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Survey or interview? A decision flowchart

Flowchart for choosing a survey or an interview: three yes or no questions, two interview detours and one exit, ending in a report of what and why.
Start from your question, not your favourite method.
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A flowchart for deciding between a survey and an interview. It asks whether you can already write the questions, whether you need a count or a reason, and whether the survey results need explaining, and it sends you to discovery or follow-up interviews where they help. It follows the exploratory and explanatory sequential designs used in mixed methods research. With Koji you can run both the discovery interviews and the follow-ups as AI-moderated conversations.

Where this appears

What's in this flowchart

Start: You have a research question

  1. Can you write the questions without talking to anyone?
    • Yes: go to 2.
    • No: Run 5 to 10 discovery interviews. Find the themes, vocabulary and hypotheses first. Then go to 2.
  2. Do you need to know how many people have it?
    • Yes: go to 3.
    • No, why: Interview to learn why. Motives, feelings and reasoning need a conversation.
  3. Survey 200 to 500 or more people. Enough to see which themes are widespread.
  4. Are the results confusing or contradictory?
    • No: go to 5.
    • Yes: Interview to explain them. Pick follow-up participants from the survey answers. Then go to 5.
  5. Finish: Report what happens and why.

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<a href="https://www.koji.so/visuals/survey-or-interview-decision-flowchart"><img src="https://www.koji.so/visuals/survey-or-interview-decision-flowchart/survey-or-interview-decision-flowchart.png" alt="Flowchart for choosing a survey or an interview: three yes or no questions, two interview detours and one exit, ending in a report of what and why." width="1200" height="1356" /></a>
<p>Source: <a href="https://www.koji.so/visuals/survey-or-interview-decision-flowchart">Survey or interview? A decision flowchart</a>, Koji</p>

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