Hill, Zelee;
Tawiah-Agyemang, Charlotte;
Kirkwood, Betty;
Kendall, Carl;
(2022)
Are verbatim transcripts necessary in applied qualitative research: experiences from two community-based intervention trials in Ghana.
Emerging Themes in Epidemiology
, 19
(1)
, Article 5. 10.1186/s12982-022-00115-w.
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Abstract
Conducting qualitative research within public health trials requires balancing timely data collection with the need to maintain data quality. Verbatim transcription of interviews is the conventional way of recording qualitative data, but is time consuming and can severely delay the availability of research findings. Expanding field notes into fair notes is a quicker alternative method, but is not usually recommended as interviewers select and interpret what they record. We used the fair note methodology in Ghana, and found that where research questions are relatively simple, and interviewers undergo sufficient training and supervision, fair notes can decrease data collection and analysis time, while still providing detailed and relevant information to the study team. Interviewers liked the method and felt it made them more reflective and analytical and improved their interview technique. The exception was focus group discussions, where the fair note approach failed to capture the interaction and richness of discussions, capturing group consensus rather than the discussions leading to this consensus.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Are verbatim transcripts necessary in applied qualitative research: experiences from two community-based intervention trials in Ghana |
| Location: | England |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1186/s12982-022-00115-w |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1186/s12982-022-00115-w |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data. |
| Keywords: | Africa, Field notes, Ghana, Maternal and child health, Methodology, Qualitative research, Transcription |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Population Health Sciences > Institute for Global Health UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10151980 |
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