In-depth interviewing as a research methodology

¶ … Interviewing as a Methodology

The interview coordinates a conversation aimed at obtaining desired information. He or she makes the initial contact, schedules the event, designates its location, sets out the ground rules, and then begins to question the interviewee. Questions elicit answers in more or less anticipatable format until the interviewer's agenda is completed and the interview ends. Gubrium & Holstein discuss in their writing that the interview is a viable procedure useful in securing knowledge. Individuals have not always been viewed as important sources of knowledge about their own experiences. Particular forms of questioning have been around for a while. The style of interviewing can be traced back to parents and children, prisoners and lawyers etc. The basic interview changed after World War II, here began the use of the standardized survey interview.

The long interview is one of the most powerful methods in the qualitative armory. For certain descriptive and analytic purposes, no instrument of inquiry is more revealing. The method can take us into the mental world of the individual, to glimpse the categories and logic by which he or she sees the world. It can also take us into the life world of the individual, to see the content and pattern of daily experiences. The long interview gives us the opportunity to step into the mind of another person, to see and experience the world as they do themselves (McCracken & McCracken, 1988).

Interview practices have been developed through the practices associated with surveys, in-depth, life story, and focus group interviews to postmodern trends, which include virtual interviewing, auto ethnography, and poetic representation. The research continues by explaining the significance between the interview type and the theoretical issues in question; these factors determine what form of interviewing is best suited for a given situation. Plakhotnik & Rocco (2006), continue by explaining that there are initial concerns that had to be addressed. These concerns included selecting and training interviewers, pretesting, and securing respondents. The influence of developments in social sciences and methodology on aspects of the survey interview is presented to avoid a simplistic how-to approach. For example the co authors present information concerning interviewer recruitment and selection, by explaining that they are drawn from results of several empirical studies and one meta-analysis of hundreds of studies investigating the impact of interviewers' age, race, gender, and class on the responses they obtain from interviewees.

The first step of the long qualitative interview begins with an exhaustive review of the literature. Literature reviews...are not simple exercises in data collection. They are...critical undertakings in which the investigator exercises a constant skepticism. They are, in fact, a kind of qualitative analysis. They search out the conscious and unconscious assumptions of scholarly enterprises. They determine how these assumptions force the definition of problems and findings. The good literature review is a critical process that makes the investigator the master, not the captive, of previous scholarship...[It is a] review and "deconstruction" of the scholarly literature. (McCracken, 1988, p. 31)The literature:

helps define the problems to be studied and helps assess data

Aids in the construction of interview questions.

The second step involves self-examination. The object of this step is to give the investigator a more detailed and systematic appreciation of his or her personal experience with the topic of interest. It calls for the minute examination of this experience. The investigator must inventory and examine the associations, incidents, and assumptions that surround the topic in his or her mind. (p. 32) the cultural review:

helps identify cultural categories and relationships that become the basis of question formation

prepares the investigator for the "rummaging" that will occur during data analysis

"Distances" the investigator. "Only by knowing the cultural categories and configurations that the investigator uses to understand the world is he or she in a position to root these out of the terra firma of familiar expectation. This clearer understanding of one's vision of the world permits a critical distance from it...The investigators experiences and biases are the "very stuff of understanding and explication" (p. 32).

The third step involves developing a questionnaire. The final questionnaire...will consist in a set of biographical questions followed by a series of question areas. Each of these will have a set of grand-tour questions with floating prompts at the ready. It will also consist in planned prompting in the form of "contrast," "category," "special incident," and "auto-driving" questions. With this questionnaire in hand, the investigator has a rough travel itinerary with which to negotiate the interview. It does not specify precisely what will happen at every stage of the journey...but it does establish a clear sense of the direction of the journey and the ground it will eventually cover. (p. 37) Begin an interview by demonstrating that the interviewer is a "benign, accepting, curious (but not inquisitive) individual who is prepared and eager to listen to virtually any testimony with interest" (p. 38). Once the preliminaries are completed, deploy grand-tour questions followed by "floating prompts." Follow this with planned prompts:

contrast category special incident auto-driving

Be alert for impression management

topic avoidance deliberate distortion minor misunderstanding outright incomprehension

The fourth and final phase of the long interview is the most demanding. It is the analysis of the data. The object of analysis is to determine the categories, relationships, and assumptions that inform the respondent's view of the world in general and the topic in particular. The investigator comes to this undertaking with a sense of what the literature says ought to be there, a sense of how the topic at issue is constituted in his or her own experience, and a glancing sense of what took place in the interview itself. The investigator must be prepared to use all of this material as a guide to what exists there, but he or she must also be prepared to ignore all of this material to see what none of it anticipates. If the full powers of discovery inherent in the qualitative interview are to be fully exploited, the investigator must be prepared to glimpse and systematically reconstruct a view of the world that bears no relation to his or her own view or the one evident in the literature. (p. 42)

