remember when writing a report is
to think about your audience. What style would they pre-
fer? Do they understand complex statistics or do you need
to keep it simple? Have they the time to read through
reams of quotations or are they interested only in conclu-
sions and recommendations? Are they interested in your
methodology? Do you need to justify your methodology
to a non-believer? Do you need to write using complex ter-
minology or do you need to keep your language as simple
as possible? (Normally I would recommend using plain,
clear language, but on some occasions you will need to
convince people of your knowledge of the subject by in-

cluding some more complex terms. However, make sure
you understand the terminology thoroughly yourself. A
few researchers have come unstuck by including terms
which it becomes obvious later they do no understand).
WRITTENREPORT FORMAT
Traditional written reports tend to be produced in the fol-
lowing format.
T|tle Page
This contains the title of the report, the name of the re-
searcher and the date of publication. If the report is a dis-
sertation or thesis, the title page will include details about
the purpose of the report, for example ‘A thesis submitted
in partial fulﬁlment of the requirements of Sheﬃeld Hal-
lam University for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy’. If
the research has been funded by a particular organisation,
details of this may be included on the title page.
Contents Page
In this section is listed the contents of the report, either in
chapter or section headings with sub-headings, if relevant
and their page numbers.
List of Illustrations
This section includes title and page number of all graphs,
tables, illustrations, charts, etc.
Acknowledgements
Some researchers may wish to acknowledge the help of
their research participants, tutors, employers and/or
funding body.

H OW TO RE P OR T Y O UR F I N DI N G S / 135
Abstract/Summary
This tends to be a one page summary of the research, its
purpose, methods, main findings and conclusion.
Introduction
This section introduces the research, setting out the aims
and objectives, terms and definitions. It includes a ratio-
nale for the research and a summary of the report struc-
ture.
Background
In this section is included all your background research,
which may be obtained from the literature, from personal
experience or both. You must indicate from where all the
information to which you refer has come, so remember to
keep a complete record of everything you read. If you do
not do this, you could be accused of plagiarism which is a
form of intellectual theft. When you are referring to a par-
ticular book or journal article, find out the accepted stan-
dard for referencing from your institution (see below).
Methodologyand Methods
In this section is set out a description of, and justification
for, the chosen methodology and research methods. The
length and depth of this section will depend upon whether
you are a student or employee. If you are an undergrad-
uate student you will need to raise some of the methodo-
logical and theoretical issues pertinent to your work, but
if you are a postgraduate student you will need also to be
aware of the epistemological and ontological issues in-
volved. If you are an employee you may only need to pro-
vide a description of the methods you used for your
research, in which case this section can be titled ‘Research

Methods’. Remember to include all the practical informa-
tion people will need to evaluate your work, for example,
how many people took part, how they were chosen, your
time scale and data recording and analysis methods.
Findings/Analysis
In this section are included your main ﬁndings. The con-
tent of this section will depend on your chosen methodol-
ogy and methods. If you have conducted a large
quantitative survey, this section may contain tables,
graphs, pie charts and associated statistics. If you have
conducted a qualitative piece of research this section
may be descriptive prose containing lengthy quotations.
Conclusion
In this section you sum up your ﬁndings and draw conclu-
sions from them, perhaps in relation to other research or
literature.
Recommendations
Some academic reports will not need this section. How-
ever, if you are an employee who has conducted a piece
of research for your company, this section could be the
most important part of the report. It is for this reason
that some written reports contain the recommendation
section at the beginning of the report. In this section is
set out a list of clear recommendations which have been
developed from your research.
Further Research
It is useful in both academic reports and work-related re-
ports to include a section which shows how the research
can be continued. Perhaps some results are inconclusive,

