interview for research paper

Using an interview in a research paper

Consultant contributor: Viviane Ugalde

Using an interview can be an effective primary source for some papers and research projects. Finding an expert in the field or some other person who has knowledge of your topic can allow for you to gather unique information not available elsewhere.

There are four steps to using an interview as a source for your research.

Know where and how to start.
Know how to write a good question.
Know how to conduct an interview.
Know how to incorporate the interview into your document or project.

Step one: Where to start

First, you should determine your goals and ask yourself these questions:

Who are the local experts on topic?
How can I contact these people?
Does anyone know them to help me setup the interviews?
Are their phone numbers in the phone book or can I find them on the Internet?

Once you answer these questions and pick your interviewee, get their basic information such as their name, title, and other general details. If you reach out and your interview does not participate, don’t be discouraged. Keep looking for other interview contacts.

Step two: How to write a good question

When you have confirmed an interview, it is not time to come up with questions.

Learning as much as you can about the person before the interview can help you create questions specific to your interview subject.
Doing research about your interviewee’s past experience in your topic, or any texts that they have written would be great background research.

When you start to think of questions, write down more questions than you think you’ll need, and prioritize them as you go. Any good questions will answer the 5W and H questions. Asking Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How questions that you need answered for your paper, will help you form a question to ask your interviewee.

When writing a good question, try thinking of something that will help your argument.

Is your interviewee an advocate for you position?
Are they in any programs that are related to your research?
How much experience do they have?

From broad questions like these, you can begin to narrow down to more specific and open-ended questions.

Step three: The interview

If at all possible, arrange to conduct the interview at the subject’s workplace. It will make them more comfortable, and you can write about their surroundings.

Begin the interview with some small talk in order to give both of you the chance to get comfortable with one another
Develop rapport that will make the interview easier for both of you.
Ask open-ended questions
Keep the conversation moving
Stay on topic
The more silence in the room, the more honest the answer.
If an interesting subject comes up that is related to your research, ask a follow-up or an additional question about it.
Ask if you can stay in contact with your interview subject in case there are any additional questions you have.

Step four: Incorporating the interview

When picking the material out of your interview, remember that people rarely speak perfectly. There will be many slang words and pauses that you can take out, as long as it does not change the meaning of the material you are using.

As you introduce your interview in the paper, start with a transition such as “according to” or other attributions. You should also be specific to the type of interview you are working with. This way, you will build a stronger ethos in your paper .

The body of your essay should clearly set up the quote or paraphrase you use from the interview responses,. Be careful not to stick a quote from the interview into the body of your essay because it sounds good. When deciding what to quote in your paper, think about what dialogue from the interview would add the most color to your interview. Quotes that illustrate what your interviewer sounded like, or what their personality is are always the best quotes to choose from.

Once you have done that, proofread your essay. Make sure the quotes you used don’t make up the majority of your paper. The interview quotes are supposed to support your argument; you are not supposed to support the interview.

For example, let’s say that you are arguing that free education is better than not. For your argument, you interview a local politician who is on your side of the argument. Rather than using a large quote that explains the stance of both sides, and why the politician chose this side, your quote is there to support the information you’ve already given. Whatever the politician says should prove what you argue, and not give new information.

Step five: Examples of citing your interviews

Smith, Jane. Personal interview. 19 May 2018.

(E. Robbins, personal communication, January 4, 2018).

Smith also claimed that many of her students had difficulties with APA style (personal communication, November 3, 2018).

Reference list

Daly, C. & Leighton W. (2017). Interviewing a Source: Tips. Journalists Resource.

Driscoll, D. (2018 ). Interviewing. Purdue University

Hayden, K. (2012). How to Conduct an Interview to Write a Paper . Bright Hub Education, Bright Hub Inc.

Hose, C. (2017). How to Incorporate Interviews into Essays. Leaf Group Education.

Magnesi, J. (2017). How to Interview Someone for an Article or Research Paper. Career Trend, Leaf group Media.

Qualitative Research 101: Interviewing

5 Common Mistakes To Avoid When Undertaking Interviews

By: David Phair (PhD) and Kerryn Warren (PhD) | March 2022

Undertaking interviews is potentially the most important step in the qualitative research process. If you don’t collect useful, useable data in your interviews, you’ll struggle through the rest of your dissertation or thesis. Having helped numerous students with their research over the years, we’ve noticed some common interviewing mistakes that first-time researchers make. In this post, we’ll discuss five costly interview-related mistakes and outline useful strategies to avoid making these.

Overview: 5 Interviewing Mistakes

Not having a clear interview strategy /plan
Not having good interview techniques /skills
Not securing a suitable location and equipment
Not having a basic risk management plan
Not keeping your “ golden thread ” front of mind

1. Not having a clear interview strategy

The first common mistake that we’ll look at is that of starting the interviewing process without having first come up with a clear interview strategy or plan of action. While it’s natural to be keen to get started engaging with your interviewees, a lack of planning can result in a mess of data and inconsistency between interviews.

There are several design choices to decide on and plan for before you start interviewing anyone. Some of the most important questions you need to ask yourself before conducting interviews include:

What are the guiding research aims and research questions of my study?
Will I use a structured, semi-structured or unstructured interview approach?
How will I record the interviews (audio or video)?
Who will be interviewed and by whom ?
What ethics and data law considerations do I need to adhere to?
How will I analyze my data?

Let’s take a quick look at some of these.

The core objective of the interviewing process is to generate useful data that will help you address your overall research aims. Therefore, your interviews need to be conducted in a way that directly links to your research aims, objectives and research questions (i.e. your “golden thread”). This means that you need to carefully consider the questions you’ll ask to ensure that they align with and feed into your golden thread. If any question doesn’t align with this, you may want to consider scrapping it.

Another important design choice is whether you’ll use an unstructured, semi-structured or structured interview approach . For semi-structured interviews, you will have a list of questions that you plan to ask and these questions will be open-ended in nature. You’ll also allow the discussion to digress from the core question set if something interesting comes up. This means that the type of information generated might differ a fair amount between interviews.

Contrasted to this, a structured approach to interviews is more rigid, where a specific set of closed questions is developed and asked for each interviewee in exactly the same order. Closed questions have a limited set of answers, that are often single-word answers. Therefore, you need to think about what you’re trying to achieve with your research project (i.e. your research aims) and decided on which approach would be best suited in your case.

It is also important to plan ahead with regards to who will be interviewed and how. You need to think about how you will approach the possible interviewees to get their cooperation, who will conduct the interviews, when to conduct the interviews and how to record the interviews. For each of these decisions, it’s also essential to make sure that all ethical considerations and data protection laws are taken into account.

Finally, you should think through how you plan to analyze the data (i.e., your qualitative analysis method) generated by the interviews. Different types of analysis rely on different types of data, so you need to ensure you’re asking the right types of questions and correctly guiding your respondents.

Simply put, you need to have a plan of action regarding the specifics of your interview approach before you start collecting data. If not, you’ll end up drifting in your approach from interview to interview, which will result in inconsistent, unusable data.

Your interview questions need to directly link to your research aims, objectives and research questions - your "golden thread”.

2. Not having good interview technique

While you’re generally not expected to become you to be an expert interviewer for a dissertation or thesis, it is important to practice good interview technique and develop basic interviewing skills .

Let’s go through some basics that will help the process along.

Firstly, before the interview , make sure you know your interview questions well and have a clear idea of what you want from the interview. Naturally, the specificity of your questions will depend on whether you’re taking a structured, semi-structured or unstructured approach, but you still need a consistent starting point . Ideally, you should develop an interview guide beforehand (more on this later) that details your core question and links these to the research aims, objectives and research questions.

Before you undertake any interviews, it’s a good idea to do a few mock interviews with friends or family members. This will help you get comfortable with the interviewer role, prepare for potentially unexpected answers and give you a good idea of how long the interview will take to conduct. In the interviewing process, you’re likely to encounter two kinds of challenging interviewees ; the two-word respondent and the respondent who meanders and babbles. Therefore, you should prepare yourself for both and come up with a plan to respond to each in a way that will allow the interview to continue productively.

To begin the formal interview , provide the person you are interviewing with an overview of your research. This will help to calm their nerves (and yours) and contextualize the interaction. Ultimately, you want the interviewee to feel comfortable and be willing to be open and honest with you, so it’s useful to start in a more casual, relaxed fashion and allow them to ask any questions they may have. From there, you can ease them into the rest of the questions.

As the interview progresses , avoid asking leading questions (i.e., questions that assume something about the interviewee or their response). Make sure that you speak clearly and slowly , using plain language and being ready to paraphrase questions if the person you are interviewing misunderstands. Be particularly careful with interviewing English second language speakers to ensure that you’re both on the same page.

Engage with the interviewee by listening to them carefully and acknowledging that you are listening to them by smiling or nodding. Show them that you’re interested in what they’re saying and thank them for their openness as appropriate. This will also encourage your interviewee to respond openly.

Need a helping hand?

3. Not securing a suitable location and quality equipment

Where you conduct your interviews and the equipment you use to record them both play an important role in how the process unfolds. Therefore, you need to think carefully about each of these variables before you start interviewing.

Poor location: A bad location can result in the quality of your interviews being compromised, interrupted, or cancelled. If you are conducting physical interviews, you’ll need a location that is quiet, safe, and welcoming . It’s very important that your location of choice is not prone to interruptions (the workplace office is generally problematic, for example) and has suitable facilities (such as water, a bathroom, and snacks).

If you are conducting online interviews , you need to consider a few other factors. Importantly, you need to make sure that both you and your respondent have access to a good, stable internet connection and electricity. Always check before the time that both of you know how to use the relevant software and it’s accessible (sometimes meeting platforms are blocked by workplace policies or firewalls). It’s also good to have alternatives in place (such as WhatsApp, Zoom, or Teams) to cater for these types of issues.

Poor equipment: Using poor-quality recording equipment or using equipment incorrectly means that you will have trouble transcribing, coding, and analyzing your interviews. This can be a major issue , as some of your interview data may go completely to waste if not recorded well. So, make sure that you use good-quality recording equipment and that you know how to use it correctly.

To avoid issues, you should always conduct test recordings before every interview to ensure that you can use the relevant equipment properly. It’s also a good idea to spot check each recording afterwards, just to make sure it was recorded as planned. If your equipment uses batteries, be sure to always carry a spare set.

Where you conduct your interviews and the equipment you use to record them play an important role in how the process unfolds.

4. Not having a basic risk management plan

Many possible issues can arise during the interview process. Not planning for these issues can mean that you are left with compromised data that might not be useful to you. Therefore, it’s important to map out some sort of risk management plan ahead of time, considering the potential risks, how you’ll minimize their probability and how you’ll manage them if they materialize.

Common potential issues related to the actual interview include cancellations (people pulling out), delays (such as getting stuck in traffic), language and accent differences (especially in the case of poor internet connections), issues with internet connections and power supply. Other issues can also occur in the interview itself. For example, the interviewee could drift off-topic, or you might encounter an interviewee who does not say much at all.

You can prepare for these potential issues by considering possible worst-case scenarios and preparing a response for each scenario. For instance, it is important to plan a backup date just in case your interviewee cannot make it to the first meeting you scheduled with them. It’s also a good idea to factor in a 30-minute gap between your interviews for the instances where someone might be late, or an interview runs overtime for other reasons. Make sure that you also plan backup questions that could be used to bring a respondent back on topic if they start rambling, or questions to encourage those who are saying too little.

In general, it’s best practice to plan to conduct more interviews than you think you need (this is called oversampling ). Doing so will allow you some room for error if there are interviews that don’t go as planned, or if some interviewees withdraw. If you need 10 interviews, it is a good idea to plan for 15. Likely, a few will cancel , delay, or not produce useful data.

You should consider all the potential risks, how you’ll reduce their probability and how you'll respond if they do indeed materialize.

5. Not keeping your golden thread front of mind

We touched on this a little earlier, but it is a key point that should be central to your entire research process. You don’t want to end up with pages and pages of data after conducting your interviews and realize that it is not useful to your research aims . Your research aims, objectives and research questions – i.e., your golden thread – should influence every design decision and should guide the interview process at all times.

A useful way to avoid this mistake is by developing an interview guide before you begin interviewing your respondents. An interview guide is a document that contains all of your questions with notes on how each of the interview questions is linked to the research question(s) of your study. You can also include your research aims and objectives here for a more comprehensive linkage.

