1 Scholars' Journal Determining the Sample in Qualitative Research

Scholars' Journal, Volume 4, December 2021,

Scholars’ Journal

ISSN: 2645-8381

Published by Scholars’ Association of Nepal

A Multidisciplinary Peer Reviewed, Open Access Journal

https://www.nepjol.info/index.php/scholars

Determining the Sample in Qualitative Research

Khim Raj Subedi

Department of Education, Prithvi Narayan Campus, Pokhara

Tribhuvan University, Nepal

Email: [email protected]

Article History: Received: 28 August 2021; Revised: 26 November 2021; Accepted: 28 November 2021

Abstract

This paper focuses on the considerations in determining the number of participants for qualitative

research because of the lack of clear guidelines in this area. The study has employed a semi-systematic

literature review that is embedded with the researcher's experience. The study has concluded that the

purpose of the research, methodological choices, theoretical framework and analytical strategy, data

saturation, researcher's knowledge and experience, and institutional and supervisor's requirements need

to be considered while choosing the participants in qualitative research. In addition, the focus has been

to explore in-depth information from small number of participants. Generally, participants in qualitative

research can be added or removed during the research process rather than the prior determination. This

paper suggests that the researchers are autonomous to select the participants in qualitative research and

they can choose from a single to twenty samples that can be varied upon the depth of the information

required and the nature of the inquiry. While conducting the narrative inquiry, one to twenty or more

participants can be selected with justication.

Keywords: Participants, narrative inquiry, purposive sampling, experience, identity

Introduction

The sample size determination is one of the major concerns of researchers for many

years particularly in carrying out qualitative research in social sciences. Many scholars

have paid attention to the issues of deciding the sufcient sample size in qualitative

studies (Barkhuizen, 2014; Blaikie, 2018; Morse, 2000; Wimpenny & Savin-Baden,

2013). Particularly, positivist researchers have been criticising the lack of generalisation in

qualitative studies since it employs a small sample.

The intent of qualitative research in social sciences is an in-depth exploration of the

phenomenon (Hong & Cross Francis, 2020), rather than representing the study population

This open access article is distributed under a Creative Commons

Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) License.

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(Boddy, 2016; Moser & Korstjens, 2018; Nakkeeran, 2016). However, the adequate sample

size in qualitative research is debatable, and that makes the researcher confusing particularly

to novice ones (Barkhuizen, 2014; Mason, 2010).Therefore, discourses on 'examining the

sufcient sample size in qualitative research' (Young & Casey, 2019) is still relevant that

invite a systematic exploration.

The dominance of the positivist approach nowadays is gradually decreasing since many

of the graduate students have been motivated as they have been carrying out their research

by employing qualitative research. However, in doing the academic study, both the master's

degree students as well as PhD scholars, have been facing the problem of determining the

proper sample size for their qualitative studies. Generally, samples in qualitative research are

called the 'participants' or 'informants' rather than respondents (Nakkeeran, 2016; Padgett,

2013). Hence, the debate of sample size turns into determining 'the number of participants'

(Barkhuizen, 2014) for the qualitative research. I have also faced a similar problem and

remained in a dilemma to determine the participants for my doctoral study at Graduate

School of Education (GSE), Tribhuvan University (TU), Nepal as Barkhuizen (2018)

conrmed that determining the number of participants is one of the dilemmas of qualitative

research. There are multiple designs such as ethnography, grounded theory, case studies,

narrative inquiry, phenomenology, and action research (Padgett, 2013). In addition, Padgett

(2013) suggests that sampling varies upon these qualitative research designs as narrative

inquiry, phenomenology, and case study use small samples. On the other hand, ethnography

and grounded theory permit comparatively large samples. Fundamentally, "qualitative

research is used to build theories, in which scholars embrace bias by considering human

interactions between researchers and their participants" (Crick, 2021, p. 6). However, the

epistemological base of qualitative research is the co-construction of knowledge from the

researcher and the participants through in-depth exploration from small number of samples.

