Planning and designing
Talk based methods
Thoughtful planning and design are essential for the effective, ethical, and proportionate use of interviews and focus groups in public health research, evaluation and engagement. Decisions made at this stage will play a big part in shaping the quality of your data, the safety and experience of participants, and how confidently your findings can be used to inform services, policy, or decision-making.
Too often, projects begin with a decision to “do some interviews” or “run a few focus groups” without fully considering why that method is (or is not) appropriate, what it is intended to achieve, or what it requires in terms of time, skills, and resources.
Key phases of planning and design include:
Scoping existing knowledge, research and evidence to understand what we already know about the topic, what methods have been used before, and where your work can add value
Considering accessibility and inclusion including who might be excluded by your design and how barriers to participation can be removed
Confirming time and resources, for activities such as recruitment, transcription, analysis, or facilitation
Investing time upfront to plan and design your project helps avoid common pitfalls later on and increases the likelihood that talk-based methods will generate meaningful, robust and actionable insights.
The following sections in this chapter explore each of these phases in more detail to support careful, reflective and proportionate planning before you start collecting your data.
Scoping existing knowledge, research, and literature
An essential early stage in planning talk-based methods is scoping what is already known about your topic. This includes understanding:
What research, evaluation, engagement, or consultation work has been done already (internally and externally)
What methods have been used to understand your topic area before
What gaps exist in the evidence
It is important not to skip this step, even if our timelines are tight. Failing to scope existing knowledge can lead to duplication of work, poorly focused research questions, or the collection of data that does not meaningfully add to the evidence base.
Scoping existing knowledge can help you to:
Refine your research question(s) so it is focused, relevant, and proportionate
Learn from how similar topics have been explored elsewhere, including what worked well and what did not
Design better topic guides - if you know what others have already said about a topic, you can ask participants better questions
Avoid over-researching communities or groups who may already be frequently consulted or involved in research
Strengthen the credibility and usefulness of your findings
In most cases, scoping does not need to be a full systematic literature review. Instead, it should be a proportionate and purposeful exploration of existing evidence and learning to inform the choices you make about your project.
Where should I look for existing evidence?
There are various places to look for existing evidence. Depending on your topic, useful sources may include:
Databases such as PubMed, ScienceDirect, Google Scholar, Cochrane Library (for published academic research, systematic reviews)
Public health and social care repositories, including NICE, UK Health Security Agency, or Local Government Association resources
Charities, voluntary sector organisations, and think tanks (e.g., Health Foundation, Nuffield Trust, Nesta, The King’s Fund) with expertise in your topic area
Local Authority and NHS websites (e.g., NHS Knowledge and Library Hub) which often publish evaluations and insight reports
Health & Wellbeing internal SharePoint, intranet pages, or documents from previous projects
Informal conversations with colleagues in your department or across the organisation who may be aware of relevant work
Using a small number of well-chosen search terms and scanning abstracts or executive summaries is usually sufficient at this stage.
Understanding how talk-based methods have been used before can help you make an informed decision about whether to adopt, adapt, or avoid certain approaches altogether
Some practical tips for scoping existing evidence:
Be clear about what you are trying to learn from the scoping exercise (e.g., gaps in evidence, appropriate methods, populations studied)
Keep a record of what you have looked at and what it tells you (you might want to make a table to do this)
Be critical - note down any limitations in existing research that your project could address
Save relevant papers using a citation management software like Zotero to keep track of what you have read and to help you cite later on
Scoping existing knowledge is a foundational step that will strengthen your approach. Taking time at this stage supports more efficient and meaningful research and helps ensure that your work genuinely adds value.
For more detailed information on literature and evidence searching, take a look at the ‘Finding and Evaluating Evidence’ Protected Learning Session delivered by UKHSA (this resource internal to HWB).
Time and resource planning
Talk-based methods can generate rich and valuable insights, but they require a lot of time and resource.
Careful planning helps ensure that interviews or focus groups are feasible, proportionate, and deliverable within available capacity.
Underestimating the time, skills, and resources you need can lead to rushed data collection, incomplete analysis and result in findings that are difficult to use with confidence.
Researcher capacity and skills
Talk-based methods require specific skills at multiple stages. Whilst we’re all able to have conversations in everyday life, using talk-based methods requires a very specific set of skills.