You can easily create an interview guide by drawing up a table with one column containing your core interview questions . Then add another column with your research questions , another with expectations that you may have in light of the relevant literature and another with backup or follow-up questions . As mentioned, you can also bring in your research aims and objectives to help you connect them all together. If you’d like, you can download a copy of our free interview guide here .

Recap: Qualitative Interview Mistakes

In this post, we’ve discussed 5 common costly mistakes that are easy to make in the process of planning and conducting qualitative interviews.

To recap, these include:

If you have any questions about these interviewing mistakes, drop a comment below. Alternatively, if you’re interested in getting 1-on-1 help with your thesis or dissertation , check out our dissertation coaching service or book a free initial consultation with one of our friendly Grad Coaches.

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Chapter 11. Interviewing

Introduction.

Interviewing people is at the heart of qualitative research. It is not merely a way to collect data but an intrinsically rewarding activity—an interaction between two people that holds the potential for greater understanding and interpersonal development. Unlike many of our daily interactions with others that are fairly shallow and mundane, sitting down with a person for an hour or two and really listening to what they have to say is a profound and deep enterprise, one that can provide not only “data” for you, the interviewer, but also self-understanding and a feeling of being heard for the interviewee. I always approach interviewing with a deep appreciation for the opportunity it gives me to understand how other people experience the world. That said, there is not one kind of interview but many, and some of these are shallower than others. This chapter will provide you with an overview of interview techniques but with a special focus on the in-depth semistructured interview guide approach, which is the approach most widely used in social science research.

An interview can be variously defined as “a conversation with a purpose” ( Lune and Berg 2018 ) and an attempt to understand the world from the point of view of the person being interviewed: “to unfold the meaning of peoples’ experiences, to uncover their lived world prior to scientific explanations” ( Kvale 2007 ). It is a form of active listening in which the interviewer steers the conversation to subjects and topics of interest to their research but also manages to leave enough space for those interviewed to say surprising things. Achieving that balance is a tricky thing, which is why most practitioners believe interviewing is both an art and a science. In my experience as a teacher, there are some students who are “natural” interviewers (often they are introverts), but anyone can learn to conduct interviews, and everyone, even those of us who have been doing this for years, can improve their interviewing skills. This might be a good time to highlight the fact that the interview is a product between interviewer and interviewee and that this product is only as good as the rapport established between the two participants. Active listening is the key to establishing this necessary rapport.

Patton ( 2002 ) makes the argument that we use interviews because there are certain things that are not observable. In particular, “we cannot observe feelings, thoughts, and intentions. We cannot observe behaviors that took place at some previous point in time. We cannot observe situations that preclude the presence of an observer. We cannot observe how people have organized the world and the meanings they attach to what goes on in the world. We have to ask people questions about those things” ( 341 ).

Types of Interviews

There are several distinct types of interviews. Imagine a continuum (figure 11.1). On one side are unstructured conversations—the kind you have with your friends. No one is in control of those conversations, and what you talk about is often random—whatever pops into your head. There is no secret, underlying purpose to your talking—if anything, the purpose is to talk to and engage with each other, and the words you use and the things you talk about are a little beside the point. An unstructured interview is a little like this informal conversation, except that one of the parties to the conversation (you, the researcher) does have an underlying purpose, and that is to understand the other person. You are not friends speaking for no purpose, but it might feel just as unstructured to the “interviewee” in this scenario. That is one side of the continuum. On the other side are fully structured and standardized survey-type questions asked face-to-face. Here it is very clear who is asking the questions and who is answering them. This doesn’t feel like a conversation at all! A lot of people new to interviewing have this ( erroneously !) in mind when they think about interviews as data collection. Somewhere in the middle of these two extreme cases is the “ semistructured” interview , in which the researcher uses an “interview guide” to gently move the conversation to certain topics and issues. This is the primary form of interviewing for qualitative social scientists and will be what I refer to as interviewing for the rest of this chapter, unless otherwise specified.

Types of Interviewing Questions: Unstructured conversations, Semi-structured interview, Structured interview, Survey questions

Informal (unstructured conversations). This is the most “open-ended” approach to interviewing. It is particularly useful in conjunction with observational methods (see chapters 13 and 14). There are no predetermined questions. Each interview will be different. Imagine you are researching the Oregon Country Fair, an annual event in Veneta, Oregon, that includes live music, artisan craft booths, face painting, and a lot of people walking through forest paths. It’s unlikely that you will be able to get a person to sit down with you and talk intensely about a set of questions for an hour and a half. But you might be able to sidle up to several people and engage with them about their experiences at the fair. You might have a general interest in what attracts people to these events, so you could start a conversation by asking strangers why they are here or why they come back every year. That’s it. Then you have a conversation that may lead you anywhere. Maybe one person tells a long story about how their parents brought them here when they were a kid. A second person talks about how this is better than Burning Man. A third person shares their favorite traveling band. And yet another enthuses about the public library in the woods. During your conversations, you also talk about a lot of other things—the weather, the utilikilts for sale, the fact that a favorite food booth has disappeared. It’s all good. You may not be able to record these conversations. Instead, you might jot down notes on the spot and then, when you have the time, write down as much as you can remember about the conversations in long fieldnotes. Later, you will have to sit down with these fieldnotes and try to make sense of all the information (see chapters 18 and 19).

Interview guide ( semistructured interview ). This is the primary type employed by social science qualitative researchers. The researcher creates an “interview guide” in advance, which she uses in every interview. In theory, every person interviewed is asked the same questions. In practice, every person interviewed is asked mostly the same topics but not always the same questions, as the whole point of a “guide” is that it guides the direction of the conversation but does not command it. The guide is typically between five and ten questions or question areas, sometimes with suggested follow-ups or prompts . For example, one question might be “What was it like growing up in Eastern Oregon?” with prompts such as “Did you live in a rural area? What kind of high school did you attend?” to help the conversation develop. These interviews generally take place in a quiet place (not a busy walkway during a festival) and are recorded. The recordings are transcribed, and those transcriptions then become the “data” that is analyzed (see chapters 18 and 19). The conventional length of one of these types of interviews is between one hour and two hours, optimally ninety minutes. Less than one hour doesn’t allow for much development of questions and thoughts, and two hours (or more) is a lot of time to ask someone to sit still and answer questions. If you have a lot of ground to cover, and the person is willing, I highly recommend two separate interview sessions, with the second session being slightly shorter than the first (e.g., ninety minutes the first day, sixty minutes the second). There are lots of good reasons for this, but the most compelling one is that this allows you to listen to the first day’s recording and catch anything interesting you might have missed in the moment and so develop follow-up questions that can probe further. This also allows the person being interviewed to have some time to think about the issues raised in the interview and go a little deeper with their answers.

Standardized questionnaire with open responses ( structured interview ). This is the type of interview a lot of people have in mind when they hear “interview”: a researcher comes to your door with a clipboard and proceeds to ask you a series of questions. These questions are all the same whoever answers the door; they are “standardized.” Both the wording and the exact order are important, as people’s responses may vary depending on how and when a question is asked. These are qualitative only in that the questions allow for “open-ended responses”: people can say whatever they want rather than select from a predetermined menu of responses. For example, a survey I collaborated on included this open-ended response question: “How does class affect one’s career success in sociology?” Some of the answers were simply one word long (e.g., “debt”), and others were long statements with stories and personal anecdotes. It is possible to be surprised by the responses. Although it’s a stretch to call this kind of questioning a conversation, it does allow the person answering the question some degree of freedom in how they answer.

Survey questionnaire with closed responses (not an interview!). Standardized survey questions with specific answer options (e.g., closed responses) are not really interviews at all, and they do not generate qualitative data. For example, if we included five options for the question “How does class affect one’s career success in sociology?”—(1) debt, (2) social networks, (3) alienation, (4) family doesn’t understand, (5) type of grad program—we leave no room for surprises at all. Instead, we would most likely look at patterns around these responses, thinking quantitatively rather than qualitatively (e.g., using regression analysis techniques, we might find that working-class sociologists were twice as likely to bring up alienation). It can sometimes be confusing for new students because the very same survey can include both closed-ended and open-ended questions. The key is to think about how these will be analyzed and to what level surprises are possible. If your plan is to turn all responses into a number and make predictions about correlations and relationships, you are no longer conducting qualitative research. This is true even if you are conducting this survey face-to-face with a real live human. Closed-response questions are not conversations of any kind, purposeful or not.

In summary, the semistructured interview guide approach is the predominant form of interviewing for social science qualitative researchers because it allows a high degree of freedom of responses from those interviewed (thus allowing for novel discoveries) while still maintaining some connection to a research question area or topic of interest. The rest of the chapter assumes the employment of this form.

Creating an Interview Guide

Your interview guide is the instrument used to bridge your research question(s) and what the people you are interviewing want to tell you. Unlike a standardized questionnaire, the questions actually asked do not need to be exactly what you have written down in your guide. The guide is meant to create space for those you are interviewing to talk about the phenomenon of interest, but sometimes you are not even sure what that phenomenon is until you start asking questions. A priority in creating an interview guide is to ensure it offers space. One of the worst mistakes is to create questions that are so specific that the person answering them will not stray. Relatedly, questions that sound “academic” will shut down a lot of respondents. A good interview guide invites respondents to talk about what is important to them, not feel like they are performing or being evaluated by you.

Good interview questions should not sound like your “research question” at all. For example, let’s say your research question is “How do patriarchal assumptions influence men’s understanding of climate change and responses to climate change?” It would be worse than unhelpful to ask a respondent, “How do your assumptions about the role of men affect your understanding of climate change?” You need to unpack this into manageable nuggets that pull your respondent into the area of interest without leading him anywhere. You could start by asking him what he thinks about climate change in general. Or, even better, whether he has any concerns about heatwaves or increased tornadoes or polar icecaps melting. Once he starts talking about that, you can ask follow-up questions that bring in issues around gendered roles, perhaps asking if he is married (to a woman) and whether his wife shares his thoughts and, if not, how they negotiate that difference. The fact is, you won’t really know the right questions to ask until he starts talking.

There are several distinct types of questions that can be used in your interview guide, either as main questions or as follow-up probes. If you remember that the point is to leave space for the respondent, you will craft a much more effective interview guide! You will also want to think about the place of time in both the questions themselves (past, present, future orientations) and the sequencing of the questions.

Researcher Note

Suggestion : As you read the next three sections (types of questions, temporality, question sequence), have in mind a particular research question, and try to draft questions and sequence them in a way that opens space for a discussion that helps you answer your research question.

Type of Questions

Experience and behavior questions ask about what a respondent does regularly (their behavior) or has done (their experience). These are relatively easy questions for people to answer because they appear more “factual” and less subjective. This makes them good opening questions. For the study on climate change above, you might ask, “Have you ever experienced an unusual weather event? What happened?” Or “You said you work outside? What is a typical summer workday like for you? How do you protect yourself from the heat?”

Opinion and values questions , in contrast, ask questions that get inside the minds of those you are interviewing. “Do you think climate change is real? Who or what is responsible for it?” are two such questions. Note that you don’t have to literally ask, “What is your opinion of X?” but you can find a way to ask the specific question relevant to the conversation you are having. These questions are a bit trickier to ask because the answers you get may depend in part on how your respondent perceives you and whether they want to please you or not. We’ve talked a fair amount about being reflective. Here is another place where this comes into play. You need to be aware of the effect your presence might have on the answers you are receiving and adjust accordingly. If you are a woman who is perceived as liberal asking a man who identifies as conservative about climate change, there is a lot of subtext that can be going on in the interview. There is no one right way to resolve this, but you must at least be aware of it.

Feeling questions are questions that ask respondents to draw on their emotional responses. It’s pretty common for academic researchers to forget that we have bodies and emotions, but people’s understandings of the world often operate at this affective level, sometimes unconsciously or barely consciously. It is a good idea to include questions that leave space for respondents to remember, imagine, or relive emotional responses to particular phenomena. “What was it like when you heard your cousin’s house burned down in that wildfire?” doesn’t explicitly use any emotion words, but it allows your respondent to remember what was probably a pretty emotional day. And if they respond emotionally neutral, that is pretty interesting data too. Note that asking someone “How do you feel about X” is not always going to evoke an emotional response, as they might simply turn around and respond with “I think that…” It is better to craft a question that actually pushes the respondent into the affective category. This might be a specific follow-up to an experience and behavior question —for example, “You just told me about your daily routine during the summer heat. Do you worry it is going to get worse?” or “Have you ever been afraid it will be too hot to get your work accomplished?”