or perhaps the research has thrown up many more research
questions which need to be addressed. It is useful to include
this section because it shows that you are aware of the wider
picture and that you are not trying to cover up something
which you feel may be lacking from your own work.
References
Small research projects will need only a reference section.
This includes all the literature to which you have referred
in your report. Find out which referencing system your
college or university uses. A popular method is the Har-
vard system which lists the authors’ surnames alphabeti-
cally, followed by their initials, date of publication, title of
book in italics, place of publication and publisher. If the
reference is a journal article, the title of the article appears
in inverted commas and the name of the journal appears
in italics, followed by the volume number and pages of the
article. This is the method used in this book. Figure 5 pro-
vides a section of a bibliography from a PhD thesis to il-
lustrate this method.
Bibliography
Larger dissertations or theses will require both a reference
section and a bibliography. As discussed above, the refer-
ence section will include all those publications to which
you have referred to in your report. If, however, you have
read other work in relation to your research but not actu-
ally referred to them when writing up your report, you
might wish to include them in a bibliography. However,
make sure they are still relevant to your work – including
books to make your bibliography look longer and more
impressive is a tactic which won’t impress examiners.

Clegg, S. (1985) ‘Feminist Methodology: Fact or Fic-
tion?’ Quality and Quantity,19: 83-97.
Cohen, A.P. (1994) Self Consciousness: An Alternative
Anthropology of Identity, London: Routledge.
Cook, J.A. and Fonow, M.M. (1986) ‘Knowledge and
Women’s Interests: Issues of Epistemology and
Methodology in Feminist Sociological Research’, So-
ciological Enquiry, 56: 2-29.
Crowley, H. and Himmelweit, S. (eds.) (1992) Knowing
Women: Feminism and Knowledge, Cambridge: Polity
Press in Association with the Open University.
Currie, D. and Kazi, H. (1987) ‘Academic Feminism
and the Process of De-radicalisation: Re-examining
the Issues’, Feminist Review, 25: 77-98.
Curry, C., Trew, K., Turner, I. and Hunter, J. (1994)
‘The Eﬀect of Life Domains of Girls’ Possible
Selves’, Adolescence, 29: 133-150.
Erikson, E.H. (ed.) (1978) Adulthood, New York: Nor-
ton.
Evans, N (ed.) (1980) Education Beyond School: Higher
Education for a Changing Context, London: Grant
McIntyre.
Faludi, S. (1992) Backlash: The Undeclared War
Against Women, London: Chatto and Windus.
Fig. 5. Example list of references
Appendices
If you have constructed a questionnaire for your research,
or produced an interview schedule or a code of ethics, it
may be useful to include them in your report as an appen-

TEN REASONS WHY REPORTS FAIL
There is no logical structure.
Ideas are not well thought out.
Work is disorganised.
Assumptions are made which cannot be justified by
evidence.
There are too many grammatical and spelling mis-
takes.
Sentences and/or paragraphs are too long or too
obscure.
It is obvious that ideas and sentences have been ta-
ken from other sources.
There is too much repetition.
There is too much irrelevant information.
Summary and conclusions are weak.
H OW TO RE P OR T Y O UR F I N DI N G S / 139
dix. In general, appendices do not count towards your to-
tal amount of words so it is a useful way of including ma-
terial without taking up space that can be used for other
information. However, do not try filling up your report
with irrelevant appendices as this will not impress exam-
iners. When including material you must make sure that it
is relevant – ask yourself whether the examiner will gain a
deeper understanding of your work by reading the appen-
dix. If not, leave it out. Other information which could be
included as an appendix are recruitment leaflets or letters;
practical details about each research participant; sample
transcripts (if permission has been sought); list of inter-
view dates; relevant tables and graphs or charts which
are too bulky for the main report.

