not just talking – more active process to create meaning
good way to get exploratory, descriptive, explanatory data
can use alone or together with other methods both qual and quant
take less time to get data than observations/field work – get examples for thick description, get better understanding of a topic you don’t know much about
quant interviews – surveys – standardized (usually close-ended) questions asked of everyone
qual interviews – issue oriented – focused – based around specific topic(s) – (oral histories go for the whole life history), best ones are when the respondent wants to tell their story (informed consent – make sure they know what you’re dong and why, let htem ask questions about hte process)
picking people to interview – convenience sample, snowball sample
pick a place where both people are comfortable talking
in person, email, telephone – talking faster than writing and more spontaneous, in person you get to see facial expressions and easier to build rapport and keep them talking
structured interviews – ask everybody the same general set of questions, if the subject strays off topic you guide them back on the topic you decided on even if what they bring up is interesting, this kind of interview makes it easier to compare responses between people and there’s less interference from teh interviewer who supposedly is acting the same wiht all subjects, get the subjects own words, own explanations about the topic
semi-structured interviews – ou have some questions you want to cover and you try to keep the conversation losely on those uesitons, but you give the subject some freedom to talk about other things of interest to them, more natural flow of conversation, subjects often know things that hte researchers don’t and wouldn’t think of briniging up – so good to let the subjects set the pace/direction
low/no structure – you have general topic you want to cover and maybe a few very broad general questions to get started but no preset questions, just let subject take the conversation whereever they want and you react, very individualized results – every interview completely different least amount of researcher control
listen for clues in the interview that there are things the subject isn’t talking about – these are called markers – might say well there was a lot going on then or suggest other people had different motivations…go back to them as appropriate in the interview
need to take some time to be reflexive about the process – how researchers background, experiences, assumptions have affected the interviews
analyzing data – key to remember is that data collectio ana analysis go together – one doesn’t collect data first and then analyze the big pile of trasncripts – do some analysis on each one, memo to yourself about your hunches, look for negative cases, think about what doesn’t fit your first interpretation, analysis is iterative – as ya collect more ddtaa go back and look at existing interviews to see if newinterpretations necessary, be sure to write down if anything is different about the process of one interview or if you decide to change your line of questining along the way – memo makes sure you remember hte thought process when you get ready to do the full write-up
create coding categories after a few interviews – apply them to your existing interviews, add tot he codes as necessary
organize the info in the transcripts by themes and write yurself a memo to explain and justify the theme so you don’t forget how it came about – and be sure to include anti-examples = things that don’t fit the theme
you can include questions based on your analysis in future interviews – ask people if the themes you think you see make sense to them
look for deviant extreme cases – they may help break your initial interpretation or show you the borders of it
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