======= Date Modified 03 21 2009 13:21:23 =======
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I don't know if anyone else will enjoy this, but I've found a really interesting website that I can use to vent my frustrations.  I'm currently imagining it's one of my supervisors, who recently provided me with some 'constructive' criticism. Mwhua ha ha ha  ---removed site, inappropriate content--

Oh, I love secrets!

I actually have a mate doing a grounded theory study, where he aimed to interview 30 counsellors, and he is encountering exactly this hurdle. He's now looking at 20. The problem he finds is the ones that are interested are all over the UK and others don't bother e-mailing him back or giving him a time he can go and interview them. I myself originally planned to do 3 focus groups with some health professional and I've ended up only being able to do two. It's the logistics of it all. Grrr...

Yeah, Donzy, Rick makes a really important point. Really think about the approach you are going to take to analysing your data. Interviews are one approach, as Sue points out, to collecting data for qualitative research, but the interpretive, qualitative approach you speak of includes lots of different approaches to qualitative research within the Naturalistic Inquiry Paradigm. Qualitative research is largely interpretivistic after all. Would it be okay for you to tell us, broadly, what you are aiming to do? It's just 30-40 interviews sounds an awful lot. Do you think you could interview such a number of managers within you time frame. Maybe you won't need to mif you adopt the principle of data saturation (though that is a little bit positivistic and may depend on your own research worldview.

Kuala Lumpur, too, is the business for VLSI. It's actually 6.543 times better than anywhere in Germany. Fact.

http://www.um.edu.my/

What? You can fall asleep after less than two minutes on the Victory Throne. Down to the pits you peasant!

Oh dear 404. You may have won the battle, but you haven't won the war. I have been informed by the moderators that this thread has now been closed (they just have to wait until Tuesday when the official thread closer is back at work), so I win. The End.

Oh dear 404. You may have won the battle, but you haven't won the war. I have been informed by the moderators that this thread has now been closed (they just have to wait until Tuesday when the official thread closer is back at work), so I win. The End.

Nah, it's okay 404. I shall look after matters from here. Thanks for keeping my champion's chair warm for me. ;-)

Seems I've dug myself a hole here! I'm not attacking either of you, and as you've read, I've just said that sample sizes are important in qualitative research. I've not said you need a big sample (that's plain wrong for qual), and as Phdbug emphasises passionately and elegantly in her response to me (I feel), there's lots of different flavours of qualitative research, each with their own requirements. Anyway, in those ivory towers, fiery debates rage over what the right sample sizes are for qualitatively research. All I can say, in my humble opinion, is that sample sizes are important for qualitative research.

Have a read of this paper if you can get it: Margarete, S. (1995). "Sample size in qualitative research." Research in Nursing & Health 18(2): 179-183. I can provide you with many more refs on the matter if you wish too.

:-)

My mobile phone has a built in torch (and an FM radio - not to show off!), so lead the way!

Hope you don't mind me having a moan, but I'm feeling really down at the moment, it's like an up and down pattern. I split up with my partner months ago now, we've stayed friends but she's moved on and I feel terrible. It reminds me how much I still love her and it makes me feel very low. I've moved back into my mum's house, and with my sister having two babies they cry a lot and demand a lot of attention - it can be quite distracting. But the problem is I can't get over the split no matter how hard I try and the life I had. I'm in my late twenties and I feel like a teenager again, trapped in the same daily grind. And I'm really lonely. Fridays and weekends are the worst. I just want to ring people up and talk to them. I want my PhD - I work as hard as I can. But I can't keep doing this for another year or so. Something has to give. It might sound pathetic but I have a lot of self-hatred going on at the moment, dark thoughts. I'm not sure if I'm clinically depressed or not, and I know it might sound soft, but I'm thinking of going to see my GP because things are little better than months ago. I just worry that things will always be this way and I just want to be happy.