JOURNAL ARTICLES
If you want your research findings to reach a wider audi-
ence, it might be worth considering producing an article
for a journal. Most academic journals do not pay for ar-
ticles they publish, but many professional or trade publi-
cations do pay for your contribution, if published.
However, competition can be fierce and your article will
have to stand out from the crowd if you want to be suc-
cessful. The following steps will help you to do this:
Choose a topical, original piece of research.
Do your market research – find out which journal pub-
lishes articles in your subject area.
Check on submission guidelines – produce an article in
the correct style and format and of the right length.
Read several copies of the journal to get an idea about
the preferences of editors.
If you are thinking about writing for a trade publica-
tion, approach the editors by letter, asking if they
might be interested in an article. Include a short sum-
mary of your proposed article.
Produce a succinct, clear, interesting and well-written
article – ask friends, tutors or colleagues to read it and
provide comments.
Make sure there are no mistakes, remembering to
check the bibliography.
If it is your first article, gain advice from someone who
has had work published. Also you might find it easier
to write an article with someone else – some tutors or

HOW TO REPORT YOUR FINDINGS/ 141
supervisors will be willing to do this as it helps their
publication record if their name appears on another
article. You may find that you will do most of the
work, but it is very useful to have someone read your
article and change sections which do not work or read
well. It is also useful to have people comment on your
methodology or analysis assumptions which could be
criticised by other researchers.
ORAL PRESENTATIONS
Another method of presenting your research findings is
through an oral presentation. This may be at a university
or college to other students or tutors, at a conference to
other researchers or work colleagues, or in a work place
to colleagues, employers or funding bodies. Many re-
searchers find that it is better to provide both a written
report and an oral presentation as this is the most effective
way of enabling a wider audience to find out about the re-
search, especially if you also reproduce your written re-
port on-line.
If you want people to take notice of your results, you need
to produce a good presentation. Table 12 provides a list of
dos and don’ts when making a presentation.
PowerPoint is a useful presentation graphics program
which enables you to create slides that can be shared live
or on-line. You can enhance your presentation with ani-
mation, artwork and diagrams which make it more inter-
esting for your audience. Full details about PowerPoint
can be found at www.microsoft.com/office/powerpoint.

TABLE 12: MAKING PRESENTATIONS: DOS AND DON’TS
DO
Arrive early and make sure the room
is set out in the way that you want.
Make sure that all the equipment is
available and that you know how to
work it.
Try to relax and breathe deeply.
Acknowledge that this is your first
presentation and people will tend to
help you along.
Produce aide memoirs, either on
cards, paper, OHP transparencies or
presentation software such as
PowerPoint.
Make it clear from the outset
whether you are happy to be
interrupted or whether questions
should be left for the end. If you have
invited questions, make sure you
make every effort to answer them.
Look around the room while you are
speaking – if it’s a small group, make
eye-contact with as many people as
possible.
Present interesting visual
information such as graphs, charts
and tables in a format which can be
viewed by everyone. This could be
OHP transparencies, slides,
PowerPoint or handouts.
Alter the tone and pitch of your
voice, length of sentence and facial/
hand gestures to maintain audience
interest. Show that you are interested
in your subject.
Produce a paper or handout which
people can take away with them.
Talk to people after your
presentation and ask them how it
went, whether there are any
improvements they might suggest for
future presentations.
DON’T
Rush in late, find that the overhead
projector doesn’t work and that you
have no pen for the whiteboard.
Worry about showing your nerves.
Everybody gets nervous when they
first start giving presentations and
your audience should know this.
Read straight from a paper you have
written.
Get cross if you are interrupted and
have not mentioned that you don’t
want this to happen. Invite questions
and then do not answer them or
patronise the inquirer.
Look at your notes, never raising
your head.
Produce visual information which
people can’t see, either due to its size
or print quality.
Present in a monotone voice with no
facial/hand gestures. Make it clear
that your subject bores the pants off
you.
Let the audience go home without
any record of what you have said.
Run away never to be seen again.
142 / PR AC TI C A L R E S E A R C H M E T H O D S

SUMMARY
There are three main ways of reporting your findings:
written reports, journal articles and oral presentations.
Before starting your research, find out whether you are
going to be restricted by structure, style and content of
your final report.
Think about your audience and produce your report
accordingly.
A traditional written report includes the following:
– title page
– contents page
– list of illustrations
– acknowledgements
– abstract/summary
– introduction
– background
– methodology/methods
– findings/analysis
– conclusions
– recommendations
– further research
– references
– bibliography
– appendices.
If you are interested in writing an article for a journal,
do your market research. Make sure that the subject
matter, style, structure and length of your article suit
the journal.
Try to seek advice and comments from people experi-
enced in writing journal articles.

