Wk10- Interviews and Focus Groups Flashcards
‘Informed Consent’ definition
“A norm in which subjects base their voluntary participation in research projects on a full understanding of the possible risks involved” (Babbie, 2010: 66)
Obtaining ‘Informed Consent’ (4)
- Participation is voluntary (no coercion)
- Participant info sheet - detailing specifics of research process, aims, lengths of research, right to withdraw etc
- Plus signature on consent form and advanced agreement on anonymity
- Data not kept beyond time scale of research
Types of Interviews (3)
1) STRUCTURED
- Questionnaire- driven
- Not really qualitative
2) SEMI- STRUCTURED
- V. common
- Some consistency but adaptable
3) UNSTRUCTURED
- V. flexible
- Difficult if cold
- Can be more difficult to analyse
Semi- Structured Interviewing (4)
- Uses a ‘topic guide’ or ‘interview schedule’
- Each interview is different
i. e. qus not in the same order BUT still need to cover all the topics - Interviewee takes control (does >90% talking)
- Raises new topics, focuses on key topics, directs sequences of convo
- Care is needed to listen to respondents & allow them to speak
Interview Phases
1) ‘Warm Up’
- Easy to answer qus
“How did you get into pole dance?”
“Can you tell me a little more about your role in the society?”
2) ‘Interaction: Responding to Interviewee’
- Prompts and ‘Probes’
- Verbal & Non- Verbal: ‘Did you’ ‘Mmm’ and then eye contact, nodding etc
3) ‘Warm Down’
- -> Final broad qus
- -> Explicitly give interviewee opportunity to reflect (“is there anything we’ve missed?”)
Focus Groups
- Rougly 5 - 10 people for 1 -2 hours
- Participants may be PAID
- Interviewer acts as a ‘facilitator’ or ‘moderator’
- “Collective conversations”
Focus Group Organisation (2)
1) ‘Constructed’ Groups
- Assembled by researcher
2) ‘Natural’ Groups
- Members of a particular club/organisation
Focus Groups
Adv
- Socially- Orientated
- Lower- cost vs Individual Interviews
(More info in shorter time?) - Understanding how group values emerge
(DISCURSIVE REPERTOIRES: or how do groups make sense of different issues?) - Revealing aspects not anticipated by the researcher
- ‘Ideal’ approach for examining the stories, experiences, concerns etc of individuals
- Enables participants to develop their own qus and frameworks as well to seek their own needs/concerns in their own words on on their own terms
- Permit researchers to explore individual’s diverse perspectives since focus groups function within the social account of social network of groups
- Flexible too because method can be applied to elicit info from any topic, from diverse groups of people and in diverse settings (Stewart et al., 2009)
- Esp used for ethnic groups because can see how experience vary between group e.g. Racism in Leeds- important for where ‘complex patterns of behaviours/motivation are evident, where diverse views are held’ (Conradson, 2005)
Liamputtong (2011)
“Gap between what people say and what they do’
- Offers multiple lines of communication
Focus Groups
Disdv
- Researcher has less control over conversation
- Moderators require special skills
- More difficult to transcribe and analyse?
- Less vocal indiv? - either by nature of by presence of some group members = participants feel too intimidated to speak
- Group influence on opinion/Conflict/ conform to dominant ideas present - depends on DYNAMICS of group (natural vs constructed groups)
- Finding conducive env to conduct?
- Janet Smithson (2008) - Some research topics are unsuitable for focus group env e.g. too personal (abortion, HIV/AIDS, sexuality)
Nature of Data and Researchers
- Data are usually LINGUISTIC rather than statistical:
- CONTEXTUAL rather than cut out from everyday life: and researchers are engaged with their informants rather than separated from them as in a questionnaire survey
Art of Good Interviewing
- Conduct a conversation in such a way that the person whom you are talking about is able to freely express his/her opinions and feelings while, simultaneously, enabling you to meet your OWN RESEARCH OBJ
i. e. goal is to achieve an end result which satisfies both of you, informant and researcher
3 Main things influencing the decision whether to utilise Interviews as a research method
1) NATURE of the research project
2) ALTERNATIVE METHODS of achieving your objectives e.g. Stillwell and Phillips (2006)- qu. for overall pop to sample but for impacts of racism need interviews
3) CONSTRAINTS that will affect the ways in which you can achieve those objectives e.g ethical - interviewing campers
When is an interview suitable?