I am also a teacher educator at TU and I have supervised the master's degree theses. Most

of the students under my supervision have carried out qualitative research and faced the

problem of determining a sufcient number of participants for their study. They used to ask

me about the appropriate number of participants for their qualitative research. Likewise, I

have been carrying out a narrative inquiry for my PhD study having six participants. During

the proposal development, I was confused about the sufcient sample for my study.

However, narrative inquiry utilises a small number of participants in comparison to the

other qualitative inquiry approaches. This confusion led me to reect on my proposal for

deciding the number of participants. As a qualitative researcher, I have been motivated

towards the discourse on the number of participants. In this way, the motivation for writing

this article has two folds: rst, my confusion about the sufcient samples for my study and

the fear of being questioned or rejected by the GSE doctoral research committee. Second,

my PhD supervisor advised me to pay attention to the justication of the small number of

participants. As a result, I have included the justication section to select a small number of

participants in my PhD proposal. Similar to my experience, Mason (2010) concluded that

PhD researchers have been facing a problem of determining the participants in designing

their qualitative research projects.

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Sampling and sample size debate in qualitative research is one of the major components

that is not emphasised enough in literature (Robinson, 2014). There is no rule of thumb or

straightforward guidelines for determining the number of participants in qualitative studies

(Patton, 2015), rather several factors affect in deciding the samples. For instance, in her

foundational work, Morse (2000) identied the factors as the scope of the study; the nature

of the topic; quality of data; study design, and the use of shadowed data (p. 4). Like the

master's degree students, the concerns of the number of participants for qualitative studies

are equally confusing for the PhD researchers too (Gentles et al., 2015). I have also spent

a couple of weeks deciding the number of participants for my doctoral study. Similarly,

number of participants is related to the researcher's identity since the construction of

academic identity is a common phenomenon of the PhD scholars (Inouye & McAlpine,

2019). I wanted to make my identity as a narrative inquirer in my doctoral research. For

example, in studying the sample size issues of PhD research, Mason (2010) found that

"constituting sufcient sample size is frustrating for the PhD researchers" (p. 4). I have also

experienced similar kinds of challenges earlier in the process of my proposal development.

For instance, I was nervous about possible questions from the research committee on the

number of participants in my doctoral research during the proposal defense.

Sampling strategies and the number of participants play roles in maintaining the research

rigour of any scholarship. This paper contributes by offering the considerations to determine

sample sizes for qualitative inquiry so that the paper will be helpful to the novice researchers

particularly for the master's degree and doctoral students of education and social sciences.

Additionally, this study briey mentions about the researcher's identity considering the

number of participants in qualitative inquiry that is lacking in literature. Therefore, this

paper focused to explore and offer some guidelines in deciding the number of participants

in qualitative research. More specically, the paper aimed to answer the three research

questions: (1) How could the sample of the qualitative research be determined?(2) What is

the rationale behind utilising the small samples in qualitative research? and (3)What is the

optimal sample size in qualitative research?

Methodology: Semi-systematic Review

This paper is based on my experience to determine the participant numbers for my PhD

study. In addition, I have embedded my experience with existing literature. In qualitative

research, the researcher himself or herself is both a tool and a participant. Therefore, the

researcher's positionality and reection inuence the study (Berger, 2013; Tracy, 2020).

Searching literature itself could be a methodology rather than just a review (Snyder, 2019).

I have reviewed journal articles, books, and PhD dissertations in this study. For the review,

this study adopted the semi-systematic literature review. This approach focuses on fullling

the gaps that the existing literature has created (Snyder, 2019) to determine the number of the

participants in qualitative inquiry.

