Qualitative Research Interviews

Twelve aspects of qualitative Research Interviews:

1. Life world: the topic of qualitative interviews is the everyday lived world of the interviewee and his or her relation to it.

2. Meaning: the interview seeks to interpret the meaning of central themes in the life world of the subject. The interviewer registers and interprets the meaning of what is said as well as how it is said.

 

3. Qualitative: the interview seeks qualitative knowledge expressed in normal language; it does not aim at quantification.

4. Descriptive: the interview attempts to obtain open nuanced (a subtle difference in meaning or opinion or attitude) descriptions of different aspects of the subjects’ life worlds.

 

5. Specificity: descriptions of specific situations and action sequences are elicited, not general opinions.

6. Deliberate Naiveté (An artless, credulous, or uncritical statement or act): The interviewer exhibits openness to new and unexpected phenomena, rather than having readymade categories and schemes of interpretation.

 

7. Focused: the interview is focused on particular themes; it is neither strictly structured with standardized questions, nor entirely “nondirective”.

8. Ambiguity: interviewee statements can sometimes be ambiguous, reflecting contradictions in the world the subject live in.

 

9. Change: the process of being interviews may produce new insights and awareness and the subject may in the course of the interview come to change his or her descriptions and meanings about a theme.

10. Sensitivity: different interviewers can produce different statements on the same themes, depending on their sensitivity to the knowledge of the interview topic.

 

11. Interpersonal situation: the knowledge obtained is produced through the interpersonal interaction in the interview.

12. Positive experience: a well carried out research interview can be a rate and enriching experience for the interviewee, who may obtain new insights into his or her life situation.

Seven Features of Interview Knowledge:

1. Knowledge as produced: Interview knowledge is socially constructed in the interaction on the interaction of interviewer and interviewee.

2. Knowledge as relational: The researcher can focus on the knowledge produced inter the views of the interviewer and interviewee or concentrate on the interaction between two participants. The research interview establishes new relations in the human webs of interlocution, with the goal of producing knowledge about the human situation.

 

3. Knowledge as conversational: If we follow Socrates, we understand qualitative interviews as having potential of producing descriptions and narratives of everyday experiences as well as the epistemic knowledge justified discursively in a conversation.

4. Knowledge as contextual: the interview takes place in an interpersonal context, and the meanings of interview statements relate to their context. Interviews are sensitive to the qualitative differences and nuances of meaning, which may not be quantifiable and commensurable across contexts and modalities.

 

5. Knowledge as linguistic: Language is the medium of interview research, language is the tool of the interview process, and the resulting interview product is linguistic in the form of oral statements and transcribed text to be analyzed. Knowledge is constituted through linguistic interaction, and the participants’ discourses and their effects are of interest in their own right.

6. Knowledge as narrative: The interview is a key site for eliciting narratives that inform us of the human world of meanings.

 

7. Knowledge as pragmatic: when human reality is understood as conversation and action, knowledge becomes the ability to perform effective actions. Good research is research that works.

Elton Mayo’s Method of Interviewing:

1. Give your whole attention to the person interviewed, and make it evident that you are doing so.

2. Listen – don’t talk.

 

3. Never argue; never give advice

4. Listen to:
1. What he wants to say
2. What he does not want to say
3. What he cannot say without help

5. As you listen, plot out tentatively and for subsequent correction the pattern (personal) that is being set before you. To test this, from time to time summarize what has been said and present for comment (e.g.,” is this what you are telling me?”). Always do these with the greatest caution, that is, clarify in ways that do not add or distort.

6. Remember that everything said must be considered a personal confidence and not divulged to anyone.

Seven Stages of an Interview Inquiry:

1. Thematizing: formulate the purpose of an investigation and the conception of the theme to be investigated before the interviews start. The why and what of the investigation should be clarified before the question of how method is posed. For example, formulation of hypothesis about the influence of grading on pupils on the basis of precious studies.

2. Designing: plan the design of the study, taking into consideration all seven stages of the investigation, before interviewing. Designing the study of undertaken with regard to obtaining the intended knowledge and taking into account the moral implications of the study. For example, planning the interviews with 30 high school pupils and 6 teachers.

3. Interviewing: conduct the interviews based on an interview guide and with a reflective approach to the knowledge sought and the interpersonal relation of the interview situation. For example, a detailed guide was used for the individual interviews, each of which lasted about 45 minutes and was tape-recorded.

4. Transcribing: prepare the interview material for analysis, which generally includes a transcription from oral speech to written text. For example, all 36 pupil and teacher interviews were transcribed verbatim, resulting in about 1,000 pages of transcripts.

5. Analyzing: decide, on the basis of he purpose and topic of the investigation and of the nature of he interview material, which modes of analysis are appropriate for the interviews. For example, the 30 pupil interviews were categorized with respect to different forms of grading behavior. The interviews with pupils and the teachers were also subjected to more extensive qualitative interpretations.

6. Verifying: ascertain the validity, reliability, and generalizability of the interview findings. Reliability refers to how consistent the results are, and validity means whether an interview study investigates what is intended to be investigated. For example, reliability and validity checks were attempted throughout the project, including interviewer and scorer reliability, and validity of interpretations.

7. Reporting: communicate the findings of the study and the methods applied in a form that lives up to scientific criteria, takes the ethical aspects of the investigation into consideration, and results in a readable product. For example, the results were reported in a book and in journals articles.

 

Source: (Interviews - learning the craft of Qualitative Research Interviewing, Steiner Kvale & Svend Brinkmann )