Plakhotnik & Rocco (2006), discuss further the information gathered from the literature they reviewed. It is explained that in-depth interviews are viewed as a social form and their goals and purposes in the context of the meaning of the word deep before moving onto procedural issues of identifying informants, conducting the interviews, and following interview ethics. Interviews are deep when they reveal "understandings . . . held by real-life members of or participants in some everyday activity . . . which go beyond commonsense explanations . . . can reveal how ones commonsense assumptions, practices, and ways of talking partly constitute ones interests and how they are understood, while allowing the interviewer to grasp and articulate the multiple views of, perspectives on, and meaning of some activity, event, or cultural object" (pp. 106 -- 107).

(McCracken, 1988)There are several areas of controversy within qualitative research methodology. One of these concerns the way in which the qualitative research community has fashioned, or refused to fashion, a relationships to the several social sciences and alternative methods of social scientific study. The second compelling question concerns the relationship between the researcher and his or her own culture. The third concerns the relationship between the researcher and the data. The key question here is: how can the researcher collect data that are both abundant and manageable? The forth concerns the relationship between the researcher and the respondent; how is this delicate relationship best constructed and construed?

In 1997, Ritchie reported that traditional scholarship dismissed oral history interviews for not being as objective (or true) as other forms of documentation or as scientific as questionnaire-based interviewing. Then as various disciplines began rethinking the concept of an objective reality, they confronted the subjective (or biased) nature of all sources of information and reexamined the forms and motivations of verbal expression. As they have embraced their subjectively, many scholars using interviews as a research tool have moved closer to oral history methodology, whether they know it or not.

Ritchie, continued to discuss that a psychologist by the name of John T. Chirban, wanted to improve interviewing in psychological therapy and the health professions through what he terms an interactive-relational (or I: R) approach. Traditional psychological interviews required interviewers to maintain an observational posture that discouraged personal interactions, in order to collect impartial empirical data. Behavioral psychology reduced the interviewee's role to that of "subject." Wanting to pump vitality back into these interviews, stimulate more communication, and provide more depth. Chirban focuses on the "heart-to-heart, as well as face-to-face, elements" of an interview (1997).

The I:R approach is reported to have been created while interviewing a dozen prominent American women for a project on "Women, Motivation and Success." Chirban's initial questionnaire, designed according to standard qualitative research methods, quickly proved an obstacle to his work. He began to speak less formally, weaving his previously formulated questions into something that resembled a conversation. This led his interviewees to speak more candidly and with more self-reflection, moving beyond their celebrity images. Chirban's interactive interviewing required more empathy and listening skills on his part, but the trust that it established enabled him to enter the interviewee's world. The new relationship also allowed interviewees to reflect on their past with new understanding as the dialogue unfolded (Ritchie, 1997).

Interviewing is a complex and demanding task. It is a direct conversation the purpose of which is to gather information b; administering a set of questions. The interview is a key data collection tool for conducting surveys. Reviewed literature describes the ways in which survey data can be gathered; questionnaire design and interview techniques, and analyses in detail the fundamental characteristics of the interview a structured method of obtaining information in a target population, evaluating its relative advantages and disadvantages. Discussion has taken place too regarding the importance of preparation and administration of survey interviews via telephone and in person. There are steps that should be taken to prepare interview question; it is important to write questions that will be effective. In the case of interviewing there is a process of how to write pre-letters and scripts for a pre-call as well as organize a flowing interview script that considers possible question order effects ( n.d. Interview).

Charlton (1985) defined oral history as "the recording and preserving of planned interviews with selected persons able to narrate recollected memory and thereby aid the reconstruction of the past" (p.2). The value of oral history for educational researchers and practitioners is found in the background that can be provided by credible participants who are able to enrich understandings of the immediate problem-solving context or who can draw parallels with other contexts. Sometimes dramatic events or significant phenomena require giving voice to otherwise silent observers or constituencies that know the true nature of the problem of interest, but who have never been consulted by historians or decision makers. For example, ethnographic shifts in recent years have created major cultural divides in communities and schools that challenge long held assumptions of teachers and administrators regarding their client student populations.

