7SSG5002

Practising Social Research

Lecture Six: Qualitative Data and Methods

Lecture Outline

1. Sources & methods of qualitative data collection

2. Role & purpose of interviews
3. Interview types
4. Planning interviews
5. Focus groups
6. Practicalities
7. Turning interview talk into data
8. Conclusions
1. Sources & methods of qualitative data
collection
‘Self-constructed’ ‘Pre-
(Cloke et al 2004) constructed’

Interviews Documentary & archives

Focus groups

Ethnography & Visual & material

participant observation objects
1. Sources & methods of qualitative data
collection
TALK TEXT

Interviews Documentary & archives

Focus groups

Ethnography & Visual & material

participant observation objects
2. The Role and Purpose of
Interviews

• Eliciting information about people, their perceptions &

experiences (i.e. fact collection: naturalism)
• Understanding their motivations, expectations and
rationales for actions (i.e. understanding & interpretation:
hermeneutics)
• Giving voice to their understandings and experiences in
their own words. (i.e. empowerment: critical social
science)
 Method of choice for many approaches
Interpretative
Social Science
Understanding via:
semi- structured but
open-ended interviews,
conducted ‘in-depth’

Fact collection via:

Large ‘panel’ surveys
(n=1000-10,000) with
structured interviews Empowerment via:
done ‘face-to-face’ or participatory
by ‘phone’ appraisal &
mapping or face-to-

Interviews face interviewing

Naturalist Critical/
Social Science Realist Social Science
 Same method, different methodological
commitments Methodological commitments
Interpretative
1. Subjective engagement
Social Science 2. Interpretations ‘made up’
3. reflexivity

Methodological
Commitments
Methodological 1. Changing the world,
commitments not just describing it
1. Empirical observation better
2. Value neutrality
3. Replication
(positivists only)
Interviews 2. Abstraction &
theorization
Key epistemic divide about knowledge
constructed via interview
V.

. Pre-existing and extracted by skilful

Naturalist/ questioning Critical/
Social Sci. realist social sci
3. Interview Types

• 4 main interview types:

• Structured interviews (can bleed into surveys…)
• Semi-structured interviews
• Open-ended interviews (narrative or oral history)
• Focused ‘group interviews’

• These can be undertaken to varying degrees of

structure and depth but all involve the interactional
exchange of dialogue (between two or more
participants, in face-to-face or other contexts).
Interview Types
depth

Detailed panel survey:

e.g. UK Household Longitudinal Survey
(n=~40,000 households, 35-60 min face-
to-face interview; £49m)
https://www.understandingsociety.ac.uk/

unstructured structured

Street corner intercept survey

c. 2 mins, 5 y/n questions
e.g. ONS for Travel Trends
http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/ott/trav
el-trends/2013/info-london.html

Quick/superficial
Interview Types
depth

In-depth interview: Detailed panel survey:

Like most of the transcripts e.g. UK Household Longitudinal Survey
in your project datasets (n=~40,000 households, 35-60 min face-
to-face interview; £49m)
https://www.understandingsociety.ac.uk

unstructured structured

Chance encounter noted in Street corner intercept survey

ethnographic field notes c. 2 mins, 5 y/n questions
e.g. ONS for Travel Trends
http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/ott/travel
-trends/2013/info-london.html

Quick/
superficial
 Trade-offs in interview design
depth

• Lots of detail • Lots of detail

• Open to surprise • Quantifiable
• Unstandardized • Standardized
• Slow & costly • Slow & costly

What are the

unstructured pros and cons structured
of these
different
• Quick & cheap to quadrants? • Quick & cheap to
get large sample get large sample
• Open to surprise • Quantifiable
• Unstandardized • Standardized
• Superficial • Superficial

Quick/superficial
4. Planning interviews

• What do you want to find out? Ensure your interview

questions relate to your research questions
• Anticipating the context and local culture
• How should you dress & behave?
• Power relations: how are you going to be received? And will
this ‘double hermeneutic’ influence how the interview is
likely to go?
• Ordering interview topics/ questions
• How can I break the ice and build rapport?
• Are there any structured questions that I need to ask
everyone in the same way?
• Keep them short and to the point. How many have you got
time for?
Topic and interview schedules

• Interview guides can

be quite specific,
covering types of
questions and how
they should be asked
(e.g. series of question
cards)
• But…
• Topic guides can be
quite sketchy; more by
way of a reminder of
subjects to cover in
the interview.
Question types

1. Exploratory – concerning thoughts, feelings,

opinions, effects and consequences.
2. Explanatory – reasons for action or “why?”
3. Amplificatory – encourage further elaboration
4. Clarificatory – clarify details, terms, meanings,
sequencing or inconsistencies.
Interview styles
Consider these transcripts

Asking open-
ended questions?