- If research proposal confers aspects of human geog in which one must make interpretations of the feelings, values, motivations and constraints that help shape people’s geographic behaviour
- Dean and Wilson (2009) - Immigrants getting jobs in Canada
and wellbeing effects - Need to understand the discourse through which different social groups make sense of complex issues
e. g. Stillwell and Phillips (2006) - Racism in Leeds for ethnic minorities
Suitable if you want to understand the complexities of the problem rather than reducing it to a set of key explanatory variables: if your aim is to undertake a case study rather than a representative sample of a wider pop
–> Leeds in particular
2 of the major constraints to be faced
1) ACCESS
- Can you get hold of those you want to talk to
2) TIME
- Will you gain the community’s trust in that time- if not, is it worth it?
- Best kind of qual. research builds over time with researcher moving backwards and forwards from the field to the interpretation of data and back into the field
How Many Interviews Are Enough?
- Balance between resources (time, money) and intellectual content: all qual researchers can describe the moment when they stop hearing new stories i.e. bounds of the subject has been reached
What Kind of Interview to Conduct (3)
- Who to Interview?
- How you will make contact?
- What kind of interview you will conduct: Formal or informal, one to one and/or focus groups
Snowball Interviewing
- INITIAL CONTACT with someone who might be able to provide you with other introductions- these people are often members of community- based organisations (e.g. gatekeeper)
- Inevitably moved on to a list of ‘people you really should talk to’ which grows at an alarming rate
Problems of Confidentiality
- People will need to be reassured about what will happen to the info they might give you: if you are interviewing one to one then need to decide where to conduct the interview- in home or office of public space or on the go?
Formal Interviews
- Questionnaire- based interviews
- Clear agenda of issues wishing to be covered- usually written beforehand, not as a set of qus but as important topics to be discussed
- Sometimes good to send the interviewee the schedule before you meet to give them time to prepare- also saves time which is v useful if your participants are busy bees
- Give security of knowing that full range of issues has been covered with informants whilst still being ‘flexible’
Focus Group Sessions
- Designed around an agenda of topics to be discussed by the group which are introduced by the facilitator
Informal Interviews
- Much closely resemble ordinary convos- aim is to discover how individuals DESCRIBE and make ASSOCIATIONS between diff kinds of ideas and experiences
- Tend to be much LONGER and TANGENTIAL to the problem: but can be full of insights into the life and personality of the person with whom you are speaking to
3 Issues to Consider when Conducting a Successful Interview
1) Interpersonal Skills you need to conduct the interview
2) Different ways of asking the qu
3) Recording of info
How to ease the transition from ‘stranger’ to ‘friendly acquaintance’ ? (4)
- Prepare for the interview by being SENSITIVE to the expectations of the person you will be meeting: it is not a very good idea to arrive for an interview with the chief planning officer of a local authority in worn- out jeans and dirty trainers
- NON- VERBAL COMMUNICATION through our body language is just powerful
- POSTURE- nervousness communicates
- APPROPRIATE FACIAL EXPRESSIONS AND EYE CONTACT
Two Related Issues
1) Phrase your questions
2) Pace of the Interview
Features of Closed Questions
‘what, where, when, who ,why’ = informant gives you info and often leaves out all of the initiative
Features of Open Questions
‘Tell me about’… ‘in what ways do you feel..’
are all invitations to encourage communication
3 Main Types of Silences and Appropriate Response
1) Is it a THOUGHTFUL silence?
- Appropriate mms and aahs to ease the interview on
2) STUCK silence?
- Informant is having difficulty with the question posed in which case just rephrase, recapitulate what they have just said or clarify with an example
3) EMBARASSED silence?
- Maybe something has been said or asked which should not have been - just say you didn’t realise and apologise profusely and quickly move onto a safer topic
What are scratchnotes?
