1. Introduction to Interviewing
INFO 272. Qualitative Research Methods
8 October 2009
Introduction to Interviewing

2. Outline What is Qualitative Interviewing? Underlying theory
Interview techniques

3. Suchman and Jordan’s Critique
Aspects of ordinary conversation:
Local control
Question redesign
Answer elaboration
Detection and repair of misunderstandings

4. Qualitative Interviewing
“[to gain] a fine-textured understanding of beliefs, attitudes, values and motivations in relation to the behaviours of people in particular social contexts.” [pg. 39 Bauer and Gaskell]
“to obtain descriptions of the life world of the interviewee with respect to interpreting the meaning of the described phenomena.” [pg. 5-6 Kvale]
Bauer and Gaskell’s distinction between indexical and non-indexical statements (the link between experience and knowledge)

5. Reasons to Conduct Qualitative Interviews
Developing detailed description
Integrating multiple perspectives
Learning how events are interpreted
Bridging inter-subjectivities
Identifying variables and framing hypotheses for quantitative research
[Learning from Strangers. Pg. 9-11]

6. Keeping in Mind...
an interview is a negotiation between interviewer and interviewee (who exert reciprocal influence)
an Inter-View [Kvale]
What is the underlying theory of social reality?

7. Keeping in Mind...
“when we understand knowledge as the social justification of belief rather than as accuracy of representation, conversation replaces confrontation with nature.”
“the certainty of our knowledge is a matter of conversation between persons, rather than a matter of interaction with a nonhuman reality.”
- Recall Habermas

8. Mediation
through memory
through interviewees self-perception
through interviewers perceptions
the presence of the interviewers and others
“what is said turns out to change according to who is speaking and who is listening” [Alcoff, ‘the problem of speaking for others’]
extreme cases: teenagers/pre-teens, politicians

9. Advantages & Disadvantages
efficiency: generate a large amount of material on a specific topic in a short amount of time
getting at the internal world of meaning and interpretation of individuals
artificiality: distance from event/experience (remember Becker on the accuracy gained from close observation)

10. Types individual depth interviews
narrative interviews: focusing on a specific experience
expert interviews
ethnographic interviews: usually situated in interviewees cultural milieu, often spontaneous and informal
joint interviews and focus groups: i.e. husband and wife, family, household, co-workers, etc.

11. Interview Techniques
Main goal: get your interviewees to talk openly and at length about a topic you have selected, but in their own words and in relation to their own experiences. This involves developing and extending your skills of conversation in a particular way

12. Interview Techniques Recalling Suchman and Jordan
Give the interviewee as much control over the conversation as possible
Allow interviewee to redesign the questions
Allow/encourage interviewee to elaborate on answers
Confirm and clarify responses
Detect and repair misunderstandings

13. Interview Techniques what can go wrong?
suspicion, evasion, stonewalling
closed-mouth or extremely talkative or off-topic interviewees
speaking in generalities only, attempting to do the analysis for you (‘let me tell you how people use the Internet here’)

14. Interview Techniques
first things first: explain yourself and your expectations
establishing rapport
topics the interviewee enjoys talking about
commiserate, empathize, be human

15. Interview Techniques avoiding generalities quality concerns
ask for concrete examples, personal stories
accessible questions with appropriate vocabulary (i.e. don’t use terms like ‘discourse’ or ‘globalization’)
quality concerns
avoid leading questions: “don’t you think...” “isn’t it true...”
clarify and confirm

16. Interview Techniques encouraging verbosity
avoid yes/no questions, ask questions that require descriptive or narrative answers.
“tell me about a time when you ...”
“can you give me an example of...”
“how would you describe...”
be quiet and wait
ask follow up questions, allow interesting tangents to develop

17. Interview Techniques discouraging verbosity politely interrupt
throw them off guard with abrupt topic changes

18. Interview Techniques ‘Probes’
D: “...it got to a time where we had to come to work on Sundays and I was going bad, this is Internet, I’ve got to be careful of myself. So, and the Lord spoke to me in several ways.”
J: “you said that you had to be careful with the Internet, how so, what do you mean by that?”

19. Interviewing in Other Cultures
issues with language
attitudes in that particular society/subculture towards authority and the right to speak
ideas about and experience with research practices
private information (age, weight, income)
rapport and suspicion (of identity, of methodology)
time and scheduling

20. Key Ideas to Remember use probes explain yourself and gain permission
ask open-ended questions in accessible language
follow the interviewees lead, clarify and confirm, detect and repair misunderstandings
use probes

21. Tuesday
Discussing examples of ‘good’ and ’bad’ interviews