Knowledge questions ask respondents what they actually know about something factual. We have to be careful when we ask these types of questions so that respondents do not feel like we are evaluating them (which would shut them down), but, for example, it is helpful to know when you are having a conversation about climate change that your respondent does in fact know that unusual weather events have increased and that these have been attributed to climate change! Asking these questions can set the stage for deeper questions and can ensure that the conversation makes the same kind of sense to both participants. For example, a conversation about political polarization can be put back on track once you realize that the respondent doesn’t really have a clear understanding that there are two parties in the US. Instead of asking a series of questions about Republicans and Democrats, you might shift your questions to talk more generally about political disagreements (e.g., “people against abortion”). And sometimes what you do want to know is the level of knowledge about a particular program or event (e.g., “Are you aware you can discharge your student loans through the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program?”).

Sensory questions call on all senses of the respondent to capture deeper responses. These are particularly helpful in sparking memory. “Think back to your childhood in Eastern Oregon. Describe the smells, the sounds…” Or you could use these questions to help a person access the full experience of a setting they customarily inhabit: “When you walk through the doors to your office building, what do you see? Hear? Smell?” As with feeling questions , these questions often supplement experience and behavior questions . They are another way of allowing your respondent to report fully and deeply rather than remain on the surface.

Creative questions employ illustrative examples, suggested scenarios, or simulations to get respondents to think more deeply about an issue, topic, or experience. There are many options here. In The Trouble with Passion , Erin Cech ( 2021 ) provides a scenario in which “Joe” is trying to decide whether to stay at his decent but boring computer job or follow his passion by opening a restaurant. She asks respondents, “What should Joe do?” Their answers illuminate the attraction of “passion” in job selection. In my own work, I have used a news story about an upwardly mobile young man who no longer has time to see his mother and sisters to probe respondents’ feelings about the costs of social mobility. Jessi Streib and Betsy Leondar-Wright have used single-page cartoon “scenes” to elicit evaluations of potential racial discrimination, sexual harassment, and classism. Barbara Sutton ( 2010 ) has employed lists of words (“strong,” “mother,” “victim”) on notecards she fans out and asks her female respondents to select and discuss.

Background/Demographic Questions

You most definitely will want to know more about the person you are interviewing in terms of conventional demographic information, such as age, race, gender identity, occupation, and educational attainment. These are not questions that normally open up inquiry. [1] For this reason, my practice has been to include a separate “demographic questionnaire” sheet that I ask each respondent to fill out at the conclusion of the interview. Only include those aspects that are relevant to your study. For example, if you are not exploring religion or religious affiliation, do not include questions about a person’s religion on the demographic sheet. See the example provided at the end of this chapter.

Temporality

Any type of question can have a past, present, or future orientation. For example, if you are asking a behavior question about workplace routine, you might ask the respondent to talk about past work, present work, and ideal (future) work. Similarly, if you want to understand how people cope with natural disasters, you might ask your respondent how they felt then during the wildfire and now in retrospect and whether and to what extent they have concerns for future wildfire disasters. It’s a relatively simple suggestion—don’t forget to ask about past, present, and future—but it can have a big impact on the quality of the responses you receive.

Question Sequence

Having a list of good questions or good question areas is not enough to make a good interview guide. You will want to pay attention to the order in which you ask your questions. Even though any one respondent can derail this order (perhaps by jumping to answer a question you haven’t yet asked), a good advance plan is always helpful. When thinking about sequence, remember that your goal is to get your respondent to open up to you and to say things that might surprise you. To establish rapport, it is best to start with nonthreatening questions. Asking about the present is often the safest place to begin, followed by the past (they have to know you a little bit to get there), and lastly, the future (talking about hopes and fears requires the most rapport). To allow for surprises, it is best to move from very general questions to more particular questions only later in the interview. This ensures that respondents have the freedom to bring up the topics that are relevant to them rather than feel like they are constrained to answer you narrowly. For example, refrain from asking about particular emotions until these have come up previously—don’t lead with them. Often, your more particular questions will emerge only during the course of the interview, tailored to what is emerging in conversation.

Once you have a set of questions, read through them aloud and imagine you are being asked the same questions. Does the set of questions have a natural flow? Would you be willing to answer the very first question to a total stranger? Does your sequence establish facts and experiences before moving on to opinions and values? Did you include prefatory statements, where necessary; transitions; and other announcements? These can be as simple as “Hey, we talked a lot about your experiences as a barista while in college.… Now I am turning to something completely different: how you managed friendships in college.” That is an abrupt transition, but it has been softened by your acknowledgment of that.

Probes and Flexibility

Once you have the interview guide, you will also want to leave room for probes and follow-up questions. As in the sample probe included here, you can write out the obvious probes and follow-up questions in advance. You might not need them, as your respondent might anticipate them and include full responses to the original question. Or you might need to tailor them to how your respondent answered the question. Some common probes and follow-up questions include asking for more details (When did that happen? Who else was there?), asking for elaboration (Could you say more about that?), asking for clarification (Does that mean what I think it means or something else? I understand what you mean, but someone else reading the transcript might not), and asking for contrast or comparison (How did this experience compare with last year’s event?). “Probing is a skill that comes from knowing what to look for in the interview, listening carefully to what is being said and what is not said, and being sensitive to the feedback needs of the person being interviewed” ( Patton 2002:374 ). It takes work! And energy. I and many other interviewers I know report feeling emotionally and even physically drained after conducting an interview. You are tasked with active listening and rearranging your interview guide as needed on the fly. If you only ask the questions written down in your interview guide with no deviations, you are doing it wrong. [2]

The Final Question

Every interview guide should include a very open-ended final question that allows for the respondent to say whatever it is they have been dying to tell you but you’ve forgotten to ask. About half the time they are tired too and will tell you they have nothing else to say. But incredibly, some of the most honest and complete responses take place here, at the end of a long interview. You have to realize that the person being interviewed is often discovering things about themselves as they talk to you and that this process of discovery can lead to new insights for them. Making space at the end is therefore crucial. Be sure you convey that you actually do want them to tell you more, that the offer of “anything else?” is not read as an empty convention where the polite response is no. Here is where you can pull from that active listening and tailor the final question to the particular person. For example, “I’ve asked you a lot of questions about what it was like to live through that wildfire. I’m wondering if there is anything I’ve forgotten to ask, especially because I haven’t had that experience myself” is a much more inviting final question than “Great. Anything you want to add?” It’s also helpful to convey to the person that you have the time to listen to their full answer, even if the allotted time is at the end. After all, there are no more questions to ask, so the respondent knows exactly how much time is left. Do them the courtesy of listening to them!

Conducting the Interview

Once you have your interview guide, you are on your way to conducting your first interview. I always practice my interview guide with a friend or family member. I do this even when the questions don’t make perfect sense for them, as it still helps me realize which questions make no sense, are poorly worded (too academic), or don’t follow sequentially. I also practice the routine I will use for interviewing, which goes something like this:

Introduce myself and reintroduce the study
Provide consent form and ask them to sign and retain/return copy
Ask if they have any questions about the study before we begin
Ask if I can begin recording
Ask questions (from interview guide)
Turn off the recording device
Ask if they are willing to fill out my demographic questionnaire
Collect questionnaire and, without looking at the answers, place in same folder as signed consent form
Thank them and depart

A note on remote interviewing: Interviews have traditionally been conducted face-to-face in a private or quiet public setting. You don’t want a lot of background noise, as this will make transcriptions difficult. During the recent global pandemic, many interviewers, myself included, learned the benefits of interviewing remotely. Although face-to-face is still preferable for many reasons, Zoom interviewing is not a bad alternative, and it does allow more interviews across great distances. Zoom also includes automatic transcription, which significantly cuts down on the time it normally takes to convert our conversations into “data” to be analyzed. These automatic transcriptions are not perfect, however, and you will still need to listen to the recording and clarify and clean up the transcription. Nor do automatic transcriptions include notations of body language or change of tone, which you may want to include. When interviewing remotely, you will want to collect the consent form before you meet: ask them to read, sign, and return it as an email attachment. I think it is better to ask for the demographic questionnaire after the interview, but because some respondents may never return it then, it is probably best to ask for this at the same time as the consent form, in advance of the interview.

What should you bring to the interview? I would recommend bringing two copies of the consent form (one for you and one for the respondent), a demographic questionnaire, a manila folder in which to place the signed consent form and filled-out demographic questionnaire, a printed copy of your interview guide (I print with three-inch right margins so I can jot down notes on the page next to relevant questions), a pen, a recording device, and water.

After the interview, you will want to secure the signed consent form in a locked filing cabinet (if in print) or a password-protected folder on your computer. Using Excel or a similar program that allows tables/spreadsheets, create an identifying number for your interview that links to the consent form without using the name of your respondent. For example, let’s say that I conduct interviews with US politicians, and the first person I meet with is George W. Bush. I will assign the transcription the number “INT#001” and add it to the signed consent form. [3] The signed consent form goes into a locked filing cabinet, and I never use the name “George W. Bush” again. I take the information from the demographic sheet, open my Excel spreadsheet, and add the relevant information in separate columns for the row INT#001: White, male, Republican. When I interview Bill Clinton as my second interview, I include a second row: INT#002: White, male, Democrat. And so on. The only link to the actual name of the respondent and this information is the fact that the consent form (unavailable to anyone but me) has stamped on it the interview number.

Many students get very nervous before their first interview. Actually, many of us are always nervous before the interview! But do not worry—this is normal, and it does pass. Chances are, you will be pleasantly surprised at how comfortable it begins to feel. These “purposeful conversations” are often a delight for both participants. This is not to say that sometimes things go wrong. I often have my students practice several “bad scenarios” (e.g., a respondent that you cannot get to open up; a respondent who is too talkative and dominates the conversation, steering it away from the topics you are interested in; emotions that completely take over; or shocking disclosures you are ill-prepared to handle), but most of the time, things go quite well. Be prepared for the unexpected, but know that the reason interviews are so popular as a technique of data collection is that they are usually richly rewarding for both participants.

One thing that I stress to my methods students and remind myself about is that interviews are still conversations between people. If there’s something you might feel uncomfortable asking someone about in a “normal” conversation, you will likely also feel a bit of discomfort asking it in an interview. Maybe more importantly, your respondent may feel uncomfortable. Social research—especially about inequality—can be uncomfortable. And it’s easy to slip into an abstract, intellectualized, or removed perspective as an interviewer. This is one reason trying out interview questions is important. Another is that sometimes the question sounds good in your head but doesn’t work as well out loud in practice. I learned this the hard way when a respondent asked me how I would answer the question I had just posed, and I realized that not only did I not really know how I would answer it, but I also wasn’t quite as sure I knew what I was asking as I had thought.

—Elizabeth M. Lee, Associate Professor of Sociology at Saint Joseph’s University, author of Class and Campus Life , and co-author of Geographies of Campus Inequality

How Many Interviews?

Your research design has included a targeted number of interviews and a recruitment plan (see chapter 5). Follow your plan, but remember that “ saturation ” is your goal. You interview as many people as you can until you reach a point at which you are no longer surprised by what they tell you. This means not that no one after your first twenty interviews will have surprising, interesting stories to tell you but rather that the picture you are forming about the phenomenon of interest to you from a research perspective has come into focus, and none of the interviews are substantially refocusing that picture. That is when you should stop collecting interviews. Note that to know when you have reached this, you will need to read your transcripts as you go. More about this in chapters 18 and 19.

Your Final Product: The Ideal Interview Transcript

A good interview transcript will demonstrate a subtly controlled conversation by the skillful interviewer. In general, you want to see replies that are about one paragraph long, not short sentences and not running on for several pages. Although it is sometimes necessary to follow respondents down tangents, it is also often necessary to pull them back to the questions that form the basis of your research study. This is not really a free conversation, although it may feel like that to the person you are interviewing.

