How to Conduct a Qualitative Research Project in 48 Hours

Qualitative research methods involve asking open-ended questions and can be done in the setting of one-on-one interviews. This method is used to explore personal opinions, attitudes and values. A faster way to get personal interviews is to organize small focus groups.  Within this dynamic, the opinion of each partisipan is influenced by the group. But it is possible to get the opinions and views of several individuals in the fraction of time it would take to interview them all one by one. With either of these methods the interviewer needs to be skilled at asking the right questions and building rapport with the participant as well as understand how to interpret the results. Often times even for a skilled researcher it can take days to recruit participants, hours to watch or edit video, organize and analyze. All these factors can delay an organization in being able to make business decisions fast.

While in-person interviews and focus groups are the more traditional way to conduct qualitative research, using technology makes it possible to interview more participants and gather a larger sample size in a shorter amount of time. Such time saving techniques include: webcam interviews and focus groups or text based online focus group and bulletin board services. Text based online focus groups and bulletin boards either do not allow instant follow up questions or have low interaction between the researcher and the participant. This limits data gathering and how much the researcher can truly find out about the participants personal opinions. Webcam interviews and focus groups are quickly becoming a more preferred method because the session is highly interactive. The researcher can see facial reactions and can ask follow-up questions immediately, similar to an in-person session.

Discuss.IO  has a unique self service offering for researchers so they can provide their clients with results in days rather than weeks. With a reengineered screening process Discuss.IO has cut the recruiting time down to minutes. The researcher or moderator can interact with the participant through their webcam in real time for probing and clarifying of comments. Each Discuss.IO session is recorded, transcribed and available in an easy to navigate dashboard to be analyzed by the researcher after the session is complete. Video clips are created by quickly using drag and drop features allowing the researcher to share examples of insights learned in the session with stakeholders or dropped into a report. With Discuss.IO on demand webcam interviews or focus groups you can now complete a qualitative research project in 48 hours.