I have searched the articles in different databases related to determining the number of

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participants in qualitative research. For instance, I have visited three databases namely the

google scholar, Educational Resource Information Centre (ERIC), and Nepal Journals Online

(NepJOL) for literature search. For the search, I have used keywords such as, 'sample size

in qualitative research’, 'qualitative sample size', 'number of participants', and 'qualitative

sampling'. Besides the database search, I have also selected the books, PhD dissertations,

and other relevant articles from free search. The articles selection process for the review is as

follows:

NepjoL

ERIC

Google Scholar

80 Articles

35 Articles (Scaning

for the titles)

30 Articles (Reading

abstract)

25 Articles

(Reading full

papers)

18 Articles

(selected for

review)

I have employed the inclusion and exclusion criteria adopted by Wimpenny and Savin-

Baden (2013) for determining the related papers on qualitative sample size. I have narrowed

down the article through inclusion and exclusion criteria as shown in Table 1.

Table 1

Inclusion and Exclusion Criteria for Article Review

Criteria Inclusion Exclusion

Date 2000 to 2021 Before 2000

Topic Qualitative sampling

Not directly related to the sample

size in qualitative research

Location

National and international

literature

Sources that are not in the English

language

Publication

Peer-reviewed journals

Education-related and from

other disciplines

Gray literature (reports, conference

proceedings, articles in non-peer-

reviewed journals)

Source: Wimpenny and Savin-Baden (2013, p. 315)

First, I visited Nepal Journals Online (NepJOL) which is currently a popular database

of journals published from Nepal. Nevertheless, after reading the titles of articles (n=54)

obtained from NepJOL, I concluded the articles were not relevant to this study. Hence all

the articles obtained from NepJOL were excluded from the study. Second, I found a few of

the relevant articles while visiting Google Scholar and ERIC and employed the inclusion

and exclusion criteria mentioned in Table 1. Finally, I experienced that the papers obtained

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from the databases were not adequate for the study and then searched for the more relevant

resources besides the above-mentioned databases such as the ProQuest database. Then, I

found a few more relevant resources such as PhD dissertations, books, and articles related to

methodology (n=21). I read the abstract rst and listed the relevant resources and nalised

the additional resources (n=21) for this paper. Finally, the total number of resources (n=38)

were selected.

Many scholarly works have offered narrative inquiry as a suitable methodological

approach to study experiences (Butina, 2015; Caine et al., 2013; Clandinin, 2006).

Additionally, the narrative inquiry could be "a unique methodological consideration"

(Karpa, 2021) in capturing the lived experiences and reecting the self. I have employed the

narrative inquiry approach to relate the story of my experiences.

Findings and Discussion

The ndings have been discussed on three themes: determining the sample size in

qualitative research; small samples in qualitative research, and optimal sample size in

qualitative research.

Determining the Sample Size in Qualitative Research

Determining the participants in qualitative research is problematic since various scholars

have conceived it in their way. Deciding the participants remain under the sampling plan.

The sampling plan refers to 'who, what, where, how, and when to choose sources for data

collection (Tracy, 2020).Various sampling strategies are applicable in qualitative research,

and purposive sampling is the mostly applicable and relevant sampling technique for all

kinds of qualitative research designs. Purposive sampling provides the researcher an in-depth

understanding of the study phenomenon (Patton, 2015, p. 463), rather than generalising from

one's study. Moreover, Tracy (2020) highlights the importance of purposive sampling that

"good qualitative researchers, at the very least, engage in purposeful sampling, which means

that they purposefully choose data that t the parameters of the project’s research questions,

goals, and purposes" (p.82). In the same vein, I had adopted purposive sampling in my PhD

study because purposive sampling allows me to select the rich-information participants

that generally cannot be obtained from other participants. In addition, I had developed the

inclusion and exclusion criteria for the participant selection for my PhD research.

The intent of selecting a sample is to collect data from the participants. To collect the

data, a specic method is required after deciding the sampling procedure and the number

of participants for the study. The interview is the major and widely used data collection

method (Robinson, 2014) for almost all qualitative research. The sampling plan decides

"how many interviews are needed to ensure that the nding will contribute rich data"

(Moser & Korstjens, 2018, p. 10). However, several factors have agreed on issues such as

the purpose and research questions and nature of the study (Mason, 2010; Patton, 2015);

nature and scope of the study (Morse, 2000); data type and collection method (Mason, 2010;

Nakkeeran, 2016); data saturation (Boddy, 2016; Guest et al., 2006; Hennink & Kaiser, 2021;

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Mason, 2010; Young & Casey, 2019); budget and timeline (Tracy, 2020); theoretical bases

and theoretical framework (Butina, 2015; Francis et al., 2010); analytical strategy (Morse,

2015) and the availability of the participants and one's research knowledge (Barkhuizen,

2018) have contributed in deciding the number of participants in the qualitative study.