Think about producing your ﬁrst article with another,
more experienced researcher.
Remember that anyone can reproduce reports or arti-
cles on-line. If you were to do so, your work would
reach a wider audience than it might do otherwise.
When making oral presentations always be prepared.
Arrive early, make sure equipment works and that
you have everything you need.
Show that you are interested in what you are saying
and try to keep audience interest by using visual aids
and altering tone, pitch and gestures.
Don’t shrug oﬀ questions or patronise your audience –
pitch your presentation at the right level.
Never let an audience leave without taking away a re-
cord of what you have said.
FURTHER READING
Bessant, A. (2001) Learning to Use PowerPoint, Oxford:
Heinemann.
Bowden, J. (1999) Writing Good Reports, Oxford: How To
Books.
Durie, B. (2000) Creating a Web Site, 3rd
edition, Oxford:
How To Books.
Hasbani, G. (1999) Making Great Presentations, Oxford:
How To Books.
Owen, M. (1998) I Hate Giving Presentations, 2nd
edition,
London: Kogan Page.

HOW TO REPORT Y OUR FINDIN GS/ 145
Smith, P. (2000) Writing an Assignment, 4th
edition, Ox-
ford: How To Books.
Williams, S. (1996) Presentations, Tadworth: Elliot Right
Way Books.

13
How to be an Ethical
Researcher
As researchers we are unable to conduct our projects suc-
cessfully if we do not receive the help of other people. If
we expect them to give up their valuable time to help us, it
follows that we should offer them something in return.
Many people are willing to disclose a lot of personal in-
formation during our research so we need to make sure
that we treat both the participants and the information
they provide with honesty and respect. This is called re-
search ethics.
TREATINGPARTICIPANTS WITHRESPECT
As a researcher you must remember that the research pro-
cess intrudes on people’s lives. Some of the people who
take part in your research may be vulnerable because of
their age, social status or position of powerlessness. If par-
ticipants are young, you need to make sure a parent or
guardian is present. If participants are ill or reaching
old age you might need to use a proxy and care should
be taken to make sure that you do not affect the relation-
ship between the proxy and the participant.
Some people may find participation a rewarding process,
whereas others will not. Your research should not give
rise to false hopes or cause unnecessary anxiety. You must
146

HOW TO BE A N ETHICAL RES EARCHER/ 147
try to minimise the disruption to people’s lives and if
someone has found it an upsetting experience you should
find out why and try to ensure that the same situation
does not occur again.
As a researcher you will encounter awkward situations,
but good preparation and self-awareness will help to re-
duce these. If they do happen, you should not dwell too
long on the negative side – reflect, analyse, learn by your
mistakes and move on.
You must do your best to ensure anonymity and confiden-
tiality. However, information given by research partici-
pants in confidence does not enjoy legal privilege. This
means that the information may be liable to subpoena
by a court. If you’re dealing with very sensitive informa-
tion which you know could be called upon by a court of
law, you will need to inform your participants that you
would be obliged to hand over the information.
OVERTANDCOVERT RESEARCH
Overt research means that it is open, out in the public and
that everyone knows who you are and what you are doing.
Covert research means that you are doing it under cover,
that no one knows you are a researcher or what you are
doing. In my opinion covert research should be kept to
a minimum – there are enough journalists and television
personalities doing this kind of undercover, sensationalist
work.
Covert research
In the past researchers have justified their covert work by

