notes interviews

Question 1

interviews are

Answer 1

data collection method: no specific methodological assumptions

• focus on face-to-face interviewing (not focus groups)

types based on “control of information flow”

• diff control levels produce diff information
• rapport-building is key: interviewee needs to feel that they can reveal information I expect, but also data I am not aware of + to minimize reactivity
  (but never the same chance to build as much trust as in PO)

Question 2

types of interviews

Answer 2

*based on control of information flow

1. informal
2. unstructured
3. semi-structured
4. structured

Question 3

informal interviews

Answer 3

*deception in the way that they don’t know exactly what you want to know, what you’re looking for
*not necessarily that they don’t know they’re being interviewed

• don’t show notebook or recording devise (act around people, mostly remember later to write things down)
• hard work: deception, prying, quick notes (in concealed way), remembering and then writing, remembering on the spot

when?

• early stags of PO, when I am settling in and building rapport
• throughout fieldwork for uncovering new topics (it’s not just for testing, it is also for discovering)
• sometimes, it is the only option (e.g. street children)

Question 4

unstructured interviews

Answer 4

• clear plan but minimal control
• can take long times, even separate occasions

when?

• initial rapport before moving to interviews with greater structure
• talking to people that would not tolerate a more structured interview (e.g. workers at their jobs)
• life stories
• sensitive issues (e.g. sexuality, ethnic prejudice, conflict)

Question 5

semi-structured interviews

Answer 5

most often used interview type

• starting with this level of control, the interview may be executed by hired interviewers
• there is an “interview guide” with clear instructions and list of questions and topics, but with some discretion on how to order them and on probing
  *so: requires training

when?

• most used: “in-depth” interview
• “elites” who need to know I am not wasting their time but don’t want to be controlled (minimize reactivity by taking into account the psychology of the interviewee: if you’re not structured, they will not take you seriously)

Question 6

structured

Answer 6

create a format so that diff interviewees/informants respond to “as nearly identical a set of stimuli as possible” (questions and probes)

examples:

• interview schedule (especially important if I have help)
• self-administered questionnaires (with sensitive issues, see article for when more)
• pile sorting (e.g. asking to sort behaviors into health and non-healthy to test for consistency)
• personality tests
• tasks that require the interviewee to rate or rank a list of things

Question 7

3 principles interviews

Answer 7

1. ethics and professionalism
   - assure people of anonymity and confidentiality (+specify what they mean)
   - consent: ask permission to record and take notes
   - transparency: be open and honest about intentions (rapport too)
   - deception: grey space of ethics
2. clarity about what I am looking for: what they think is important
   - explain why the and that I am interested in their thoughts and observations
   - encourage them to interrupt me with anything they think is important
3. keep the interview focused on a topic, but let informant lead on the contents
   - rapport: I am interested in what they have to say
   - discovery: I want them to disclose them to disclose things I had no idea existed

Question 8

what is probing?

Answer 8

= giving way for, making opportunity for

stimulus to produce more information, but careful not to lead the interviewee to say what they would not have said otherwise

!distinguishing feature of interviews (compared to similar tools like surveys)

risks involved, always …. it’s an art, meaning it takes practice

• need awareness of cultural context
• if properly done, yields better and even unexpected information

Question 9

diff ways to probe
7

Answer 9

1. silence
   - need to be aware of cultural contexts: some will fall silent, need new cue, others need time to gather their thoughts
   *some cultures speak really fast
   - silence is risky but rewarding: may lead the person to share better quality information
2. echo
   - shows you’re listening
   - useful when the informant describes a (long) process
3. affirmative comments (uh-huh)
   - is about staying engaged: “continue please”
4. “tell me more”
   - most common, bc interviews want details
   - don’t use “canned” probes too often at ris of looking unengaged
5. long question
   - formulate question in more than one way to encourage more info
   - convey interest (emphasize a part of the interview that especially interests me)
   - risk = sound threatening, when it is about sensitive information
6. directive (probing by leading)
   - don’t want to lead the informant to say what I expect, but I could use previous information to open another avenue within a topic or into a new topic
   - informants tend to abbreviate -> pay attention to what they left out
   - “this may seem obvious, but…” to avoid backlash
7. bating: try to get someone to talk about something (has ethical dilemmas)
   - acting like I already know something to open an avenue of info
   - say something blatantly wrong to open up the secrets
   - reduce perceived costs of spilling the beans: “you are not the one giving away the information”: I heard ….., so that the interviewee does not feel it is them that spill the secret

