Week 2-Qualitative Interviewing

Question 1

What’s one broad category of data?

Answer 1

Unobtrusive: generally, data which exist before research begins e.g., physical traces, archival data

Question 2

What is qualitative interviewing?

Answer 2

■ One to one semi-structured interviews are the most common form of qualitative data collection
■ A focussed conversation between a researcher and (usually) a single participant, where the researcher has a set agenda regarding issues to be discussed
■ Researcher has a role in encouraging participants to provide rich detail
■ More personal form of research than questionnaires

Question 3

Why use qualitative interviewing?

Answer 3

■ Generate rich and detailed data
■ Particularly useful for getting the story behind people’s experiences– the personal meaning and value
■ Arguably, easier for respondent than questionnaires, Mutually beneficial? e.g.,
Bereavement research (Bennett, 2005)
■ Chance for the researcher to develop
rapport
■ Flexible, interactive and gives participant control over what they say (rather than researcher choosing IV and DV.)

Question 4

What are the disadvantages of qualitative interviewing?

Answer 4

■ Time-consuming and effortful (but rewarded with rich data)
■ Demands on interviewees time can make recruitment difficult (but typically a small sample)
■ Relies on self-report– accurate information? (researcher’s role; participants’ truth often most important)
■ Cannot be generalised to the wider population (but not its aim)
■ Interviewer effect/ bias (but can consider this when planning and reflexivity also a core feature)

Question 5

How would you plan the qualitative interview?

Answer 5

■ Decide on your topic of investigation
■ Consider and account for ethical issues
■ Identify your target group
■ What resources do you need?
■ Decide on the format of your interview
■ Design your interview guide/schedule
■ Prepare by piloting the interview guide
■ When ready, start collecting data

Question 6

What kinds of ethical considerations might be unique to qualitative interview research?

Answer 6

-Researcher - participant relationship
-Data interpretation (e.g., risk of misappropriating data)
-Data management e.g., storage, participant anonymity
-Potential harm e.g., emotionally difficult topics, vulnerability
-Legal requirements of disclosure

Question 7

What are the different types of interviews?

Answer 7

1.Structured: No/ little freedom of direction, typically closed questions, generating short, specific responses
2.Unstructured: Very open and interactive, with questions created around a broad theme as interview proceeds
3.In-depth, semi-structured: Researcher guides discussion using an interview guide or ‘schedule’ containing a series of flexible questions and prompts

Question 8

How will data be collected?

Answer 8

■ Interview format varies by type of interview
– Structured: No/ little freedom of direction, typically closed questions, generating short, specific responses
– Unstructured: Very open and interactive, with questions created around a broad theme as interview proceeds
– In-depth, semi-structuredIn-depth, semi-structured: Researcher guides discussion
using a interview guide or ‘schedule’ containing a series of flexible questions and prompts
*most often used in scientific research

Question 9

How is sampling used in qualitative interviewing?

Answer 9

■ Typically a smaller sample
– As many people as you need to find out what you need to know
■ Recruitment can be challenging
■ Sampling is important but varies depending on methodology
– e.g. Theoretical sampling in Grounded Theory
– Homogeneity in Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis (IPA), whereas maximum variation and use of extreme or ‘deviant’ cases in Grounded Theory

Question 10

How can you prepare for an interview?

Answer 10

■ Effective interview questions are open ended; neutral; sensitive; and easy to understand (Britten, 1999)
■ Better to avoid questions that are closed; biased or leading; confrontational; overly complicated or long; unrelated or nosey
■ Prompts can work really well e.g. What was that like for you? Could you tell me more about
that? What do you mean by ___? Could you give me an example? How so?
■ Embed questions into longer sentences and encourage stories:
Tell me the story of how you became friends
May generate more than:
How did you become friends?
■ Why questions can feel quite direct and invite rationalisations
Why did you choose to get married?
Could become :
What was it about being marriage to X that appealed to you?

Question 11

What are the practicalities of interviewing?

Answer 11

■ An appropriate venue
■ Arriving on time
■ Awareness of lone worker policy
■ Good quality equipment to record the interview (and batteries!)
■ Pen and paper for brief notes
■ Setting the interview up – ethics, recording, what the purpose is

Question 12

Generating data and eliciting information at interview

Answer 12

■ Interview guides provide a flexible map – a way of making sure you address the important issues
– You know where you’re going but you still need to explore the route!
■ Active listening for significance, using paraphrasing, and following up all very important
■ Be ready for silence

Question 13

What’s the Interviewer – Interviewee dynamic?

Answer 13

■ A key ingredient to getting rich data
■ Developing interview skills through practice
– Value of conducting a pilot interview to get a sense of how your interview guide works and to examine your role as a researcher
■ Break the ice and develop rapport – first few minutes are crucial
■ Be yourself, but don’t give your views
■ Probe, not cross examine. Draw out, not pump!
■ Be clear about your purpose, how the information will be used etc
■ What factors might influence an interview situation to limit or distort the information obtained?
– Consider interviewer characteristics
– What does the research say about this?

Question 14

Give an example of good qualitative interviewing

Answer 14

“. . . the interviewer is instructed to be friendly but not too friendly and to develop a balance between the warmth required to generate rapport and the detachment necessary to see the interviewee as an object under surveillance” (Oakley, 1981)

Question 15

How do you prepare for qualitative data analysis?

Answer 15

■ Analysis process depends on the specific methodology you are using
– Different recipes for arriving at a set of preliminary findings
■ Generally, all involve coding and theme development
– What are participants saying?
■ A focus on depth, detail, context, complexity

Question 16

What’s Reflexivity?

Answer 16

“The process of a continual internal dialogue and critical self-evaluation of the researcher’s positionality as well as active acknowledgement and explicit recognition that this position may affect the research process and outcome” (Berger, 2015 p. 220)
■ About acknowledging how aspects of our identities (such as race, class, and gender), histories etc. and how they affect data, analyses, and conclusions
■ Good practice to keep a reflexive journal, logging reflections on potential influence as a researcher
– Sensitises the interviewer to their prejudices, assumptions and subjectivities

Question 17

How do you transcribe interviews?

Answer 17

■ Literature recommends audio recording interviews, above all other methods
■ Need to convert audio into text based data, ready for analysis
■ Time consuming! Approximately 5-6 hours per 1 hour audio
■ Various ways to present transcripts, depending on methodology
– ‘Play script‘ transcript– orthographic transcription
– Jeffersonian transcription – prioritises paralinguistic features of a transcript
■ More appropriate for looking at operational features of an interview such as pauses, intonation, overlap
■ Need to think about handling confidential or sensitive information

Question 18

How do you know if your research is ‘good’?

Answer 18

■ General standards for “good” research: Controlled, rigorous, reliable, validated, quantitative, experimental
■ But, should qualitative studies be evaluated by the standards of quantitative research?
■ Remains a lack of agreement among qualitative researchers about how quality should be defined and evaluated
■ In qualitative, we think about ‘trustworthiness’
– Credibility - confidence in the truth of the findings
– Conformability – extent to which findings are shaped by respondents, rather than researcher bias
– Transparency – audit trail from sampling to conclusions
– Usefulness - that something can be done with the outcomes