Ross Woods, rev. 2021-24
Questionining is a basic research technique, and you can be required to master it. Your goal is to get interviewees doing all the talking (giving good information) with you only keeping it on track.
Interviews are often excellent for getting detailed information, although there are practical limits about how many people you can interview. They lend themselves best to open-ended questions and information that is not statistical.
Let's assume that you have already identified and stated the specific research problem, and expressed it as a research question and a purpose statement. You have defined a research population, that it, the category of people who will be your research subjects. You have also chosen interviews as a method for collecting data and obtained ethical approval.
Your research purpose has at least two implications at this stage. First, your questions need to gather all the information necessary to achieve your research purpose, without gathering information that you will not need. Second, if you want to understand respondent's perceptions of X, your evidence should reflect their perceptions and attitudes. However, if you want to understand X itself, you are looking for hard facts and evidence. You respondents will naturally assume that their perceptions are factual, but you should be able to see the possible differences and ask questions appropriately.
The approach in this e-book is known as the “free informal interview” in the research methods literature. The main value of this kind of interview is that you can explore new themes as they come up in interviews, so you can let the questions evolve so you can explore themes. (You might also find that some questions “dry up” when you've found all there is is to find.) In contrast, a researcher who only follows a rigid set of questions, with no freedom to explore, might be on the cusp of discovering something important but then miss the opportunity. In fact, an interview without freedom to explore is hardly better than a questionnaire with closed questions.
If you specify “free informal interviews” in your methodology proposal, you should specify that you will add follow-up questions to your core questions so you can explore aspects of the topic, either as you find out more about the topic or as individual interviewees raise new themes that seem to be worth exploring. However, if your purpose is to compare and analyze the opinions of interviewees, then you should ask the same core questions in all interviews, but add exploratory questions. If your purpose is to get at a larger objective (such as an overaching cultural phenomena), then you can let your questions evolve into better questions as you go, perhaps with an option to re-interview individuals later on.
These principles generally work the same for focus groups, which are simply interviews with groups rather than individuals.
The idea is simply that you write a list of questions and then interview people. You are trying to create friendly conversations where subjects feel free to explain their thoughts at length. Put your questions in natural, easy language. This will help both sides; they will be easy for you to ask, and easier for your interviewees to understand the first time they hear them.
One successful approach is to write a list of questions and use them in the following way:
getting to know youquestions for introduction. However, they often also disclose identity, that is, how people define themselves, e.g. by professonal role and experience.
Some questions look good on paper but then don't work with real people. People often interpret your questions differently from how you intended, and some questions might have mistakes. When people think a question is asking for something different, you will often get answers that you didn't expect, a wide variety of answers, or simply “Don't know.”
Check your questions; don't start interviews before the questions are properly developed and tested. It is better to get the questions right first, so that the first interviews are not wasted with poor questions.
A good testing procedure or a pilot study will let you identify any mistakes so you can revise the questions. Start by reading the questions out loud to yourself to pick out those that make you stumble because they are hard to read. Then try them with a colleague or friend. After that, you should try them with members of the target population.
Even when modified, the revised questions still need testing. (This is especially the case in surveys that collect data that is expressed as statistics, because you have no opportunity to revise questions once the full-scale survey has begun. Some kinds of questionnaires are subject to separate validation procedures using statistical procedures. In these cases, creating and validating a test might be the whole project.)
Try these tips to focus and simplify your questions:
How long have you been an ax-murderer?
How much is a one-dollar candy?(The answer is so obvious that it can be frustrating, and it seems like you're fishing for another answer.)
Have you stopped beating your wife?(Whether you answer yes or no, it still means that you have been beating your wife.)
In cultural studies, most of the ethnographer’s work is making friends, visiting them in the homes, attending their significant meetings, and perhaps meeting their friends. The ethnographer might meet with the same people multiple times.
In other fields, you will more likely need to make appointments. Some of the meetings might be in their work hours (either by video-conference or at the workplace), but you might arrange coffee shop alternatives instead.The question is about scheduling. For example, if you are in education and want to interview school principals or teachers, all full time staff will normally have scheduling difficulties while at school. An interview slot will often have a time limit, and their first question will be “How long will it take?” Unfortunately, it often depends on them, because they might want to expand on particular topics. You might be very reluctant to cut off an interviewee who is providing excellent comments only because time is limited. Then again, it can be quite difficult for them to offer multiple meetings. It will be your role to decide how you will arrange your questions to fit the time available, and whether you want or need multiple meetings.
It's important to put people at ease and create a situation where they are free to speak openly and honestly. You can also make them feel like they know something valuable, and most people love to share their knowledge.
Good questioning preparation and techniques can help prevent or minimize the following problemmatical responses from interviewees:
safe, untrue answers; they give answers that sound good and protect themselves and others.
Here's how not to do it. Go through and identify each part that would make people uncomfortable:
"I am the famous Dr. Helmut Von Schmidt, Professor of Philosophy at Vienna University. I’m conducting some research and would like you to help.
You must sign a form to be involved. Please read all five pages of fine print.
My interview will follow a questionnaire. It has only 200 questions and will take three days.
We can interview you at my office at the University, room no. 3072, in the philosophy department.
Do you mind if I have these three other professors observe you?
I need to record every word you say during the interview; I’ll put the microphone near your mouth so we get a good recording.