Technological developments have made interviewing more feasible and more reliable ( n.d. Interview). The writing went even further to discuss that the integration of the computer into data gathering has improved the level of data quality for both telephone and in-person interviewing. Computer-assisted interviewing makes it possible for the interview to be completed with fewer problems of interviewer error. The well-organized monograph by SARIS aims to aid researchers to improve their data's quality and to help the reader identify the possibilities and difficulties that arise in computer-assisted interviewing. Examples of actual research questionnaires are given so that the reader can compare the usual paper questionnaire against the extra statements needed for clear computer-assisted interviewing

Interviewing is an essential tool in qualitative research: through qualitative interviews one can understand experiences and reconstruct events. Qualitative interviewing requires intense listening, a respect for and curiosity about what people say, and a systematic effort to really hear and understand what people tell. Qualitative interviewing encompasses a variety of ways of questioning: interviews differ in style and in the relative emphasis on understanding culture as the main object of study. The scope of the research arena also varies from one type of interview to another ( n.d. Interview).

Kristsonis provided an example which stated a formerly rural/now suburban high school campus that in 1995-2004 comparison revealed the following demographic changes in students and teachers. In 1995 only 17% of the students of this inner city campus were Hispanic, 15% were African-American, and 65% of students were Anglo. The teacher demographic representations were similar. Ten years later 67% of the students were Hispanic, 17% were African-American, but only 16 of the students were Anglo. The teacher demographics remained relatively unchanged over the same 10 years.

Conversations with parents, teachers, and administrators reveals that the unexpected demographic gaps that occurred during the preceding ten-year period had resulted in an increase of racial tensions wherein teachers/student and teacher/parent conflicts occurring. The achievement of Hispanic students continued a downward spiral, attendance and dropouts were increasing, and disciplinary alternative educational placements were soaring. These realities placed the district in jeopardy of losing its standing based on statewide criteria and NCLB standards. This was a phenomenon that could be documented through oral history interviews and the results made available as a case for other districts. In this case a number of interventions might be possible in the short run but a comprehensive and effectively planned longer term plan informed by carefully conducted oral histories would provide some valuable context and community history of the community that can provide answers to working with all parties affected by the problem. (Kristsonis, 2008, para. 8)

Although it is well accepted that memories are not exact replicas of prior experiences but instead are reconstructions (Loftus, 1979), the nature of these reconstructions and the effects of developmental and contextual influences on them remain debated. One noteworthy debate has focused on the effects of repeated interviews on children's memory and suggestibility. In particular, concerns have been raised that the more often a child is interviewed, the more often misinformation might be presented -- intentionally or inadvertently -- leading to increased inaccuracy over time. Moreover, repeated demands for a child to retrieve information from memory may increase confabulations due to social pressure. Despite these concerns, studies of children's memory for experienced events generally suggest that repeated interviews can improve performance by facilitating recall and reducing forgetting (e.g., Howe, Courage, & Bryant-Brown, 1993; Peterson, 1999). Yet, in a second line of research, specifically when children are suggestively questioned about false events, adverse effects of repeated interviews appear to emerge (e.g., Bruck, Ceci, & Hembrooke, 2002; Leichtman & Ceci, 1995).

A simple explanation for the different patterns of results is that repeated interviews benefit memory when the to-be-remembered event is true and distort memory when the to-be-remembered event is false. However, a number of other factors likely contribute to the evident reduction in accuracy when children are repeatedly interviewed about fictitious events, making the simple explanation premature. For instance, studies concerning children's false event reports following repeated interviews often began with an interviewer explicitly stating that the false events occurred (e.g., Ceci, Huffman, Smith, & Loftus, 1994). The interviewers' biased statement, in addition to or instead of the interview repetition, may well have affected children's accuracy. In addition, children's false reports following repeated interviews were often compared with their reports in earlier interviews (e.g., Bruck et al., 2002). Yet, in order to draw conclusions about the effects of repeated interviews per se, one needs to compare performance of children exposed to repeated interviews with the performance of children exposed to a single interview matched in delay to that of children exposed to repeated interviews.

The purpose of this study was to disentangle the effects of repeated interviews and interviewer bias and, in doing so, to determine more precisely how repeated interviews affect children's memory and false reports. Also of interest was whether the effects of repeated interviews vary across development. Two age groups were thus included: 3- and 5-year-olds, targeted for theoretical and practical reasons. Theoretically, compared with older preschoolers, younger preschoolers forget more quickly, have more limited ability to monitor the sources of their memories, are more trusting of adults' statements -- even when adults have a history of providing inaccurate information, and are more susceptible generally to suggestive interview tactics .Practically, concerns in legal contexts about the malleability of memory are often greatest when preschoolers, as opposed to older children or adults, allege to have experienced or witnessed a crime (Quas, Thompson, & Clarke-Stewart, 2005), and repeated interviews are commonplace in forensic contexts. Knowledge concerning younger and older preschoolers' performance following exposure to repeated interviews and biased interviewers can provide insight into developmental changes in the influence of contextual characteristics on children's eyewitness capabilities.