Final Tips from an Interview Master

Annette Lareau is arguably one of the masters of the trade. In Listening to People , she provides several guidelines for good interviews and then offers a detailed example of an interview gone wrong and how it could be addressed (please see the “Further Readings” at the end of this chapter). Here is an abbreviated version of her set of guidelines: (1) interview respondents who are experts on the subjects of most interest to you (as a corollary, don’t ask people about things they don’t know); (2) listen carefully and talk as little as possible; (3) keep in mind what you want to know and why you want to know it; (4) be a proactive interviewer (subtly guide the conversation); (5) assure respondents that there aren’t any right or wrong answers; (6) use the respondent’s own words to probe further (this both allows you to accurately identify what you heard and pushes the respondent to explain further); (7) reuse effective probes (don’t reinvent the wheel as you go—if repeating the words back works, do it again and again); (8) focus on learning the subjective meanings that events or experiences have for a respondent; (9) don’t be afraid to ask a question that draws on your own knowledge (unlike trial lawyers who are trained never to ask a question for which they don’t already know the answer, sometimes it’s worth it to ask risky questions based on your hypotheses or just plain hunches); (10) keep thinking while you are listening (so difficult…and important); (11) return to a theme raised by a respondent if you want further information; (12) be mindful of power inequalities (and never ever coerce a respondent to continue the interview if they want out); (13) take control with overly talkative respondents; (14) expect overly succinct responses, and develop strategies for probing further; (15) balance digging deep and moving on; (16) develop a plan to deflect questions (e.g., let them know you are happy to answer any questions at the end of the interview, but you don’t want to take time away from them now); and at the end, (17) check to see whether you have asked all your questions. You don’t always have to ask everyone the same set of questions, but if there is a big area you have forgotten to cover, now is the time to recover ( Lareau 2021:93–103 ).

Sample: Demographic Questionnaire

ASA Taskforce on First-Generation and Working-Class Persons in Sociology – Class Effects on Career Success

Supplementary Demographic Questionnaire

Thank you for your participation in this interview project. We would like to collect a few pieces of key demographic information from you to supplement our analyses. Your answers to these questions will be kept confidential and stored by ID number. All of your responses here are entirely voluntary!

What best captures your race/ethnicity? (please check any/all that apply)

White (Non Hispanic/Latina/o/x)
Black or African American
Hispanic, Latino/a/x of Spanish
Asian or Asian American
American Indian or Alaska Native
Middle Eastern or North African
Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander
Other : (Please write in: ________________)

What is your current position?

Grad Student
Full Professor

Please check any and all of the following that apply to you:

I identify as a working-class academic
I was the first in my family to graduate from college
I grew up poor

What best reflects your gender?

Transgender female/Transgender woman
Transgender male/Transgender man
Gender queer/ Gender nonconforming

Anything else you would like us to know about you?

Example: Interview Guide

In this example, follow-up prompts are italicized. Note the sequence of questions. That second question often elicits an entire life history , answering several later questions in advance.

Introduction Script/Question

Thank you for participating in our survey of ASA members who identify as first-generation or working-class. As you may have heard, ASA has sponsored a taskforce on first-generation and working-class persons in sociology and we are interested in hearing from those who so identify. Your participation in this interview will help advance our knowledge in this area.

The first thing we would like to as you is why you have volunteered to be part of this study? What does it mean to you be first-gen or working class? Why were you willing to be interviewed?
How did you decide to become a sociologist?
Can you tell me a little bit about where you grew up? ( prompts: what did your parent(s) do for a living? What kind of high school did you attend?)
Has this identity been salient to your experience? (how? How much?)
How welcoming was your grad program? Your first academic employer?
Why did you decide to pursue sociology at the graduate level?
Did you experience culture shock in college? In graduate school?
Has your FGWC status shaped how you’ve thought about where you went to school? debt? etc?
Were you mentored? How did this work (not work)? How might it?
What did you consider when deciding where to go to grad school? Where to apply for your first position?
What, to you, is a mark of career success? Have you achieved that success? What has helped or hindered your pursuit of success?
Do you think sociology, as a field, cares about prestige?
Let’s talk a little bit about intersectionality. How does being first-gen/working class work alongside other identities that are important to you?
What do your friends and family think about your career? Have you had any difficulty relating to family members or past friends since becoming highly educated?
Do you have any debt from college/grad school? Are you concerned about this? Could you explain more about how you paid for college/grad school? (here, include assistance from family, fellowships, scholarships, etc.)
(You’ve mentioned issues or obstacles you had because of your background.) What could have helped? Or, who or what did? Can you think of fortuitous moments in your career?
Do you have any regrets about the path you took?
Is there anything else you would like to add? Anything that the Taskforce should take note of, that we did not ask you about here?

Library Support for Qualitative Research

Interview Research

General Handbooks and Overviews

Qualitative research communities.

Types of Interviews
Recruiting & Engaging Participants
Interview Questions
Conducting Interviews
Recording & Transcription
Data Analysis
Managing Interview Data
Finding Extant Interviews
Past Workshops on Interview Research
Methodological Resources
Remote & Virtual Fieldwork
Data Management & Repositories
Campus Access
Interviews as a Method for Qualitative Research (video) This short video summarizes why interviews can serve as useful data in qualitative research.
InterViews by Steinar Kvale Interviewing is an essential tool in qualitative research and this introduction to interviewing outlines both the theoretical underpinnings and the practical aspects of the process. After examining the role of the interview in the research process, Steinar Kvale considers some of the key philosophical issues relating to interviewing: the interview as conversation, hermeneutics, phenomenology, concerns about ethics as well as validity, and postmodernism. Having established this framework, the author then analyzes the seven stages of the interview process - from designing a study to writing it up.
Practical Evaluation by Michael Quinn Patton Surveys different interviewing strategies, from, a) informal/conversational, to b) interview guide approach, to c) standardized and open-ended, to d) closed/quantitative. Also discusses strategies for wording questions that are open-ended, clear, sensitive, and neutral, while supporting the speaker. Provides suggestions for probing and maintaining control of the interview process, as well as suggestions for recording and transcription.
The SAGE Handbook of Interview Research by Amir B. Marvasti (Editor); James A. Holstein (Editor); Jaber F. Gubrium (Editor); Karyn D. McKinney (Editor) The new edition of this landmark volume emphasizes the dynamic, interactional, and reflexive dimensions of the research interview. Contributors highlight the myriad dimensions of complexity that are emerging as researchers increasingly frame the interview as a communicative opportunity as much as a data-gathering format. The book begins with the history and conceptual transformations of the interview, which is followed by chapters that discuss the main components of interview practice. Taken together, the contributions to The SAGE Handbook of Interview Research: The Complexity of the Craft encourage readers simultaneously to learn the frameworks and technologies of interviewing and to reflect on the epistemological foundations of the interview craft.
International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry They host an annual confrerence at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, which aims to facilitate the development of qualitative research methods across a wide variety of academic disciplines, among other initiatives.
METHODSPACE An online home of the research methods community, where practicing researchers share how to make research easier.
Social Research Association, UK The SRA is the membership organisation for social researchers in the UK and beyond. It supports researchers via training, guidance, publications, research ethics, events, branches, and careers.
Social Science Research Council The SSRC administers fellowships and research grants that support the innovation and evaluation of new policy solutions. They convene researchers and stakeholders to share evidence-based policy solutions and incubate new research agendas, produce online knowledge platforms and technical reports that catalog research-based policy solutions, and support mentoring programs that broaden problem-solving research opportunities.
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Chapter 13: Interviews

Danielle Berkovic

Learning outcomes

Upon completion of this chapter, you should be able to:

Understand when to use interviews in qualitative research.
Develop interview questions for an interview guide.
Understand how to conduct an interview.

What are interviews?

An interviewing method is the most commonly used data collection technique in qualitative research. 1 The purpose of an interview is to explore the experiences, understandings, opinions and motivations of research participants. 2 Interviews are conducted one-on-one with the researcher and the participant. Interviews are most appropriate when seeking to understand a participant’s subjective view of an experience and are also considered suitable for the exploration of sensitive topics.

What are the different types of interviews?

There are four main types of interviews:

Key stakeholder: A key stakeholder interview aims to explore one issue in detail with a person of interest or importance concerning the research topic. 3 Key stakeholder interviews seek the views of experts on some cultural, political or health aspects of the community, beyond their personal beliefs or actions. An example of a key stakeholder is the Chief Health Officer of Victoria (Australia’s second-most populous state) who oversaw the world’s longest lockdowns in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Dyad: A dyad interview aims to explore one issue in a level of detail with a dyad (two people). This form of interviewing is used when one participant of the dyad may need some support or is not wholly able to articulate themselves (e.g. people with cognitive impairment, or children). Independence is acknowledged and the interview is analysed as a unit. 4
Narrative: A narrative interview helps individuals tell their stories, and prioritises their own perspectives and experiences using the language that they prefer. 5 This type of interview has been widely used in social research but is gaining prominence in health research to better understand person-centred care, for example, negotiating exercise and food abstinence whilst living with Type 2 diabetes. 6,7
Life history: A life history interview allows the researcher to explore a person’s individual and subjective experiences within a history of the time framework. 8 Life history interviews challenge the researcher to understand how people’s current attitudes, behaviours and choices are influenced by previous experiences or trauma. Life history interviews have been conducted with Holocaust survivors 9 and youth who have been forcibly recruited to war. 10

Table 13.4 provides a summary of four studies, each adopting one of these types of interviews.

Interviewing techniques

There are two main interview techniques:

Semi-structured: Semi-structured interviewing aims to explore a few issues in moderate detail, to expand the researcher’s knowledge at some level. 11 Semi-structured interviews give the researcher the advantage of remaining reasonably objective while enabling participants to share their perspectives and opinions. The researcher should create an interview guide with targeted open questions to direct the interview. As examples, semi-structured interviews have been used to extend knowledge of why women might gain excess weight during pregnancy, 12 and to update guidelines for statin uptake. 13
In-depth: In-depth interviewing aims to explore a person’s subjective experiences and feelings about a particular topic. 14 In-depth interviews are often used to explore emotive (e.g. end-of-life care) 15 and complex (e.g. adolescent pregnancy) topics. 16 The researcher should create an interview guide with selected open questions to ask of the participant, but the participant should guide the direction of the interview more than in a semi-structured setting. In-depth interviews value participants’ lived experiences and are frequently used in phenomenology studies (as described in Chapter 6) .

When to use the different types of interview s

The type of interview a researcher uses should be determined by the study design, the research aims and objectives, and participant demographics. For example, if conducting a descriptive study, semi-structured interviews may be the best method of data collection. As explained in Chapter 5 , descriptive studies seek to describe phenomena, rather than to explain or interpret the data. A semi-structured interview, which seeks to expand upon some level of existing knowledge, will likely best facilitate this.

Similarly, if conducting a phenomenological study, in-depth interviews may be the best method of data collection. As described in Chapter 6 , the key concept of phenomenology is the individual. The emphasis is on the lived experience of that individual and the person’s sense-making of those experiences. Therefore, an in-depth interview is likely best placed to elicit that rich data.

While some interview types are better suited to certain study designs, there are no restrictions on the type of interview that may be used. For example, semi-structured interviews provide an excellent accompaniment to trial participation (see Chapter 11 about mixed methods), and key stakeholder interviews, as part of an action research study, can be used to define priorities, barriers and enablers to implementation.

How do I write my interview questions?

An interview aims to explore the experiences, understandings, opinions and motivations of research participants. The general rule is that the interviewee should speak for 80 per cent of the interview, and the interviewer should only be asking questions and clarifying responses, for about 20 per cent of the interview. This percentage may differ depending on the interview type; for example, a semi-structured interview involves the researcher asking more questions than in an in-depth interview. Still, to facilitate free-flowing responses, it is important to use open-ended language to encourage participants to be expansive in their responses. Examples of open-ended terms include questions that start with ‘who’, ‘how’ and ‘where’.

The researcher should avoid closed-ended questions that can be answered with yes or no, and limit conversation. For example, asking a participant ‘Did you have this experience?’ can elicit a simple ‘yes’, whereas asking them to ‘Describe your experience’, will likely encourage a narrative response. Table 13.1 provides examples of terminology to include and avoid in developing interview questions.

Table 13.1. Interview question formats to use and avoid

Use	Avoid
Tell me about…	Do you think that…
What happened when…	Will you do this…
Why is this important?	Did you believe that…
How did you feel when… How do you…	Were there issues from your perspective…
What are the… What does...

How long should my interview be?

There is no rule about how long an interview should take. Different types of interviews will likely run for different periods of time, but this also depends on the research question/s and the type of participant. For example, given that a semi-structured interview is seeking to expand on some previous knowledge, the interview may need no longer than 30 minutes, or up to one hour. An in-depth interview seeks to explore a topic in a greater level of detail and therefore, at a minimum, would be expected to last an hour. A dyad interview may be as short as 15 minutes (e.g. if the dyad is a person with dementia and a family member or caregiver) or longer, depending on the pairing.