saying that it has been the only way to find out what goes on
in a particular organisation that would not otherwise let a
researcher enter. Such work has been carried out within re-
ligious cults and within warring gangs of young people.
However, this type of research can have serious implications
for the personal safety of the researcher and the people with
whom she comes into contact. It can also give research a
bad name – other people may read about the work and be-
come suspicious about taking part in future projects.
Overt research
I believe researchers should be open and honest about
who they are and what they’re doing. People can then
make an informed choice about whether they take part
in a project. It is their prerogative to refuse – nobody
should be forced, bullied or cajoled into doing something
they don’t want to do. If people are forced to take part in
a research project, perhaps by their boss or someone else
in a position of authority, you will soon find out. They
will not be willing to participate and may cause problems
for you by offering false or useless information, or by dis-
rupting the data collection process. Who can blame them?
Wouldn’t you do the same if you were forced to do some-
thing you didn’t want to do?
This means that not only should you be open and honest
about who you are and what you’re doing, but so should
those who open the gates for you, especially those who are
in a position of authority. Consider Example 14 from a
student new to research.

HOW TO BE AN ETHICAL RESE ARCHER/ 149
EXAMPLE 14: STEVE
It was the first project I’d ever done. I wanted to find out
about a new workers’ education scheme in a car factory.
One of my tutors knew someone in charge of the scheme
and that person arranged for me to hold a focus group
in the factory. This meant that the person in charge of
the scheme chose the people for the focus group. I was
really pleased because it meant I didn’t have to do a lot
of work getting people to come. Of course I soon found
out that he’d chosen these people for a particular rea-
son, and he’d actually told them that they had to attend,
that there was no choice involved. When I turned up to
hold the group, no one had been told who I was and
what they were doing there. When I started to introduce
myself some of the workers looked a bit uneasy and
others just looked plain defiant. It was only after the
group that I spoke to someone who said that they’d
all thought I was a ‘spy’ for the company and that some
had decided to give the ‘company line’ on what the
scheme was all about, whereas others had decided not
to say anything. She said that really they didn’t believe
a lot of what had been said, but none of them dared say
anything different as they thought I was going to go
straight to management with the results. I felt that the
information I collected wasn’t very useful in terms of my
research, but it was useful in terms of getting an idea
about employer-employee relations.
If you are relying on someone else to find participants for
you, it is important that you make sure that that person

knows who you are and what you’re doing and that this in-
formation is then passed on to everyone else. A useful way
to do this is to produce a leaflet which can be given to any-
one who might be thinking about taking part in your re-
search. This leaflet should contain the following
information:
Details of who you are (student and course or employ-
ee and position).
Details of the organisation for which you work or at
which you study.
Information about who has commissioned/funded the
research, if relevant.
Information about your project – subject and purpose.
Details about what will happen to the results.
Information about the personal benefits to be gained
by taking part in the project. This section is optional,
but I find it helps to show that people will gain person-
ally in some way by taking part in the research. This
acts as an incentive. You might offer further informa-
tion about something in which they are interested, or
you might offer them a copy of the final report. Some
consumer research companies offer entry into a prize
draw or vouchers for local shops and restaurants.
CODE OF ETHICS
Once you have been open and honest about what you are
doing and people have agreed to take part in the research,
it is useful to provide them with a Code of Ethics. The best
time to do this is just before they take part in a focus

HOW TO BE AN ET HIC AL RE SEARCHER/ 151
group or interview, or just before they fill in your ques-
tionnaire. The Code of Ethics supplies them with details
about what you intend to do with the information they
give and it shows that you intend to treat both them
and the information with respect and honesty. It covers
the following issues:
Anonymity: you need to show that you are taking steps
to ensure that what participants have said cannot be
traced back to them when the final report is produced.
How are you going to categorise and store the informa-
tion? How are you going to make sure it is not easily
accessible to anyone with unscrupulous intentions? Do
you intend to change the names of people, towns and
organisations? If not, how will you ensure that what
someone says cannot be used against them in the fu-
ture? However, you must be careful not to make pro-
mises that you cannot keep.
Confidentiality: you need to show that information sup-
plied to you in confidence will not be disclosed directly
to third parties. If the information is supplied in a
group setting, issues of confidentiality should be rele-
vant to the whole group who should also agree not
to disclose information directly to third parties. You
need to think about how you’re going to categorise
and store the information so that it cannot fall into un-
scrupulous hands. Again, you need to make sure that
you do not make promises which you can’t keep.
Right to comment: this will depend on your personal
methodological preferences and beliefs. Some re-
searchers believe that willing participants should be

