Tracy Ch. 8

Qualitative Research Methods

Interview Practice: Embodied, Mediated, and Focus-Group Approaches

Negotiating access for interviews

Getting participants to agree to an interview is extremely important. Some types of people are more likely to agree than others, particularly when the interview is about sensitive topics. Researchers should try to start a relationship with the person they want to interview before asking for the interview. This increases the chance that the participant will agree. After an interview is agreed upon, the researcher should send a reminder to the participant that includes information on how to contact the researcher if something goes awry on the day of the interview.

Conducting face-to-face interviews

When scheduling an interview, it is important to choose locations that are accessible and public, but provide a degree of privacy. They should feel comfortable and safe to the interviewer and interviewee. Recording devices should be tested out beforehand, and locations should be chosen that are quiet enough to use a recording device. When the participant arrives, you should offer to get them a drink or something to eat (if available). It is also useful to take site notes and cursory information about the participant before the interview begins. Scheduling should be done in a way that leaves time for briefing and debriefing.

A good interviewer does more than simply ask questions-- they should prepare themselves to be knowledgeable about the topic at hand and the participants; they should be gentle, forgiving, sensitive, and open-minded; they should structure the questions to be probing and show  their attentiveness; and they should actively interpret what the interviewee says. By repeating certain ideas back, interviewees are able to correct interpretations or provide more nuance. Researchers should be mindful of their non-verbal communication and refrain from anything that would connote judgment or shock. At the end of the interview, researchers should be appreciative. It is especially useful to shut off any recording device and ask if there is any information the interviewee is willing to share now that the recorder is off. When the interviewee leaves, the researcher should take notes on anything that was notable that was not captured by the recorder.

Technologically mediated approaches to interviewing

Technologically mediated interviews can be synchronous (real time) or asynchronous (reply on own time). There are significant advantages to online interviewing-- it is cost effective and can reach a wide participant base, it can increase engagement, it can be more flexible, it can change power dynamics that are present in face-to-face communication, it can provide data that is unavailable face-to-face (grammar, typing, deaf or heavily-accented participants), and it does not need to be transcribed.

There are also disadvantages to technologically mediated interviews. They provide no nonverbal data, and they require participants to have access to a computer as well as the relevant technological skills. Participants can more easily become distracted while interviewing or they can drop off of the project entirely. There are more confidentiality risks on both the part of the interviewer and the interviewee, and it is nearly impossible to verify identities.

The focus-group interview

Focus groups traditionally bring together 3-12 people who are taken through a guided group discussion. Focus groups can be particularly valuable, especially when they are able to create a group effect-- where responses become chained, and members of the group leave with a new understanding of the topic through their interactions with others. It also provides a space to observe vernacular language and communicative interactions. The focus group can serve as a way to gather creative data; researchers can ask participants to rank concepts, draw or create pictures or collages, create metaphors, or act out scenarios.

Members of a focus group should have a key characteristic in common. It can be valuable to have oppositional points, but the group can be hard to manage if there are not meaningful commonalities. On the day of a focus group, you should provide comfortable accommodations for the participants, and before things begin, you should provide them with informed consent and make it known that the event will be recorded and/or observed.

When moderating, it is important to know the discussion guide so that the discussion can be moved in the correct direction. You should not take notes, but rather focus on providing positive and supportive feedback. This can also include paraphrasing and asking for clarification. It is important to provide breaks every hour-- during this time, natural conversations can arise. Closing the focus group should consist of reminding participants to keep the conversations confidential. Afterwards, you should take notes on important details and make a to-do list for the next focus group.

Overcoming common focus group and interviewing challenges

Some challenges that arise during interviews can come from both the interviewee and the interviewer. The interviewee can espouse unexpected behaviors that make it difficult to schedule interviews or record them. Interviewers can talk too much, interrupt, or use problematic formulations-- interpretations of the interviewees responses that gloss over or omit certain information for the sake of simplicity. They also have to be aware of any problems in the interview guide and be mindful of tangents. Some researchers have problems with probing and creating follow up questions; they should aim to ask for clarifications, deeper meanings, or greater detail. When participants become emotional, it can be difficult to respond. Tracy advocates trying to identify  with or show compassion to the participant. Researchers are also often unaware of what to do if an interviewee is deceitful. To combat this, you can build redundancy into the question guide or refer to others with whom you've spoken. Not all lies are useless, either, because often it can be strategic.

Transcribing

There is no universal transcription method or set of symbols-- these are constructed by the researcher and meant to fulfill whatever purpose they are put to. The choice of what details to note comes down to what the study is examining. More detailed is not always better. It can take quite a long time, and the more people that are speaking, the longer it takes. Transcriptionists have to make choices about things like punctuation, laughter, pitch, tone, and homonyms. Fact checking transcripts requires that you listen to the interview while reading the transcript to make sure that it does not omit (or add) anything. Voice recognition software can also be used.