Designing your interview guide

To figure out what questions to ask in an interview guide, the researcher may consult the literature, speak to experts (including people with lived experience) about the research and draw on their current knowledge. The topics and questions should be mapped to the research question/s, and the interview guide should be developed well in advance of commencing data collection. This enables time and opportunity to pilot-test the interview guide. The pilot interview provides an opportunity to explore the language and clarity of questions, the order and flow of the guide and to determine whether the instructions are clear to participants both before and after the interview. It can be beneficial to pilot-test the interview guide with someone who is not familiar with the research topic, to make sure that the language used is easily understood (and will be by participants, too). The study design should be used to determine the number of questions asked and the duration of the interview should guide the extent of the interview guide. The participant type may also determine the extent of the interview guide; for example, clinicians tend to be time-poor and therefore shorter, focused interviews are optimal. An interview guide is also likely to be shorter for a descriptive study than a phenomenological or ethnographic study, given the level of detail required. Chapter 5 outlined a descriptive study in which participants who had undergone percutaneous coronary intervention were interviewed. The interview guide consisted of four main questions and subsequent probing questions, linked to the research questions (see Table 13.2). 17

Table 13.2. Interview guide for a descriptive study

Research question	Open questions	Probing questions and topics
How does the patient feel, physically and psychologically, after their procedure?	From your perspective, what would be considered a successful outcome of the procedure?	Did the procedure meet your expectations? How do you define whether the procedure was successful?
How did you feel after the procedure?	How did you feel one week after the procedure and how does that compare with how you feel now?
How does the patient function after their procedure?	After your procedure, tell me about your ability to do your daily activities?	Prompt for activities including gardening, housework, personal care, work-related and family-related tasks. Did you attend cardiac rehabilitation? Can you tell us about your experience of cardiac rehabilitation? What effect has medication had on your recovery?
What are the long-term effects of the procedure?	What, if any, lifestyle changes have you made since your procedure?

Table 13.3 is an example of a larger and more detailed interview guide, designed for the qualitative component of a mixed-methods study aiming to examine the work and financial effects of living with arthritis as a younger person. The questions are mapped to the World Health Organization’s International Classification of Functioning, Disability, and Health, which measures health and disability at individual and population levels. 18

Table 13.3. Detailed interview guide

Research questions	Open questions	Probing questions
How do young people experience their arthritis diagnosis?	Tell me about your experience of being diagnosed with arthritis. How did being diagnosed with arthritis make you feel? Tell me about your experience of arthritis flare ups what do they feel like? What impacts arthritis flare ups or feeling like your arthritis is worse? What circumstances lead to these feelings? Based on your experience, what do you think causes symptoms of arthritis to become worse?	When were you diagnosed with arthritis? What type of arthritis were you diagnosed with? Does anyone else in your family have arthritis? What relation are they to you?
What are the work impacts of arthritis on younger people?	What is your field of work, and how long have you been in this role? How frequently do you work (full-time/part-time/casual)?	How has arthritis affected your work-related demands or career? How so? Has arthritis led you to reconsider your career? How so? Has arthritis affected your usual working hours each week? How so? How have changes to work or career because of your arthritis impacted other areas of life, i.e. mental health or family role?
What are the financial impacts of living with arthritis as a younger person?	Has your arthritis led to any financial concerns?	Financial concerns pertaining to: • Direct costs: rheumatologist, prescribed and non-prescribed medications (as well as supplements), allied health costs (rheumatology, physiotherapy, chiropractic, osteopathy, myotherapy), Pilates, and gym/personal trainer fees, complementary therapies. • Indirect costs: workplace absenteeism, productivity, loss of wages, informal care, cost of different types of insurance: health insurance (joint replacements)

It is important to create an interview guide, for the following reasons:

The researcher should be familiar with their research questions.
Using an interview guide will enable the incorporation of feedback from the piloting process.
It is difficult to predict how participants will respond to interview questions. They may answer in a way that is anticipated or they may provide unanticipated insights that warrant follow-up. An interview guide (a physical or digital copy) enables the researcher to note these answers and follow-up with appropriate inquiry.
Participants will likely have provided heterogeneous answers to certain questions. The interview guide enables the researcher to note similarities and differences across various interviews, which may be important in data analysis.
Even experienced qualitative researchers get nervous before an interview! The interview guide provides a safety net if the researcher forgets their questions or needs to anticipate the next question.

Setting up the interview

In the past, most interviews were conducted in person or by telephone. Emerging technologies promote easier access to research participation (e.g. by people living in rural or remote communities, or for people with mobility limitations). Even in metropolitan settings, many interviews are now conducted electronically (e.g. using videoconferencing platforms). Regardless of your interview setting, it is essential that the interview environment is comfortable for the participant. This process can begin as soon as potential participants express interest in your research. Following are some tips from the literature and our own experiences of leading interviews:

Answer questions and set clear expectations . Participating in research is not an everyday task. People do not necessarily know what to expect during a research interview, and this can be daunting. Give people as much information as possible, answer their questions about the research and set clear expectations about what the interview will entail and how long it is expected to last. Let them know that the interview will be recorded for transcription and analysis purposes. Consider sending the interview questions a few days before the interview. This gives people time and space to reflect on their experiences, consider their responses to questions and to provide informed consent for their participation.
Consider your setting . If conducting the interview in person, consider the location and room in which the interview will be held. For example, if in a participant’s home, be mindful of their private space. Ask if you should remove your shoes before entering their home. If they offer refreshments (which in our experience many participants do), accept it with gratitude if possible. These considerations apply beyond the participant’s home; if using a room in an office setting, consider privacy and confidentiality, accessibility and potential for disruption. Consider the temperature as well as the furniture in the room, who may be able to overhear conversations and who may walk past. Similarly, if interviewing by phone or online, take time to assess the space, and if in a house or office that is not quiet or private, use headphones as needed.
Build rapport. The research topic may be important to participants from a professional perspective, or they may have deep emotional connections to the topic of interest. Regardless of the nature of the interview, it is important to remember that participants are being asked to open up to an interviewer who is likely to be a stranger. Spend some time with participants before the interview, to make sure that they are comfortable. Engage in some general conversation, and ask if they have any questions before you start. Remember that it is not a normal part of someone’s day to participate in research. Make it an enjoyable and/or meaningful experience for them, and it will enhance the data that you collect.
Let participants guide you. Oftentimes, the ways in which researchers and participants describe the same phenomena are different. In the interview, reflect the participant’s language. Make sure they feel heard and that they are willing and comfortable to speak openly about their experiences. For example, our research involves talking to older adults about their experience of falls. We noticed early in this research that participants did not use the word ‘fall’ but would rather use terms such as ‘trip’, ‘went over’ and ‘stumbled’. As interviewers we adopted the participant’s language into our questions.
Listen consistently and express interest. An interview is more complex than a simple question-and-answer format. The best interview data comes from participants feeling comfortable and confident to share their stories. By the time you are completing the 20th interview, it can be difficult to maintain the same level of concentration as with the first interview. Try to stay engaged: nod along with your participants, maintain eye contact, murmur in agreement and sympathise where warranted.
The interviewer is both the data collector and the data collection instrument. The data received is only as good as the questions asked. In qualitative research, the researcher influences how participants answer questions. It is important to remain reflexive and aware of how your language, body language and attitude might influence the interview. Being rested and prepared will enhance the quality of the questions asked and hence the data collected.
Avoid excessive use of ‘why’. It can be challenging for participants to recall why they felt a certain way or acted in a particular manner. Try to avoid asking ‘why’ questions too often, and instead adopt some of the open language described earlier in the chapter.

After your interview

When you have completed your interview, thank the participant and let them know they can contact you if they have any questions or follow-up information they would like to provide. If the interview has covered sensitive topics or the participant has become distressed throughout the interview, make sure that appropriate referrals and follow-up are provided (see section 6).

Download the recording from your device and make sure it is saved in a secure location that can only be accessed by people on the approved research team (see Chapters 35 and 36).

It is important to know what to do immediately after each interview is completed. Interviews should be transcribed – that is, reproduced verbatim for data analysis. Transcribing data is an important step in the process of analysis, but it is very time-consuming; transcribing a 60-minute interview can take up to 8 hours. Data analysis is discussed in Section 4.

Table 13.4. Examples of the four types of interviews

Title
CC Licence
First author and year	Cuthbertson, 2019	Bannon, 2021	McGranahan, 2020	Gutierrez-Garcia, 2021
Interview type	Key stakeholder	Dyad	Narrative	Life history
Interview guide	Appendix A	eAppendix Supplement	Not provided, but the text states that ‘qualitative semi-structured narrative interviews’ were conducted.’ [methods]	Not provided, but the text states that ‘an open and semi-structured question guide was designed for use.' [methods]
Study design	Convergent mixed-methods study	Qualitative dyadic study	Narrative interview study	Life history and lifeline techniques
Number of participants	30 Key stakeholders were emergency management or disaster healthcare practitioners, academics specialising in disaster management in the Oceania region, and policy managers.	23 dyads	28	7
Aim	‘To investigate threats to the health and well-being of societies associated with disaster impact in Oceania.’ [abstract]	‘To explore the lived experiences of couples managing young-onset dementia using an integrated dyadic coping model.’[abstract]	‘To explore the experiences and views of people with psychotic experiences who have not received any treatment or other support from mental health services for the past 5 years.’ [abstract]	‘To analyse the use of life histories and lifelines in the study of female genital mutilation in the context of cross-cultural research in participants with different languages.’ [abstract]
Country	Australia, Fiji, Indonesia, Aotearoa New Zealand, Timor Leste and Tonga	United States	England	Spain
Length of interview	45–60 minutes	60 minutes	40-120 minutes	3 sessions Session 1: life history interview Session 2: Lifeline activity where participants used drawings to complement or enhance their interview Session 3: The researchers and participants worked together to finalise the lifeline. The life history interviews ran for 40 – 60 minutes. The timing for sessions 2 and 3 is not provided.
Sample of interview questions from interview guide	1. What do you believe are the top five disaster risks or threats in the Oceania region today? 2. What disaster risks do you believe are emerging in the Oceania region over the next decade? 3. Why do you think these are risks? 4. What are the drivers of these risks? 5. Do you have any suggestions on how we can improve disaster risk assessment? 6. Are the current disaster risk plans and practices suited to the future disaster risks? If not, why? If not, what do you think needs to be done to improve them? 7. What are the key areas of disaster practice that can enhance future community resilience to disaster risk? 8. What are the barriers or inhibitors to facilitating this practice? 9. What are the solutions or facilitators to enhancing community resilience? [Appendix A]	1. We like to start by learning more about what you each first noticed that prompted the evaluations you went through to get to the diagnosis. • Can you each tell me about the earliest symptoms you noticed? 2. What are the most noticeable or troubling symptoms that you have experienced since the time of diagnosis? • How have your changes in functioning impacted you? • Emotionally, how do you feel about your symptoms and the changes in functioning you are experiencing? 3. Are you open with your friends and family about the diagnosis? • Have you experienced any stigma related to your diagnosis? 4. What is your understanding of the diagnosis? • What is your understanding about the how this condition will affect you both in the future? How are you getting information about this diagnosis? [eAppendix Supplement]	Not provided.	Not provided.
Analysis	Thematic analysis guided by The Hazard and Peril Glossary for describing and categorising disasters applied by the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters Emergency Events Database	Thematic analysis guided by the Dyadic Coping Theoretical Framework	Inductive thematic analysis outlined by Braun and Clarke.	Phenomenological method proposed by Giorgi (sense of the whole): 1. Reading the entire description to obtain a general sense of the discourse 2. The researcher goes back to the beginning and reads the text again, with the aim of distinguishing the meaning units by separating the perspective of the phenomenon of interest 3. The researcher expresses the contents of the units of meaning more clearly by creating categories 4. The researcher synthesises the units and categories of meaning into a consistent statement that takes into account the participant’s experience and language.
Main themes	1. Climate change is observed as a contemporary and emerging disaster risk 2. Risk is contextual to the different countries, communities and individuals in Oceania. 3. Human development trajectories and their impact, along with perceptions of a changing world, are viewed as drivers of current and emerging risks. 4. Current disaster risk plans and practices are not suited to future disaster risks. 5. Increased education and education of risk and risk assessment at a local level to empower community risk ownership. [Results, Box 1]	1. Stress communication 2. Positive individual dyadic coping 3. Positive conjoint dyadic coping 4. Negative individual dyadic coping 5. Negative conjoint dyadic coping [Abstract]	1. Perceiving psychosis as positive 2. Making sense of psychotic experiences 3. Finding sources of strength 4. Negative past experiences of mental health services 5. Positive past experiences with individual clinicians [Abstract]	1. Important moments and their relationship with female genital mutilation 2. The ritual knife: how sharp or blunt it is at different stages, where and how women are subsequently held as a result 3. Changing relationships with family: how being subject to female genital mutilation changed relationships with mothers 4. Female genital mutilation increases the risk of future childbirth complications which change relationships with family and healthcare systems 5. Managing experiences with early exposure to physical and sexual violence across the lifespan.

