Respondent

Respondents are those persons who have been invited to participate in a particular study and have actually taken part in the study. This definition applies to both qualitative and quantitative studies. However, respondents of a qualitative study have special roles in that not only are their answers in aggregate important to the study, but also their respective voices are essential to the study's evolution and findings.

Respondents are derived from the sample that is constructed for a qualitative study. In designing the sample, the researcher focuses on potential respondents who have some level of familiarity with the [Page 791]phenomenon under investigation. Furthermore, in recruiting individuals, the qualitative researcher must be keenly aware of what aspects of the study (e.g., subject matter, length of interviews, incentives) will encourage individuals to accept or decline the invitation to become respondents. These issues are important when considering which type of respondents are best suited for the study—adults, children, parents, men, women, cancer survivors, educators, prisoners, union members, and so on.

In most qualitative research, the aim is to give voice to the individuals or respondents who decide to participate in the study. When the study focuses on populations that are difficult to access or have special human subjects considerations or restrictions, the qualitative researcher must take all of these factors under consideration when developing a sample that will generate enough respondents to conduct an adequate analysis to explore the topic under investigation and address the research questions posed.

This concern raises the question of how many respondents are enough. For quantitative studies, statistical formulas typically dictate the minimum number of participants needed. In qualitative studies, there are no hard-and-fast rules to indicate when a qualitative researcher has reached the optimal number of respondents and may stop data collection at 10, 20, or 50 respondents. In addition, the number of respondents required is often dictated by the type of qualitative approach used for the study (e.g., 10 for phenomenology, 20–30 for grounded theory), time-lines, resources, and the investigator's personal limitations and intuition regarding the costs and benefits with respect to recruiting more respondents. For a graduate student, the guiding factor may ultimately be the dissertation committee's recommendation or the student's defense date.

Although this may appear to be a real quandary, it is not. All respondents, whether their involvement comes by way of formal or informal interviews, observations, journal writing, email exchanges, or chat rooms, add to the wealth of data so that new knowledge is gained. When new knowledge declines with each additional respondent, the researcher has most likely reached the appropriate point at which data collection may cease.

Finally, respondent, participant, and informant are terms used to characterize individuals who participated in a qualitative study. All three terms convey a very sterile, impersonal, and distant relationship with individuals who give of their time and voice to the researcher who wishes to better understand and learn something new about a particular human experience. As such, the term respondent falls short of communicating this very important aspect of qualitative research. The term participant comes much closer to capturing the true meaning and aims of qualitative inquiry. Nevertheless, in the end, the investigator must determine which term best suits the study.

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