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Kvale, Steinar (1996) Interviews: An Introduction to Qualitative
Research Interviewing. London ..: SAGE, Chapter 7: The
Interview Situation, pp. 124-135; Chapter 8: The Quality of the
Interview, pp. 144-159 7
The Interview Situation
In the interview, knowledge is created inter the points of view of the
interviewer and the interviewee. The interviews with the subjects are
the most engaging stage of an interview inquiry. The personal contact
and the continually new insights into the subjects’ lived world make
interviewing an exciting and enriching experience. Different forms of
interview conversations were discussed in Chapter 2 and the mode of
understanding in the qualitative research interview described. In this
chapter T outline in more detail some guidelines and techniques for
carrying out interviews and give an illustration with an interview on
grading.
‘The Interview Conversation
‘The purpose of a qualitative research interview was described
earlier as obtaining qualitative descriptions of the life world of the
subject with respect to interpretation of their meaning. The interview
form treated here is a semistructured interview: It has a sequence of
themes to be covered, as well as suggested questions. Yet at the same
time there is an openness to changes of sequence and forms of
questions in order to follow up the answers given and the stories told
by the subjects. I will discuss the interview interaction in line with the
mode of understanding depicted carlier with respect to 12 aspects of
the interview: life world, meaning, qualitative, descriptive, specificity,
deliberate naiveté, focus, ambiguity, change, sensitivity, interpersonal
situation, and a positive experience (see Box 2.1 in Chapter 2).
124 “The Interoew Situation ry
‘An open phenomenological approach to learning from the inter-
viewee is well expressed in this introduction from Spradley (1979):
want 10 understand the world from your point of view. I want to know
‘what you know in the way you know it. want to understand the meaning
‘of your experience, o walk in your shoes o feel things as you feel thems,
‘o explain things as you explain them. Will you become my teacher and
help me understand? (p. 34)
‘The research interview is an interpersonal situation, a conversation
between two partners about a theme of mucual interest. It isa speci
form of human interaction in which knowledge evolves through a
»gue. The interaction is neither as anonymous and neutral as when
a subject responds to a survey questionnaire, nor as personal and
emotional as a therapeutic interview. Patients seck therapists for help:
‘They are motivated to be as open as possible with the therapist, with
‘whom @ trusting relationship is established over time. In a research
setting it is up to the interviewer to create in a short time a contact
that allows the interaction to get beyond merely a polite conversation,
or exchange of ideas, The interviewer must establish an atmosphere
in which the subject feels safe enough to talk freely about his or her
experiences and feelings. This involves a delicate balance between
cognitive knowledge secking and the ethical aspects of emotional
human interaction. Thus, at the same time that personal expressions
and emotions are encouraged, the interviewer must avoid allowing the
interview to turn into a therapeutic situation, which he or she may not
be able to handle.
The interviewer has an empathic access to the world of the inter-
viewee; the interviewee’s lived meanings may be immediately accessi-
ble in the situation, communicated not only by words, but by tone of
voice, expressions, and gestures in the natural flow of a conversation.
The research interviewer uses him- or herself asa research instrument,
drawing upon an implicit bodily and emotional mode of knowing that
allows a privileged access to the subject's lived world.
A research interview follows an unwritten script, with different
roles specified for the two actors. The implicit rules of their interaction
become visible when they are broken, such as in this interview
exchange with an unemployed man about traveling, in which the
interviewer is caught off guard when the subject reverses the roles:
(International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry 11) Norman K. Denzin (Editor), Michael D. Giardina (Editor) - Qualitative Inquiry Through A Critical Lens-Routledge (2016)