Therefore, the literature informs that there is lack of specic prescriptions in deciding the

number of participants. For instance, above mentioned scholars offered different perspectives

in the determination of the sample for qualitative study. Regarding my ongoing doctoral

research, I chose small sample since my research methodology is narrative inquiry.

I have been carrying out my PhD research on the identity of teachers in a contextual

setting of different schools. I intend to explore the phenomena through an in-depth study.

The qualitative inquiry focuses on multiple realities which is subjective. The knowledge

construction is a collaborative enterprise between the researcher and the participants. The

qualitative inquiry follows an inductive process "where concrete, context-specic evidence

are collected, then patterns and commonalities are identied to build abstract ideas and the

theories" (Hong & Cross Francis, 2020, p. 2). Similarly, qualitative research explores the

phenomena through inductive reasoning that utilises the thick description in data analysis.

This informs me to explore the phenomena of teacher identity. For instance, inductive

reasoning seeks patterns from the data to answer the research questions (Blaikie, 2018),

whereas thick descriptions provide detailed context that "someone who did not observe or

experience the phenomenon can make meaning of the behavior, statement, or object" (Hong

& Cross Francis, 2020, p. 6). In the same way, small sample size allow me for the thick

description which is not easily possible from the larger samples. Morse (2015) revisited

her previous work (Morse, 2000) and offered the analytical strategy as the major factor in

contributing to the number of participants. She further offered developing categories and

themes in data analysis determining the samples that researchers ask themselves whether

they need further data from the participants or they reach the stage of data saturation.

Similarly, the concept of data saturation has been highlighted by other scholars. For instance,

Guest et al. (2006) suggest that data saturation guide researchers decide the sample size

based on the data obtained from the participants. Moreover, Hennink and Kaiser (2021)

stress that purposive sampling and data saturation determine sample size. The concept of

data saturation allows researcher to add more participants in their study.

Consulting the relevant literature, I tried to nd if there is a straightforward way to

determine the number of samples for my study. Nonetheless, I found there is no such way

for deciding the number of participants in qualitative inquiry (Butina, 2015; Patton, 2015).

Rather several factors need to be considered to constitute the number of participants for

someone's study. Institutional policy and structure are one of the major factors that are also

related to the researcher's identity (Inouye & McAlpine, 2019). For instance, GSE policies

on carrying out PhD research also determined my identity as a researcher. There is not

enough autonomy so I cannot go beyond the GSE guidelines. In my doctoral research, I have

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to capture the lived experiences of primary teachers and the small number of participants

allows the in-depth exploration (Clandinin, 2006). From this kind of exibility of taking

small samples, I am developing my identity as a qualitative researcher with a small number

of participants.

Small Samples in Qualitative Research

Qualitative research focuses on the in-depth exploration of the study phenomenon rather

than the coverage in the breath. The purpose of the qualitative methods is not to generalise

the ndings to the larger population. Therefore, qualitative inquiry is value-laden and does

not focus on the objective nding that lacks neutrality (Padgett, 2013). That's why small

samples are the best suited for my PhD research. A small sample allows the researcher to

be focused on the in-depth understanding in a particular social and cultural context which

generally is not possible through studying the larger samples. Since the knowledge is co-

constructed through the researcher and the participants, the qualitative research adopts the

constructivist approach. Instead of using the larger samples "in constructivist or in-depth

qualitative research, a single example can be highly instructive" (Boddy, 2016). In the

same vein, I employed a small number of participants through purposive sampling, i.e. six

primary teachers from the public schools (community schools) of Kaski district for my PhD

research. Employing a small number of participants, I am recognised as a 'certain kind of a

qualitative researcher' (Gee, 2000). That's why selecting only six participants for my PhD

research fundamentally proves to be implacable. Similarly, as Gee (2000) notied there

exists multiple identities even within an individual. These identities are both personal and

professional. For example, I play various roles in different places just like teacher educator,

teacher trainer, researcher at my working institution; PhD scholar at graduate school; father

at home; member of the community in my society, etc. Additionally, I am writing research

articles during my PhD research that labels my academic identity as a doctoral researcher.

