4 Conducting your interview

Question 1

technicalities

Answer 1

If possible, it is highly recommended to do the interview with two interviewers. It is difficult to listen carefully and at the same time also prepare your next or follow-up question and maybe also make notes.

A second issue to take care of is the correct dress code. Interviewing a CEO of a big company, it probably demands other dress codes than interviewing a homeless person on the street.

A third aspect is, of course, the right setting. Quiet enough to make good voice recording for the interview, private enough to also get more personal information, informal enough to get rid of the external pressure of organisational hierarchy.

Finally, one cannot stress too much to always test your recording device before you start the interview.

Question 2

the interview itself

Answer 2

You start the interview with the formal introduction you prepared in your interview guide. You then try to create a comfortable and smooth start of the interview, and try to create report by posing an easy warming-up or ice-breaking question.

Now you get to the core of the interview, and you address the topics you want to gain information about, in a more or less logical order. But be flexible, and address them in such a way and order that it always goes with the flow of the interview. Use your interview guide to make sure that you do not forget any of the topics.

You want to ask follow-up and probing questions. Or, also sometimes just be silent for a moment, to invite the respondent to tell more about it.

Question 3

Probes

Answer 3

Probes cannot be planned in advance. It is impossible to know what relevant issue the person might raise, and you might need to probe to learn more. However, it is helpful to be familiar with probing and some general ways to probe.

Probing questions often begin with “What…”, or “How…”, because they invite more details.

Also questions that begin with “Do you…” or “Are you…” invite personal reflection.

“Why” questions can, however, be problematic. They may put the respondent on the defense, or result in little useful information and require additional probing. If possible, try to replace “Why..?” with “What…?”. For example, “Why did you do that?” and “What made you do that?”.

Question 4

non-leading, neutral and non-judgmental

Answer 4

In general, it is important to formulate your questions in a non-leading, neutral and non-judgmental way. So, never include the expected answer in the question itself. Do not ask questions like:
“Do you agree that development aid does not lead to real development?”, but rather formulate it in a neutral way, for example like: “Compared to other policies you have seen, how effective is development aid policy?”

Question 5

final closure

Answer 5

In the final closure, you will thank the respondent for the contribution to your research, tell what further steps in your research you will be taking and when the respondent will receive some feedback on the results. You can also ask for other relevant potential respondents, if you are using a snowball sampling method. Since you never know what will pop up later in the research process, it is highly recommended to ask if you can get in touch again, in case you might have further questions.

Question 6

after you’ve closed the interview

Answer 6

As is often the case, after you’ve closed the interview, and stopped the recording, in the relaxed atmosphere of that moment, the interviewee might tell you, off the record, relevant things for your research. This information can nevertheless serve as data for your research. It is therefore important to make notes immediately after the interview and after you said goodbye to the interviewee. In these notes, you write down your impression of the interview, the setting of the interview and the off-record information. These kinds of notes are also called memos.