Hermeneutical Design and the Long Interview as Qualitative Research

Hermeneutics is a field of study devoted to the problem of how to give meaning to a cultural product such as a work of art or a piece of writing. The concept was originally applied to interpretations of the Bible, especially given its history of repeatedly being revised, rewritten, copied, and translated. Currently, however, the concept is applicable to any element of culture. From a hermeneutic perspective; we cannot tell what something means simply from the thing itself. We can also look at the context in which it was produced and in which we are now trying to make sense of it. Figuring out what a document such as the Magna Carta or the U.S. Constitution means, for example, depends entirely on the subjective decision of what kind of interpretive framework to use. Do we try to imagine, for example, what those who wrote the Constitution had in mind at the time? Do we interpret the document in terms of the social conditions that applied then (including, for example, the acceptability of slavery as an institution and the exclusion of blacks and women from the phrase "All men are created equal")? Or do we interpret the Constitution as it applies to current social conditions? The answer to such questions cannot help but be subjective, which implies that meaning is not fixed or predictable. This makes meaning and the social life on which meaning rests difficult to identify with any certainty (Bauman, 1978).

As a perspective on social life, hermeneutics challenges mainstream applications of the scientific method because it argues that there is no objective reality "out there" to be understood in a strictly scientific way. Rather, there is a more subjective, fluid reality that calls for different kinds of methods in order to grasp and understand it. The term double hermeneutic can refer to two factors that affect how sociologists interpret and explain social life and behavior. First, in order to understand people's behavior we have to know something about what they think they are doing and why, about how they make sense of their surroundings and other people. Second, when we observe social life, we also make use of concepts such as role and social system that help explain what is going on. The people who participate in social life, however, are unlikely to use such terms to describe or interpret their own behavior. A man accused of sexually harassing a female co-worker, for example, might only be aware of personal feelings he has toward her. A sociologist, however, might also be aware of gender differences in communication and the male-dominated social system in which all of this takes place. The concept of double hermeneutic draws attention to the fact that any explanation of social life depends on both kinds of knowledge -- the knowledge of how people make sense of their own lives and behavior and the knowledge that sociologists bring to what they observe (Bauman, 1978).

Ritchie (1997) explains that active interviews transform interviewees from "subjects," "vessels of answers," and "repositories of fact" into "constructors of knowledge in collaboration with interviewers." Interviews should be conversations whose means are cooperatively reached and interpreted, and where reality is continually "under construction" by the interviewee and interviewer. The interviewer's objective is not to dictate interpretation through a pre-determined agenda but to provide a conducive environment for the production of meanings that address relevant issues. How the process unfolds is as important to Holstein and Gubrium as what is being asked and answered. However, they are concerned that recent scholarship has been more interested in the "how's of social process" than the "what's of lived experience," and prefer to strike a balance between the two. An unconventional as these observations may be by social science standards, oral historians will recognize such goals and methods as close to their own. Yet these authors apparently have not benefited from the growing body of oral history methodology.

Life story interviewing

Defines a sociological life story is "the story a person chooses to tell about the life he has lived, told as completely and honestly as possible, what is remembered of it, and what the teller wants others to know of it, usually as a result of a guided interview by another." The life story technique puts greater emphasis on eliciting personal narratives, that is, asking the interviewees to tell their life stories in their own words and recounting events in their preferred order without asking them too many direct and predetermined questions. This enables the interviewees to arrange their experiences and relate them to other life events. However, the life story is often more than just a narration of events. It can be argued that this respondent-led process facilitates organization, clarification and sometimes justification of the life experiences. It should also be noted that not all stories are neatly organized, and that can also be an interesting feature for investigation ("ESDS Qualidata," 2010, para. 1).

The life story technique specifically permits the detailed study of complex relationships of experiences across time and should cover the life story right up until the present day, whereas the oral history interview covers an aspect of someone's life and the timeline of the story can end before the date of the interview. This method can be used to investigate specific social, cultural and historical issues through the individual's life story and it explores the link between individual lives and wider public events. These interviews are also useful for studying a single aspect of a person's life in the context of a more complicated life story. It can also be interesting to compare family stories and identify intergenerational patterns of behavior, opinions and attitudes that have been passed down through the family. ("ESDS Qualidata," 2010, para. 3).

