Assoc. Prof. Dr. Şehnaz Şahinkarakaş INTERVIEWING Assoc. Prof. Dr. Şehnaz Şahinkarakaş

INTERVIEWING The length may be 1,5 to 2 hours Researchers generally interview people to find out what they think or how they feel about something. In true qualitative interviews The length may be 1,5 to 2 hours To establish rapport with the interviewer To foster a climate of trust The interviewee is interviewed more than once To understand at a deeper level

Some details to attend to before the interview Make sure you are familiar with the settings where the interviewee works, studies, or lives Get hold of a good-quality voice recorder: you should record and then transcribe the interviews. If you take notes during the interviews, you might miss the language and the phrases Make sure the interview takes place in a setting that is quiet and private Interviewing is not easy; try to conduct some pilot interviews

Interviewing Behavior 1. Respect the culture of the group being studied. 2. Respect the individual being studied. Don’t use the interview time to criticize or evaluate the interviewee! 3. Be natural 4. Develop an appropriate rapport with the participant. Do not carry this relationship to an extreme!

5. Ask the same question in different ways during the interview 6. Ask the interviewee to repeat an answer or statement when there is some doubt about the completeness of a remark. 7. Vary who controls the flow of communication. In structured interviews, researcher controls but in informal interviews it is wise to let the interviewee take the control time to time

8. Avoid leading questions. E.g. “You wanted to do that, of course?” Instead, try to use open-ended questions. 9. Ask only one question at a time. 10. Don’t interrupt.

Preparing questions for interviews Questions should be open-ended (inviting the interviewee to participate in the discussion) Closed questions close down the conversation and provide little opportunity for gaining participant perspectives

A sample interview with closed questions Q: How do you think the course is going? A: Fine, just fine. Q: Have there been enough interesting classes to keep you coming to class? A: Sure. Q: What about the textbook? Do you find it worthwhile reading? A: Yeah. It’s not too bad. Q: Do you think I require too many assignments or too few? A: Definitely not too few!

A sample interview with open-ended questions Q: I’m interested in knowing what students think about my teaching and course readings and assignments. Thinking back over the semester so far, how would you describe this course to others? A: Hmm… Well, I would describe the course as usually quite interesting and involving. In lots of classes I just sit there, even if I have something to say. I don’t know why, but I participate more in your class. Maybe it’s because you have us do so many group things. Q: Well, it’s my intention to get students involved. I’d like to ask you a little about the textbook. How do you go about reading a chapter and preparing for discussion in class? A: I started off reading it like I do other textbooks: a lot at one sitting and doing lots of highlighting. But that didn’t really prepare me for ……

Question Typology (Patton, 1990, 2002) Six types of questions to be asked in an interview: Experience/behavior questions: Provide information about what the participant does or has done. May be useful to begin an interview E.g. What kinds of things do you do on this job?

Opinion/value questions: Provide information about what a person thinks (also a person’s intentions, desires, and expectations) E.g. What’s your opinion /What do you think about the new education policy? Feeling questions: ask about affective states/emotions E.g. What kinds of feelings did you experience when you heard about the new education system?

Knowledge questions: Provide info about a participant’s factual knowledge (what they know about the topic) E.g. What are the main changes in the new education system? Sensory questions: Provide information about what the participant has seen, heard, touched, tasted, or smelled. E.g. How did the teachers react when they first heard about the new system?

Background/demographic questions: Provide additional information that aids in understanding the respondent’s lived experiences, characteristics, and perspective. E.g. What is your primary responsibility right now? Be careful! Ask sociodemographic information (age, marital status, years of experience, etc.) only if it is really necessary. Ask such questions unobtrusively at various points. E.g. So, you’ve been at this job for five years. How old were you when you started here?

Format of an interview Three main formats: Structured interview (The interview schedule) Semi-structured interview (The interview guide) Unstructured interview

Structured Interviews (Interview schedule) A set of questions designed to be asked exactly as worded The questions appear in the order in which they are to be asked. The questions are designed so they can be administered verbatim, exactly as they are written.

Advantages/Disadvantes of Structured/Formal Interviews Interviewees answer the same questions, thus increasing comparability of responses Reduces interviewer effects and bias Facilitates organization and analysis of the data Disadvantages Standardized wording of questions may constrain and limit naturalness and relevance of questions May be perceived as impersonal, irrelevant, and mechanistic

Sample structured interview questions 1. Describe the most embarrassing situation you experienced while you were learning English. What was the situation, what did you do, what happened as a result? What would you do differently if you experienced a similar circumstance now? 2. What motivates you most at work? How does this affect the work that you do? How does it affect the relationships you have with your colleagues? 3. Tell me about the best class you have ever taken. What was the class? Why was it good?

Semi-Structured Interviews (Interview Guide) List of topics, themes, or areas to be covered and transfered into open-ended questions Does not enter the interview with a lot of pre-determined questions Is constructed in such a way as to allow flexibility and fluidity (The questions can be altered during the interview) The most common type of interview in qualitative studies

Advantages/Disadvantes of Semi-Structured Interviews Gives the interviewer a degree of power and control over the course of interviews Gives the interviewer a great deal of flexibility The outline increases the comprehensiveness of the data and makes data collection somewhat systematic for each interviewee Interviews remain fairly conversational and situational Disadvantages Interviewer flexibility can result in substantially different responses from different perspectives, thus reducing the comparability of response

Sample semi-structured interview questions 1. Please describe the way you chose to explore the XXXX system: Where did you start from and how did you carry on? 2. Which applications did you like most? Please explain why. 3. Did you find the applications comfortable/easy to use? Please explain in what way.

Follow-up questions detail-oriented probes (specifying): following up what has ben said through direct questioning What did you do then? How did X react to what you said? Who was with you? Elaboration probes: getting the interviewee to elaborate his/her answer (to tell us more) What do you mean by that? Aaaannd? Can you give me an example of what you are talking about? Clarification probes: trying to understand what the interviewee is talking about when you are not sure. I am not sure I understand what you mean by ‘hanging out’. Can you help me understand what that means?

Unstructured/Informal Interviews Questions emerge from the immediate context and are asked in the natural course of things There is almost no predetermination of questions, topics or wording Interviewer almost has no control so interview is relatively unpredictable Not easy to conduct because it is difficult to determine Whether the question is too personal To what extent the researcher should ask deeper questions, etc

Developing the question It is possible to use single open-ended question to frame a qualitative interview. How can you prepare the single question? Develop an extensive set of open-ended questions Discuss these questions with colleagues/researchers.. Decide on a question that captures the core of the inquiry E.g. What school-based practices contribute to academic failure at this school? What are your greatest strengths and weaknesses in learning a foreign language? Let’s talk about how you view teaching young learners. Tell me about your best class while learning English.

Advantages/Disadvantes of Unstructured Interviews Increases the salience and relevance of questions Interviews are built on and emerge from observations The interview can be matched to individuals and circumstances Disadvantages Different information collected from different people with different questions Less systematic and comprehensive if certain questions do not arise ‘naturally’ Data organization and analysis can be quite difficult

Let’s Practice Imagine you want to carry out research on «What do the novice and experienced teachers think about the new education system in Turkey?» Work in pairs/groups (or individually) and ask some questions/or identify sub-topics you want to discuss. Now interview someone using your questions. (You can use any type of interview)