consulted throughout the research process and that if
someone is unhappy with the emerging results and re-
port, they have the right to comment and discuss al-
terations. Indeed, this can be seen as part of the
research process itself. Other researchers believe that
once the information has been supplied, it is up to
them what they do with it. If you’re not willing to dis-
cuss the final report or take on board comments from
unhappy participants, you must make this clear from
the outset.
The final report: it is useful for participants to know
what is going to happen with the results. Who will re-
ceive a free copy of the report? Will it be on public dis-
play? If the final report is very long you can produce a
shorter, more succinct report which can be sent to in-
terested participants. This will keep down your own
production and postage costs.
Data Protection: you need to show that you understand
the Data Protection Act and that you intend to comply
with its rules. The Data Protection Act 1998 came into
force on 1 March 2000. It sets rules for processing per-
sonal information and applies to paper records as well
as those held on computers. It covers issues such as act-
ing fairly and lawfully; not keeping the information
longer than necessary; making sure that the data is ac-
curate and kept secure. Personal data covers both facts
and opinions about an individual. More details about
the Data Protection Act can be found at www.datapro-
tection.gov.uk. A copy of the Data Protection Act 1998
can be obtained from The Stationery Office Limited at
a price of £10, or from www.legislation.hmso.gov.uk
152 / PR AC TI C A L R E S E A R C H M E T H O D S

Anonymity
I guarantee that I will not use any names and addresses
in the final report, or store or categorise information
using names and addresses. This will help to ensure that
what you have said during the discussion will not be
traced back to you by third parties.
Confidentiality
I guarantee that I will not disclose directly any informa-
tion provided in this group to third parties, unless per-
mission has been granted to do so. As some of the
comments made in this group may be of a personal or
private nature, other participants should respect the
confidentiality of individuals and also not disclose infor-
mation directly to third parties.
Your right to comment
I agree to keep you informed about the progress of the
research. If at any stage you wish to comment on the
emerging results or final report you may do so. I agree
to listen to your comments and make relevant altera-
tions, if appropriate.
The final report
This research is funded by [name of organisation or
funding body]. A copy of the final report will be sent
to this organisation, to the University library and to
anyone who has taken part in the research who has re-
quested a copy.
Data Protection
The researcher will comply with the Data Protection
Act 1998.
Fig. 6. Code of ethics

The amount of detail you provide in your Code of Ethics
will depend on your research, your participants and your
methodological preferences. Some people will not want to
see a lengthy list of ethical considerations, whereas others
will go through your list with a fine tooth-comb. It is for
this reason that you might find it useful to produce two – a
short summary and a longer version for those who are in-
terested. A short Code of Ethics is provided in Figure 6.
The British Sociological Association has produced a
Statement of Ethical Practice which can be viewed at
www.britsoc.org.uk. This statement covers issues such as
professional integrity; relations with, and responsibilities
towards research participants; relations with, and respon-
sibilities towards sponsors and/or funders. It is a very de-
tailed list and will help you to think about all the ethical
issues which may arise during your research.
SUMMARY
Our research would not be possible without the help
and co-operation of other people. If we expect people
to continue helping us, we should treat them with hon-
esty and respect.
Disruption to a participant’s life should be kept to a
minimum.
False hopes or expectations should not be raised.
Confidential or anonymous data does not enjoy legal
privilege.
Overt research means that it is out in the open – every-
one knows who the researcher is and what she is doing.
Covert research means that it is under-cover work. No-
body knows who the researcher is and what she is

