The Interview Process
Two strategies that could be used to address the issue of difficult participants within the interview process would be (a) the pilot study approach and (b) the interviewing the investigator approach (Chenail, 2011). Additionally, the computer mediated communication (CMC) approach can also be used to deal with difficult participants—especially those for whom it is hard to find the time to sit down for a face-to-face interview (Elmir, Schmied, Jackson & Wilkes, 2011). CMC, such as email or instant messaging, would help to overcome the time and space barriers that typically present themselves as issues for participants who may have initially expressed interest in an interview but lack the time or ability to make it for a face-to-face interview. Participant C, for example, has been difficult to schedule and has attempted to withdraw from participation though he demonstrated initial interest. CMC approach could be used to help Participant C contribute by simply submitting responses via email whenever the individual found the time to respond to the questions asked in the interview. This would take far less trouble and would not require a scheduled commitment on the part of the interviewee—just a few moments of time to answer the questions in email and hit the send button.
For the other two participants—A and B—using the pilot study approach and the interviewing...
The pilot study approach allows the interviewer to ascertain whether or not the questions he has developed for the interview are capable of obtaining the desired information. For instance, if an interviewer wants to obtain information on the participant’s experiences during a traumatic situation but asks questions that are not open-ended or that do not compel the interviewee to elaborate, the problem may be with the types of questions being asked. Perhaps they are closed-questions, meaning a response in the affirmative or negative is all that is required of the interviewee. Or perhaps they are just not well-worded questions and the interviewee does not see any need to give more information on the subject. A pilot study would allow the interviewer to test the questions with a sample first and see how the sample responds to them. If adequate information is obtained, the interview questions are probably sufficient. If not, the interview questions may need to be reworked. It could be that Participant A is not being properly approached with good questions and that is why he does not expand on his responses and only gives one word answers. At any rate, the pilot study can be used to generate feedback from participants to see which questions were effective and which were not (Chenail, 2011), and the researcher can build on that information to develop a good set…