Question 10

verbal vs nonverbal respondents

Answer 10

*shows interviewing is an art, also the case with the probing

some people talk too much -> learn how to cut them off gracefully

other people will cut me of with an apparent cul-de-sac like “I don’t know”
-> learn to interpret diff meanings of idk:

1. i don’t care
2. it’s none of your business
3. i do know but you wouldn’t be interested in what I have to say about it
4. I wish you changed the subject bc this line of questioning makes me uncomfortable
5. I really don’t know

!only insist if in the third scenario (but you need to have experience to identify it)

Question 11

“how to” key ideas

Answer 11

• keep interviews focused on few big issues (otherwise people feel like you’re wasting their time)
• practice as much as possible with similar situations
• language: practice contextualized language (e.g. colloquial expression and idioms) = cultural competence, it builds rapport
• pace your interviews properly to avoid that your own fatigue lowers the quality of interviews
  *if possible go back to early informants for a second interview, using what you’ve learned in the process
• present yourself to minimize reactivity (be non-judgmental, try not to look fake)
• control for the setting to minimize reactivity: little things mean a lot (what you wear, where the interview is conducted)
• record audio and take notes of context (ask consent + give informant some control of what is recorded may build rapport + they rarely ask to switch off recording)

Question 12

response effects …. reactivity triggers

Answer 12

interviewer’s side:

• perception biases
• gender
• race
• language and culture

interviewee’s side (but triggered by situational factors)

• deference (perceived social status)
• social desirability (trying to fit in, or doing what you’re “supposed to be doing”)
• third party presence
• threatening questions

environment: is there privacy?

medium:

• face to face
• telephone
• internet (zoom)

Often, I don’t have a choice. To be persuasive, I must analyze and report why these variables are not (too) threatening..
Other times, the right answer is “yes, that threatened the results”. It’s always better to know to take results with a grain of salt

Question 13

accuracy

Answer 13

people are not good at reporting objective data, incl. their own behavior, so they make it up:

• feel (social) pressure to respond (even when they’re unsure)
• estimation rules: people remember some events better than others (rare and impactful events), for common behavior they use estimation rules (e.g. how many bars of deodorant did you buy in the last 6 months?)
• inference rules: e.g. who went to an event depending on who is a “goer” and who’s not

Question 14

aided recalls

Answer 14

retrospective reporting often leads to misreporting (honestly not recalling and under-counting, forward telescoping (people remember things happening more recently than it actually did))

landmarks: establish a milestone
= aids recall events and positioning events correctly in time

event and life history calendars: create calendar of landmarks and then ask questions about what happened in between (what was going on in their heads etc.)

• in non-literate environments, researchers use things like major weather and agricultural events
• examples of useful details in an industrialized country: credit card statements, phone bills, college transcripts, etc.

Question 15

example reading - making friends in violent neighborhoods: strategies among elementary school children

Answer 15

Chan Tack & Small

RQ = causes of effects = how do children make friends in violent neighborhoods?
- did they befriend that person or not? why?

argument: context matters for friend-formation (conventional context affective process of homophily, in violent context it is instrumental: strategies to minimize risk of exposure to street violence)

• equifinality: both affection and strategy can lead to decision to befriend
• found 5 strategies: protection seeking, avoidance, testing, cultivating questioners, kin reliance

!original intention was not studying violence (was to investigate relationship between school mobility and how students form network ties, but in interviews children repeatedly brought up violence)

interviews were SEMI-STRUCTURED (“in-depth”) interviews over the course of an academic year + return to interview parents and staff next year

purposive sample selection (two pubilc schools, children that had to change schools, 6-8th grade)

recruitment: homeroom teachers described the study, students were invited + parents recruited through students

minimizing reactivity: privacy (closed room), both researchers female and ethnically black, one-on-one interviews, paying in advance to the interview (so that people don’t feel they need to do something)

building rapport: researchers interacted outside of interviews (help teachers, hang out, chat casually, observe interactions = continuity and regularity of presence -> rapport)

self-presentation (during interviews): open, nonthreatening, smiling, casual, offering candy

interview protocol: from less to more sensitive topics (personal details like age -> questions about friendships, routines, adaptations to new classmates)

unexpected info: violence came up repeatedly in description neighborhood, schools, friendships

coding: coded and recoded multiple times in increasingly refined categories

reach: what they can and can’t say, the added value of the interviews

limit: no systematic observational data on interactions among actors (they’re not observing the described behavior, that would be done with PO)

Question 16

main focus this lecture

Answer 16

interviews = everything to minimize reactivity + to maximize (quality) of information