Ethnographic Interviewing

Guiding the Interview

A questionnaire written to guide interviews is called an interview schedule or
interview guide. Field researchers typically employ unstructured or semistructured interviews to ask questions. This conversational approach yields
flexibility in that an answer to one question may influence the next question
the researcher wishes to ask.
Asking questions:
What is interesting from the respondents point of view?
What is interesting from the researchers point of view?
Dont ask sociological questions.
"Why" questions should be translated into "how" questions.
"Why" questions often result in justifications.
"How" questions tell you something about the process.
Examples:
"How did you happen to come here/be this?"
"How did you feel at this time about this point?"
"How did you talk to ...?"
"What do you think about ...?"
"What did you do then?"
"What did you like the most/the least?"
Dont ask leading questions. Dont put the answer into the respondents
mouth.
"Dont you think ..."
"Dont you agree ..."
Probes: elaboration on a specific subject sit and wait take the last
statement and turn it into a question make a non-committal response
(simply nod your head, etc.) ask for examples
"Was ... this what you expected?"
"How so/how not?"
"How did you feel about this?"
"Could you elaborate on this?"
"You talked previously about ..., can you tell me more about that?"
If something is left out at the end of the interview, mention it and find out
why it is left out.
At the end of the interview ask:
"Do you think that important things were left out? Which topics?"
Sample Questions for the Life History Interview - Robert Atkinson (1998):
The Life Story Interview
Childhood and Adolescence

How would you describe your parents when you were growing up?
o What were some of the best and worst things about them?
o What do you think you inherited from them?
What is your earliest memory?
What was growing up in your house or neighborhood like?
What do you remember most about growing up with, or without brothers
and sisters?
What were some of your struggles as a child?
o What was the saddest time for you?
How was discipline handled in your family?
What would you say was the most significant event in your life up to age
12?
What pressures did you feel as a teenager and where did they come from?
What did you do for fun and entertainment?
What was the most trouble you were ever in as a teenager?
What was the most significant event of your teenage years?
What was being a teenager like? The best part? The worst part?
What was your first experience of leaving home like?
Were you in the military?
o What was this experience like?

Qualitative Research: Interviewing. Retrieved November 1, 2008 from

http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/ardelt/Aging/QualInt.htm