Cookies on this website

We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you click 'Accept all cookies' we'll assume that you are happy to receive all cookies and you won't see this message again. If you click 'Reject all non-essential cookies' only necessary cookies providing core functionality such as security, network management, and accessibility will be enabled. Click 'Find out more' for information on how to change your cookie settings.

Accept all cookies Reject all non-essential cookies

Data needs dialogue: How talking with patients changed how I work as a quantitative researcher

8 May 2026

Evelyn Pyper, DPhil Student in Evidence-Based Health Care, shares her learnings and reflections on how patient interviews prompted her to rethink her relationship to data.

Evelyn Pyper standing in front of Oxford’s Radcliffe Camera.

Professional headshot of Evelyn Pyper smiling with a blurred office background.

 About the author: Evelyn Pyper is an Evidence-Based Healthcare (EBHC) DPhil Student at the University of Oxford, supervised by Prof John Powell, Dr Nikki Newhouse, and Dr Jonathan Livingstone-Banks.  

Outside of her studies, Evelyn works as a Health Data Strategy Lead at Roche Canada. The views expressed here are her own and do not represent the views or opinions of her employer. 

 

When I started my DPhil journey, qualitative research was not part of the plan. I had always admired the field from afar, but with my formative training in epidemiology and many years focused on p-values, qualitative methods seemed like a different world entirely.

That changed when the scope of my doctorate took shape and – as I explored the role of digital measurement in clinical research of serious mental illness (SMI) – it became clear that incorporating patient perspectives was not only valuable, but a defining component of my thesis.

Digital health technologies (DHTs) are rapidly evolving and data collected through these technologies can be used to improve the detection of SMI, including schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and depression. Yet, the potential of these digital biomarkers can only be realized if people feel comfortable and motivated to use them in their everyday lives.

So, I set out to study patients’ perceptions and views surrounding digital measurement, with a focus on passive monitoring for prediction of psychosis. After a long journey navigating research ethics, consulting with interdisciplinary experts across the University of Oxford, and collaborating with people with lived experience, I began conducting one-on-one interviews with adults who have experienced psychotic illness.  

While I expected to develop new skills, I didn’t anticipate that this experience would fundamentally reframe how I think about data. Here are the five biggest lessons I learned when I ventured beyond rows and columns and into the complexity of a conversation: 

  1. LEAD WITH AUTHENTICITY 

There is something quite daunting about those first few patient interviews. I could feel the weight of responsibility knowing that someone has taken precious time out of their day to participate in my study and have a conversation on personal and potentially sensitive topics. It is all too easy to channel those nerves into a rigid demeanor, showing up in a way that says, ‘I’m a researcher, please take me seriously!’.

From this experience, I learned the importance of letting my guard down and leaning in to being empathetic and present, rather than always thinking two questions ahead. It taught me that authenticity (not expertise) builds rapport, and rapport yields deeper data.

  1. CONTEXT IS THE CONTENT (NOT THE NOISE) 

Much of the quantitative research experience, especially in my wheelhouse of real-world evidence, concentrates on controlling for external factors identified as potential confounding variables. We often refer to these external, contextual factors - like social isolation, economic status, or lifestyle factors - as the 'noise' that obscure the 'true signal', like the effect of a treatment on a clinical outcome.

But in a patient interview, you often cannot (or don’t want to) subtract the environment from the experience. When the goal is to understand the patient's reality, these external factors shift from being pesky confounders to rich insights. Context isn’t ‘noise’ to be filtered out; it is the very signal we are looking for.

  1. FOLLOW THE CONVERSATION  

A major part of showing up as a human being, not just a ‘data collector’ involved letting go of a rehearsed script. There’s no doubt that being familiar with the interview topic guide is helpful, especially in the early stages, but clinging to it like a life raft doesn’t serve the conversation or the research.

I learned that if I approached my interviews with a quantitative mindset of sticking to the script like a protocol, I would end up with structured data but not depth. Qualitative depth came from times when the conversation paused, evolved, or took an unexpected detour. When I allowed myself to deviate from the topic guide and let things unfold more organically, sometimes the most valuable insights came from the questions I hadn’t planned to ask.

  1. CONNECTION IS A TWO-WAY STREET 

Doctoral studies can be a solitary journey; pursuing a DPhil part-time and at a distance is an especially long and lonely road. So perhaps I should not have been so surprised that these one-on-one interviews provided me with several unexpected benefits. The conversations were energising and brought a renewed sense of purpose to the work. Having the opportunity to connect with people in this format also offered moments of vulnerability and shared understanding from participants. By creating a space free of judgement – without the stigma surrounding mental health or shock towards people’s psychosis symptoms – I saw people open up and become more comfortable sharing their views. This, in turn, made me more comfortable asking deeper, meaningful questions. I came to realise that, at their best, these conversations felt less like an interview for extracting insights, and more like an experience of shared reflection.

  1. CULTIVATE CURIOSITY  

I have yet to meet a fellow researcher – across academic and applied research – who isn’t innately curious. That curiosity, and the questioning it prompts, is a constant; what differs between different disciplines is the nature of these questions. In quantitative research, I am used to asking structured questions to establish patterns and measure outcomes. The focus is often on what: what happened, what changed, what can be measured. In contrast, this qualitative work reinforced the value of asking why: why something mattered, why it came up, and why I interpreted it in a particular way. Moving from ‘what’ to ‘why’ encouraged me to listen more attentively to the meaning behind what was being said. It helped mitigate the risk that I might just hear what I expected, rather than what mattered.  

 

This qualitative research experience, and the proximity to patients it afforded, reminded me of the responsibility to ensure research reflects what matters to patients. While dialogue can certainly bring individual perspectives into the foreground, person-centeredness is not something reserved for qualitative interview data. In fact, quantitative research can, with a little extra effort, be incredibly ‘human’ and grounded in lived experience – from including person-focused outcomes and endpoints, to engaging patients as partners throughout the research process.

Above all, this experience reframed my perspective on data and brought into sharper focus the people behind the numbers.