The number of participants in qualitative research depends on the problem under study.

For instance, a single participant could be sufcient to get insight into the problem in some

particular context and cases. Due to these kinds of small samples, qualitative research is

criticised by positivists as biased and lacking rigour (Crick, 2021). Larger samples do not

allow an in-depth exploration of the study phenomenon in the qualitative study. That's why

I have chosen a small sample for my PhD. The relationship between the researcher and

the participants is an important aspect of the qualitative inquiry. Only a small number of

participants allows the researcher to build such a relationship which is almost impossible

from the larger samples. Generally, researchers spend a substantial amount of time in the

eld for their research to build a close relationship with the participants. The staying eld of

qualitative researchers remained to continue until they reached the stage of data saturation,

particularly in grounded theory (Hennink & Kaiser, 2021) and ethnography. Data saturation

is the stage that the participants repeat the same data they shared earlier with the researcher.

When data saturation occurs, new data comes to stop from the same participants even doing

the next series of interviews with them again and again. In addition, qualitative data, such

as in ethnography are context-specic that a researcher explores from the particular cultural

context as an insider (i.e., emic perspective). Emic perspective demands the inductive

approach of doing research and data analysis. Tracy (2020) calls the emic perspective a

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"bottom-top or little big approach" (Tracy, 2020, p. 26). I have been collecting data by

continuously engaging in the eld in my PhD which is only possible from a small sample.

The larger samples do not support the in-depth understanding. Moreover, the larger

sample size leads towards the surcial data. Most qualitative researchers collect the data

by using open-ended interviews. For instance, Robinson (2014) states that an interview

"typically seeks a sample size that is sufciently small for individual cases to have a

locatable voice within the study, and for an intensive analysis of each case to be conducted"

(P. 29). Likewise, as Robinson (2014) suggested, the interview is the major data collection

method in my PhD.

Researchers' needs and judgment play a major role in constituting how many samples

are required in a particular study. The research purpose guides the researcher to take such

a decision of participants' determination. Sample in qualitative inquiry is emergent since

exibility is the major concern of qualitative research. Therefore, participants can be added

or removed as per the study needs and the level of sufcient data collection. Regarding the

emergent nature of sample size, Patton (2015) notes that "the size and composition of the

sample can be adjusted based on what is learned as eld work is conducted and the inquiry

deepens" and that "the emergent nature of qualitative inquiry applies especially powerfully

to sample size. The sample can grow, or if saturation is achieved sooner than expected, the

size can be reduced" (p. 474). Considering these kinds of suggestions, a small sample allows

me to be exible to add or remove the participants based on the sufciency of the collected

data. Qualitative researchers like me who are carrying out their academic research at their

graduate school adopt small samples whereas the large-scale funded qualitative researches

have been employing a large number of participants.

Optimal Sample Size in Qualitative Research

I have discussed the considerations to decide the adequate number of participants for

qualitative inquiry in the above sections. Therefore, this section focuses on the adequate

number of participants in different qualitative studies, including the PhD thesis. Finding

the acceptable number of participants in qualitative inquiry is an ongoing debate (Mason,

2010) in social science research practices that lack a straightforward answer. It's not easy to

decide the optimal number of participants for qualitative research (Barkhuizen, 2014). PhD

scholars often faced similar problems of participants' decisions in their doctoral study. I had a

similar issue that 'how many participants is adequate for me? at the beginning of my doctoral

study designing stage as Mason (2010) indicated. The issue of the number of participants in

one's PhD is also a matter of one's academic identity (Inouye & McAlpine, 2019). One of

the main reasons for this confusion is lacking the clear guidelines and criteria for selecting

the optimal samples in qualitative research. There exist several pieces of literature that have

discussed the issue of the number of participants for qualitative inquiry. While the number of

participants in inquiry is one of the considerations for researcher identity and evaluating the

research output, number of participants remains the issue of qualitative inquiry.