- Key notes and phrases quickly jotted down in the reporter’s notebook
It is important in a focus group to…
- Maintain the flow of discussion, take scratch notes and remember what everyone has said- essential to tape- record the meeting after gaining participants permission and produce a RUNNING ORDER of speakers i.e. identify each person from their voice and the first few words of their contribution
= easier to remember who said what, espesh if you have no acquaintance with them
Debrief
- How did it go? Any problems/what was the person/group like? Which qus worked well? Anything surprising you didn’t think of?
- Essential in both focus groups and interviews
- TIME- CONSUMING but will gain from it when you come to interpret the data and write the diss
Coding Frames
- Interview analysis proceeds through the development of coding frames, which summarises and then fractures the text analytically: coding frames develop from original research qus, understanding of the theoretical concepts you are working with and from the interviews themselves
- This latter way of coding is often described as GROUNDED i.e. it comes from the data, and contributes to the development of ‘grounded theory’ (Strauss, 1987)
How do coding frames develop?
- From reading and rereading the interview texts: at stage 1, will probs want to code on the basis of factual info and answers to set qus, rather like producing a detailed index of content for each interview
Coding will allow…
- You to trace substantive elements of the interview
- and thus identify when and where themes/items occur across the ‘transcript’
Stage 2 will begin to develop more conceptual codes as you focus more closely on the meanings of what has been said: some researchers will develop a coding frame for key concepts before they apply it to their stage 2 analysis: others will allow it to emerge from the data
Interviewing as a method
- Can no means be treated as a separate method because all social research involves LEARNING THROUGH CONVERSATION
- So like PO. ‘interviewing’ is thought of as a FORMAL AND INFORMAL research method
Making Arrangements for Initial Interviews
1) Get their postal address, digits and email
2) Write a letter (harder to ignore)
- Detail who you are/reseach purpose/assure anonymity/like to record convo etc
- Will telephone shortly to arrange a possible appointment
3) Couple days after (longer if overseas) = call and remind them of the letter and arrange a meeting at a mutually convenient time/place
4) Phone a couple days pre- meeting to confirm that he/she can attend
4) Day of meeting = dress in a nice way
5) Few days after the interview = write and thank you the person for him/her time and remind her/him of any address, names, data, references etc
Length of Interviews
- Usually ONE HOUR
- If longer than state in initial introductory letter
Advantage of Interviewing people in a public place where the interviewee’s life also flows through e.g. place of work/leisure (3)
1) May enable interviewer and interviewee to feel more at ease in each other’s company
2) Such an arrangement also acknowledges that most people’s lives are stretched between a number of different locales that can serve as references and reminders of different aspects of their identities
3) Location might bring issues to light- e.g. at work might foreground the role of that organisation and downplay other issues
‘Corporate Interviewing’
- Researchers are often spared perhaps an hour with busy executives to find out about their company’s decison- making processes and/or changing involvements in different markets
- And also to LIFE HISTORY WORK where a broad knowledge of events and institutional structures which are likely to have had an impact on a person’s life- course can also be an advantage
- Erica Schoenberger (1991) suggested that in corporate interviews, it is necessary to know about a firm’s business strategies, relationships to its markets, production technologies and methods, labour relations and behaviours of its competitors
Sources of various kinds of corporate literature and articles in the trade press
- Annual reports
- Market surveys
- Trade press articles
- Financial press and/or national and local media
Asking the ‘Right’ Questions: 3 Things to Consider
1) How is each prepared to reveal about themselves through their questions, responses and responses to responses?
2) How are these qus and responses like to be RECEIVED?
3) And what is MOTIVATING the other to take part in the research?
Interviewees not answering questions
- Must remember that the stories they are telling are NOT simply made up on the spur of the moment
- Many told, retold and refined many times before
- Ask questions that encourage their elaboration e.g. ask qus which refer to what she/he has stated such as ‘What do you mean when you say..?’ or ‘Why did you not go to… instead of ..?’
In order to get beyond blanket statements about a subject always…
Ask for examples and where possible, for examples of when/where this affected the person directly
Continually use your checklist to..