Interviews are the most common data collection technique in qualitative research. There are four main types of interviews; the one you choose will depend on your research question, aims and objectives. It is important to formulate open-ended interview questions that are understandable and easy for participants to answer. Key considerations in setting up the interview will enhance the quality of the data obtained and the experience of the interview for the participant and the researcher.

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DeJonckheere M, Vaughn LM. Semistructured interviewing in primary care research: a balance of relationship and rigour. Fam Med Community Health . 2019;7(2):e000057. doi:10.1136/fmch-2018-000057
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Morgan DL, Ataie J, Carder P, Hoffman K. Introducing dyadic interviews as a method for collecting qualitative data. Qual Health Res . 2013;23(9):1276-84. doi:10.1177/1049732313501889
Picchi S, Bonapitacola C, Borghi E, et al. The narrative interview in therapeutic education. The diabetic patients’ point of view. Acta Biomed . Jul 18 2018;89(6-S):43-50. doi:10.23750/abm.v89i6-S.7488
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Buchmann M, Wermeling M, Lucius-Hoene G, Himmel W. Experiences of food abstinence in patients with type 2 diabetes: a qualitative study. BMJ Open . 2016;6(1):e008907. doi:10.1136/bmjopen-2015-008907
Jessee E. The Life History Interview. Handbook of Research Methods in Health Social Sciences . 2018:1-17:Chapter 80-1.
Sheftel A, Zembrzycki S. Only Human: A Reflection on the Ethical and Methodological Challenges of Working with “Difficult” Stories. The Oral History Review . 2019;37(2):191-214. doi:10.1093/ohr/ohq050
Harnisch H, Montgomery E. “What kept me going”: A qualitative study of avoidant responses to war-related adversity and perpetration of violence by former forcibly recruited children and youth in the Acholi region of northern Uganda. Soc Sci Med . 2017;188:100-108. doi:10.1016/j.socscimed.2017.07.007
Ruslin., Mashuri S, Rasak MSA, Alhabsyi M, Alhabsyi F, Syam H. Semi-structured Interview: A Methodological Reflection on the Development of a Qualitative Research Instrument in Educational Studies. IOSR-JRME . 2022;12(1):22-29. doi:10.9790/7388-1201052229
Chang T, Llanes M, Gold KJ, Fetters MD. Perspectives about and approaches to weight gain in pregnancy: a qualitative study of physicians and nurse midwives. BMC Pregnancy & Childbirth . 2013;13(47)doi:10.1186/1471-2393-13-47
DeJonckheere M, Robinson CH, Evans L, et al. Designing for Clinical Change: Creating an Intervention to Implement New Statin Guidelines in a Primary Care Clinic. JMIR Hum Factors . 2018;5(2):e19. doi:10.2196/humanfactors.9030
Knott E, Rao AH, Summers K, Teeger C. Interviews in the social sciences. Nature Reviews Methods Primers . 2022;2(1)doi:10.1038/s43586-022-00150-6
Bergenholtz H, Missel M, Timm H. Talking about death and dying in a hospital setting – a qualitative study of the wishes for end-of-life conversations from the perspective of patients and spouses. BMC Palliat Care . 2020;19(1):168. doi:10.1186/s12904-020-00675-1
Olorunsaiye CZ, Degge HM, Ubanyi TO, Achema TA, Yaya S. “It’s like being involved in a car crash”: teen pregnancy narratives of adolescents and young adults in Jos, Nigeria. Int Health . 2022;14(6):562-571. doi:10.1093/inthealth/ihab069
Ayton DR, Barker AL, Peeters G, et al. Exploring patient-reported outcomes following percutaneous coronary intervention: A qualitative study. Health Expect . 2018;21(2):457-465. doi:10.1111/hex.12636
World Health Organization. International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF). WHO. https://www.who.int/standards/classifications/international-classification-of-functioning-disability-and-health#:~:text=ICF%20is%20the%20WHO%20framework,and%20measure%20health%20and%20disability.
Cuthbertson J, Rodriguez-Llanes JM, Robertson A, Archer F. Current and Emerging Disaster Risks Perceptions in Oceania: Key Stakeholders Recommendations for Disaster Management and Resilience Building. Int J Environ Res Public Health . 2019;16(3)doi:10.3390/ijerph16030460
Bannon SM, Grunberg VA, Reichman M, et al. Thematic Analysis of Dyadic Coping in Couples With Young-Onset Dementia. JAMA Netw Open . 2021;4(4):e216111. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2021.6111
McGranahan R, Jakaite Z, Edwards A, Rennick-Egglestone S, Slade M, Priebe S. Living with Psychosis without Mental Health Services: A Narrative Interview Study. BMJ Open . 2021;11(7):e045661. doi:10.1136/bmjopen-2020-045661
Gutiérrez-García AI, Solano-Ruíz C, Siles-González J, Perpiñá-Galvañ J. Life Histories and Lifelines: A Methodological Symbiosis for the Study of Female Genital Mutilation. Int J Qual Methods . 2021;20doi:10.1177/16094069211040969

Qualitative Research – a practical guide for health and social care researchers and practitioners Copyright © 2023 by Danielle Berkovic is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Research Methods Guide: Interview Research

Introduction
Research Design & Method
Survey Research
Data Analysis
Resources & Consultation

Tutorial Videos: Interview Method

Interview as a Method for Qualitative Research

Goals of Interview Research

Preferences
They help you explain, better understand, and explore research subjects' opinions, behavior, experiences, phenomenon, etc.
Interview questions are usually open-ended questions so that in-depth information will be collected.

Mode of Data Collection

There are several types of interviews, including:

Face-to-Face
Online (e.g. Skype, Googlehangout, etc)

FAQ: Conducting Interview Research

What are the important steps involved in interviews?

Think about who you will interview
Think about what kind of information you want to obtain from interviews
Think about why you want to pursue in-depth information around your research topic
Introduce yourself and explain the aim of the interview
Devise your questions so interviewees can help answer your research question
Have a sequence to your questions / topics by grouping them in themes
Make sure you can easily move back and forth between questions / topics
Make sure your questions are clear and easy to understand
Do not ask leading questions
Do you want to bring a second interviewer with you?
Do you want to bring a notetaker?
Do you want to record interviews? If so, do you have time to transcribe interview recordings?
Where will you interview people? Where is the setting with the least distraction?
How long will each interview take?
Do you need to address terms of confidentiality?

Do I have to choose either a survey or interviewing method?

No. In fact, many researchers use a mixed method - interviews can be useful as follow-up to certain respondents to surveys, e.g., to further investigate their responses.

Is training an interviewer important?

Yes, since the interviewer can control the quality of the result, training the interviewer becomes crucial. If more than one interviewers are involved in your study, it is important to have every interviewer understand the interviewing procedure and rehearse the interviewing process before beginning the formal study.

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Methodology

Structured Interview | Definition, Guide & Examples

Structured Interview | Definition, Guide & Examples

Published on January 27, 2022 by Tegan George and Julia Merkus. Revised on June 22, 2023.

A structured interview is a data collection method that relies on asking questions in a set order to collect data on a topic. It is one of four types of interviews .

In research, structured interviews are often quantitative in nature. They can also be used in qualitative research if the questions are open-ended, but this is less common.

While structured interviews are often associated with job interviews, they are also common in marketing, social science, survey methodology, and other research fields.

Semi-structured interviews : A few questions are predetermined, whereas the other questions aren’t planned.
Unstructured interviews : None of the questions are predetermined.
Focus group interviews : The questions are presented to a group instead of one individual.

What is a structured interview, when to use a structured interview, advantages of structured interviews, disadvantages of structured interviews, structured interview questions, how to conduct a structured interview, how to analyze a structured interview, presenting your results, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about structured interviews.

Structured interviews are the most systematized type of interview. In contrast to semi-structured or unstructured interviews, the interviewer uses predetermined questions in a set order.

Structured interviews are often closed-ended. They can be dichotomous, which means asking participants to answer “yes” or “no” to each question, or multiple-choice. While open-ended structured interviews do exist, they are less common.

Asking set questions in a set order allows you to easily compare responses between participants in a uniform context. This can help you see patterns and highlight areas for further research, and it can be a useful explanatory or exploratory research tool.

Structured interviews are best used when:

You already have a very clear understanding of your topic, so you possess a baseline for designing strong structured questions.
You are constrained in terms of time or resources and need to analyze your data efficiently.
Your research question depends on strong parity between participants, with environmental conditions held constant.

A structured interview is straightforward to conduct and analyze. Asking the same set of questions mitigates potential biases and leads to fewer ambiguities in analysis. It is an undertaking you can likely handle as an individual, provided you remain organized.

Differences between different types of interviews

Make sure to choose the type of interview that suits your research best. This table shows the most important differences between the four types.


Fixed questions
Fixed order of questions
Fixed number of questions
Option to ask additional questions

Reduced bias

Increased credibility, reliability and validity, simple, cost-effective and efficient, formal in nature, limited flexibility, limited scope.

It can be difficult to write structured interview questions that approximate exactly what you are seeking to measure. Here are a few tips for writing questions that contribute to high internal validity :

Define exactly what you want to discover prior to drafting your questions. This will help you write questions that really zero in on participant responses.
Avoid jargon, compound sentences, and complicated constructions.
Be as clear and concise as possible, so that participants can answer your question immediately.
Do you think that employers should provide free gym memberships?
Did any of your previous employers provide free memberships?
Does your current employer provide a free membership?
a) 1 time; b) 2 times; c) 3 times; d) 4 or more times
Do you enjoy going to the gym?

Structured interviews are among the most straightforward research methods to conduct and analyze. Once you’ve determined that they’re the right fit for your research topic , you can proceed with the following steps.

Step 1: Set your goals and objectives

Start with brainstorming some guiding questions to help you conceptualize your research question, such as:

What are you trying to learn or achieve from a structured interview?
Why are you choosing a structured interview as opposed to a different type of interview, or another research method?

If you have satisfying reasoning for proceeding with a structured interview, you can move on to designing your questions.

Step 2: Design your questions

Pay special attention to the order and wording of your structured interview questions . Remember that in a structured interview they must remain the same. Stick to closed-ended or very simple open-ended questions.

Step 3: Assemble your participants

Depending on your topic, there are a few sampling methods you can use, such as:

Voluntary response sampling : For example, posting a flyer on campus and finding participants based on responses
Convenience sampling of those who are most readily accessible to you, such as fellow students at your university
Stratified sampling of a particular age, race, ethnicity, gender identity, or other characteristic of interest to you
Judgment sampling of a specific set of participants that you already know you want to include

Step 4: Decide on your medium

Determine whether you will be conducting your interviews in person or whether your interview will take pen-and-paper format. If conducted live, you need to decide if you prefer to talk with participants in person, over the phone, or via video conferencing.

Step 5: Conduct your interviews

As you conduct your interviews, be very careful that all conditions remain as constant as possible.

Ask your questions in the same order, and try to moderate your tone of voice and any responses to participants as much as you can.
Pay special attention to your body language (e.g., nodding, raising eyebrows), as this can bias responses.

After you’re finished conducting your interviews, it’s time to analyze your results.

Assign each of your participants a number or pseudonym for organizational purposes.
Transcribe the recordings manually or with the help of transcription software.
Conduct a content or thematic analysis to look for categories or patterns of responses. In most cases, it’s also possible to conduct a statistical analysis to test your hypotheses .

