Qualitative Methods

Interviewing Minors in Schools

8 Comments / Prek-12 Educational Evaluation, Qualitative Methods, Youth Focused Evaluation / October 4, 2020

We are Christine Crumbacher, PhD, Evaluation Specialist at Greenville County Schools in South Carolina, and Michael Sikes, PhD, independent Program Evaluator. Each of us evaluates educational programs that serve young people. Interviewing minors presents unique challenges. These include obtaining parental consent, interviewee participation, protecting participants, and collecting detailed data. Hot Tip: Know district policies concerning …

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Interview Sampling by Beverly Peters

Leave a Comment / Qualitative Methods / October 4, 2020

Hello again! I am Beverly Peters, an assistant professor of Measurement and Evaluation at American University. This is the third article in a 5 part series on Using Interviews for Monitoring and Evaluation. In the previous article of this series, we discussed unstructured, semi-structured, and structured interviews, and the circumstances under which an evaluator would use …

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Interview Continuum by Beverly Peters by Beverly Peters

1 Comment / Qualitative Methods, Uncategorized / August 22, 2020

Hello again! I am Beverly Peters, an assistant professor of Measurement and Evaluation at American University. This is the second article in a 5 part series on Using Interviews for Monitoring and Evaluation. In the previous article of this series, we learned when evaluators might use interviews to collect data for monitoring and evaluation. This article …

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Interviews: The Right Tool for Me? by Beverly Peters

3 Comments / Qualitative Methods / June 17, 2020

Greetings! I am Beverly Peters, an assistant professor of Measurement and Evaluation at American University. I have over 25 years of experience teaching, researching, and evaluating community development and governance projects, mainly in southern Africa. I have spent the bulk of my career using qualitative methods to evaluate projects; and write a blog for American University …

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Reflections on Constructivism Week: The Constructivism of Everyday Evaluation by Zach Tilton

Leave a Comment / Qualitative Methods / March 15, 2020

I am Zach Tilton, an evaluator and a doctoral student at Western Michigan University in the Interdisciplinary PhD in Evaluation program. Pursuing a PhD in evaluation while working as an evaluator allows me to integrate class insights to enhance my work and work experiences to ground my studies. This interplay between theory and practice was …

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Reflections on Constructivism Week: (Re)Constructing Identity and Hierarchy by Fernando Ospina

2 Comments / Qualitative Methods / March 15, 2020

My name is Fernando Ospina and I am a PhD student in sociology at Western Michigan University. I had the opportunity to take a qualitative methods in evaluation course in the Interdisciplinary PhD in Evaluation program. As a part of our coursework we wrote blog posts analyzing Lincoln and Guba’s constructivist conjectures. The conjecture that …

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Reflections on Constructivism Week: Sensemaking as theory development by Amy Jersild

1 Comment / Qualitative Methods / March 15, 2020

Greetings! My name is Amy Jersild, Doctoral Scholar at Western Michigan University (WMU), an evaluator working in the international development sector, and currently a student in Dr. Michael Harnar’s Qualitative Research Methods in Evaluation course at WMU. We have been reading The Constructivist Credo by Yvonna S. Lincoln and Egon G. Guba (2013) in class, …

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Increasing Youth Engagement in Focus Groups by Taneisha Lee

3 Comments / Qualitative Methods, Youth Focused Evaluation / December 28, 2019

Hello! My name is Taneisha Lee, CEO of Transformative Research and Evaluation, an independent research and evaluation consulting firm in Atlanta, Georgia.  We are currently evaluating a Minority Youth Violence Prevention II (MYVP2) grant-funded program for one of our clients, Clayton County System of Care. Two of the grant’s goals are to reduce youth crime …

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Managing and Analyzing Focus Group Data by Beverly Peters

2 Comments / Qualitative Methods / November 15, 2019

Hello! I am Beverly Peters, an assistant professor of Measurement and Evaluation at American University. This is the final article in a 6 part series on Using Focus Groups for Monitoring and Evaluation. The articles in this series have discussed when to use focus groups, planning for the focus group including who to invite, developing questions …

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Moderating a Focus Group by Beverly Peters

2 Comments / Qualitative Methods / November 15, 2019

Greetings! I am Beverly Peters, assistant professor of Measurement and Evaluation at American University. This is the fifth article in a 6-part series on Using Focus Groups for Monitoring and Evaluation. The fourth article discussed developing focus group questions and a questioning route, and this article will discuss moderating the focus group. You have planned your …

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