Conducting a Participatory Situation Analysis of.pdf - Global HIV ...

minutes, depending on the interview guide and on the
person being interviewed. Interviewers can tape-record
the interview and transcribe it later or can take notes and
then expand and formalize them immediately following
the interview.
Unstructured interviews are useful because they allow
respondents to identify and discuss the issues that they
think are most important, rather than being guided by
the interviewer’s questions. However, the information
from unstructured interviews is often difficult to combine,
code, and analyze because the interviews differ in
content, depth, and duration. When it is important to
compare responses from different respondents, one must
ask each respondent the same questions. This involves
preparing a set of specific initial interview questions.
After each initial question, interviewers use their skills,
including probing, to elicit more in-depth information.
Probing allows the interviewer to get more detailed
responses to the initial question. This follow-up technique
is one advantage that semi-structured interviews
have over more structured interviews.
How does one know when enough in-depth interviews
have been conducted? As a general rule for qualitative
data collection, when the responses from all interviews
begin to sound repetitive or when little new information
is being derived from the interviews one can be reasonably
confident that the point of redundancy has been
reached and that enough interviews have been conducted.
For example, after seven or eight interview with
teachers, the responses may not sound dramatically different.
An exception to this rule is in a situation where,
for cultural or political reasons, all persons in a particular
category must be contacted for an interview, such as
members of a district child protection task force.
Resources on conducting in-depth interviews are provided
in Appendix A—Resources, “Qualitative Methods.”
Focus Group Discussions
What are they and why are they used?
Focus group discussions (FGDs) are used to gather
targeted information from a group of people via openended
questioning. Ideally, the FGD includes people
from the target populations and/or stakeholders for the
issue under study. The interviews are conducted with
groups of people because the group interaction is as
important in providing data and insights as is the content
of the answers.
A decision to use FGDs instead of in-depth interviews
(or in addition to in-depth interviews) is driven by the
need to experience, albeit in an artificial setting, social
norms, expectations, values, and beliefs. The moderator
stimulates the exchange of ideas and encourages debate,
for example, when discussing the extent of a problem
and possible solutions. This process is particularly useful
when the subject is (1) stigma and discrimination directed
at or experienced by vulnerable children or (2) the
relevance of programs and policies for benefiting
HIV/AIDS-affected children and families. Information
from FGDs may expand on the meaning of the answers
given in standardized (quantitative) interviews with chil-
Data Collection Tools
for In-Depth Interviewing
This Guide describes two categories of data collection
tools for in-depth interviewing: an organizational
assessment guide and semi-structured interview tools.
An organizational assessment guide uses closed- and
open-ended questions for use with service providers
and organizations offering assistance to orphans and
vulnerable children and their caretakers.
Organizations include those providing institutional
care to children and those with programs focused on
child survival, safe motherhood, micro-credit, homebased
care, faith-based support, and others.
An organizational assessment gathers information
about management, mission, programs, links with
other organizations, descriptions of children served
and activities provided, staffing, resources, and future
plans.The resulting inventory helps to identify existing
resources, to determine who is doing what (e.g., models
of care), and to uncover critical gaps.
Semi-structured interview tools include open-ended
questions to facilitate discussion and are used to
interview government officials at ministries (e.g.,
social services, health, education, youth and sports,
and women’s affairs), community key informants (e.g.,
religious and other community leaders), health workers
(e.g., doctors and nurses), and teachers.
Semi-structured interview tools gather information
about policies, definitions, availability and status of
safety nets, allocation of resources, commitment to
the issue, challenges to care and support of vulnerable
children, and preferences on involvement with the
issue.This information can elaborate existing data,
inform other data collection methods, and help mobilize
stakeholders.
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Guidelines and Tools