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MA Diss- how many participants?

B

Hi everyone,

I'm currently writing the research proposal for my full-time MA diss (which is also an assessed piece of my MA), but I'm just a bit unsure about something and I'd be grateful if anyone could help.

I'm planning on doing semi-structured, in-depth interviews. Obviously I don't know exactly how many participants I'm actually going to be capable of getting and interviewing/transcribing/analysing etc, but if I say 10 participants does that sound about right?

Thanks :)

K

Hi button! I am doing a PhD in clinical psychology which is mostly quantitative, but I am doing a small qualitative study as well, using semi-structured interviews which will be analysed using IPA (interpretative phenomenological analysis). I am aiming for up to 90 people in my quant study but just 8-10 people for the qual study, and this is perfectly acceptable in my field- most published studies of this kind using a clinical population have about 6-12 participants because the analysis is so rigorous and time-consuming, although of course there are some studies which are larger. I would think 10 should be fine although I would check with your supervisor what he/she thinks is a good number to aim for and of course it will depend on your population and how accessible they are as well. Best of luck, KB

B

Keenbean, thankyou! Glad I'm on the right lines but will also talk to my supervisor about it :-)

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