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Advantages of In-depth Interviews (IDIs)

Although many people immediately think of focus groups when they think of qualitative research, there is another qualitative approach that may be better suited to delving deep into issues and challenges. In-depth one-on-one interviews, conducted through various media, offer greater value than focus groups and should be considered whenever qualitative results are needed for a number of critical reasons:

• More Quality. One-on-one interviews uncover the best thinking of each and every participant without the drawbacks of group dynamics. In a typical focus group, a small percentage of the participants do most of the talking. Even if an adept moderator can help smooth out this imbalance, it’s virtually impossible to prevent group-think bias from setting in as a result of a few individuals monopolizing the conversations.

   

  With one-on-one interviews, good or bad ideas from one participant do not influence the thoughts of any other participant; this alone increases the quality of the information obtained. In-depth interviewing is also designed to elicit the “whys” behind participants’ reactions. At CSR, skilled interviewers are trained to probe into people’s thought processes to obtain a clearer understanding of exactly what participants mean by their answers, without leading them to a particular conclusion. This kind of probing is difficult, not to mention clumsy, to accomplish systematically for each member of a focus group.
• More Quantity of Information. Researchers obtain at least twice the amount of information per participant in an in-depth 20-minute interview (where the interviewer speaks at most 20% of the time) than in a typical 10-member, 90-minute focus group. For example, in a 20-minute interview, a participant will talk for 16 minutes, which is at least double the amount of time the average participant will talk in a focus group. Thus, when considering the cost per participant minute, in-depth interviews provide much greater value. For example, if a fully loaded focus group costs $6,000, the average cost per participant minute is $75. For in-depth interviews, the same participant minute will cost two-thirds or less of this amount.
• More Depth. In-depth interviews capture all the relevance and salience of qualitative information of focus groups. Every word the participant speaks can be taped, transcribed, and used in multiple ways. Well-trained coders can get beyond surface answers and produce a rich database of interviews that generates analyst reports, identifies broad themes, and produces a body of knowledge of the range and depth of reactions.
• More Statistics. Most research projects often include five or more focus groups with 10 or more members in each group, representing 50 people or more. While these groups produce pages and pages of text, they are inherently flawed. In addition, it is well known that focus groups can’t possibly get each and every person to answer each and every question; therefore, responses that could have been quantified through content analysis of individual responses can not, with any reliability or relevance, be applied to focus group results. In fact, a pervasive tendency in today’s fast-moving world is to use focus groups to supply “statistically relevant” data. Be forewarned: Focus groups should not be used for research studies where statistical information is a desired result.

   

  Moreover, when the number of total respondents goes beyond 30, there is a high risk that the opportunity for — and information that could have been converted to — statistical data will be left literally “on the table“. An alternative approach, conducting one-on-one interviews to which content analysis is applied, provides the basis for an array of traditional and proprietary analyses. This level of detailed data produces a reservoir of knowledge that can be used and compared over time in ways not possible with standard focus group research.
• More Applicability. There are many reasons why people like focus groups: the desire to see customers’ reactions; the desire for teammates, upper management, or other associates to witness customer interviews; the perception that focus groups are a relatively inexpensive and fast way to capture feedback. All these benefits can be realized through a one-on-one interview if it is conducted in a focus group facility so that the participants may be observed.

In essence, the value received from in-depth one-on-one interviews when compared to focus groups is significantly greater. More important, the research investment is more cost-effective since more of the budget is used to elicit information from each and every respondent, rather than for other incidental costs of hosting a focus group.