Interviewing Flashcards
Qualitative research methods:
- Qualitative methods offer a (different) lens to explore, understand, interpret or explain phenomena in real-world contexts and settings (Jones & Smith, 2017).
- A range of different methods and techniques to collect (e.g., interviews) and analyse data (e.g., thematic analysis, discourse analysis).
Interviews
- Data collection technique/method.
- Involve a conversation with a purpose (Burgess, 1994).
- Open-ended questions and probes yield in-depth responses about people’s experiences, perceptions, opinions, feelings, and knowledge (Patton, 2015).
When to use interviews?
- The aim is to provide rich, detailed, and in-depth information about a topic.
- The research question is idiographic (i.e., relating to the study of particular facts or processes).
- What? (e.g., individual experience, voice)
- How? (e.g., social construction)
- Exploring particular cases and subjective/personal experiences.
- Interest in and respect for participants’ own language, concepts and categories.
Steps in an interview-based study
- Framing your research question
- Choosing the type of interview
- Defining your sample and strategy for recruiting participants
- Developing an interview guide
- Conducting the interview
- Transcribing the interview
Research questions in qualitative interviewing
- Types of questions:
- Avoid questions that ask about causal relationships or correlations between variables.
- Avoid questions that seek to establish general trends.
- Focus on people’s experiences, perceptions, opinions, feelings, and knowledge.
- Avoid research questions that may be leading (e.g., what were the benefits of your participation in the intervention?).
- Scope of your question:
- Focus on the particular (e.g., a particular group, community, organisation)
- Avoid questions that are broad in scope.
- Context matters in qualitative research
Research questions vs interview questions:
· Interview questions may seem quite different from your research question.
· They should address the topic but in an indirect manner.
Buckingham et al (2018):
· Study aims - explored how recent immigrants and more established community members develop a sense of community in Italy and the USA.
· Research questions - To which communities do immigrants, children of immigrants, and receiving community members report belonging?
· Interview questions - How are you influenced by members of your community? How do you influence your community?
Fernandes-Jesus et al (2021):
· Study aims - explored how to sustain solidarity over time in COVID-19 mutual aid groups in the UK.
· Research questions - How to sustain COVID-19 solidarity over time?
· Interview questions - Have you had any previous experience of organising groups like this? What strategies did you use to keep the group going?
Choosing the type of interview:
· More than the ‘default’ option (i.e., face-to-face, on-to-one).
- Remote interviews (e.g., zoom, by email).
· Informal, controversial (no interview guide).
· Tailored, customised, thematic (not a numbered sequence of questions).
· May involve more than one interviewee/interviewer.
· Doing more than talking (e.g., walking interviews):
- Ethnographic style
- Taking pictures, filming
- Photo and object elicitation
Sample and recruitment
· Recruit participants who represent a variety of positions.
· ‘Fix’ key aspects that define the group you are looking at (e.g., age, gender).
· Sharing a similar background as the group you are studying may be advantageous (i.e., insider researcher).
Recruiting participants
· Purposive sampling - participants are chosen ‘on purpose’, not randomly
· Gaining access is a crucial step:
- Working with gatekeepers
- Insider assistance
- Advertising for participants
· Snowballing sampling - using the initial few interviewees to recommend other potential participants (King et al, 2019).
The interviewer guide
· Funnel structure (from broad to narrow):
- Start with an introductory question, which should be open-ended (yet not too open!).
- Flow logically and clustered around topics.
- From general to specific questions – It helps in gathering details and checking out all possible responses.
· The interview guide outlines the main topics to be covered, but it should be flexible (e.g., phrasing and order).
- The format may vary according to different epistemological and methodological traditions.
Structure in interview guides:
· Structured:
- Same questions (pre-formulated), same order.
- Participants may be provided with a set of possible answers.
- The researcher has all the control.
- Constrains the interviewer-interviewee relationship.
· Semi-structured:
- A set of pre-formulated questions (main and follow-up).
- Interviewer can improvise questions.
- Mostly open-ended questions.
- The order of questions is less important.
· Unstructured:
- An initial question or prompt.
- Questions emerge from the immediate context.
- Participants explore their stories and experiences on their own terms.
- The researcher may have a shortlist of issues as a reminder
Interview guides are often a mix of…:
· Main questions (i.e., the ‘skeleton’ of the interview).
· Different categories of questions (Patton, 2015):
- Experience/behaviour
- Opinions/values
- Feelings
- Knowledge
- Sensory
- Background/demographic questions
· Follow-up questions – Specific to the comments made by the participants.
· Probes – Techniques to keep a discussion going while providing clarification.
Example of interview questions:
· Introductory - designed to get the best possible start
· Main questions - informed by your research question; the purpose of your research
· Follow-up - allows elaboration; communicates that the interviewer is an active/attentive listener.
· Probing - promotes elaboration and greater details but without necessarily specifying what has interested the interviewer.
· Closing - questions to signal that the interview is coming to an end.
How not to ask questions?:
· Leading questions (e.g., ‘Didn’t that make you furious?’)
· Over-complex and multiple questions? (e.g., ‘Ok, let’s imagine…’)
· Double-barrelled questions (e.g., ‘Do you think marijuana and gambling should be banned?’)
· Do not introduce assumptions (e.g., ‘How effective do you think the program is?’).
· Complex or jargon words (e.g., ‘What do you think about ingroup bias?’)
· Double negatives: (e.g., ‘Do you think that not many people wouldn’t know what “ingroup bias” means?’).
· Judgmental responses (e.g., ‘Really? I would have been made as hell’).
Piloting the interview guide:
· It will help you identify problems with the wording
· It will also help you memorise the interview guide and develop your skills as an interviewer.
Conducting the interview:
· Introducing your project and self-presentation.
· Building rapport:
- Create a relaxed and open atmosphere.
- Trust disclosure: Create a space in which participants can speak openly.
- Give people the opportunity (e.g., space, time) to bring up interesting material that you might not have anticipated.
· Good interviewing skills:
- Retaining control of the agenda.
- Judgement in recognising when they are straying or saying something important.
- Tact in keeping them on topic.
- Managing power imbalances.
Recording
· Taking careful notes in the session? (vs rapport)
- Concentrate on listening, not writing
· Audio-recording - remember to test your recording devices (and microphones)
· Video? -> can capture non-verbal communication (NVC). Only if really needed
Transcription
· It prepares your data for the next phase – analysis.
· What are you transcribing?
- Meanings? The ‘gist’ of what people say?
- Words? All the exact utterances?
- Non-verbal communication (NVC)?
· At least verbatim transcription is necessary for most forms of analysis (e.g., TA, IPA).
· Jefferson transcription system for most forms of discourse analysis.
Ethical issues to consider
· Informed consent – After having received and understood all the research-related information, participants can voluntarily provide their willingness to participate in the research.
· Confidentiality and anonymity - Including a ‘right to waive’ confidentiality.
· Right to withdraw – How long after the interview?
· Assessing the risk of harm – Do not ignore participants’ emotions.
· Deception – It should be avoided!
· Debriefing – It should be provided!
· Use of incentives – Compensating participants for their time.
· Physical safety and welfare of the researcher - Have a safety protocol in place!
