Representativeness of Qualitative Surveys

Abstract

The author challenges the widely held belief that qualitative surveys (in-depth interviews and focus groups) will never be considered as a representative study. The origins of this erroneous, according to the author, point of view is an incorrect transfer of criteria for the representativeness of quantitative studies to qualitative ones. The article formulates a mathematical statement the task of determining a representative sample of qualitative surveys. The article provides the solution of the task taking into account relevant constraints. It is shown that under certain conditions representative sample of qualitatively study may be 15–40 respondents, which corresponds to research practice based on empirical criteria for sufficiency.