Listening to seniors: successful approaches to data collection and program development

This paper provides guidelines for high quality data collection with community-residing older adults with illustrations drawn from the authors' practice. A mixed-method approach is described as a means to obtain the highest quality information from the sample. This approach combines focus groups and interviews along with mailed, closed-ended surveys to access both the "depth" of the seniors' responses as well as the "breadth" of responses; that is, the qualitative aspects provide the opportunity to identify and define relevant issues in the voices of respondents, while mailed surveys provide the kind of coverage necessary to make accurate predictions to the larger population of community-residing seniors.