Data saturation happens when new interviews stop giving you new information, just the same responses again. Set a target like "30 interviews or until saturation" in your plan so you can stop early if you've heard it all, or keep going to your max if you haven't.
How do I know when I have reached saturation in my qualitative findings?
The concept of saturation means I keep getting the same answer over and over again. I have interviewed 9 people, starting at 7, I keep getting the same stuff at 7 and 8 and 9, and now I have done 10 and I am getting the same, so I am not getting any new information. And that is what saturation means. So, I just keep going and going and going, or do I say, I have reached saturation? and you want to be careful how you word things in your document. So you say something like, "Oh, I want to interview 10 people," or, you know, "I'm going to interview 30 people or data saturation." Well, let's say you came up with data saturation at 12. Your committee can say, "Go to 30," because you said 30 or data saturation. If you said 30 or data saturation, whichever comes first, then I can stop at 12, or I stop at 30 if I don't have data saturation. But I've put a barrier or limit in there, 'cause without that, your committee can say, "No, keep going."
