The Interview

interview is a method of gathering information through direct communication involving

reciprocal exchange. Interviews differ with regard to many variables, such as their purpose,
length, and nature. Nonverbal Behavior can also be assessed include body language, facial
expressions, eye contact. willingness to cooperate, reaction to interview demands. appearance
(e.g., neat vs sloppy, appropriate vs inappropriate dress).
Formats of Interviews:
Face-to-face (ideal for observing nonverbal cues).
Telephone (sensitive to voice pitch, pauses, emotional tone).
Electronic formats: online, email, text messaging.
Purpose of Interviews:
Diagnostic, treatment, selection, or decision-making.
School psychologists – educational interventions or class placements.
Court psychologists – mental state during crime.
Head injury specialists – brain damage assessment.
Consumer psychologists – market and advertising research.
Police psychologists – enhance eyewitness memory (e.g., eyes closed technique).
panel interview (also referred to as a board interview) is more than one interviewer
participates in the assessment. A presumed advantage of this personnel assessment technique
is that any idiosyncratic biases of a lone interviewer will be minimized. A disadvantage of the
panel interview relates to its utility; the cost of using multiple interviewers may not be
justified.
Interviewers differ in many ways: their pacing of interviews, their rapport with interviewees,
and their ability to convey genuineness, empathy, and humor

Type of interview
1. Non-directive interview
Interview in which interviewer does not direct discussion and remains non-judgemental.
Interviewee can talk about anything they like. Psychologist provides no directing influence
over the topics. Offers reflective support throughout the session.
The main aim would be to help the ‘client’ increase self-awareness and deal with personal
problems.
This method would be used by psychotherapists and counsellors, and the main aim would not
be academic research data gathering.
Though not for formal research, clients explore their own experiences, which may indirectly
provide useful information.
Can be part of a case study
The insights derived from such studies often get drawn together into an overall psychological
theory, model or approach that adds, in time, to the pool of knowledge and ideas. These may
become a stimulus for further research by other means.
2 Informal
An informal interview has an overall research data-gathering aim. It is directive only to the
extent of keeping the interviewee on the topic and perhaps adding prompts when they ‘dry
up’.
Interviewees can talk in their own terms in the relaxed atmosphere of the informal interview.
They don’t have to answer pre-set questions that they might find confusing or that they just
don’t wish to answer. They are not constrained by fixed-answer questions that produce rather
narrow information.
Used in
Social science research (historically).
Now popular in applied research and qualitative methods.
3 The semi-structured interview (informal but guided)
Interview with pre-set list of topics but in which an informal conversational tone is attempted
and the interviewer ‘plays it by ear’ as to whether sufficient information has been provided by
the interviewee.
Informal in tone, but guided by an outline of topics and required information.
Does not use a fixed order of questions.
Interviewers decide how and when to ask questions during the interview.
Questions can be adapted or omitted if answers emerge spontaneously.
If necessary, answers are not provided naturally, the interviewer returns to those topics.
Usage:
Most popular form in qualitative research.
Interview data can be used for content analysis and partial quantification.
Advantages:
Natural conversation flow.
Allows respondents to explore unplanned ideas.
Offers flexibility for interviewer to pursue emerging themes.
Disadvantages:
Low reliability.
Limited comparability across participants.
4 Structured but open-ended
Uses a standardized procedure with pre-set questions asked in a predetermined order.
Designed to reduce inconsistency and interpersonal variability in interview data.
All interviewees receive the same questions in the same order.
Maintains consistency in data collection.
Response Style:
Questions are open-ended—respondents can answer freely in their own words.
Closed and leading questions are avoided.
Purpose:
Balances standardization with freedom of response.
Useful in minimizing
5 Fully structured
Uses pre-set, ordered, and fixed-answer questions.
Highly standardized and limited in flexibility.
Questions are closed-ended, similar to a questionnaire.
Can be conducted face-to-face, by telephone, post, computer, or online.
Minimizes interpersonal variables, reducing bias.
Commonly used in street surveys (e.g., someone with a clipboard).
Responses are quantifiable and can be numerically analysed.
Criticisms:
Respondents may feel restricted, e.g., when wanting to say “yes, but…” or “sometimes”.
Lacks natural conversational flow.
Often rejected in contemporary psychological research.
Misses key features of normal human interaction, such as checking mutual understanding,
flexibility in wording, encouraging open expression.
[Link] clinical method (or ‘clinical interview’)
A data-gathering and hypothesis-testing approach.
Specific answers are sought, but there is flexibility to rephrase questions and probe further if
needed.
Aims for specific data but avoids rigidity in questioning.
Used to explore deeper knowledge or understanding, especially when the interviewee seems
to misunderstand or understate their knowledge.
The clinical method involves natural conversation to get accurate responses, without
unintentionally influencing the child to give the “right” answer.
Purpose:
Helps avoid the artificiality of rigid questioning.
More natural to the respondent, especially in cases where rigid questions might lead to
incorrect responses.
Particularly important for children, who may fail to answer correctly due to misunderstanding
the question’s wording.
Criticisms:
Non-standardized procedures may lead to validity concerns (e.g., difficulty in comparing
results across interviews).
7. Open ended interview
A type of qualitative interview where questions are broad and non-restrictive.
Encourages free and detailed responses from the participant.
Used in research, counselling, job interviews and journalism.
Questions are usually not pre-set or are loosely structured.
Helps explore thoughts, feelings, experiences, and motivations.
Allows for rapport building and deeper understanding of the individual.
Flexible format Generates rich descriptive data.
Requires active listening and good interviewing skills.
Analysis can be time consuming and subjective.
Achieving and maintaining rapport in interviews.
Establishing rapport is essential in unstructured or semi- structure interviews, where the
quality of interaction between interviewer and interviewee significantly impacts the depth
and authenticity of information obtained.
Language
Understand and respect the terminology, dialect, or slang used by the interviewee. Avoid
patronizing by explaining concepts using appropriate language and concrete examples.
Ensure the interviewee feels their normal conversational style is legitimate and valued.
Neutrality
Adopt a non-judgemental stance especially with sensitive topics. Use neutral verbal cues to
show engagement without evaluation. Avoid any moral or emotional judgments in responses.
Listening skills
Demonstrate active listening through silence, attentiveness, and relevant follow-ups. Avoid
dismissive phrases like “that’s interesting, but let’s move on”. Pick up on qualified responses
and give space for elaboration. Not being too quick or dominant in offering an interpretation
of what the interviewee was trying to say.
Active listening skills
Be affective
Clarify/ ask questions
Paraphrase
Give feedback

