Number of interviews for masters thesis

Gael23

I know there isn't really a textbook answer for this but I'm wondering how many interviews would I need to conduct. Are we talking 3/10/20?

Roselm

Gael23 wrote: »

I know there isn't really a textbook answer for this but I'm wondering how many interviews would I need to conduct. Are we talking 3/10/20?

It depends on what you want to find out, who has the data you need and how much time you have. If one person had a particularly inspiring experience/viewpoint you could write a thesis around that one interview which then could be a long and very in depth interview. A ten minute interview will take an hour to transcribe so be careful!! 20 interviews is too many I would say as it will yield way too much data unless your interviews are very tight/constrained in which case you'd be using questionnaires instead I assume.

Tom Dunne

Gael23 wrote: »

I know there isn't really a textbook answer for this but I'm wondering how many interviews would I need to conduct. Are we talking 3/10/20?

That's an extremely vague question.

What methodology are you using?

Gael23

Tom Dunne wrote: »

That's an extremely vague question.

What methodology are you using?

Most likely qualitative interviews.

Tom Dunne

Gael23 wrote: »

Most likely qualitative interviews.

Interviews are an instrument for gathering data, not a methodology.

Your methodology will give you an idea of how many interviews you should hold and what you will do with the data generated.