Chapter 8

INTERVIEW
INTERVIEW
Interviews:
Enable researchers to obtain information they cannot
gain by observation alone
A conversation between:

A researcher (someone who wishes to gain

information about a subject);

An informant (someone who presumably

has information of interest on the subject)

Is a qualitative methodology.
INTERVIEW
Interviews:
Face-to-face interview: Mindful of
nonverbal communication:
Facial expression (biểu cảm khuôn mặt)
Emotional states (trạng thái cảm xúc)
Four Kinds of Research Interviews
PROBLEMS WITH FOCUS GROUPS
Focus groups:
Free-form discussions by a group of usually 6 -12 individuals.
Led by a moderator.
To obtain information about some topic.
Are commonly used by advertising agencies/ other
organizations to get an idea of how people feel about
product/ service or during elections.
PROBLEMS WITH FOCUS GROUPS
Zaltman (2003):
With 5 or 10 topics and 8 people, leaders only can devote a
couple of minutes to each topic with each person.
Focus groups can be skewed by:
Social dominance (Participants may be influenced by dominant
personalities in the group).
Members’ eagerness to please, anxiety about privacy.
WHY WE USE INTERVIEWS
How to interview people
Obtain informant’s Surname and given name, Date and place of birth, Gender, Race, Religion,
information (if Ethnicity, Occupation, Information on siblings, family life, occupation of
possible) parents.

Guarantee
anonymity Explain to your informants/ respondents the anonymity

Make sure you’re

Record if possible->if not, then jot down notes-> if not write down immediately
accurate
after the interview.

Avoid leading
An example of leading question: “Is that because your teacher favors men
questions
over women?”
How to interview people
Have your informants
For unfamiliar terms: Let your informants give their own definition; don’t ask
define terms
them whether your understanding of a term is correct.

Make sure your questions don’t get off-track;

Stay focused
Focus on getting more details about your informants’ answer

Make sure your Unclear questions will receive ambiguous and relatively
questions are clear useless answers
How to interview people
1. “And then what happened?” 2.
“Who was involved?”
3. “When did it happen?”
Ask for
4. “Why did it happen?”
amplifications
5. “Where did it happen?”
and examples
6. “What was the result?”
7. “How do you feel about it?”
 Kinds of Question

Question type Descriptive Structural Constract questions

questions questions

Ask informants to Help the researcher to find

Purpose Explore relationships
describe the similarities, differences, and
among the terms
phenomena relative importance of
informants use
informants’ concepts
Can be ranking/rating questions

“How do you use your “Would you describe text

“You talk about watching online
Example social networking sites in a messaging as part of your movies, watching online movies
typical day?” social networking?”
with your friends, and relaxing with
online movies. Which of the two of

these three are most similar?”

 Questions Investigative
Reporters Ask
The reporter may ask questions of WHO, WHAT,
WHEN, WHERE, WHY and HOW.
Prepare some questions before the interviews. Be
nonjudgmental.
Use “Uh-huh” and other phatic communications. Take
notes about other matters.
Be a good listener.
 Questions Investigative
Reporters Ask
A TYPICAL INTERVIEW PROTOCOL:
A title or heading for the interview.
Instructions for the interviewer to follow.
A list of key questions to be asked.
Follow-up questions (or probes) once the key
questions have been asked.
Comments and notes by the interviewer
relative to the interview.
The Structure of Conversations and
Interviews
Conversations (extremely informal interviews) and
interviews (conversations with a defined purpose) share
a common structure.

This structure is shown as follows:

Q&AQ&AQ&AQ&AQ&AQ&AQ&A
The Structure of Conversations and
Interviews
Labov and Waletzky suggested that when informants
discuss things with interviewers, researchers can
generally find one or more of the following functions
in a given segment ofconversation.
Almost every interview segment can have a particular function and can be labeled by
one of the symbols.
Transcribing Recorded
Interviews
Apps to transcribe recorded interviews with various accuracy:
Transcribe (free)
Recordly ($2/hour)
Sonix (first 30 minutes free)
Trint (free trial then $15 an hour)
Making Sense of Transcribed
Interviews
When you have the interviews transcribed and have
checked them for accuracy, the next step is to look for
information that will be useful to you.

What “facts” did you learn? What information

about people, practices, ideas, beliefs... did

you get? (And how reliable is it?)

Making Sense of Transcribed
Interviews
Classify and categorize the material in the transcripts:

Using the functions in the Labov and Waletzky

chart; determining whether a given passage

functions as an abstract, an orientation, a

sequence of action, an evaluation, or a

resolution.
Making Sense of Transcribed
Interviews
Classify and categorize the material in the transcripts: We
should also see how our informant categorizes
things.
How are old and young and good and bad defined
by the informant?
What kinds of groups are mentioned?
How does the respondent categorize people—by
age, membership in a group, gender, occupation,
status?
Making Sense of Transcribed
Interviews
The purpose of looking for classifications and
categories:
Get a sense of how informants’ minds work.
Important clues about their culture,
subculture, or group.
Coding

Researchers use coding to help identify common themes and topics

that may emerge from the interview transcripts. These common themes
will help researchers see what is important to informants and what is
secondary
Coding
Guide to the process of coding (Creswell, 1994)
1. Read over the material as a whole and get an overview of it. 2. Pick
one transcript and examine it carefully, looking for
topics covered.
3. Do this for several transcripts and make a list of all the
topics that were covered.
Coding

Guide to the process of coding (Creswell, 1994)

4. Make abbreviations for each topic and go through the transcripts, putting
down the appropriate abbreviation beside each example of a given topic.

If your topics list doesn’t cover all the material, see if you can
think up new topics that will help you do the job.
Coding

Guide to the process of coding (Creswell, 1994)

5. Turn your topics into categories. Make sure that the categories cover all
your transcripts and don’t duplicate one another.
6. Decide on a final set of abbreviations for your categories and alphabetize
them. You now have an alphabetical list of codes in the transcripts.
Coding

Guide to the process of coding (Creswell, 1994)

7. Assemble all the material found under each category in one place
and analyze it to see what you find.
8. See whether you can refine your coding and get fewer and
more descriptive categories.
 Coding
R. C. Bogdan and S. K. Biklen suggested
using abstract coding categories as topics:
Setting and context codes
Perspectives held by subjects
Subjects’ ways of thinking about
people and objects
Process codes
Activity codes
Strategy codes
Relationship and social structure
codes
Preassigned coding schemes
Problems With
Interview Material
Problems researchers face in dealing with informants and respondents:

People don’t always tell the truth.

People don’t always remember things accurately.

People don’t always have useful information.

People sometimes tell you what they think you want to

hear.
People use language in different ways.
THANK YOU