Transcribing interviews

If you have audio-recorded your interviews, you will likely have to transcribe them prior to conducting your analysis. In some cases, your supervisor might ask you to add the transcriptions in the appendix of your paper.

First, you will have to decide whether to conduct verbatim transcription or intelligent verbatim transcription. Do pauses, laughter, or filler words like “umm” or “like” affect your analysis and research conclusions?

If so, conduct verbatim transcription and include them.
If not, conduct intelligent verbatim transcription, which excludes fillers and fixes any grammar issues, and is often easier to analyze.

The transcription process is a great opportunity for you to cleanse your data as well, spotting and resolving any inconsistencies or errors that come up as you listen.

Coding and analyzing structured interviews

After transcribing, it’s time to conduct your thematic or content analysis . This often involves “coding” words, patterns, or themes, separating them into categories for more robust analysis.

Due to the closed-ended nature of many structured interviews, you will most likely be conducting content analysis, rather than thematic analysis.

You quantify the categories you chose in the coding stage by counting the occurrence of the words, phrases, subjects or concepts you selected.
After coding, you can organize and summarize the data using descriptive statistics .
Next, inferential statistics allows you to come to conclusions about your hypotheses and make predictions for future research.

When conducting content analysis, you can take an inductive or a deductive approach. With an inductive approach, you allow the data to determine your themes. A deductive approach is the opposite, and involves investigating whether your data confirm preconceived themes or ideas.

Content analysis has a systematic procedure that can easily be replicated , yielding high reliability to your results. However, keep in mind that while this approach reduces bias, it doesn’t eliminate it. Be vigilant about remaining objective here, even if your analysis does not confirm your hypotheses .

After your data analysis, the next step is to combine your findings into a research paper .

Your methodology section describes how you collected the data (in this case, describing your structured interview process) and explains how you justify or conceptualize your analysis.
Your discussion and results sections usually address each of your coded categories, describing each in turn, as well as how often they occurred.

If you conducted inferential statistics in addition to descriptive statistics, you would generally report the test statistic , p -value , and effect size in your results section. These values explain whether your results justify rejecting your null hypothesis and whether the result is practically significant .

You can then conclude with the main takeaways and avenues for further research.

Example of interview methodology for a research paper

Let’s say you are interested in healthcare on your campus. You attend a large public institution with a lot of international students, and you think there may be a difference in perceptions based on country of origin.

Specifically, you hypothesize that students coming from countries with single-payer or socialized healthcare will find US options less satisfying.

There is a large body of research available on this topic, so you decide to conduct structured interviews of your peers to see if there’s a difference between international students and local students.

You are a member of a large campus club that brings together international students and local students, and you send a message to the club to ask for volunteers.

Here are some questions you could ask:

Do you find healthcare options on campus to be: excellent; good; fair; average; poor?
Does your home country have socialized healthcare? Yes/No
Are you on the campus healthcare plan? Yes/No
Have you ever worried about your health insurance? Yes/No
Have you ever had a serious health condition that insurance did not cover? Yes/No
Have you ever been surprised or shocked by a medical bill? Yes/No

After conducting your interviews and transcribing your data, you can then conduct content analysis, coding responses into different categories. Since you began your research with the theory that international students may find US healthcare lacking, you would use the deductive approach to see if your hypotheses seem to hold true.

If you want to know more about statistics , methodology , or research bias , make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples.

Student’s t -distribution
Normal distribution
Null and Alternative Hypotheses
Chi square tests
Confidence interval
Quartiles & Quantiles
Cluster sampling
Stratified sampling
Data cleansing
Reproducibility vs Replicability
Peer review
Prospective cohort study

Research bias

Implicit bias
Cognitive bias
Placebo effect
Hawthorne effect
Hindsight bias
Affect heuristic
Social desirability bias

A structured interview is a data collection method that relies on asking questions in a set order to collect data on a topic. They are often quantitative in nature. Structured interviews are best used when:

You already have a very clear understanding of your topic. Perhaps significant research has already been conducted, or you have done some prior research yourself, but you already possess a baseline for designing strong structured questions.
You are constrained in terms of time or resources and need to analyze your data quickly and efficiently.

More flexible interview options include semi-structured interviews , unstructured interviews , and focus groups .

The four most common types of interviews are:

Structured interviews : The questions are predetermined in both topic and order.
Semi-structured interviews : A few questions are predetermined, but other questions aren’t planned.

The interviewer effect is a type of bias that emerges when a characteristic of an interviewer (race, age, gender identity, etc.) influences the responses given by the interviewee.

There is a risk of an interviewer effect in all types of interviews , but it can be mitigated by writing really high-quality interview questions.

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Interviewing

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Interviewing is a great way to learn detailed information from a single individual or small number of individuals. It is very useful when you want to gain expert opinions on the subject or talk to someone knowledgeable about a topic.

Types of Interviewing

Several different types of interviews exist. You should choose one based on what kind of technology you have available to you, the availability of the individual you are interviewing, and how comfortable you feel talking to people.

Face to Face Interviews: Face to face interviews are when you sit down and talk with someone. They are beneficial because you can adapt your questioning to the answers of the person you are interviewing. You will need recording equipment for the interview, and it is highly recommended that you bring two recording devices with you in case one fails.

Phone Interviews: Phone interviews can be used when you need to interview someone who is geographically far away, who is too busy to meet with you to talk, or who does not want to use video or internet-based technology.

Email Interviews: Email interviews are less personal than face-to-face or phone interviews, but highly convenient for most individuals. You may not get as much information from someone in an email interview because you are not able to ask follow-up questions in the moment or play off the interviewee’s responses. However, email interviews are useful because they are already in a digital format.

Setting Up an Interview

When setting up an interview, be sure to be courteous and professional. Explain to the person being interviewed who you are, what you want to talk them about, and what project you are working on. Don’t be discouraged if not everyone you contact is willing to be interviewed.

Interview Do's and Dont's

When conducting interviews:

Do be careful of the types of questions you ask. See the page on Creating good survey and interview questions for more information.
Do start the interview with some small talk to give both yourself and the person you are interviewing a chance to get comfortable.
Do bring extra recording equipment in case something happens to one of your recording devices.
Do pay attention to what is being said during the interview and ask thoughtful follow-up questions.
Do come to the interview prepared. You should learn as much as you can about the person you are going to interview before the interview takes place so that you can tailor your questions to them.
Don't pester or push the person you are interviewing. If the interviwee does not want to talk about an issue, you should respect that desire.
Don't stick to your questions rigidly. If an interesting subject comes up that relates to your research, feel free to ask additional questions about it.
Don't allow the person you are interviewing to continually get off topic. If the conversation drifts, ask follow-up questions to redirect the conversation to the subject at hand.

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How To Write An Interiew Paper: Ultimate Guide

While you’re in school and studying different subjects, it can be tricky to understand each assignment’s needs and depths, especially long-form research papers that might count for a large percentage of your total grade. Writing an interview paper can involve a lot of research, require a lot of time and effort to find and schedule interviews with the right people, and write an engaging and easy-to-read piece. So here’s your ultimate blueprint on how to write an interview paper!

What Is An Interview Paper?

How to write an interview paper, the step-by-step guide on writing an interview paper, how to start an interview paper, how to write a conclusion for an interview paper, how to format an interview paper, checklist of essentials for an impressive interview paper, topics for an interview paper.

An interview paper is an intriguing but complex assignment to write about a topic that incorporates interviews and perspectives of different people on the issue. These interviews are usually with people who are stakeholders in a problem or the general public that has been inevitably affected by a country’s policy or about a particular case that caused havoc. In addition, it can also be a descriptive piece elaborating on the personal experience or anecdote of one person.

It’s definitely a learned skill and requires a lot of effort into cultivating precise questions networking to find the best people to interview (they can range from being your family members who were involved in a particular issue or have stark opinions on your topic to policymakers and governors who contributed to either passing or striking a specific act), and finally putting it all together to communicate the varying perspectives effectively without bias.

Here’s an excerpt from an interview paper example :

With the recent upsurge in mental health and psychology, many experts in the field are celebrating the increased awareness but also worry about the dissipation of false information. Especially with social media, information is communicated from one part of the world to another within seconds. It can lead to the misuse of terms and psychological context, leading to severe harm and damage. Dr. Rosen Luis, a professor of abnormal psychology at the University of Georgia, elaborated upon the issue of false information being spread on social media in a personal interview conducted last year. “As social media penetrates the global world at a more rapid rate than anything else in the world, sensitive information like that regarding mental health can easily be misused or leveraged in incorrect circumstances due to the lack of supervision on growing platforms. Social media also creates unrealistic expectations about how a mental illness should look. There’s no one distinct way a disorder manifests in everybody and can lead to different lifestyle changes for different people.” (R. Luis, Phone Interview, Jun 22, 2021)

So you might be thinking about how to write a paper based on an interview and what are the different components of such a paper? Well, a lot goes into an article of this kind, so it’s essential to break it down into separate elements so you can tackle each with great effort and accuracy to cultivate a solid assignment and fetch a top grade!

If you have the freedom to choose your topic for the assignment, it is essential that you pick up a contentious concept that is the center of debate and leads to some civil discourse. An interview paper needs to be backed with air-tight research and credible interviews taken ethically and incorporate direct, in-depth questioning and sources.

Now you may be wondering how to include an interview in a research paper, mainly because interviews often look like scripts instead of concrete research material, so it’s important to note that while your discussions will be long-form and extensive, you’ll have to pick and choose responses from your different interviews to use as quotes or credible backing for your statements within the content of the paper.

If you have no desire to get all those knowledge or experience a long tiring writing process, you can use an opportunity to buy cheap dissertation online .

To make the writing process easier, you should be absolutely sure in what to do in each step. Here is a list of steps you need to take to get a perfect interview paper.

Step 1 – Selecting the ideal topic for your paper : The topic you end up choosing for your interview paper can genuinely make or break your grade. It’s best not to look at generalized ideas or concepts that have been established as facts, as it’s unlikely that such topics will have a large-scale difference of opinion. Searching for a good case could begin with looking for issues that cause healthy discussion, differ within groups of different cultural, political, social, or economic backgrounds, and are essential conversations to have. It’s vital to ensure that the topic doesn’t cause a threat to someone’s rights, identity, or existence.
Step 2 – Ideation and Research : Now that you’ve established your topic and a basic crux of your thesis statement, you can begin ideating the direction you want to take your paper. For instance, you choose capital punishment and its use to decrease long-term crime patterns in Singapore (known to have one of the highest percentages of the executed population via capital punishment), you’ll think about whether you want to talk about its history, grassroots change, crime statistics and also decide who all you’ll want to interview. A big part of writing an interview paper is finding people from diverse backgrounds with conflicting opinions to give your readers a 360-degree view on the issue.
Step 3 – Crafting your interview questions : After having decided your topic and doing in-depth research about the same, it’s time to curate a set of interview questions that are brief, to-the-point, and extract the information you require for your assignment. Crafting good open-ended questions is a learned skill and will improve with the number of interviews you prep for. Ensure that all your questions are about the topic, fact-checked, and easy to understand for the interviewee.
Step 4 – Taking the interviews : Once the interview blueprint is ready, you’ve to schedule and conduct interviews with the people you’re choosing to talk to (it is preferred that you conduct interviews in-person, so it is as personal and direct as possible). Be sure to ask your questions clearly and record the interviewee’s responses using a recording device so you can precisely transcribe the answers afterward. It’s crucial that your interviewee feels comfortable talking to you about the topic, especially if it is something very sensitive and personal. Good interview ethics also involve letting your respondent know they can communicate if they want something they spoke about to be scratched out of the interview.If you’re planning on using published interviews, you can skip the third and fourth steps and pick up essential quotes from the already published interviews. Remember to cite the quotes in the correct format so that you don’t get into any unnecessary plagiarism issues.
Step 5 – Creating an outline : With regards to the obtained interview responses, you’ll create a very detailed skeleton for the interview paper, so you know precisely which idea goes where. This will help you when you finally get down to writing the actual essay, as you’ll be able to keep track of your different ideas, quotes, and sources and establish an engaging flow. You can also spend some time writing transitionary sentences that you’ll use when you move from one paragraph to the next.
Step 6 – Writing the paper : Now that you’re done with all the back-end research, interviewing, and outlining, you’ve to sit down and fill in the gaps to produce a stellar essay. You have all the elements you need to decrease your distractions, be charged up, and just write it out. Contrary to popular belief, writing is actually a learned skill. Even if you don’t believe you’re as good with words as others, learning a few tips and tricks can easily elevate your writing to a notch above. Using precise and appropriate vocabulary, leveraging analogies, metaphors, and other language elements to convey your ideas, and having perfect grammar and syntax are some of the ways you can better your writing.

