Interviewing for Research

8/12/2019 Interviewing for Research

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Interviews

Steinar Kvale, Svend Brinkmann,

InterViews: Learning the Craft of

Qualitative Research Interviewing.


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The Interview

Interviewer Interviewee

Interview


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Interviews

Unstructured

Structured

Semi-structured


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Interviews

Unstructured Interviews

Researcher has a small set of self-

prompts to help investigate the researchquestion, but questions are not fixed.One question can lead to a number offollow-up questions depending on the

response. They tend to be more likeconversations than interviews.

Useful when exploring a new area.


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Interviews

Structured Interviews

The questions are fixed and

predetermined as is the sequence ofquestions. No new questions can beadded during interview, and questionsare given to interviewee (generally

several days) before the interview begins. A lot of senior managers prefer time to

prepare their answers.


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Interviews

Semi-Structured Interviews

Some interview questions are fully

decided, whereas others might not befixed. The researcher has leeway inasking follow-up questions.

This is the ideal compromise, it gives a

structure to the interview, but also givesflexibility.


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Kvales Seven Stages

1 Themazing

2 Designing

3 Interviewing

4 Transcribing

5 Analyzing

6 Verifying

7 Reporting


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Kvales Seven Stages

1. Themazing

What is the theme of the interview?


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Kvales Seven Stages

1. Themazing

What is the theme of the interview?

Its your Research Question


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Kvales Seven Stages

2. Designing

How will the intended knowledge beobtained?


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Kvales Seven Stages

2. Designing

How will the intended knowledge beobtained?

Design your Interview Questions


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Interview Questions

IntroductoryQuestions Warm up questions

FollowupQuestions Listen for Red Lights

Probing Questions Unlimited scope

question

SpecifyingQuestions Exact information

Direct Questions Introducing a new topic

Indirect Questions Projective questions

StructuringQuestions Transitioning to new

topics

InterpretingQuestion Clarifying questions

Silences


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Kvales Seven Stages

3. Interviewing

Conduct the interviews carefully


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Interviews

Establish a rapport

Treat interviewees with respect

Think about your appearance

Think about body language

Maintain firm eye contact Dont Invade their space


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Interviews

How are you going to record?

Tape recorder

Pen and papermust be verbatim

Video recorder

But whichever you use, you must do a

verbatim recording of the interview,both questions and answers.


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Kvales Seven Stages

4. Transcribing

Converting interview into written text


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Kvales Seven Stages

4. Transcribing

Converting interview into written text

Must include everything said. Can be inappendix of thesis or on a CD.


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Kvales Seven Stages

5. Analyzing

Based on the appropriate type ofinvestigation


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Simple Analysis


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Analysing Text

Faced with the lack of organisation of data

and the sheer amount of rambling can be

somewhat overwhelming With the best will in the world about trying to

avoid bias, when there is multiple

interpretations of data, selecting the one that

best matches your research questionbecomes very tempting.


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Simple Tabulation

Interviewee Money Fame Power Social Fulfilment Other

Person 1 15 6 4 0 1 38

Person 2 5 3 6 5 4 27

Person 3 1 0 3 12 21 46

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Reasons for Choosing a career


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Choosing categories

Use ones from the literature

They will have validated the categories,

and you will have something to comparewith.

Use categories connected with your

research question Derive categories from data


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Deriving Categories

Verbatim Analysis Compatible with Windows Windows-Compatible

Knowledge management Knowledge engineering

Gist Analysis Compatible with Windows == Windows-Compatible

Knowledge management == Knowledge engineering

Superordinate Analysis Derive superclasses If one interviewee mentions Windows-Compatible and

another one interviewee mentions Linux-Compatible, youcan derive a category of Compatibility


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How to analyse?

Colour Coding


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Advanced Analysis


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Meaning Analysis

Meaning Coding

Adding tags or keywords to text

segments that represent the main themesof the interviews

Meaning Condensation

Summarising larger sentences into short,

simple sentences. Meaning Interpretation

Adding more details, background and

context to specific parts of the interview


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Language Analysis

Linguistical Analysis Looking at the linguistics and grammar

Conversation Analysis Treating the interview as a conversation

Narrative Analysis Treating the interview as a story

Discourse Analysis

Try to evaluate the truth of the responses Deconstruction

Taking the interview apart and putting together again


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Eclectic Analysis

Bricolage

Using a collection of techniques as a

collage

Theoretical Reading

Creating your own reading on the text


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Kvales Seven Stages

6. Verifying

Checking that validity, reliability, andgeneralizibility of the findings


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Kvales Seven Stages

Validity

Can you check the truth of the statements? e.g. number of

employees in organisation, number of customers

Reliability Are there any internal contradictions? Did you include the

same question twice expressed in different ways to check

the truthfulness of the responses?

Generalizibility How do the answers agree with broader research and

other interview answers?


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Kvales Seven Stages

7. Reporting

Communicate findings in a scientific andethical manner.


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Kvales Seven Stages

7. Reporting

Communicate findings in a scientific andethical manner.

In the dissertation document


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Interviews FAQ


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What books should I read about

interviews?

Anything and everything by Steinar

Kvale

Interpreting Qualitative Data by DavidSilverman

Research Design by John Creswell


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How do I think of questions for the

interview?

There really should be two sources

All questions need to come from the

research question of the experiment If you find literature with a sufficiently

similar research topic, you can use or

adapt those questions


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How many people should I interview?

12

10 people

is a good rule-of thumb


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Are there situations where I shouldnt

use interviews?

Yes, loads of situations, e.g. electoral

voting behaviour, or capturing a

persons attitudes and interactionswith their environments.


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When should I do the

interviews?

Typically there are two times to do

interviews;

As part of the requirements gatheringprocess

As part of the evaluation process


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Are there software packages that can

help me ??

Loads

ATLAS.ti

nVIVO

MaxQDA

NUD*IST

HyperRESEARCH

But, do not underestimate the power of

Excel, its a brilliant tool when used well


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Further Tips

Decide on an order of questions that easily flowsone to the next

Try to use language that is easy to understand andrelevant to the interviewee

Avoid Leading questions

Try to stop the interviewee using qualifiers

Add a few control questions into the interview forvalidation

Avoid smalltalk during the interview LISTEN, LISTEN, LISTEN

Documents

Interviewing for Research