Every word you say will be carefully analyzed by my team of scientists in the back room.
Try the following approaches to get people to talk. It is not usually difficult; most people like to talk about what they think they know.
How would you respond to someone who said …?
What ...?questions with exploratory
Why ...?questions.
In a group, make sure that everyone who wants a say gets a say.
What about you, Krissy? What do you think?then follow it up with:
Mel, what do think?However, some people want to just be listeners and don’t want to speak. It’s okay; they might contribute later when they are more comfortable in the group.
The people on that side of the room have been quiet; what do you think?Close people down only when you have no choice:
I think we need to give someone else a turn.
Silent periods, however, are not always bad. A silent period allows everybody to think about something in particular before they answer. You can get them to give answers by staying quiet, but you lose the opportunity if you talk too much. Put another way, you can give them a reflection time, which is very helpful if the group is accustomed to talking without thinking. You can build on new discussion once the silence has finished.
Interviews are only a snapshot of a person’s views at a particular time. Even though the information is valid and quite usable, it is nevertheless fickle and limited. Consider these examples:
Several things are happening:
Could improved interview techniques reduce the effects of these limitations? If so, how?
There will probably be cultural aspects to asking good questions. For example, people of one culture differentiate sharply between the purpose (hidden agenda) of the question and what it is that is asked (direct intent). They might not answer what you asked, but respond according to what they perceive your purpose to be.
As another example, they might answer your question very well, but their idea of a reason might not seem logical to you. In that case, you need to identify what kind of cultural logic they are using. If you dismiss the answer, you have dismissed an excellent learning opportunity.
People might become embarrassed if you push them for an answer and they honestly don't know. It might be totally inappropriate to ask a person of the opposite sex, or of particular age groups.
Some people will be recognized as knowing more than others. People will generally know who has the job of safeguarding their cultural knowledge. Those people may be university staff, shamans, reclusive mystics, artisans, or grandmothers. They maintain their knowledge, perhaps act as a resource to the general population, teach it to others, and pass it onto their replacements in the next generation.
Some safeguarded knowledge might deliberately be kept secret, and some knowledge is considered too "deep" for most people to understand. They may also use specific terminology that is different from the general populace.
Be aware that your race, age, gender, apparent class or role could affect the research. For example, if you are a male, then you might have limited access to women informants in some societies and only be able to research amongst men.
Alternatively, you might receive very different answers from a female researcher. This is not bad, but you need to realize that your identity is a factor in what you can learn. Obviously, then, a woman might be able to do very good research amongst women if only men had previously researched that group of people.
People will also probably give better answers when they know you better and trust you more. If they think you are a genuine friend who wants to learn, they will likely give you an honest answer. But if you say that you are writing a graduate dissertation, they can feel threatened by your role and very pressured to provide a clever answer. They might decline, especially if they have much lesser formal education, or they might manufacture a fictitious answer. There are cases when researchers have become disrespected, and people make up spurious, fictitious answers.
Guess what's on my mind.
Personal handwritten notes might be appropriate for individual interviews, especially if interviewees who saw you making notes would be offended or distracted.
Trained ethnographers can make a summary list of topics discussed during the interview. This serves as a memory aid, so that the resarcher can then recreate the whole conversation afterward.
However, focuse groups are quite different because it is too difficult to listen, ask questions, and make good handwritten notes at the same time. The current trend is to make a recording and then transcribe the recording. It is easy in a Zoom conference. Video recording is a big bonus; it gives not only body language but also a recording of the tone of voice and intonation that can also convey meaning, which might be helpful in analysis. In some cases, software will do the transcription automatically.
“Am I allowed to interview a friend?”
Yes, but you should monitor affinity bias in your data. This cuts both ways: a friend might be more inclined to speak openly and provide information that others are reluctant to give. On the other hand, you might be so sympathetic to their views that your data and interpretation is biased.
“When does the friendly chat end and the interview start?”
This question is especially pertinent if the interview will be recorded. Generally, the first group of questions are “about you” anyway, so they are part of the interview. The chat might be essential to the interview if the persona of the interviewee is essential to the data.
“What makes interview data high quality?”
Whether or not interviews get all the data you need to solve the research problem. Data is better if you get honest answers, espcially where people might tend to conceal the truth, and if you find any new themes unexpectedly emerging. “Data quality” can also refer to the clarity of the internet connection for videoconferences (e.g. Zoom connection). It can be very relevant if some students have consistently poor connections.
“Are some answers better than others?”
Some people will give better answers than others and some answers might not seem to make much sense. It might be that they do make sense, but you haven't yet figured out why because you haven't gone far enough into the mindset.
Some people give partial answers simply because they are speaking spontaneously and don't have time to think out their entire rationale. And of course some people simply don't know why or deliberately give you a poor answer because they are shy or feel threatened.
“What about anecdotes?”
Anecdotes are very good evidence of the beliefs of the person giving the anecdote, so they are very useful for investigating cultural phenomena. At an individual level, an individual's anecdotes are essential to defining his/her identity and watersheds. At a group level, anecdotes reflect the values and beliefs of a community. For example, people in organizations use them as folklore to maintain their organization's unique culture and identity. This does not mean that anecdotes are true, so they are considered unhelpful in most other kinds of research.
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