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Transcribing Qualitative Research Interviews/Groups

  • 20-09-2018 7:04pm
    #1
    siobhan08
    Closed Accounts Posts: 443 ✭✭


    Hi Guys,

    I'm looking for some advice. I'm currently in the middle of my master and about to start conducting research through focus groups and interviews.

    My undergrad research was done by quantitive research so don't have much experience with the qualitative side. I have been informed the transcribing of the audio recordings can be a very long process.

    Does anyone have any advice on how to complete this process?

    A google search has shown me that you can pay for this service to be done for you. Has anybody had experience with using a service like this or would you recommend you doing it your self?


Comments

  • #2
    baby and crumble
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,512 ✭✭✭baby and crumble


    I’d always recommend transcribing yourself. It does help you get really familiar with the data. You’ll have to go through the transcripts anyway to make sure they’re correct anyway. You used to be able to by a foot pedal that plugged into a computer that meant you could rewind and play the audio tracks without taking your hands off the keyboard. In my experience that helped no end in speeding up the process.


  • #3
    siobhan08
    Closed Accounts Posts: 443 ✭✭siobhan08


    baby and crumble wrote: »
    I’d always recommend transcribing yourself. It does help you get really familiar with the data. You’ll have to go through the transcripts anyway to make sure they’re correct anyway. You used to be able to by a foot pedal that plugged into a computer that meant you could rewind and play the audio tracks without taking your hands off the keyboard. In my experience that helped no end in speeding up the process.

    That's perfect thanks. I've not finalized the number of participants I'll have put it could be possible be around 30. Using focus groups (4 people) and interviews. Hope to limit them to about 40 minutes each. Only have 6 months to get everything done plus a lot of other college work.

    How long using a foot pedal would it take to transcribe a 40 minute interview?


  • #4
    Whistlejacket
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 241 ✭✭Whistlejacket


    Google Docs have a handy tool that speeds up transcribing: https://work.qz.com/1087765/how-to-transcribe-audio-fast-and-for-free-using-google-docs-voice-typing/

    However there is still no "fast" way to transcribe. A 40 minute interview will still take 2-3 hours to produce an accurate transcript and analysis takes about as much time again in my experience.

    The number of interviews you are mentioning is a massive workload. It might be worth talking to an experienced qualitative researcher/social scientist to see if you will actually need that many. Bear in mind that in qualitative work it's the depth of data that's often more important than the numbers of participants so I'd recommend you review your sampling strategy; fewer carefully picked interviewees may be more feasible and still give you valuable results.

    Best of luck with it.


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