RESEARCH METHODS
In-depth interview
WHAT IS IT?
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It is not simply talking with people and mark down what they have said!
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It is a purposive and structured approach to understand how people perceive the social world.
It is particularly useful when you are interested in understanding people’s perspectives, personal experience, reflections and ideological beliefs (how and why), which could not be easily reflected by quantitative data.
Purpose & Structure
In general, interviews could be classified as structured and non-structured/ semi-structured, which consist of a combination of main questions, follow-up questions and probes (Rubin and Rubin, 2004).
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The structure of the interview often relates to the order of the questions and the types of questions to be asked: open-ended questions or close-ended questions.
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While structured interview is often regarded as quantitative approach and usually conducted in the form of questionnaire, non-structured/semi-structured interviews rely on the use of open-ended questions to collecting in-depth qualitative information about people’s perspectives and views of values, actions, processes, experiences, or events.
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Semi-structured interview is flexible and less restrictive; interviewers and interviewees are given certain freedom during the interview.
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These subjective perspectives collected are important for us to understand the meanings given to actions, behaviours, events or process by people in a specific context.
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The viewpoints collected will serve as meaningful dialogue with theoretical discussions in existing literatures after contextualization.
Designing Interview Questions
Some criteria to consider when designing the interview questions:
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Why do you ask this question?
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What is its theoretical relevance?
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What is the link to your research question?
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Why did you formulate the question in this way? Is it easy to understand? Is it clear?
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Why did you order this question at this specific place in the interview? How does it fit into the rough and detailed structure of the interview?
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How is the distribution of types of questions spread across the interview guide?
The order of questions also matters; interviewer should organize the interview questions based on complexities of the questions.
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Remember! Do not ask the most difficult, complex question at the start of an interview.
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It is always easier to start asking general question, like “Could you tell me what is your major of study?” You may save the sensitive or controversial (or even confrontational) questions for the middle of the interview.
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It is more likely to obtain rich and in-depth data by asking open-ended questions, as freedom is given to interviewees to express and clarify their point of view. However, the data are usually complex so it takes more time to transcribe and analyze, and it relies heavily on interviewing skills of researcher, especially the ability to improvise and ask follow-up questions.
TIPS
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Use a few focal questions to cover the main aspects of the research question.
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Ask a specific experience rather than a general topic, e.g. “Can you tell me how you voted in person in a recent general election”, rather than “What do you find it to be like when you go to vote?”
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Ask interviewees their recent experiences instead of what they did ten years ago.Avoid academic terms and theoretical concepts in your interview questions (e.g. “What do you feel about your masculinity?”). Your interviewees are laypersons who could not understand those terms.
Identifying Interviewees
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Who should be interviewed in your research? They should be people who can provide relevant information to your research question(s).
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​Once you have identified who should be interviewed, you should consider where and how you can find these people. Two considerations:
Representativeness
A single case can be sufficient if it is unique and not comparable e.g. one in-depth interview can be valid evidence in oral history. However, more interviews are needed if you want to compare groups of interviewees, or different perspectives within a group.
NOTES
Please revisit the section about sampling to have a better understanding of sampling size and sampling methods.
Difficulties & Strategies
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Sometimes your interviewees/respondents do not have much to say. It is because an in-depth interview relies highly on the technique, experience and attitude of interviewer.
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It is hard to ask follow-up questions because of the flexible structure of non-structured/semi-structured interviews.
WHAT CAN WE DO?
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Develop trust and empathy by having ice-breaking conversations at the start of the interview.
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Show your humor and sincerity.
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Listen patiently and do not dominate the conversation.
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Clarify or rephrase your questions if needed.
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Be mindful of interviewees’ tone of voice, body language and what might be unspoken.
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Be conscious of your role as an interviewer. (people could respond differently towards interviewer who is male/female, older/younger, of different races etc.)
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Do not share the hypotheses with your interviewees and do not use emotional and biased language.
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Explain why you are interested in that and why it is valuable to know, if you are asking something private. If interviewees do not want to go further, do not persist! Move on to another topic.
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Be mindful that interviewees can be allowed to speak “off the record,” but be clear about what this means to you and the interviewees.
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Remember that a way to ask follow-up questions is self-disclosure, you can highlight the shared experience or goals with the interviewees, e.g. agreeing that the food quality on-campus canteen is bad.
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Encourage expansion/clarification of ideas that are relevant to the research questions, e.g. “What do you mean by…?” “Can you tell me more about …?”
Your Role as Reflexive Interviewer
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Your own biases and prejudices will affect what questions are being asked and the responses from the interviewees.
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You should adopt a responsive interviewing model (Rubin & Rubin, 2005), which asks interviewer to examine his or her understanding and reactions when interacting with interviewees.
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Being a good interviewer will minimize the effects of our biases.
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How can this be done practically?
Make good use of the pauses
Examine whether the questions are “misleading” or whether certain questions should be avoided.
Check your emotions and feelings
There may be times that you or your interviewee feel offended, e.g. a researcher who supports Democratic Party may have strong views against research participants who support DAB.
Self-awareness
Sometimes the strong empathy towards your interviewees may also affect your judgment and values.
Check List for Interview
1. An interview guide
A list of topical questions to ask so that you will not get lost in topics.
KNOW MORE
Brinkmann, S. (2013). Qualitative interviewing (1st ed.). New York: Oxford University Press.
Crow, G., & Edwards, R. (2013). What is Qualitative interviewing? (1st ed.). London: Bloomsbury Publishing.