Anecdotes and Opinions: Examining Evidence Generated by Group Interview Methods

Culbertson, Michael J.; Gates, Emily

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/73406 Copy

Description

Title

Anecdotes and Opinions: Examining Evidence Generated by Group Interview Methods

Author(s)

• Culbertson, Michael J.
• Gates, Emily

Issue Date

2014-10-18

Keyword(s)

• anecdote circles
• focus groups
• storytelling

Abstract

People’s thoughts and opinions are formed by experience – their personal contact with and observations of people and events. Focus groups are often used in evaluation as a qualitative method to collect information about people’s experience. Focus groups traditionally capture experience by soliciting thoughts and opinions rather than stories. In some cases, program evaluations that seek to understand participants’ experiences may find more meaningful evidence in participants’ narrative descriptions of their experiences in the program, rather than their thoughts or opinions about the program. Anecdote circles, a group interview method from the field of business, gather evidence about participants’ experience by posing questions that invite storytelling. This paper describes a study that compares the characteristics of the evidence generated by focus group prompts that elicit thoughts or opinions and anecdote circle prompts that elicit stories in the context of an evaluation of a cross-cultural institute for high school teachers.

Type of Resource

text

Language

en

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http://hdl.handle.net/2142/73406

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