The number of participants could be an important factor in evaluating the output which

opens the possibility for future publications based on the study ndings. So, my identity

as a qualitative researcher has been assimilated to the sample size. For instance, Mason

(2010) examined the sample size in 560 PhD qualitative theses based on the interview as

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only the source for data collection. This study reported that the average sample size was 31,

the median sample was 28, and the largest was 95. However, the smallest sample size was

only one on life history (narrative) research. He also found that "the most common sample

sizes were 20 and 30 (followed by 40, 10 and 25)" (Mason, 2010, p. 10). Moreover, Mason

(2010) reported that there is no logical (or theory-driven) reason in selecting the sample of

the multiple of 10. The sample size used in qualitative inquiry is varied rather than uniform.

For instance, I looked at the sample size of a recent PhD thesis from the reputed universities

of the world that were using a varied number of participants. For example, Barkhuizen

carried out his doctoral research having a single participant as a sample in his narrative

inquiry (Barkhuizen, 1988 as cited in Barkhuizen, 2018). Furthermore, Barkhuizen (2018)

argued that "a single participant was appropriate in this case since I aimed to gain an in-

depth, intensive understanding of the teacher’s interactional patterns" (p. 120). Similarly, I

have examined several recent PhD theses employing qualitative inquiry constituting a small

number of participants that were below 10. Both the qualitative research studies carried out

for acquiring an academic degree and other academic purposes have extensively employed

a small number of participants. There exists diversity in using the number of participants in

qualitative inquiry. Here are some of the examples of different qualitative approaches having

participants ranging from three to ten. For example, three-participants narrative inquiry

(Wise, 2020); four participants-narrative inquiry (Bentley, 2021); ve participants-narrative

inquiry (Gao, 2021); seven samples-narrative inquiry (Bryant, 2021); eight participants-

narrative inquiry (Tiffany-Kinder, 2020); 10 participants-narrative inquiry (Crawford, 2021;

Magalhaes, 2019). Moreover, I have found many studies besides the PhD research were also

carried out with a single sample such as Barkhuizen (2021); Zhang (2020); Huang (2021).

Research design is another important contributing factor in selecting the sample for

qualitative inquiry. In his study, Mason (2010) found the different number of participants in

the various qualitative research designs. Based on the ndings from Mason (2010) and other

researchers indicates that the number of participants varies in different qualitative research

designs are as follows:

Ethnography: Moser and Korstjens (2018) 25- 50 interviews

Grounded theory: Morse (2015) 30-50 participants; Morse (2000), and Moser and Korstjens

(2018) 20-30 interview; Gentles et al. (2015); (Morse, 2015) at least 25 interviews;

Case studies: Barkhuizen (2014) 1- 135 cases; Gentles et al. (2015) 4-10 cases; Mason

(2010) 1-95 cases

Narrative inquiry: Mason (2010) 1-62 (life history)

Phenomenology: Gentles et al. (2015) 10- 30 interview; Morse (2000) 6-10 participants;

Moser and Korstjens (2018) fewer than 10 interview

Qualitative research (general): fteen is the smallest acceptable sample size ( Bertaux, 1981

as cited in Guest et al., 2006, p. 61)

Action research: Mason (2010) 3-67

The above-mentioned scholars have offered a different number of participants in

qualitative research. However, researchers do not need to be rigid and structured to

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follow hard and fast rules in deciding the number of participants in their study. Moreover,

qualitative research does not recommend using a particular number of samples rather it is

generally varied on the type of data to be collected.

