11. Collecting qualitative data: Interviews Flashcards
When do you interview?
Understanding subjective meanings and aims
Accounts of behaviours, processes
* Events linked over time
Obtain different points of views/accounts
What can be achieved with interviews?
Descriptions of past and
present experiences and
actions
Interpretations of the logics
linking actions to meanings,
aims and outcomes
Validation of immediate
analyses
Name advantages and disadvanteges with interviews
+ learn about the peoples’ interpretations and points of view
compare between different interpretations
insight into important narratives
insight into local norms, ideals, values
_ Knowledge depends on questions asked
“What people say, what people do, what people say they do are 3
different things”
Targets only explicit knowledge that can be put into words
Interviews are complex social situations
Name the 3 types of interviews
Structured
Semi-structured
Unstructured
What is a structed interivew
- Formally structured
- No deviations from question
order - Wording of each question as
written - No adjusting of level of
language - No clarifications or additional
questions - Similar in format to a survey
What is a semi-structured interivew
- More or less structured
(interview guide) - Questions may be reordered
during the interview - Wording of questions flexible
- Level of language may be
adjusted - Interviewer makes
clarifications, adds or deletes
probes
What is an unstructered interivew
- Free-flowing conversation
- No set order to any questions
- No set wording to any
questions - Level of language may be
adjusted - Interviewer makes
clarifications, adds or deletes
probes
When are structured, semi-structured and unstructured interviews useful?
Structured:
Information gathering/fact checking
For hypothesis testing
When strong comparability is necessary/desired (quantification)
Very specific deductive research processes where surveys are not available
Semi-structured:
When you have some idea of the phenomenon
* Relevant concepts
* Linkages between concepts
When comparisons are needed
* Partly shared structure of interviews makes comparison easier
When interviewing a ”larger” number of individuals
* The structure increases focus
Unstructured:
If the interviewer has limited prior knowledge (The interviewee guides the
interview process rather than the interviewer)
Sometimes used as a precursor to semi- structured interviews
*When we don’t know what is there
If long narratives are needed
In connection with other methods e.g. participant observation
What is an interviewguide?
Check list for the interviewer
Ensure coherence between conceptual framework, research questions and
data collected
Can be revised as the study progresses
Helpful when comparing interviews
What should you consider in an inteview?
- Your interview questions/guide relate to your research question?
- Your interview guide contain a good mixture of different kinds of questions (e.g.
probing, specifying)? - It includes requests for information about the interviewee (e.g. age, profession)?
- Your language in the questions are clear, comprehensible, and free of
unnecessary academic and technical terms? - Your questions offer a real prospect of capturing your interviewees’ perspective
rather than leading and imposing your frame of reference on them?
Name the 4 different views on interviews
- Neopositivist
- Romanticist
- Localist
- Reflexivist
Alvesson 2003
What are the 3 major positions?
Neopositivist: the interview as a research instrument
Romanticist: the interview as a human encounter
Localist: the interview as an empirical situation
Alvesson 2003
What is refelxivism
Exchange of points of views – “inter-views”
Be critical
Think about both content AND situation
Reflect on the process of questioning
and the meaning of the results
There may be more than one good way of understanding.
Work with multiple interpretations
Alvesson 2003
What to do before the interview
Thematize – why, what, how?
Prepare questions
Provide the interviewee with information about the research
Purpose, themes of the interview, no right or wrong answers,
Signed consent form
Explain how data are going to be used afterwards and ask if there are any
questions
Ask for permission to record the interview
What to do during the interview
Ask for clarifications (probes)
*Why, how, who, when, what
Ask for examples – (description, examples, explanations, validation)
Read and respond to the body language of the interviewee
Use breaks - silence
Use the interviewee’s own words
Do not end the interview on a controversial, sensitive topic
