Building the Participant Pool in Interview Research

Another primary purpose of the contact visit is to assess the appro­priateness of a participant for the study. The major criterion for appro­priateness is whether the subject of the researcher’s study is central to the participant’s experience. For example, a doctoral candidate wanting to study the way process writing affects an English teacher’s experience in teaching writing must select English teachers for whom process writing plays a central role in their teaching.

As the interviewer speaks with potential participants, he or she can keep a record of those who seem most suitable, noting their key char­acteristics that are related to the subject of the study. Whether the inter­viewer asks participants to join the study at some point in the contact visit or gets back to them at a later date, he or she must remain aware of the character of the growing participant pool in order to be purposeful in the sampling. (See the section on Selecting Participants later in this chapter.)

Source: Seidman Irving (2006), Interviewing As Qualitative Research: A Guide for Researchers in Education And the Social Sciences, Teachers College Press; 3rd edition.