doing. This type of work can give research a bad name
and has personal safety implications for the researcher
and for the people with whom she comes into contact.
It is an individual’s prerogative to refuse to take part
in research – nobody should be forced, bullied or ca-
joled into taking part.
If someone is thinking about helping with your re-
search, they should be given a leaflet which includes
the following information:
– Details about who you are and the organisation for
which you work.
– Details about your project, the funding body and
what will happen to the results.
– Information about possible benefits to be gained by
taking part in the research (false promises should not
be made).
A short Code of Ethics should be given to everyone
who takes part in the research. This should include
the following issues:
– anonymity
– confidentiality
– right to comment
– the final report
– Data Protection.
A longer, more detailed Statement of Ethical Practice
can be produced for anyone who requests a copy.
FURTHER READING
Barnes, J.A. (1979) Who Should Know What? Social
Science, Privacy and Ethics, Harmondsworth: Penguin.

Bulmer, M. (1982) Social Research Ethics, London: Mac-
Millan.
Homan, R. (1991) The Ethics of Social Research, London:
Longman.
Lee-Trewick, G. and Linkogle, S. (eds.) (2000) Danger in
the Field: Risk and Ethics in Social Research, London:
Routledge.

Index
action research, 16–17
aims and objectives, 56–57
anonymity, 151, 153
appendices, 138–139
arithmetic mean, 127
background research, 40–46
bibliography, 137–138
bivariate analysis, 126
body language, 70, 76
box-ticking, 64, 88
budgets, 59–60
census, 47
closed-ended questionnaires, 31,
87–88
cluster sample, 50
Code of Ethics, 150–154
comparative analysis, 115, 116
confidentiality, 151, 153
content analysis, 115, 118
convenience sample, 51
conversational analysis, 115, 119
covering letter, 99
covert participant observation,
33
Data Protection Act, 152–153
direct observation, 32
discourse analysis, 115, 119
disproportionate stratified
sample, 51
dissemination, 60
epistemology, 18
ethics, 103
ethnography, 17
extreme cases, 51
feminist research, 18
field notes, 106–107
focus group summary form, 114
frequency counts, 123
gaining access, 102–103
generalising, 47
grounded theory, 18–19
heterogeneous samples, 51
interactive questionnaires, 32
interlibrary loan service, 43
interval scales, 127
interview schedule, 67–69
interview summary form, 113
interviewer-administered
questionnaires, 87
journal articles, 140
key informants, 107
listening skills, 71
median, 127
157

memos, 112
mode, 127
multivariate analysis, 126
nominal scales, 126
note-taking, 67
open-ended questionnaires, 31,
87–88
oral presentations, 141–142
ordinal scales, 126–127
overt participant observation, 33
participant observation, 101–109
personal disclosure, 69, 77
personal proﬁle form, 96
piloting a questionnaire, 95, 97
prestige bias, 89
primary research, 40–41, 45
probability samples, 48–51
probing, 71–73
purposive samples, 48–51
qualitative research, 14–16
quantitative research, 15–16
quasi-random sample, 51
questionnaire layout, 93–94
questionnaire length, 93–94
quota sample, 50
rapport, 28, 70–71
recruitment, 82–83
referencing, 137–138
reliability, 110
research ethics committees, 10–
11
research proposal, 55–63
resources, 59–60
response rates, 97–98
sample size, 49, 53
saturation point, 19
secondary research, 40–42, 45
self-administered questionnaires,
87–88
semi-structured interviews, 28–29
simple random sample, 50
snowball sample, 50
stratiﬁed random sample, 51
structured interviews, 29
systematic sample, 51
tape recorder, 64–67, 80
thematic analysis, 115–116
theoretical sampling, 51
timetables, 58–59
transcripts, 112
triangulation, 20
univariate analysis, 123
validity, 110
venue, 81–82
video recorder, 66, 80
written reports, 131–139

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