Show empathy

Be open to understanding

Summarize

Interest
Show authentic interest in the interviewee’s responses. Value the interviewee’s time and
input. Avoid judging or labelling any participant as a bad interviewee Be adaptable in
approach based on individual needs.
Non-verbal communication
Maintain appropriate eye contact offer supportive gestures like head nods and use controlled
body movements Be sensitive to interviewee’s non-verbal cues Ensure comfortable seating
arrangements and avoid a dominating posture or tone.
Natural questioning
Make the conversation feel natural and flowing despite having structured goals. Let the
interviewee talk more, the interviewer should speak less Explain the purpose of questions
when needed to involve and reassure the participant Create a chat-like environment even with
limited key questions.
Principles of Effective Interviewing
The Proper Attitudes
Good interviewing depends more on attitude than technical skill.
A person’s ability to influence another is related to how much understanding, respect, and
similarity they share.
Attitudes related to good interviewing skills include warmth, genuineness, acceptance,
understanding, openness, honesty, and fairness.
Session rated poorly when interviewer was seen as cold, defensive, uninterested, uninvolved,
aloof, and bored
To be effective and build rapport, the interviewer must display the proper attitudes.
Responses to Avoid
In most interviews except stress interviews avoid making the interview uncomfortable.
Discomfort leads to guardedness and anxiety, reducing openness and information sharing.
Judgmental or evaluative statements are particularly likely to inhibit the interviewee. Being
judgmental means evaluating the thoughts, feelings, or actions of another.
Such judgments also inhibit others’ ease in revealing important information.
Most interviewers should also avoid probing statements.
In probing we may induce the interviewee to reveal something that he or she is not yet ready
to reveal.
If this happens, the interviewee will probably feel anxious and thus not well disposed to
revealing additional information
The hostile statement directs anger toward the interviewee. Clearly, one should avoid such
responses unless one has a specific purpose, such as determining how an interviewee
responds to anger.
The reassuring statement attempts to comfort or support the interviewee
Minimizes serious problems and makes interviewees feel unsupported.
Can harm trust and credibility of the interviewer.
It is better to help the person face the issue gradually and realistically.
Effective Responses
The interview is a two-way process; one person speaks first, then the other, and so on. The
interviewer usually exerts a minimum amount of effort to keep the interaction flowing,
mainly by listening attentively and maintaining face to face contact.
Except in structured interviews or for a particular purpose, one can effectively initiate the
interview process by using an open-ended question. Open ended questions encourage
elaboration and keep the conversation going. Open ended questions allow interviewees to
express what they find important, revealing more about their thoughts and feelings.
Closed ended questions often halt the flow of conversation. Closed ended questions typically
require factual recall and limit the depth of response.
Especially in therapeutic or diagnostic interviews, there is no rigid structure. Interviewers use
general guidelines rather than fixed questions. The aim is to understand the interviewee
deeply and predict behaviour when needed. Begin with broad, open-ended questions to give
interviewees freedom to choose topics meaningful to them.
Keep the interaction flowing by encouraging spontaneous and meaningful responses from the
interviewee.
Responses to Keep the Interaction Flowing
After asking the open-ended question, the interviewer as a rule lets the interviewee respond
without interruption; that is, the interviewer remains quiet and listens. Interruptions should be
avoided unless clarification or encouragement is needed.
He or she should use minimum effort to maintain the flow, such as using a transitional phrase
such as ‘Yes,” “And,” or “I see.” These phrases imply that the interviewee should continue on
the same topic.
In a verbatim playback, the interviewer simply repeats the interviewee’s last response. the
transitional phrase, the verbatim playback generally leads to an elaboration of the
interviewee’s previous response.
Paraphrasing and restatement responses are also interchangeable with the interviewee’s
response. A paraphrase tends to be more similar to the interviewee’s response than a
restatement, but both capture the meaning of the interviewee’s response. Repeats
interviewee’s response using different Words
Summarizing and clarification statements go just beyond the interviewee’s response. In
summarizing, the interviewer pulls together the meaning of several interviewee responses.
The clarification statement, as its name implies, serves to clarify the interviewee’s response.
Pulls together the meaning of several responses. Clarifies the interviewee’s response. Even
more powerful is the empathy or understanding response. This response communicates that
the interviewer understands how the interviewee feels.
