Doing Qualitative Interview (updated jan 2011)

Hangzhou, January 2011Prof. Dr. Hora Tjitra, Zhejiang University

Doing Qualitative Interviewing 访谈方法 - An Introduction

An Introduc+on to Qualita+ve Interviewing

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14 years in Germany

7 years in China

Born and grew up in Indonesia

Prof. Dr. Hora Tjitra - Cross-cultural and Business Psychology

Dipl.-Psych., Technical University of BraunschweigOrganizational Psychology and Human Resource Management

Dr. Phil., University of RegensburgIntercultural Psychology and Strategic Management

Executive Education, INSEADHR Management in Asia


Outline

1 Qualitative data collection - interview 4

2 Qualitative Interview 6

3 Different types of (qualitative) interview? 13

4 Doing qualitative interviewing? 17

5 Quality criteria for a good interview 22

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Data Collection

Preparation Process

Analyzing Process

Process of Qualitative Research

Single Case Analyses

Document Analyses Action Research Field Research Qualitative

ExperimentsQualitative Evaluation

Qualitative Research Process: From Ideas (Questions) to Results (Theory)

Writing Qualitative Research Report

Qualitative Research Design

The Foundations and Pillars of Qualitative Thinking

Research Topics, Problems and Questions (Hypotheses)


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Qualitative Data

Focus Group聚焦小组

Interview访谈

Observation 观察,Ethnography 民族志,Visual Data可视数据

Qualitative Data Collection 定性数据收集

Whom of you have any experiences in doing interview? as interviewer or interviewee? ?


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Life world Meaning Qualitative Specificity DeliberateDescriptive

Focused Ambiguity Change Sensitivity Interpersonal Situation

Positive Experience

The Purpose of Qualitative Research Interview treated is to obtain descriptions of the lived world of the interviewees with respect to interpretations of the

meaning of the described phenomena.

Aspects of Qualitative Research Interviews


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Interviewing is a concern with subjective meaning rather than with eliciting responses

Interviews can permit exploration of issues that maybe too complex to investigate through quantitative means.

Doing interview is a salutary lesson in research involvement and practice.

The questions of power relations in the research.

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Four main reasons for conducting interviews实施访谈的四个主要理由


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Knowledgeable

Qualification Criteria for the Interviewer

Structuring

Clear

Gentle

Sensi4ve Open

Interpre4ng

Remembering

Cri4cal

Steering

Qualification Criteria for the Interviewer访谈者的资格标准


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Thematizing

Formulate the purpose of an investigation and describe the concept of the topic to be investigated before the interviews start.

Designing

Considerate all seven stages to obtain the intended knowledge and taking into account the moral implication.

Interviewing

Base on interview guide, reflective approach to the knowledge sought and the interpersonal relation of the interview situation

Transcribing

Prepare the interview material for analysise, including a transcription from oral speech to written text.

Analyzing

Decide methods of analysis

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Reporting

A readable product

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Verifying

Ascertain generalizability, reliability, validity

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Seven Stages of Interview Investigation


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1. Which form of learning mo1va1on dominates in high school?

2. Do the grades promote an external, instrumental mo1va1on at the expense of an intrinsic interest mo1va1on for learning?

3. Does learning for grades socialize to working for

Do you find the subjects you learn important?

Do you find learning interes1ng itself?

What is your main purpose in going to high school?

Have you experienced a conflict between what you wanted to read (study) and what you had to read to obtain a good grade?

Have you been rewarded with money for good grades?

Do you see any connec1on between money and grades?

Research and interview questions: Learning motivation and performance


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• Basic descriptive questions– Can you talk to me about your car accident? Tell me what

happened on that evening?– Describe how you felt that evening?

• Follow-up questions – You mentioned that “planning time” is important to you. Can

you tell me how you use planning time?• Experience/example questions

– You mentioned that you loved going to London. Can you give me an example or two of what made you love London?

– Talk about your impressions of London.• Simple clarification questions

– You have used the term “constructivist teacher” today. Can you clarify that for me? What exactly can you talk about regarding your constructivist teaching?

• Structural/paradigmatic questions– You state that this class was a problematic one. What would

you describe as the cause of these problems?– Of all the things you have told me about being a critical care

nurse, what is the underlying premise of your work day? In other words, what keeps you going everyday?

• Comparison/contrast questions– You said there was a big difference between a great principal

and an ordinary principal. What are some of these differences? Can you describe a few for me?

Types of interview questions 访谈问题的类型

How many kind of interviewsdo you know or aware of? - what are the main differences between them ? ?


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Semi-structured Interview半结构化访谈

Narratives as data

Focused Interview

Semi-standardized Interview

Expert Interview

Problem-centred Interview

Ethnographic Interview

Narratives Interview叙述式访谈

Episodic Interview插话式访谈

Adapted from Flick, 2002

Interviewing method as an effective qualitative verbal data


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• It is regarded as a specific forms of applying semi-‐structured interviews. In contrast to biographical interviews, here the interviewee is of less interest as a (whole) person than in his or her capacity o being an expert for a certain field of ac1vity.

• The interview guide has a much more stronger direc1ve func1on with regard to excluding unproduc1ve topics.

Some possible problems in conducting the interviews:

• The expert blocks the interview in its course, because he or she proves to be not an expert for this

topic as previously assumed.

• The expert tries to involve the interviewer in ongoing conflicts in the field and talks about internal

maLers and intrigues in his or her work field instead of talking about the topic of the interview.

• He or she oMen changes between the roles of expert and private persons, so that more informa1on results about him or her as a person than about his or her expert knowledge.

• As an intermediate form between success and failure, the “rhetoric interview” is men1oned. I this, the

expert gives a lecture on his or her knowledge instead of joining the ques1on-‐answer game of the interview. If the lecture hits the topic, this form of interac1on makes it more difficult to return to the

actual relevant topic.