Seeking
confirmation?

How much ‘room’

is left for the
interviewee?

How might you

‘use’ the results?
5. Focus group interviews

• A group interview, 4-8 people.

• Research activity (not a therapy session)
• About interaction and consensus/disunity
• About content but also dynamics
• Not ‘natural’… need prompts to get going
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Auf9pkuCc8k
Why use a focus group?

• Compare and understand group views and how

meaning constructed through group interaction
• More than just multiple one-on-one interviews
done at once
• Shows how views and ideas stabilized through
group dynamics e.g. participants respond to each
other rather than a moderator
• Useful for accessing those who are nervous to be
interviewed on their own
• Dynamics. Think of a seminar - what can go wrong?
 6. Interview Practicalities: Sampling

• Whether for surveys or interviews, question of who you ask and

why are essential.
• Random? (randomness is calculated non-randomly)
• Systematic? (sample at pre-determined intervals: i.e. every fifth
address)
• Stratified? (select sample to reflect some feature of population:
i.e. male v. female students)
• Quota? (aim to achieve certain number from each group)
• Purposeful? (aimed at a particular group)
• Snowball? (“I’m talking to you by recommendation of….”)
 6. Interview Practicalities: Sampling

• Qualitative research often based on ‘theoretical sampling’ – a

term introduced by Barney Glaser and Anselm Strauss (1967) in
the context of the development of grounded theory
• Selection is made on the basis of relevance for your theory, in
order to produce a sample that will enable you to develop the
theoretical ideas that will be emerging in an iterative process
between your theory and your data, and to enable you to test
these emerging ideas
• Suggests that you will not necessarily start with your sample set in
stone, but will modify it and seek further cases in the light of your
ongoing analysis of data
Practicalities: Access/Recruitment

• Gatekeepers to help give access

• Introductions from trusted others
• Emails of approach? Cold Calls? Follow-ups?

• Convincing them to participate

• Explain what’s in it for them: Learning? Influence? Helping
others?
• Appeal to their status
• Can you give them something back ?
Practicalities: Ethics, consent,
confidentiality

• You will need KCL research ethics approval before doing human
subject research
• Explain broad nature & purpose of research so participants can
give an informed consent
• Consent needn’t necessarily be signed on the day; can
implied or collected via email; MUST be informed
• Clarify conditions (confidentiality, date of withdrawal etc.) on
use of their data
Practicalities: planning for…

• Things to prepare…
• Where will we meet and what should I wear?
• What equipment will you need? Recorder? Notepad? Extra
batteries?
• Confirming consent (to interview, to record, etc.)
• And to think through….
• Sensitive topics
• Anger, anxiety or distress?
• Ducking the question or rambling responses?
• In short, how do you retain control while allowing and fostering
freedom of expression?
Practicalities: emotional labour

• The interview ’dance’:

• “The researcher will initiate contact, a somewhat powerful
gesture, but then the interviewee might have strong preferences
as to where and when to meet . . . Once the interview actually
takes place, the interviewer begins by asking questions . . . the
researcher’s questions, however, are of little value without the
responses from the interviewee. Here, again, the power shifts
back to the respondent. Interviewees might condition their
replies on various responses of the interviewer . . . Sometimes the
interview process itself can seem threatening [to the
interviewee]” (Hoffman 2007: 337)
• Integral to the interview dance is the power of knowledge: who is a
knowing and approving expert and who is a vulnerable knowledge
seeker.
• Emotional labour as central to interviewing
7. Turning interviews into ‘data’

• Recording: gets everything but perhaps obtrusive?

• Memory: unobtrusive, but unreliable?
• Note-taking: unobtrusive, but can distract from the
interview… lose eye contact
• Transcription: slow going, expensive, labour
intensive: 4-10 hours transcription / hour of tape
• Combination?
 This is what to do:
1. Record if allowed…and scribble notes during interview
under headings set out in advance (e.g. a topic guide)
2. Headings remind what topics to ask about
 What to do next…

• Immediately after interview, write

up key highlights of what was said,
based on notes & memory
• That night, listen to the interview
recording
• Make index: write down timestamps
for the ‘good bits’
• Revise notes on the interview
• Is it worth transcribing in full? Just
parts? Not at all?
• Costly: £1/minute; 1hr tape takes 5-10
hours to transcribe
• Gives verbatim words: what does that
add?
Conclusions

• Interviewing widely used in social science, arrayed

along continuum from structured to unstructured,
and involving small or large numbers of
interviewees
• The philosophical approach of interviewing informs
choices about: interview style, tools, and
disposition of interviewer
• Attention must be paid to the social context of the
interview and concomitant:
• meanings and social relations
• power and emotional dynamics that shape
interviews