Lecture 5: In-depth interviews Flashcards
What is qualitative research?
Aim: provide novel insights into phenomena that are difficult to measure
- description of processes, mechanisms, settings
- it builds on participant perspectives and experiences
Primary sources of data
Participant data collection
Archival data collection
Participant data collection
- in-depth interviews
- focus groups
- participant observation
Archival data collection
- historical accounts
- census data
- actor specific publications
What are the benefits of using in-depth interviews
- allows researchers to gain insights into the experiences, perceptions, and motivations of actors
- enables researchers to collect data that does not exist in other form
- allow researchers to collect rich, in-depth data on a subject
- can yield surprising data, novel insights into a research topic
- particularly suited data to illustrate causal mechanism
Research goals amenable to using interviews
- Prepatory = tool for initial orientation in new field of research
- Systematizing = tool to gather decriptive evidence
- Exploratory / Theory-generating = inductive
- Confirmatory / Theory-testing = deductive
Interviews and the research process
- preliminary to the main study = identify fruitful avenues of research / refine concepts and measures
- main sources of data for a study = test descriptive and causal hypotheses
- component of multi-method research = triangulate with other methods to increase internal or external validity
Philosophical perspectives on doing interviews
Miner perspective
Traveler perspective
Miner perspective
Goal: access the pre-existing knowledge of participants
Interviewer digs for ‘nuggets of knowledge’
- ontology and epistemology of positivism
Traveler perspective
Goal: actively participate in knowledge generation and interpretation
Interviewing as a conversation between interviewee and interviewer
- ontology and epistemology of interpretivism
Types of interviewees (target groups)
Experts = academics, advisors
Elites = politicians, economic elites
Non-elites = citizens, refugees, protesters
Theoretical population
Who do you want to generalize to?
Study population
Who can you get access to?
Sample
Who is in your study?
Sampling frame
How do you get access?
Random sampling
Gold standard for making generalizations from the sample to the population
Non-random sampling
Purposive sample = criterion-based interviewee selection
Convenience sampling = based on availability
Sampling strategy - factors to consider
Choosing and ranking selection criteria
- symbolic representation (who are relevant)
- sample diversity (capturing boundaries)
- prioritizing criteria (correlation)
Sample size
- diminishing return / how many interviews do you need
- resources / how many interviews can you conduct
Recruitment
- materials
How to conduct interviews
structure vs. flexibility
types of interviews
skills of the interviewer
Structure vs. flexibility
- Exploratory / inductive (theory generating) = more flexible
- Confirmatory / deductive (theory testing) = more structure
Types of interviews
- unstructured = more conversational
- semi-structured = fairly flexible questionnaire / guided conversation
- structured = protocol-based interviews
Skills of the interviewer
- language
- establishing rapport
- framing of questions
- getting below the surface
Mapping questions
Getting an overview / grand tour questions
Probes and prompts
finding out details
Probes
responsive, follow-up questions which elicit more information
–> how / in what way / why
Prompts
issues to which the researcher explicitly directs the interviewee’s attention rather than issues raised by the interviewee