- Cross off issues discussed in sufficient detail (And only after confirming your understanding with the interviewee)
- Highlight issues your interviewee skated over but to which you would like to return for elaboration
- Jot down one- word reminders of issues that aren’t on your list but which also seem to need further elaboration
‘Panic Interview’
- Where a researcher tries to make sure that they cover everything on their checklist before the allocated time for the interview is over- and it is not surprising that this happens
Serial Interviews
- No. of interviews with the same people over a period of time
- Provides more time to build a rapport in order for stories to be told, but also because the place where the interview occurs will be one of many in which that person’s identity has been immersed throughout his/her life
- Gives you the time and opportunity to flesh out the stories, concepts, arguments etc to help make them fuller and more understandable
- Allows sufficient knowledge and trust to be developed by both parties to speculate on and to discuss, what the more deeply rooted reasons for thoughts and actions might be
Intention of Serial Interviews is usually to… (2)
1) Try to get at the taken- for- granted aspects of a person’s life history and everyday life through researcher getting to know him/her very well (e.g. to understand unspoken bodily and imaginative adaptations to the ageing process)
2) Follow people’s lives as they relate to the topic under consideration (e.g. the experience of a backpacking holiday during and after the event) e.g. change in racism in Leeds overtime (Stillwell and Phillips, 2006)
3) Understand people’s lives in DEPTH rather than in BREADTH
Main difference between multiple and single interviews with the same people is…
- The relatively formal interviewing style discussed above can dissolve
Series Interview Explanation to Potential Participants (5)
- Why this research will require a series of meetings
- How long you would like this series to go on for
- How much time it will be necessary to set aside for this
- What each session will hopeful involve
- That your interviewee has the right to withdraw from the series at any time without any need for justification
‘Depth’ Potential of serial interviewing has 2 major attractions for researchers:
1) Allows at least in part, a dismantling of the hierarchy of knowledge between researcher and researched which is often at work in questionnaires and other ‘initial’ interviews where both parties by no means participate in the construction of knowledge on an equal footing (Herod, 1993; Oakley, 1981)
2) Serial interviewing can also enable research encounters in which there is sufficient space, time and trust to plumb the depths of people’s taken- for- granted biographies and lifeworlds in order to study actions and feelings which, if they ever reached the light of day in an initial interview, might be difficult for either party to enunciate or to reflect upon in any sustained and details fashion (Rowles, 1978)
At the initial stage, interviewer’s task can be little more than that of: (5)
- Asking v general qus in order to get the person talking e.g. where were you born?
- Occasionally putting aspects of these stories told back to him/her as qus e.g. ‘Do you mean that, after you did that, you moved here?’
- Asking follow- up qus where certain detailed are mentioned but not explained e.g. ‘Who was she?’, ‘What is this?’
- Inviting speculations about paths not taken e.g. ‘why did you choose __ instead of something else?’
- Asking to see any objects, texts and/or photos which would help to illustrate these stories
Activity Diaries
- Asked by researchers for participants to keep one over a period of time in which they are asked to record various mundane details of their everyday lives
- Here, narrative accounts based on these diaries may provide fascinating insights but asking people to keep them is a lot to ask and many are reluctant to do so as they may feel intimidated by the task or simply don’t have time
- Can also ask participant to make a set of tables on which to record details about their activities each day
Key References
Burgess (2003) - The Art of Interviewing
Crang and Cook (1995) - Arrangements (contacting and location) of interviewing
Rowles (1980) - e.g. interviewed an elderly lady in his car as they drove along the roads of her childhood
Schoenberger (1991: 1992) -‘Corporate Interviewing’
McDowell (1993) - Dress
Conradson (2005) and Liamputtong (2011) - Focus Groups
Focus Groups Ability to Cultivate people’s responses to events as they evolve
(Black and Smith, 1999)
- Undertook their focus groups research in a temily manner following the death of Princess Diana- observed women - 80% of signatories in books of condolences therefore 3 separate focus groups were held with Austrailian women of diff age/social background and conducted within 3 weeks of her death/funeral
Quality of data generated will be affected by…
The characteristics and context of the focus groups
Simplest way a researcher can decide whether focus groups are appropriate is by asking…
(and ref)
(David Morgan, 1997)
“How actively and easily the participants would discuss the topic of interest”
Why is Informed Consent Important?
1) TRUST is vital in ethics- would be ‘wrong’ to break that trust
2) Consequentialist trust- promoting argument