Talk-based methods rely on trust between you and the participant, and between organisations and the communities they serve. Participants give their time and often share personal experiences on the basis that their contributions will be handled with care and used meaningfully. Rushed or poorly facilitated interviews and focus groups can damage that trust, making it harder to engage communities in future research and evaluation work.
Here are a few questions you can ask to assess the capacity and skills needed to deliver your project:
Who will design and deliver the talk-based methods, and do they have relevant experience? Think about whether they have designed topic guides, conducted interviews or facilitated focus groups before, particularly on similar topics or with similar populations.
Do we have the skills to facilitate safely and effectively? This includes building rapport, probing appropriately, managing group dynamics, and responding to distress or unexpected disclosures.
Is there enough time and capacity for the full process, not just data collection? You will need to allow time for taking notes or reflective memos, transcription, analysis, sense-checking or QA, and writing up your findings.
If we are using external facilitators, do we have capacity to brief and quality assure their work? This involves setting clear expectations, providing context, and reviewing materials and outputs to ensure they meet the project’s aims.
Is the approach we’re using proportionate to the skills, capacity, and timelines available? If capacity is limited, you might want to consider a smaller scope, a different method, or whether you can access some additional support.
Sample size
Qualitative sample sizes require justification and careful consideration. It is not just about recruiting as many participants as you can.
Your sample size should be driven by your research aims and questions, the diversity of perspectives required to fully answer your questions, as well as more practical considerations (e.g., time, resource, budget).
More participants are not always better! A smaller number of well-conducted interviews or focus groups can generate rich data and can be more manageable to analyse in a way that prioritises depth of analysis rather than description.
Consider whether you need to prioritise breadth (e.g., multiple stakeholder groups) or depth (e.g., detailed individual experiences to really understand what’s going on).
Be realistic about how many interviews or focus groups you can carry out and analyse. What capacity do you have within your project team and what are their skills/experience.
Recruiting participants
It can be a big ask for residents, professionals, or other stakeholders to take part in an interview or focus group, and recruiting participants can be one of the most time-consuming elements of using talk-based methods.
Think about whether you have budget for incentives or to cover expenses to encourage and enable participation
Build time in your project plan for non-response, cancellations, or if participants drop out
Factor in time for identifying participants, developing your recruitment materials, sending invitations, follow-ups, and scheduling your activities
Consider whether you’ll ask for support from partners (e.g., services, schools, community organisations)
Transcribing your interview or focus group data
After you have completed your interview or focus group, you will need to transcribe your data into something you can use to analyse.
Decide whether you will record your interview or focus group, or whether you will just take notes1.
If you are transcribing from an audio recording, it typically takes 3 to 5 hours for every 1 hour of audio2. This can vary depending on the complexity, quality of the recording, and your typing speed.
Consider whether you have budget to outsource your transcription (e.g., through using a professional transcription service) but consider any data and security requirements. For specific queries, ask Camden’s InfoSec team.
Build in time for checking transcripts for accuracy and anonymisation
If you are doing online or virtual interviews or focus groups via Microsoft Teams, there is a built-in transcription function. However, it is not a perfect tool so you will need to build in time to review and correct the transcript.
Analysing your data
Qualitative analysis is not a quick or automatic process.
Analysis takes time, and the amount of time will vary depending on the method you choose.
Consider which analytical approach you will use and whether the team has the necessary skills. More detail is provided in the analysis section.
Plan time for reflection, discussions with colleagues, and sense-checking your findings – this is especially important if multiple people in your team are analysing the data.
Carefully consider whether your design is proportionate to the aims of the project and any available resources. If your resources are limited, consider narrowing your research question or changing the scope of your project.
Be cautious about committing to using methods that will produce data you won’t have enough to time to analyse well. Reflect on whether alternative or existing data sources could meet the same aims.
Footnotes
Recording and transcribing is often most suitable when the detail, nuance or exact wording of what participants say is analytically important. Note-taking alone may be sufficient for more structured or exploratory conversations where you are capturing key points or themes rather than analysing language and meaning in depth.↩︎
McMullin, C., 2023. Transcription and qualitative methods: Implications for third sector research. VOLUNTAS: International journal of voluntary and nonprofit organizations, 34(1), pp.140-153. Available from: Transcription and Qualitative Methods: Implications for Third Sector Research↩︎