The above discourse on the number of participants for qualitative research has multiple

applications for qualitative researchers in general and PhD scholars and master degree

students in general. For instance, this paper has discussed the considerations for determining

the number of participants along with the justication for qualitative inquiry. Likewise,

Hennink and Kaiser (2021) also stress the rational justication in deciding the sample

size for qualitative inquiry "rather than responding to the concerns of a more dominant

positivist paradigm and their numerical expectations" (p. 8). Moreover, the paper focused

on an adequate number of participants for qualitative research. Fundamentally, the number

of participants for qualitative research varies upon the methodological choices and the

nature of the study problem. Despite all the variations in deciding the appropriate number

of participants, there is a common consensus that the qualitative inquiry employs a small

sample. I have employed a narrative inquiry as a methodological approach to study the

phenomenon of teacher identity in my PhD. This approach demands making sense by

capturing teachers' lived experiences through their stories. By the nature of the study

problem, the small samples helped me to understand the identity of teachers that is generally

not practicable through the large samples. That's why I have chosen only six participants as

optimal samples in my ongoing PhD research.

Conclusion

The paper focused on the considerations for determining the number of participants

and the justication of a smaller sample for qualitative research. Determining the adequate

number of participants in qualitative inquiry is an ongoing debate that created a dilemma.

Several contributing factors decide the participants in one's qualitative inquiry. The purpose

and research questions are the major factors to decide the participants. While the qualitative

inquiry is a exible methodological approach, there are no strict rules about participants

number that need to be selected prior. However, the focus of the qualitative research should

be on fullling the research aim rather than representing the large samples.

The purpose of qualitative inquiry is to unravel the phenomenon in-depth rather than

the generalisation of the ndings. Similarly, data saturation, time and budget available,

methodological choices, theoretical framework and analytical strategy, researcher's

knowledge are other major concerns. Besides, institutional and supervisor requirements

are to be considered while taking decisions about the number of participants. However, the

researcher's knowledge, research design, and methodological design are the concerns that

need to be considered while determining the participants in one's qualitative inquiry.

I reected on myself to decide the participants that are adequate to answer the research

questions. As I am employing narrative inquiry as a methodological approach to explore

teacher identity, I decided to select six primary teachers for my study.

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The qualitative inquiry believes in subjective and multiple realities as its ontological

stance and co-construction of knowledge. Concerning this focus, small samples through

purposive sampling allow the researcher for an in-depth understanding from the rich-

information participants and thick descriptions. The small samples allow the researchers to

build a closer relationship with the participants since they have to spend a long time in the

eld and explore the phenomena in-depth. A larger sample selected from the probabilistic

sampling method does not ensure nding the desired participants and also leads towards the

surcial data.

The number of participants is guided by different methodological approaches of

qualitative inquiry. For instance, phenomenology, narrative inquiry, and case study accept

small samples, i.e., from a single case to 20, whereas ethnography, grounded theory, and

generic qualitative research utilise larger samples. In this way, it could be 10-50 or more

participants depending upon the nature of the study and the information to be collected.

Compared to the individual academic research, large-scale qualitative research utilises a

larger number of participants, i.e. up to 100- 300. Rather participants in qualitative research

can be added or reduced based on the information sought and the stage of data saturation.

In the above section, I have presented examples of a few studies having a varied number of

participants. Therefore, I suggest including from a single to 20 participants for the qualitative

research whichever is suitable in a particular study.

This study implies determining the participants for qualitative research. More importantly,

the paper offers useful guidelines to novice researchers who are in the developing stage

of their academic research project for acquiring an academic degree. Finally, I argue for

providing autonomy to the individual researchers to determine the number of participants

with justication in carrying out their research project at the graduate school. This study is

limited to the selected available papers and other resources and focused on the participants

for qualitative only. Therefore, I recommend a similar and more comprehensive study in the

future covering the number of participants and sampling strategy for different qualitative

research designs.

Acknowledgments

I am thankful to the anonymous reviewers for their critical comments and my supervisor

Dr. Peshal Khanal for his encouragement to analyse the issue of the number of study

participants.

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