The basics of any paper are a thesis statement, introduction, body, and conclusion. You would’ve formulated your thesis statement while ideating the direction you wanted to take your paper in, and through the outline, you’ve hopefully followed the one-idea, one paragraph to give rise to a well-constructed body. Here’s some guidance on the two components that determine the first impression and last impression your reader has of the paper:

The introduction of your interview paper is the first thing that the reader looks at, so it’s crucial to hook the reader to keep them engaged to follow through with reading the paper. You can include:

Your thesis statement Intriguing data about your topic A quote from one of your interviewees Citing any information that’s been in the news with regards to your topic

The purpose of a catchy introduction is to connect the idea at hand to the reader’s life and intrigue them enough to learn more about the issue.

For example , if you’re writing on the capital punishment topic, beginning with an alarming statistic to depict the dire need to start a serious conversation about its effectiveness or ineffectiveness could hook the reader very well:

“ Juxtaposing the modern ideals of reformation and change, over 400 individuals have been giving the death penalty in Singapore since 1991″

Like any research paper, a firm conclusion is a must in a well-written interview paper. Since your paper will deal with some contrasting ideas, summarizing all the perspectives while shedding more light on the thesis statement will hook your reader to think about the information and views brought up in your essay long after they finish reading. Though this is one of the many assignments you’ve to write for school, interview papers dealing with conflicting real-life issues also contribute to social change via beginning civil discourse and fact-oriented discussion on important causes.

Step 7 – Citing the sources : It’s vital that after you finish the contents of your essay, you spend time formatting your interview paper in the correct format and cite all of your sources in the needed manner (e.g., MLA, APA, etc.). It’ll help provide credibility to your arguments, show that you delved into air-tight research for your topic, and protect you from any coincidental issues in plagiarism checkers.
Step 8 – Revision : It’s believed that looking at your paper, especially one you’ve spent hours on, with a fresh set of eyes, gives you a better perspective on things to change and helps you spot any missed grammar and style errors. You can finish your draft, take a nap, get back to the assignment and make the changes, read it aloud to make any mistakes more noticeable, or even ask a friend to have a read-through.

It’s essential that you know the interview paper format to be able to present a well-written, researched, and formatted assignment for an excellent grade. So here are some steps on how to write an interview paper in APA format –

If you’re citing a personal interview that you conducted in the course of writing the piece, here’s the format to follow:

Include the name of the interviewee and their qualifications, job description, and experience Mention the purpose of involving them in your research paper Incorporate a couple of quotes from their interview Cite the interview in the correct APA format

For, e.g., – (Interviewee first name initial & last name, interview format, date of interview)

If you’re citing an already published interview of someone in the field, the way you format the quotes in the paper and the bibliography should follow the format of the document in which you found the interview. Say you found an interview of a renowned politician in a social science journal that followed the MLA format; you must follow the same and cite the social science journal as your source.

To have peace of mind that you’ve done everything you needed for the perfect interview paper, here’s a short checklist you can quickly run through before submitting your assignment

Included all interviewees point’s of view Remained neutral while elaborating on others’ opinions even if you have a solid personal perspective on the subject Followed the one-idea, one-paragraph rule and included well-written transitory sentences Utilized precise and high-level vocabulary and sentence structure Proofread the essay to rid it of any grammar or syntax inconsistencies Used the correct format to cite sources within the paper and in the bibliography

What role do you think your genetics play in your character compared to your upbringing?
Are beauty standards unrealistic?
Is social media connecting or disconnecting people?
Should abortion be a topic of policy?
Should age-old prisons be reconstructed to fit modern ideas of reformation and change?
Do nursing homes contribute to the well-being of the older generation?
Should marijuana be legalized?
Should the same humanitarian and crime laws apply in times of war?
Should gun rights be ubiquitous?
Is capital punishment leading to grassroots change?
Should society be capitalist, socialist, or an amalgamation of both?
Should cloning be legal?
Is the concept of marriage as idolized as it used to be?
Is choosing to be child-free selfish?
Should the rich pay more tax?
Are our immigration policies outdated in a globalized world?
Should celebrities be more accountable for their actions than the average person?
Are companies doing enough to contribute to climate change effects?
Should holistic therapies be considered certified medical treatments?
Should upbringing be gendered?
Is having kids in a time of such turmoil ethical?
Should prostitution be legalized?
How should racism or homophobia be combated on an individual level?
College degrees and their relevance in the digital age
Going vegan v/s consuming meat: What’s better for the climate?
How important is your religion to you?
Are money and happiness correlated?
How much does early-child development affect one’s mental health into adulthood?
Is stealing ever okay?
Are arranged marriages still as popular?

Not Interested in Writing Paper by Yourself?

Getting started with an interview paper can feel intimidating, mainly since it entails so much work – in-depth research on the topic and the history of debate behind it, setting up and curating tailored interviews with people relevant to the topic, and so much more. While you juggle several courses and assignments and other extracurricular work at high school or college, it can be challenging to submit well-written papers that will put you at the top of your class.

Impressing your professor isn’t an easy task. Still, you can do it by hiring expert help that will assist you with your writing assignments and produce work that the accomplished writers will curate as per your needs, that too at highly affordable rates!

You’ll be able to buy and order a custom interview paper that will be ideated and written by thesis writing service for a cheap cost. It’s an efficient and cost-effective way to stay on top of your work, learn from experts in the field, and wow your teachers with a well-written interview paper!

Department of English

September 12: paisley rekdal, nonfiction reading – 7 pm, buttrick 102.

Posted by vineslt on Monday, September 9, 2024 in event , spotlight .

♦ September 12: Paisley Rekdal, Poetry, Buttrick Hall 102

Paisley Rekdal is the author of essays and poetry including Animal Eye, Imaginary Vessels, Nightingale, and West: A Translation, longlisted for the 2023 National Book Award in Poetry and winner of the 2024 Kingsley Tufts Prize. Her newest works of nonfiction include a book-length essay, The Broken Country: On Trauma, a Crime, and the Continuing Legacy of Vietnam and Appropriate: A Provocation . She guest edited Best American Poetry 2020 . Her poems and essays have appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, American Poetry Review, The Kenyon Review, Poetry, The New Republic, Tin House , the Best American Poetry series, and on National Public Radio. Her work has received a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Amy Lowell Poetry Traveling Fellowship, a Fulbright Fellowship, a Civitella Ranieri Residency, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, Pushcart Prizes (2009, 2013), Narrative ‘s Poetry Prize, and the AWP Creative Nonfiction Prize. She is a Distinguished Professor at the University of Utah. Between 2017-2022, she served as Utah’s Poet Laureate, receiving a 2019 Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellowship. She currently serves as poetry editor for High Country News .

Please join us for a book signing and ‘Meet the Author’ event beginning at 6:00 pm in Buttrick 102, prior to the reading.

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Types Of Interview In Research Methodology
How to write an interview paper in apa format example
Research Paper Interview in Word and Pdf formats
Writing an Interview Paper: Formatting Guide, Samples and Writing Tips
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Interview request Qualitative Research

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COMMENTS

Types of Interviews in Research
Types of Interviews in Research | Guide & Examples
(PDF) How to Conduct an Effective Interview; A Guide to Interview
Vancouver, Canada. Abstract. Interviews are one of the most promising ways of collecting qualitative data throug h establishment of a. communication between r esearcher and the interviewee. Re ...
Using an interview in a research paper
Career Trend, Leaf group Media. University Writing & Speaking Center. 1664 N. Virginia Street, Reno, NV 89557. William N. Pennington Student Achievement Center, Mailstop: 0213. [email protected]. (775) 784-6030. Using an interview can be an effective primary source for some papers and research projects.
How To Do Qualitative Interviews For Research
How To Do Qualitative Interviews For Research
How Do You Incorporate an Interview into a Dissertation?
To present interviews in a dissertation, you first need to transcribe your interviews. You can use transcription software for this. You can then add the written interviews to the appendix. If you have many or long interviews that make the appendix extremely long, the appendix (after consultation with the supervisor) can be submitted as a ...
PDF Guide to Interview Guides and Interviewing
Don't ask, instruct (command!) Ask one question at a time; get the detail in the probes. Ask questions that can be answered. Repeat, and redirect. Use your naïveté to your advantage. Ask how, not why questions. Make people respondents, not key informants (individuals are unreliable) Don't ask respondents to be analysts.
Chapter 11. Interviewing
Chapter 11. Interviewing - Introduction to Qualitative ...
Interview Research
Interview Research - Library Support for Qualitative Research
Twelve tips for conducting qualitative research interviews
Twelve tips for conducting qualitative research interviews
Chapter 13: Interviews
What are interviews? An interviewing method is the most commonly used data collection technique in qualitative research. 1 The purpose of an interview is to explore the experiences, understandings, opinions and motivations of research participants. 2 Interviews are conducted one-on-one with the researcher and the participant. Interviews are most appropriate when seeking to understand a ...
PDF TIPSHEET QUALITATIVE INTERVIEWING
TIPSHEET - QUALITATIVE INTERVIEWING
(PDF) THE PROCESS OF QUALITATIVE INTERVIEW: PRACTICAL ...
The main purpose of the current paper is to of fer practical insight s on the process of q ualitative. data collection through semi structured interv iews for novice researchers. The paper has ...
Research Methods Guide: Interview Research
Interview Method - Research Guides - Virginia Tech
(PDF) Using Interviews in a Research Project
(PDF) Using Interviews in a Research Project
Structured Interview
Structured Interview | Definition, Guide & Examples
How To Write an Interview Paper in APA Format in 10 Steps
How To Write an Interview Paper in APA Format in 10 Steps
7 Interview Methods in Research (Plus Interviewing Tips)
Be sure to take notes throughout the interview so you can reference them as you analyze your results. 4. Analyze your results. After conducting your research interview, you can analyze the response data. Review your notes and any interview transcripts or recordings to see how your data relates to your research.
The Qualitative Research Interview: Participants' Responsive
As early as the 1980s, qualitative researchers demonstrated sensitivity to the impact of research interviews on participants (Cowles, 1988; Munhall, 1988).Reacting to the hegemony of standardized measures that were thought to "squelch or deform the localized and personal knowledge of research participants" (Gergen, 2001, p. 21), researchers focused on learning about people's often deeply ...
Interviewing
Primary research involves collecting data about a given subject directly from the real world. This section includes information on what primary research is, how to get started, ethics involved with primary research and different types of research you can do. It includes details about interviews, surveys, observations, and analyses.
A methodological guide to using and reporting on interviews in
In this paper, we analyse the use of interviews in research aimed at making decisions for conservation. Through a structured review of 227 papers, we explore where, why and how interviews were used in the context of conservation decision making; The review suggests that interviews are a widely used method for a broad range of purposes.
Preparing for Interview Research: The Interview Protocol Refinement
The interview protocol framework is comprised of four-phases: Phase 1: Ensuring interview questions align with research questions, Phase 2: Constructing an inquiry-based conversation, Phase 3: Receiving feedback on interview protocols Phase 4: Piloting the interview protocol. Each phase helps the researcher take one step further toward ...
How To Write An Interview Paper
The Step-by-Step Guide On Writing an Interview Paper. To make the writing process easier, you should be absolutely sure in what to do in each step. Here is a list of steps you need to take to get a perfect interview paper. Step 1 - Selecting the ideal topic for your paper: The topic you end up choosing for your interview paper can genuinely ...
Getting more out of interviews. Understanding interviewees' accounts in
We have shown in this paper that DMI provides an analytical procedure for methodically controlled interpretations of interview accounts in all domains of qualitative social research because it also allows to re-interpret interviewees' everyday theories and justifications presented in interviews against the background of their 'a theoretical ...
September 12: Paisley Rekdal, nonfiction reading
Paisley Rekdal is the author of essays and poetry including Animal Eye, Imaginary Vessels, Nightingale, and West: A Translation, longlisted for the 2023 National Book Award in Poetry and winner of the 2024 Kingsley Tufts Prize. Her newest works of nonfiction include a book-length essay, The Broken Country: On Trauma, a Crime, and the Continuing Legacy of Vietnam and Appropriate: A Provocation.