Week 10 : In-depth Interview & Focus group

Question 1

what is in-depth interviewing?

Answer 1

• A qualitative method in which the researcher captures as much detail as possible about the interviewee’s experience, understandings, thoughts, feelings & beliefs
• Asks open-ended questions
• How or why research questions
• Also used by businesses & non-profit organizations

Question 2

Objectives of in-depth interviewing…

Answer 2

• Because it’s a qualitative research method…
• in-depth information
• language of the respondents
• get a complete sense of the respondents background, attitudes, behaviours & understanding of the social world
• generate hypothesis (inductive)

there are tradeoffs tho from quantitative methods (e.g. more expensive, less respondents)

Question 3

Types of interviews - structured & semi-structured

Answer 3

• structured - survey & closed-ended
• semi-structured - prepared list of questions & follow-up probes, interview schedule

Question 4

Types of interviews - unstructured

Answer 4

• no preset questions
• list of general topics

Question 5

Informal interviews…

Answer 5

• most often associated with ethnographic research & involves talking with key informants to learn about research site & ppl
• more like a regular convo
• usually provide knowledge necessary for designing an unstructured/structured interviews

Question 6

Oral histories

Answer 6

• ppl are asked to recall their experiences in a specific historical era or during a particular historical event
• tend to be more informal & more open-ended
• not collected to develop social science theory or test/generate hypotheses
• possibility of recall bias

Question 7

Life history interviews

Answer 7

• longitudinal in-depth interview (panel design)
• used to understand how lives unfold over time, the timing & sequencing of important life events, & other turning points in individual lives
• E.g. crime in the making by Robert Sampson & John Laub - criminal behaviour changes over the life course in response to one’s social roles & relationships

Question 8

Cognitive interview

Answer 8

• used primarily to design or make sense of survey questions
• ask people to reflect out loud on their thinking as they answer a survey question
• can also uncover new responses that the researchers did not think of when designing multiple choice response categories
• e.g. is done for the census

Question 9

Validity in in-depth interviewing

Answer 9

• the accuracy or truthfulness of a measure (whether you are accurately measuring what you are studying)
• Reflexivity (minimizing potential biases)…
• the context of the interview may affect responses (location)
• who the interviewer is ay also affect responses (characteristics of interviewers)
• To maximize validity, in-depth interviewers probe respondents with follow-up questions to fully understand their answers (BUT you can better understand people’s moral decisions with a survey question than you can with a more open-ended in-depth interview)

Question 10

Reliability in in-depth interviewing

Answer 10

• refers to how dependable the measure is (whether you get the same result if different researchers conduct the study again)
• Non-representative samples
• Relative to surveys - may not uncover honest cultural attitudes
• Relative to ethnography - less details, may not uncover motivations for a specific behaviour
• What to do - use field notes, pay attention to tone, body language, follow-up questions

Question 11

How to conduct an interview (6 steps)

Answer 11

0 - Research question
1. Target population & sample (who & how many)
2. Writing and pretesting the interview guide
3. Conducting the interviews
4. Recording & transcribing the interviews
5. Coding the responses
6. Analyzing and writing the results

Question 12

1 - sampling

Who to interview? informants vs respondents

Answer 12

• informants…those with special knowledge (experts)
• respondents… ordinary ppl you are seeking to learn from

Question 13

1 - sampling

case study logic - purposive & sampling for range

Answer 13

• In-depth interviewing is more case oriented (like ethnography) & we learned that when selecting cases to study, random sampling is not a good idea
• purposive sampling…Where cases are selected on the basis of features that distinguish them from other cases (E.g. typical, important, deviant)
• sampling for range… create subgroups (not too many tho) and try to maximize interviewees’ range of experiences with the phenomena you are investigating

Question 14

1- sampling

What can go wrong?

Answer 14

• Fit-for-purpose… means selecting participants whose characteristics, experiences, and perspectives are relevant and suitable for addressing the specific research question being investigated
• Access

Question 15

1 - sampling

mixed method sample

Answer 15

• Survey -> interview
• Survey results -> subgroups (sample for range)
• Connect the open-ended interview questions with survey findings (e.g. big survey with in-depth after with some ppl if they wanted to talk more about it)

Question 16

1 - sampling

snowball sampling

Answer 16

• most common method of choosing a sample for in-depth interviews
• Advantage - trust, access to hidden population
• Drawbacks… actual distribution of ppl in the population (we don’t know), representativeness

Question 17

1 - sampling

sample size

Answer 17

• Most qualitative researchers believe that you need to keep interviewing until you reach saturation
• general rule of having at least 30-35 interviews, with 10-15 in each sub-group… maximum 150
• also consider the study’s budget & timeline

Question 18

2 - writing an interview schedule/guide

what is an interview schedule/guide?

Answer 18

• A set of questions that guides the conversation (semi-structured)
• In-depth, conversational responses, rather than yes or no answers

Question 19

2 - writing an interview schedule/guide

steps

Answer 19

1. list topics… you will likely have a mix of complex questions but we can fix them later to make them more neutral
2. arrange questions by topics… start with a broad scope and easy topics before naturally flowing to more specific scopes & sensitive topics (creates trust/rapport)
3. edit the questions… Howard Becker’s rule - ask how, not why questions, questions should elicit stories & not have academic jargon & consider probes —- use trial and error!

Question 20

2 - writing an interview schedule/guide

Additional tools - vignettes & photos

Answer 20

• In-depth interviews can also make use of vignettes, which are short descriptions of characters or situations that are presented to respondents in order to elicit a response (e.g. moral dilemma)
• Photos can be very useful for the same reasons (might ask them to share photo collections or show them photos)

Question 21

3 - conducting the interview

Getting repsondents to talk

Answer 21

• You should know the interview schedule very well
• Establish and maintain rapport
• Talk to the respondents as if they are the experts
• Remain non-judgemental & neutral
• Play the devil’s advocate

Question 22

3 - conducting the interview

recording the interview

Answer 22

• Best to record the interview with permission
• Must tell respondents that the recorder can be turned off upon request

Question 23

4, 5, 6 - after the interviews

Answer 23

• Write field notes to capture experiences & observations
• Transcribe the interview - 1 hour interview = 5/6 hours to transcribe
• Analysis - identify key themes, connect to theory

Question 24

What is a focus group?

Answer 24

• People are interviewed in a group
• The interviewer/moderator poses questions/topics & the group o respondents discusses the topic in detail
• also used in market & political research

Question 25

focus groups are suitable to study…

Answer 25

• interactions among people
• How ppls opinions or beliefs are constructed through interactions
• focus is more narrow than in-depth interviewing

Question 26

sampling for focus groups

Answer 26

• Similar to those for in-depth interviewing
• purposive makes the most sense
• most recruit from - advertisements, snowball samples or convenience samples
• Principle of homogeneity… Avoid putting ppl to very different social statuses or backgrounds together, groups are designed to help participants talk freely, so researchers should be attuned to any power dynamics

Question 27

What a typical focus group looks like

Answer 27

• 6-10 ppl who should not know one another outside of the focus group
• Moderator - asks 8-12 questions for 1-2 hours of discussion
• Goal - to have respondents talk to one another
• Anonymity or confidentiality? can recommend it but not ensure
• try to videw tape cuz taking notes is very hard

Question 28

focus group requires planning…

Answer 28

• Respondents… recruit participants, assign to groups, logistics & back-up plan
• The focus group discussion… the setting (room, recording, etc.), the moderator and assistants
• Transcribe and analyze data