Lecture 11 - Interviews

Question 1

(!) Describe interviews in general, usages & choices to be made

Answer 1

General:
- Purposeful conversation
- Both easy & difficult
- Interviewer as instrument: Bias
- Quality depend on interviewer skills

_________

When to use it:
- Willingness to share
- Internal phenomena
- Context matter
- Dont need generalization
- Needed thinking time
- Complexity
- Subjective attitudes, values, intention, opinions

_________

Choices to be made:
- Structured, semistructured, unstructured
- Individual vs. focus group
- Interview mode
- Formal vs. informal site
- Question type

Usages:

Exploratory:
- New info

Descriptive:
- Past or present experience or action

Explanatory:
- Interpretation
- Actions meaning, aim & outcome
- Higher level than description

Confirmatory:
- Validation
- Analysis or early conclusions

Question 2

(!) What is the advantages, poss. insights & disadvantages of interviews?

Answer 2

Advantages:

General:
- Direct source
- In dept understanding: Detailed
- Understand subjective
- Room for discussion
- Poss. comparison

Insights:
- Narratives
- Local norms
- Ideals
- Values
- Interpretation
- Viewpoint
- Experience
- Knowledge
- Ideas
- Expressions
- Behavior
- Process

__________

Disadvantages:
- Recall bias
- Not neutral
- No generalization
- Interviewee not truth teller: Facts
- Interviewee has self-interest
- Not too sensitive topics
- Only explicit knowledge: Complex social world
- Knowledge depend on questions
- Said vs. Done vs. Said done = Reported > Actual behavior
- Dataset required for assurance

Question 3

(!) Describe the three types of interviews

Answer 3

Structured:
- Formal
- Rarely used
- No deviations: Question order, wording, language level
- No clarifications or additional questions
- Like survey, just face-2-face

Use:
- Info gathering/fact checking
- Hypothesis testing
- Strong comparability necessary
- When survey not poss.
- Many interviews

Advantages:
- Rigidity & rigor
- Always very useful data

Limitations:
- Inflexible
- Risk to little data

__________

Semi structured:
- Mostly used
- More or less structured: Interview guide
- Poss. deviations: Question order, wording, language level
- Poss. to clarify, add or delete

Use:
- When idea of phenomenon
- When needed comparison: Create structure
- When large sample: Create focus

__________

Unstructured:
- Free-flowing conversation
- No order, wording or language level
- Poss to clarify, add or delete
- Interviewee that guide process

Use:
- No pilot
- Limited knowledge
- Before semi-structured interviews
- Need long narrative: Story
- Used w. other methods: Eg. Observation
- Few interviewees: Less focus needed

Question 4

(?) Describe epistemological views to interviews

Answer 4

Neopositivist / post positivism / critical realism:
- Interview give knowledge
- Get closer to objective reality that is there by proper methods
- Interview as research instrument: Approach truth outside interview
- Job to apply methods to validate research findings & avoid biases
- Interview seen as pipe of knowledge to be tapped

Romanticist:
- Interview as human encounter
- Build on dialogue
- Get into peoples head
- Important to build trust for authentic answers
- Interviewer facilitate reflections
- Active researcher

Localist:
- Interview as empirical situation
- Knowledge created in research situation
- Power relations & discourses used: Happenings between participants

Reflexivism:
- Critical use of interview
- Inter-views: Exchange viewpoints
- Consider both content & situation
- Reflect on process & meaning of results
- Critical to own assumptions
- Consider multiple interpretations & understandings

Question 5

(!) What should be done before & after interviews?

Answer 5

Before:
- Thematize: Why, what, how?
- Look at previous literature & theoretical framework
- Make interview guide
- Provide info to interviewee: Purpose & themes
- Signed consent form: GDPR
- Explain data-use
- Ask for questions
- Ask for permission to record

Interview guide:
- Check list for interviewer
- Ensure coherence between framework, RQ & collected data
- Can be revised in progress
- Helpful when comparison

____________

After:
- Transcribe immediately
- Write down reflections: Surprises, highlights & flow/control

Question 6

(!) Describe the focus group interview & drawbacks

Answer 6

General:
- Collective process
- Important social dynamic
- 6-12 people
- Defined target group
- Active moderator
- Important setting

__________

Drawbacks:
- Less control
- Data hard to analyze
- Difficult organizing
- Time consuming recording
- Risk of dominant people
- Group effects: Group think
- Social desirability bias: Express cultural accepted view
- Not for sensitive topics

Question 7

Describe criteria for a succesful interviewer

Answer 7

Knowledgeable
Structuring: Purpose, rounds off
Clear: Simple questions
Gentle: Let people finish
Sensitive: Listens emphatic
Open: Flexible, responding
Steering: Managing
Critical: Challenge the answers
Remembering: References
Interpreting: Clarifies & extends
Balanced: Talk a decent amount
Ethically sensitive

Question 8

(!) Describe the analytical interview

Answer 8

General:
- Redefine respondent contribution
- Inputs as analytical conversation
- Respondent & interviewer collectively prod. new knowledge
- New connections & ideas > Interview guide: Room for new
- Explore complexity of practise
- Listen & record insufficient alone
- Legitimize violation of good interview manners
- Success measured by frequency & quality of follow up questions
- Require expert knowledge
- Require process skills, training, experience & confidence
- Interviewer must be present
- Impossible to plan & control
- Poss. learning opportunity for both parties

Situations for use:
- Ignorance
- Tacitness: Implicit knowledge hard to express
- Boundedness: No full knowledge of eg. firm
- Institutionalization
- Opportunism: Take advantage of situation