The interview questions form an interview guide rather than a structured questionnaire or interview schedule. The interviewer should be able to visualize the experience the respondent is discussing, which requires the solicitation of concrete details. The raw data of an intensive interview study are the audiotapes and transcriptions of the interviews. Sampling is purposive, not random, and often involves interviewing 30 to 50 people or less. The less frequently reported in research reports.
Reliability refers to the internal consistency and relative stability of findings over time.
Unlike traditional measurement, reliability is not assessed by correlation coefficients or percent agreement. Nonetheless, reliability is quite important in qualitative studies, though less frequently reported in research reports. Reliability refers to the internal consistency and relative stability of findings over time. It also involves triangulating data from different points of view. Increasingly, in field studies, researchers will give copies of the results to participants to see if they have gotten the story right.