A typical life story is recorded or written down and may cover some of the following topics: family and early life, including memories about family background, the neighborhood and community, everyday life at home, youth and leisure work, looking at a person's work history, a typical working day, influences from work, and perhaps the social life connected to the workplace later family life, exploring issues such as marriage, housing, children, friendships, and discussing later life experiences such as retirement, becoming a grandparent and social life. This is not an exhaustive list and the interviewers should adapt their questions according to the specific experiences of the interviewees. This technique requires the interviewers to be flexible in their questioning and to follow up interesting and important leads as they arise. ("ESDS Qualidata," 2010, para. 4).

The focus of the research is the interviewing survey research, although it is obvious that many of the findings can be generalized to other types of interviews, not only in social science research but wherever the interview is used as a means of collecting information. The researchers explain that the problem and the conceptual framework serve as a basis for the analyses which follow. The authors point out that historically research on the interview has been concerned largely with the interviewer's own attitudes and the effect of those attitudes on the interview results. They stress that this influence may be less important than other factors such as interviewers' beliefs about the population, or how they expect respondents to think and react to questions. They point to the importance of other cognitive processes both in the interviewer and in the respondent, as well as to the interaction forces such as rapport variations and mutual perception, as potential sources of bias (Cannell, 1955).

Historical research and particularly oral history interviewing provides context and clear precedents that can be explored and considered for educational policy as well as practice. Educational researchers and IRB board members might wince at the notion of preserving recorded interviews. Such practice seems to contradict ethical provisions safeguarding anonymity of research subjects. This is where the difference between oral history interviewing and other methodologies is important. Unlike any other discipline or methodology, oral history interviewing requires the spoken words of a specifically named individual connected in time and place by means of recording data on audio tapes, video tapes, images, documents, and transcripts preserved so as to be accessible for historical verification (Dunaway, D.K. & Baum, 1984).

To address this ethics concern, the Organization of American Historians (OAH) and the Oral History Society (OHS) in October 2003 successfully petitioned the U.S. Office for Human Research Protection (OHRP), part of the Department of Health and Human Services, for a special ruling on oral history research interviewing. They were especially concerned with oral history projects that do not involve the type of research defined by HHS regulations. It was determined that some oral history projects may not fall under the "Common Rule" that define research as "a systematic investigation, including research development, testing and evaluation, designed to develop or contribute to generalize-able knowledge." According to the Organization of Oral Historians (2003, November):

This type of research involves standard questionnaires with large samples of individuals who remain anonymous, not the open-ended interviews with identifiable individuals who give their interviews with 'informed consent' that characterizes oral history. Only those oral history projects that conform to the regulatory definition of research will now need to submit their research protocols for IRB review. An advantage of the oral history interview, therefore, if the study is carefully designed, is that IRB oversight has become far less restrictive than for other methodologies.

The strengths and limitations of the long interview as methodology

Qualitative interviewing allows people to tell their own stories in their own words, as long as the research framework is not too directive. What the respondent chooses to say and how they say it, gives a sense of their priorities and frames of reference. The interviewer can come to understand experiences and reconstruct events he or she has never taken part in, learn about different ways of experiencing the world and get insights into other people's categories, definitions, needs and desires. Although interviewing is a social context with its own rules, interviewing is not too far removed from ordinary conversation; using similar cues for speaking and answering questions. While there is some anxiety amongst first time interviewees, respondents mostly enjoy being the focus of attention and feel valued. They are therefore helpful, and once trust has been built, are willing to share thoughts and feelings they may not have spoken before. People spend much of their time in group settings i.e. family groups, educational classes, peer groups, social groups, and work teams. Therefore most are already comfortable and familiar with a group interview (Imms & Ereaut, 2002, p. 87)

Along with strengths come limitations in the interviewing process. There may be a gap between respondents' perceptions and explanations, and what happens in observable reality. The respondent's self-image may not match the reality of their behavior, or they may have blind spots which influence behavior. The social context of interviewing leaves the respondent open to influences from the interviewer, and in a group, from other respondents. Interviews can become aware of their own judgmental positions, this is also called bracketing and biases and try to set them aside but commercial researchers rarely practice this. Bracketing does not deal with respondents who may present themselves in the most positive light and try to impress or outdo each other. There is an element of social theater that is not always immediately obvious to the moderator. Nor is this impression management always predictably positive; some groups will compete to show how lazy, irresponsible, or uncaring they are. Although interviewing is only able to present a partial and limited view, mediated by language and social expectations, it remains the method of choice for most commercial researchers, who have evolved techniques for limiting the disadvantages of the method while enhancing its strengths (Imms & Ereaut, 2002, p. 87).