Meuser and Nagel (1991, pp. 449-450)

The expert interview from Meuser and Nagel (1991)


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• This interview method is generally used in combining with participative observation in the context of field research.

• The method should help how to shape conversa1ons arising in the field into interviews in which unfolding of the other’s specific experiences is aligned with issue of the research in a systema1c way.

• It is best to think of ethnographic interviews a series of “friendly conversa1ons” into which the researcher slowly introduces new elements to assist informants to respond as informants.

Some elements which distinguish ethnographic interviews from such “friendly conversations”:

• A specific request to hold the interview (resul1ng from the research ques1on)

• Ethnographic explana1ons, in which the interviewer explains the project (why an interview): these are completed everyday language explana1ons and interview explana1on and explana1on of certain type of ques1ons.

• Ethnographic ques1ons, I.e. descrip1ve ques1ons, structural ques1ons and contrast ques1ons.

Spradley (1979, pp 59-60)

The Ethnographic interview（民族志访谈）from Spradley (1980)

Qualitative Research Method

@ Tjitra, 2010

What are the most important factors in doing good qualitative interviewing?

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?


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The Interviewing Relationship is a Research Partnership

• The interviewer and the respondent will work together to produce information useful to the research project.

• The interview will define the areas for explora9on and will monitor the quality of the material. The respondent will provide the kind of report that is needed, accep9ng the interviewer’s guidance regarding topics.

• The interviewer will not ask ques9ons out of idle curiosity.

• The interviewer will respect the respondent’s integrity.

• Respondent will not be damaged or disadvantaged because of the par9cipa9on in the interview.


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Guidelines to know the needed information and to help respondents provide it

Scenes and eventsExternal to the

respondent

Respondent’s own thoughts and feelings

concrete descriptions of something he or she has witnessed

What is it you want to obtain?• Asking respondents to particularize (Last 1me you went to court) just what happened? • Discussion of the most recent occurrence

•Be wary of the generalized present or generalized past to get a density of detail ( what happens while you’re wai1ng to be called? or What happened while you were wai1ng to be called? The later one is beLer.)

• Questions to ask (Helping respondents develop informa1on, markers, etc.)• Managing the interview (Intrusions, talking about yourself, etc.)


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The effects of interviewing on respondent and interviewer

What is it like to be a respondent?

Interviewing provides respondents with an opportunity to talk about maLers of emo1onal importance while remaining at an emo1onal middle distance: close enough to the emo1ons to experience them but distant enough to maintain self-‐control.

Interviewing may cause someone to reflect on his or her life and make changes.

One risk is a consequence of the 1me-‐limited nature of the interviewing rela1onship. The experiencing a sense of loss.

A respondent regreLed having talking too freely in the interview is a very few occasions. They may concerned that they will be iden1fiable in the publica1ons.

If the study is needed, an interviewer do have the right to ask respondents about poten1ally painful material.

What is it like to sit and listen?

Sometimes exhilarated, sometimes only a task. Feel privileged to have been admitted in to someone else’s private experience.

Feel in tune with the other person’s rhythm of speaking and thought, to see the world through the other person’s eyes.

Emotionally understand someone’s account without allowing my attention to be captured by my own feelings and thoughts.

“ I am totally in the interview, aware of it and nothing more.” ( Csikszentmihalyi )

Usually tiring. It take energy to maintain an unswerving attention. Some interviews leave me feeling washed out.


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Issues of Validity: Do respondents tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?

I did not invent events that had not occurred.

Nor can we be sure we will be told the precise truth.

There are some kinds of events that we are unlikely to hear about unless we have established an interviewing relationship in which there is extraordinary trust. People will not endanger themselves to contribute to social truth.

Information is context dependent.

Our best guarantee of the validity of our material is careful, concrete level, interviewing within the context of the a good interviewing relationship.


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Quality criteria for an interview 一个访谈的质量标准

• The extent of spontaneous, rich, specific, and relevant answers from the interviewee.

• The shorter the interviewer’s ques4ons and the longer the subjects’ answer, the beIer.

• The degree to which the interviewer follows up and clarifies the meaning of the relevant aspects of the answers.

• The ideal interview is to a large extent interpreted throughout the interview.

• The interviewer aIempts to verify his or her interpreta4ons of the subject’s answers in the course of the interview.

• The interview is “self-‐communica4ng” -‐ it is a story contained in itself and that hardly requires much extra descrip4ons.

Kvale, 1996


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The qualitative research interview is NOT:

1. Scientific, but only reflects common sense2. objective, but subjective3. trustworthy, but biased4. reliable, it rests upon leading questions5. intersubjective, different readers find different

meaning6. a scientific method, it is too person dependent7. scientific hypothesis testing, only explorative8. quantitative, only qualitative9. generalizable, there are too few subjects10. valid, it relies on subjective impressions

Discussion: Standard reactions to qualitative interview


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Individualistic

IdealisticIntellectualistic

Cognitivist

Immobile

Verbalizing

Alinguistic

Arhetorical

Atheoretical

Insignificant

Interview Research

Ten Internal Critiques of Interview Research


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Final Summary

Get started with the easy ques/ons, step by step, maybe to do the interview with Chinese respondents, we should spent more /me to build the research relationship

Pay your a:en/on on the two important Guidelines: questions to ask & managing the Interview

Matching interviewers to respondents, we should consider this point the Project. Esp. on the race, cultural background and ethnicity

Thank You

Contact us via …

Mail: [email protected]: twitter@htjitraWebsite: http://horatjitra.com

Zhejiang University, Hangzhou (China)

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Doing Qualitative Interview (updated jan 2011)

Education

Transcript of Doing Qualitative Interview (updated jan 2011)