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A simple method to assess and report thematic saturation in qualitative research

Data saturation is the most commonly employed concept for estimating sample sizes in qualitative research. Over the past 20 years, scholars using both empirical research and mathematical/statistical models have made significant contributions to the question: How many qualitative interviews are enoug...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Guest, Greg, Namey, Emily, Chen, Mario
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7200005/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32369511
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0232076
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author Guest, Greg
Namey, Emily
Chen, Mario
author_facet Guest, Greg
Namey, Emily
Chen, Mario
author_sort Guest, Greg
collection PubMed
description Data saturation is the most commonly employed concept for estimating sample sizes in qualitative research. Over the past 20 years, scholars using both empirical research and mathematical/statistical models have made significant contributions to the question: How many qualitative interviews are enough? This body of work has advanced the evidence base for sample size estimation in qualitative inquiry during the design phase of a study, prior to data collection, but it does not provide qualitative researchers with a simple and reliable way to determine the adequacy of sample sizes during and/or after data collection. Using the principle of saturation as a foundation, we describe and validate a simple-to-apply method for assessing and reporting on saturation in the context of inductive thematic analyses. Following a review of the empirical research on data saturation and sample size estimation in qualitative research, we propose an alternative way to evaluate saturation that overcomes the shortcomings and challenges associated with existing methods identified in our review. Our approach includes three primary elements in its calculation and assessment: Base Size, Run Length, and New Information Threshold. We additionally propose a more flexible approach to reporting saturation. To validate our method, we use a bootstrapping technique on three existing thematically coded qualitative datasets generated from in-depth interviews. Results from this analysis indicate the method we propose to assess and report on saturation is feasible and congruent with findings from earlier studies.
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spelling pubmed-72000052020-05-12 A simple method to assess and report thematic saturation in qualitative research Guest, Greg Namey, Emily Chen, Mario PLoS One Research Article Data saturation is the most commonly employed concept for estimating sample sizes in qualitative research. Over the past 20 years, scholars using both empirical research and mathematical/statistical models have made significant contributions to the question: How many qualitative interviews are enough? This body of work has advanced the evidence base for sample size estimation in qualitative inquiry during the design phase of a study, prior to data collection, but it does not provide qualitative researchers with a simple and reliable way to determine the adequacy of sample sizes during and/or after data collection. Using the principle of saturation as a foundation, we describe and validate a simple-to-apply method for assessing and reporting on saturation in the context of inductive thematic analyses. Following a review of the empirical research on data saturation and sample size estimation in qualitative research, we propose an alternative way to evaluate saturation that overcomes the shortcomings and challenges associated with existing methods identified in our review. Our approach includes three primary elements in its calculation and assessment: Base Size, Run Length, and New Information Threshold. We additionally propose a more flexible approach to reporting saturation. To validate our method, we use a bootstrapping technique on three existing thematically coded qualitative datasets generated from in-depth interviews. Results from this analysis indicate the method we propose to assess and report on saturation is feasible and congruent with findings from earlier studies. Public Library of Science 2020-05-05 /pmc/articles/PMC7200005/ /pubmed/32369511 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0232076 Text en © 2020 Guest et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Guest, Greg
Namey, Emily
Chen, Mario
A simple method to assess and report thematic saturation in qualitative research
title A simple method to assess and report thematic saturation in qualitative research
title_full A simple method to assess and report thematic saturation in qualitative research
title_fullStr A simple method to assess and report thematic saturation in qualitative research
title_full_unstemmed A simple method to assess and report thematic saturation in qualitative research
title_short A simple method to assess and report thematic saturation in qualitative research
title_sort simple method to assess and report thematic saturation in qualitative research
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7200005/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32369511
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0232076
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