Coming Unstuck as an Interviewer

Community Practitioner, 2010

Semi-structured interviewing is an important tool for gathering data in qualitative research. This paper explores some of the joys and challenges associated with research interviewing. It discusses some of the basic skills required to do interviewing well, some of the difficulties associated with interviewing on a practical and emotional level, and how to address them. Being a good interviewer in a research context means to be aware of the responsibility for the participants' wellbeing as well as one's own. Good listening skills and emotional control are among the most crucial skills to develop. This paper summarises some of the skills needed to remain or become a professional, empathetic and ethical interviewer in the context of community practice. If some basic guidelines are followed and combined with practice, the craft of interviewing can become an art.

What needs to be considered before collecting data through semi-structured interviews? How does thinking about analysis before questioning help or hinder interviewing practice? How should the strengths and weaknesses of the method be evaluated? To cite this paper: Newton, Nigel (2010) The use of semi-structured interviews in qualitative research: strengths and weaknesses. Paper submitted in part completion of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, University of Bristol. Retrieved online at http://www.academia.edu/1561689/The_use_of_semi-structured_interviews_in_qualitative_research_strengths_and_weaknesses on [date accessed]

IOSR Journals, 2022

This article aims to describe how the semi-structured interview is conducted in qualitative research. The main focus of this article is to explain how the interview is employed to obtain in-depth information. Based on these premises, this article discusses two thematically based accounts. First, the semi-structured interview is more powerful than other types of interviews for qualitative research because it allows for researchers to acquire indepth information and evidence from interviewees while considering the focus of the study. Second, it allows flexibility and adaptability for researchers to hold their track as compared to an unstructured interview, where its direction is not fully considered. This article uses extensive literature reviews related to the methodological reflections of researchers in qualitative research. Hence, the semi-structured interview could potentially enable qualitative researchers to amend their research questions throughout their studies while maintaining their track. The article further suggests that current qualitative researchers are required to be more concerned about how to use semi-structured interviews, especially when robust findings are the main objectives.

Bulletin of Shinshu Honan Junior College, Vol. 23, pp. 1 – 22., 2006

This study has looked at the use of semi-structured interviewing in educational research between native speakers and non-native speakers of English. It has viewed this type of interviewing from various perspectives, particularly focusing on context, topic control, turn-taking and the interview as a speech event influenced by classroom discourse. It has argued that the role of context lays at an interface between conversation analysts and linguistic anthropologists who dispute the manner of its application in the process of interpreting interview discourse. Of particular significance in this discussion is the work of Briggs (1986) whose work in ethnographic interviewing is seen in this study as having important lessons for the semi-structured interviewer.

SAGE Publications Ltd eBooks, 2015

This chapter is concerned •with introducing open-ended interviews, in other words, interviews in which the intent is to understand informants on their own terms and how they make meaning of their own lives, experiences, and cognitive processes. The interviews discussed here contrast with surveys and tests, both of which can be administered in oral form but are usually highly structured both in content and method by the researcher. The survey is typically used to find particular pieces of information or to determine the frequency of different responses in preset categories. The test is designed to see whether a respondent has knowledge of particular facts or procedures. Similarly, participant observation and collection of naturally occurring conversation can entail collection of verbal data but the researcher mllst infer the participants' meaning less directly than is possible through in-depth interviewing. The open-ended interview, often also

Oral History Review, 2010

The Qualitative Report, 2014

Qualitative interviewing is a flexible and powerful tool to capture the voices and the ways people make meaning of their experience Learning to conduct semi-structure interviews requires the following six stages: (a) selecting the type of interview; (b) establishing ethical guidelines, (c) crafting the interview protocol; (d) conducting and recording the interview; (e) crafting the interview protocol; and (f) reporting the findings. A researcher's personal journey in crafting an interview protocol to interview HIV researchers is summarized. She highlights that training and experience are crucial and identifies some readings that can help in the process.

The Journal of Language and Learning, 2004

This small-scale study has examined the interview-based methodology in which beliefs about English language teacher training and qualifications have been "unpacked" , that is elicited and analysed, among a group of English language teachers in Japan. Interviewing the native and non-native speakers of English in this case study has shown that the actual process of talking to teachers in semi-structured interviewing requires the compilation of contextual details about the interview and its participants to formulate an "ecological" (Erickson 1996) framework essential for the interpretation of the ensuing data. Also, of significant interest is that various personal issues not directly related to, and therefore seemingly irrelevant to, the interview themes discussed were frequently forthcoming and so were initially eliminated in the data reduction process. It is argued in this study that such eliminations, or "cuttings", may constitute an important extra insight into teacher beliefs (Wengraf 2001). Finally, the process of interviewing and reducing data creates what I term as its own 'methodological findings', in contrast to the data findings, which are important considerations for the final interpretation of the data.

Issues in Educational Research, 2021

Explicating interview approaches is significant for education research in understanding how the nuances of meaning from personal narratives uncover challenges and opportunities for investigating the lived experience across contexts. This paper considers interview approaches that focus on the reflexivity and meaning-making possible over a longitudinal timeframe for researcher and interviewee. Two methodological frameworks enabled a narrative oral history interview and a phenomenological lifeworld interview to establish variation in individual meaning-making, whilst eliciting understandings of shared social phenomena. We elucidate examples shared from the experience of teachers deemed as expert and interrogate the deliberations taken throughout a three-interview process. Reflexivity and the researcher's attendance to language, timing and open-ended prompting are some techniques considered for clarifying meaning in a small-scale Australian study. We argue that interrogating interview approaches for accessing deeper meaning-making of teacher professional learning further develops our understanding of interviewer-interviewee dynamics and the application of analytical frames.