Qualitative Interviewing Approaches and practical issues

05/02/2008Marta Trzebiatowska

Lecture outline Qualitative vs. quantitative interviews What is distinctive about qualitative interviewing? Implications for interview design Categories How to prepare for an interview Sampling/choosing your interviewees Group interviews (‘focus groups’) Interview schedule and setting up an interview Conduct during an interview Truth and validity Recording and transcribing

Bryman (2004), Ch15 and Ch 16

Qualitative vs. quantitativeQualitative

interviews Unstructured/semi-

structured Schedule flexible Speaking off-topic as

desirable Rich and detailed

answers desirable

Quantitative interviews

Structured

Schedule rigid Speaking off-topic as

an obstacle Brief and easily

coded answers desirable

What is distinctive about qualitative interviewing? Intense listening A systematic effort to ‘hear’ data Respect for your interviewees In-depth exploration of the topic Openness to new understandings and

meanings A ‘great adventure’ (Rubin and Rubin,

1995)

How do qualitative interviews differ from conversations? The researcher has a goal Interviews are a research tool Interviews are recorded More depth than an ordinary

conversation (probing, listening without interrupting)

The data are analysed and shared through publications

With strangers and acquaintances

Implications for interview design

1. Finding out detailed information about how your interviewees understood what they saw, heard and experienced

It helps to understand what they think and ground it in the context of their experience (nuance, detail, evidence)

Implications for interview design

2. Awareness of our relationship with the ‘interview partner’

How do they perceive us? How do these perceptions affect

what they reveal? Obligation on both sides

Implications for interview design

3. Qualitative interviews are personal! Who you are and how you deal with

the interview situation matters Your reactions (verbal, facial

expressions, gestures) will determine the interviewee’s reactions: mutually reinforcing

Categories Unstructured interviews Semi-structured interviews Topical oral histories Life (hi)stories Evaluation interviews Focus group interviews

Life (hi)stories

Focus on the experience of the individual and what they felt as they passed through different stages of life

A ‘window’ on social change

What do we consider when preparing for a life story interview? a sketch of the stages or phases of your life; a sense of the pivotal events in your life; key themes around ‘work, love and play’; conflicts; key people; the artefacts of your life; your changing body and the places in has been; spiritual quests; coherence and contradiction in your life; a chart of how you have seen yourself at different stages

of your life: who are you now, how have you changed?; life secrets you cannot tell (Plummer, 2001: 123)

Group interviews/focus groups

A focus group A ‘group interview’ Centred on a specific topic Co-ordinated by a

moderator/facilitator To generate qualitative data by

capitalising on the interaction within the group setting

When to use focus groups? When developing guidelines for

future research The purpose of the research is to

uncover factors relating to complex behaviour

When looking for ideas emerging from the group

Preparing for qualitative interviewing What’s the problem? What do I

want to know? Start from a broader theme, then

narrow it down The topic will be modified by what

the interviewee says Is your topic appropriate for

qualitative interviewing?

Research topic You must be interested in the

issues and the topic must be grounded in the lives of your interviewees

Ideas for qualitative interviewing come from everywhere

Curiosity or political commitment may motivate you

Sample Representative not always possible Depends on the topic: you may wish to interview

individuals who have the kind of knowledge you are interested in (purposive sampling)

Snowball sampling Theoretical sampling (interviewing until you

reach data saturation and letting your theory guide your choice of interviewees)

…or interviewing whoever you can get hold of! (convenience sampling)

Interview schedule An outline of questions/ a script is

a good idea Main questions Follow-up questions Probes Open-ended or closed questions?

Interview schedule: an exampleIdeas about child-rearing

How would you described a good child as opposed to a bad child?

How do you think they become good or bad children? When your children grow up, what kind of qualities

would you like to see in him or her? Do you see yourself as a good and competent mother? Do you think people hold mothers responsible for how

their children turn out?

(From ‘The Cultural Contradictions of Motherhood’, Hays, 1996, Yale University Press)

Setting up an interview Either pre-arrange it or seize the

moment and interview someone on the spot

A letter/a phone-call/face-to-face Explain what an interview implies,

questions, what happens to data, interviewees’ rights

Time How many interviews overall? How many interviews in one day? Interviewing is exhausting

physically and emotionally Intense listening requires

prolonged concentration No more than 3 a day Between 45 mins and 2 hrs each

Place If possible let your interviewee

choose the setting Whose territory? Physical space as important as

symbolic positioning of the interview in the lives of your participants

Food, drink

Conduct during an interview How to begin? How to ask questions? ‘Pussyfooting’ around the informants –

avoiding confrontation Probing – What do you mean by that? Devil’s advocate – seeking out

confrontation Leading questions – suggesting an

answer

Examples Do you think the

media affects the way you feel about your body? WRONG!

Are men more religious than women? WRONG!

How are female bodies portrayed in the media? BETTER

How do men/women practise religion? BETTER

Truth and validity Interviewees wish to ‘tell it like it is’ Problematic Many interviewees believe in ‘objectivity’ ‘doing poststructuralism’ with your informants,

i.e. deconstructing the dominant discourses with them f.ex. ‘What do you think about the way eating disorders are perceived by the majority of people? Do you agree/disagree with these perceptions/opinions’?

Recording interviews

1. Notes2. Tape/digital recorder3. Video-recording

Most people agree but some may not and they usually have a good reason.

Transcription and Translation: a Linguistic and Ethnographic Task

Transcription – do it ASAP A laborious process Ethnographic translation –

interpreting, constructing, converting observations into words

Linguistic translation – collecting and presenting data in more than one language