One good way to accomplish this involves what we call understanding statements. To
establish a positive atmosphere, interviewers begin with an open-ended question followed by
understanding statements that capture the meaning and feeling of the interviewee’s
communication.
Measuring Understanding
Attempts to measure understanding or empathy originated with Carl Rogers’s seminal
research into the effects of client-centerd therapy (Rogers, 1959a, 1959b; Walker, Rablen, &
Rogers, 1960). It culminated in a 5-point scoring system (Truax & Carkhuff, 1967, pp. 46–
58). Each level in this system represents a degree of empathy. The levels range from a
response that bears little or no relationship to the previous statement to a response that
captures the precise meaning and feeling of the statement. The highest degrees of empathy,
levels four and five, are relevant primarily for therapeutic interviews. Level three represents
various degrees of true empathy or understanding and may be used in all types of
unstructured or semi structured (i.e., partially structured) interviews. The lowest levels, one
and two, have no place in a professional interview and should be avoided. Low-level
responses, however, occur frequently in everyday conversations
Level-one responses bear little or no relationship to the interviewee’s response
The level-two response communicates a superficial awareness of the meaning of a statement.
The individual who makes a level-two response never quite goes beyond his or her own
limited perspective. Level-two responses impede the flow of communication.
A level-three response is interchangeable with the interviewee’s statement. According to
Carkhuff and Berenson (1967), level three is the minimum level of responding that can help
the interviewee. Paraphrasing, verbatim playback, clarification statements, and restatements
are all examples of level-three responses.
A level-three response is interchangeable with the interviewee’s statement. According to
Carkhuff and Berenson (1967), level three is the minimum level of responding that can help
the interviewee. Paraphrasing, verbatim playback, clarification statements, and restatements
are all examples of level-three responses.
Level-four and level-five responses not only provide accurate empathy but also go beyond
the statement given. In a level-four response, the interviewer adds “noticeably” to the
interviewee’s response. In a level-five response, the interviewer adds “significantly” to it
(Carkhuff & Berenson, 1967). We recommend that beginning interviewers learn to respond at
level three before going on to the more advanced levels.
An impressive array of research has accumulated to document the power of the understanding
response (Fitzgerald & Leudar, 2010; Rock, 2007; Rogers, 1980; Truax & Mitchell, 1971).
This type of responding, sometimes called active listening, is the foundation of good
interviewing skills for many different types of interviews.
Mental Status Examination
An important tool in psychiatric and neurological examinations, the mental status
examination is used primarily to diagnose psychosis, brain damage, and other major mental
health problems. Its purpose is to evaluate a person suspected of having neurological or
emotional problems in terms of variables known to be related to these problems.
The areas covered in the mental status examination include the person’s appearance, attitudes,
and general behaviour. The interviewer is also alert to the interviewee’s emotions. The
person’s thought processes are also evaluated. Intelligence can be evaluated by such factors
as speed and accuracy of thinking, richness of thought content, memory, judgment, and
ability to interpret proverbs.
Other important areas evaluated in the mental status examination include the person’s ability
to direct and deploy attention. Keep in mind that to make proper use of the mental status
examination, you must have a broad understanding of the major mental disorders and the
various forms of brain damage.
Developing Interviewing Skills.
Most psychologist agree that interviewing skills can be developed through proper training.
Online resources exit, but caution is advised when using them. The existence of clinical,
counselling, and training programs supports the idea that interviewing skills are teachable and
learnable.
The first step in doing so is to become familiar with research and theory on the interview in
order to understand the principles and underlying variables in the interview. A second step in
learning such skills is supervised practice. Experience truly is the best teacher. No amount of
book learning can compare with having one’s taped interview analyzed by an expert. As a
third step, one must make a conscious effort to apply the principles involved in good
interviewing, such as guidelines for keeping the interaction flowing.
The initial phase of learning any new skill seems to involve attending to a hundred things at
once—an impossible task. However, with persistent effort, people eventually respond
appropriately by habit. Thus, experienced interviewers automatically attend to the person’s
appearance, nonverbal communications, emotional tone, and so on. They do so not because
they are endowed with special abilities but because they have trained themselves to do so.