EDUCATIONAL CONTEXT INTERVIEWS

Question 1

Powney and Watts (Practical Issues)-

Answer 1

• Interviewee’s are young and so may have less linguistic or intellectual skills.
• This means that they might be more reluctant to speak, or could fail to understand long, complex questions.
• They may also have limited vocabulary and a shorter attention span. This could lead to misunderstandings or incorrect/ incomplete answers, affecting the validity of data that’s been obtained.
• These communication issues do mean that it may be easier to use unstructured interviews as they help to better communication, but then children have difficulty keeping to the point.
• Powney and Watts noted that young children tend to be more literal minded and often pay attention to unexpected details in questions- they’re logically different from adults, which means that the interviewer may need to be trained to deal with children specifically.
• Similar to questionnaires, once word about an interviews purpose goes around, teachers and pupils answers may be influenced. Validity may be also tampered with due to location, as being interviewed in school could affect how Comfortable an individual feels when answering questions, especially since schools represent higher status and authority. Unstructured interviews can also be time consuming, taking an hour or more to conduct, and since teachers have tight schedules it may mean that these interviews have to take place outside of school, which could also make them less willing to participate.
• Parents have a similar problem where they may be busy, making interviewing them harder.

Question 2

Eval (Practical and Validity Advantages)-

Answer 2

• Due to young people having better verbal than literacy skills, practically interviews are better at gaining answers.
• Not only this, but if the researcher can obtain official support for the study, then the hierarchical nature of school may work in their favour (e.g. heads can instruct teachers to release pupils from class for interviews which could increase response rate).
• Structured interviews can also produce reliable data as they are standardised and therefore are conducted in the same way each time.

Question 3

Bell (The Interviewer as ‘Teachers in Disguise’, Validity)-

Answer 3

Power and status may affect the outcome of interviews- if interviewees have less power than the interviewer, they may see it as being in their own interest to lie or exaggerate to please said interviewer, affecting validity. There are also status inequalities between adults and children, which in studying education is increased especially if these studies take place in school. Bell noted that pupils may see the interviewer as a ‘teacher in disguise’. This could affect the validity of data as pupils may seek to win the ‘teachers’ approval by giving untrue but socially acceptable answers as this shows them in a favourable light, like lying about how much time they spend on homework. Pupils/ children are also more likely to believe that adults ‘know better’ and so could change their answers if a question is repeated in fear of being wrong. Similar inequalities are also prevalent with parents, especially working-class parents who may believe that the interviewer has a higher status than them and so find certain questions patronising- interviews are a social interaction, and so inequalities naturally affects comfortability, affecting the validity of obtained data.

Question 4

Eval (Greene and Hogan, Improving the Validity of Interviews, Group Interviews)-

Answer 4

Researchers are able to adopt strategies to improve the validity of interviews with younger people. Greene and Hogan argued to improve validity that an interviewer should use open-ended questions, not interrupt children’s answers, tolerate long pauses to give kids time to think, recognised that children are more suggestible and so avoid asking leading questions, and also avoid repeating questions as this can make children believe their answers are wrong. Unstructured interviews in general as well are more suitable for overcoming barriers of powers and status inequality as informality can create a more comfortable environment, helping to establish a rapport. Even group interviews can help to create a safe peer environment, especially since they are a safe peer environment and so can replicate the small group setting that exists in a classroom. This also helps to reveal interactions between pupils.