Sample Size in Qualitative Interview Studies

By K. Malterud, V. Siersma, A. D. Guassora. Qualitative Health Research, 2016

10,102 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Subfields: Education, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/1f4a983f42f66540ccbedfca359a5be18769db94

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Citations in the corpus

Semistructured interviewing in primary care research: a balance of relationship and rigour (2019, background): “They suggest that the size of a sample should depend on the aim, homogeneity of the sample, theory, interview quality and analytic strategy.(14)”
Saturation in qualitative research: exploring its conceptualization and operationalization (2017, background): “Saturation’s apparent position as a ‘gold standard’ in assessing quality and its near universal application in qualitative research have been previously questioned (Guest et al. 2006; O’Reilly and Parker 2013; Malterud et al. 2016).”
Quantifying Thematic Saturation in Qualitative Data Analysis (2018, background): “The difficulty with an a priori determination of adequate sample size (Malterud et al. 2015; Roy et al. 2015) is that adequacy depends on many factors.”
‘Define, Explain, Justify, Apply’ (DEJA): An analytic tool for guiding qualitative research sample size (2021, background): “, 2018) while the other calls for the identification of factors that one would encounter in conducting a qualitative design, which would eventually influence the sample size (Dey, 1999; Fusch & Ness, 2015; Gilad, 2019; Guest et al., 2006; Morgan, 2018; Malterud et al., 2015; Morse, 2000, 2003; Queir”
Code Saturation Versus Meaning Saturation: How Many Interviews Are Enough? (2016, background): “…concern over researchers claiming saturation without providing any justification or explanation of how it was assessed or the grounds on which it was achieved (Bowen, 2008; Green & Thorgood, 2009; Guest, Bunce, & Johnson, 2006; Kerr et al., 2010; Malterud et al., 2015; Morse, 1995, 2000, 2015).”
Saturation controversy in qualitative research: Complexities and underlying assumptions. A literature review (2020, background): “Information power is built on “(a) the aim of the study (b) sample size specificity (c) use of established theory (d) quality of dialogue (e) analysis strategy”(Malterud et al., 2016, p. 1756).”
Farm diversification, entrepreneurship and technology adoption : analysis of upland farmers in Wales (2017, methodology): “With the size of the data and number of interviews deemed suitable for the type of qualitative work proposed (Malterud et al., 2016) analysis was conducted.”
Employing a Qualitative Description Approach in Health Care Research (2017, neutral): “However, the difficulties and challenges regarding the concept of “data saturation” have recently been debated (Fusch & Ness, 2015; Malterud, Siersma, & Guassora, 2015).”
Real-Time Type 1 Diabetes Self-Management Decision-Making in Adolescents: Protocol for a Longitudinal Mixed Methods Study Using Text Messaging and Continuous Glucose Monitoring (2026, neutral): “A sample size estimate (N=30 ‐ 40) was determined a priori based on estimates of the amount of qualitative data needed to reach data sufficiency across participants with varied glycemic levels and diabetes experiences [43,44].”
DETERMINING THE SAMPLE SIZE IN QUALITATIVE RESEARCH (2020, background): “Most researchers use the concept of “saturation”, such concept being borrowed from grounded theory, in order to assess whether the sample size is proper or not (Malterud et al., 2015; Sandelowski, 1995).”
What Influences Saturation? Estimating Sample Sizes in Focus Group Research (2019, neutral): “Reaching meaning saturation thus relates to the “informational power” (Malterud et al., 2016) of the sample to provide depth of understanding of the issues.”
(Mis)conceptualising themes, thematic analysis, and other problems with Fugard and Potts’ (2015) sample-size tool for thematic analysis (2016, background): “Moreover, most would agree that sample size ‘cannot be predicted by formulae or perceived redundancy’ (Malterud et al., 2015, p. 2), and is something qualitative researchers often revisit during data collection, in a live and critically-reflexive, evaluative way.”