Interviews and Surveys

1. Interviews and Surveys

2. Interviews
Steinar Kvale, Svend Brinkmann,
InterViews: Learning the Craft of
Qualitative Research Interviewing.

3. The Interview
Interviewer Interviewee
Interview

4. Interviews
Unstructured
Semi-structured
Structured

5. Interviews
Unstructured Interviews
Researcher has a small set of self
prompts to investigate research question.
One question can lead to a number of
followup questions depending on the
response. They tend to be more like
conversations than interviews.

6. Interviews
Semi-Structured Interviews
Some interview questions fully decided,
others might not be fixed, and the other
of questions in not fixed. The researcher
has leeway in asking followup questions.

7. Interviews
Structured Interviews
Fixed and predetermined questions and
sequence of questions. No new
questions added during interview, and
questions given to interviewee by
interview begins.

8. Kvale’s Seven Stages
1.Themazing
2.Designing
3.Interviewing
4.Transcribing
5.Analyzing
6.Verifying
7.Reporting

9. Kvale’s Seven Stages
1. Themazing
What is the theme of the interview?

10. Kvale’s Seven Stages
2. Designing
How will the intended knowledge be
obtained?

11. Kvale’s Seven Stages
3. Interviewing
Conduct the interviews carefully

12. Kvale’s Seven Stages
4. Transcribing
Converting interview into written text

13. Kvale’s Seven Stages
5. Analyzing
Based on the appropriate type of
investigation

14. Kvale’s Seven Stages
6. Verifying
Checking that validity, reliability, and
generalizibility of the findings

15. Kvale’s Seven Stages
7. Reporting
Communicate findings in a scientific and
ethical manner.

16. Interview Questions
Introductory
Questions
Warm up questions
Followup
Questions
Listen for “Red Lights”
Probing Questions
Unlimited scope
question
Specifying
Questions
Exact information
Direct Questions
Introducing a new topic
Indirect Questions
Projective questions
Structuring
Questions
Transitioning to new
topics
Interpreting
Question
Clarifying questions
Silences

17. Interviews
Establish a rapport
Treat interviewees with respect
Think about your appearance
Think about body language
Maintain firm eye contact
Don’t Invade their space

18. Interviews
How are you going to record
Tape recorder
Pen and paper - veratim
Video recorder

19. Analysing Text

20. Analysing Text
Faced with the lack of organisation of data
and the sheer amount of rambling can be
somewhat overwhelming
With the best will in the world about trying to
avoid bias, when there is multiple
interpretations of data, selecting the one
that best matches your research question
becomes very tempting.

21. Simple Tabulation
SubjectMoney Fame Power SocialFulfilmentOther
1 15 6 4 0 1 38
2 5 3 6 5 4 27
3 1 0 3 12 21 46
…..
Total
Reasons for Choosing a career

22. Choosing categories
Use ones from the literature
Blame someone else / comparison
Use categories connected with your
research question
Derive categories from data

23. Deriving Categories
Verbatim Analysis
Knowledge management <> Knowledge engineering <>
Knowledge representation <> Knowledge reasoning
“Compatible with Windows” <> “Windows-Compatible”
Gist Analysis
“Compatible with Windows” == “Windows-Compatible”
Superordinate Analysis
Derive superclasses
Windows-Compatible + Linux-Compatible => category of
“Compatibility”

24. How are you going to analyse
Colour Coding

25. Analysis of Interviews

26. Meaning Analysis
Meaning Coding
Adding tags or keywords to text
segments that represent the main themes
of the interviews
Meaning Condensation
Summarising larger sentences into short,
simple sentences.
Meaning Interpretation
Adding more details, background and
context to specific parts of the interview

27. Language Analysis
Linguistical Analysis
Looking at the linguistics and grammar
Conversation Analysis
Treating the interview as a conversation
Narrative Analysis
Treating the interview as a story
Discourse Analysis
Try to evaluate the truth of the responses
Deconstruction
Taking the interview apart and putting together again

28. Eclectic Analysis
Bricolage
Using a collection of techniques as a
collage
Theoretical Reading
Creating your own reading on the text

29. Interviews FAQ

30. What books should I read about
interviews?
Anything and everything by Steinar
Kvale
“Interpreting Qualitative Data” by
David Silverman
“Research Design” by John Creswell

31. Do I need to record the
interview?
Yes, definitely, you can use
Pen-and-paper
Audio recording
Video recording
But whichever you use, you must do a
verbatim recording of the interview,
both questions and answers.

32. How do I think of questions for the
interview?
There really should be two sources
All questions need to come from the
research question of the experiment
If you find literature with a sufficiently
similar research topic, you can use or
adapt those questions

33. How many people should I interview?
15 ±10 people
is a good rule-of thumb

34. Are there situations where I shouldn’t
use interviews?
Yes, loads of situations, e.g. electoral
voting behaviour, or capturing a
person’s attitudes and interactions
with their environments.

35. When should I do the
interviews?
Typically there are two times to do
interviews;
As part of the requirements gathering
process
As part of the evaluation process

36. Are there software packages that can
help me ??
Loads
ATLAS.ti
nVIVO
MaxQDA
NUD*IST
HyperRESEARCH
But, do not underestimate the power of
Excel, it’s a brilliant tool when used well

37. Further Tips
Decide on an order of questions that easily flows
one to the next
Try to use language that is easy to understand and
relevant to the interviewee
Avoid Leading questions
Try to stop the interviewee using qualifiers
Add a few control questions into the interview for
validation
Avoid smalltalk during the interview
LISTEN, LISTEN, LISTEN

38. Questionnaires
A.N. Oppenheim,
Questionnaire Design

39. Questionnaire
Identify which organisation you work
for, or are studying at.
Check your grammar, twice (Rule of
Thumb – two proofreads gets rid of
95% of errors).

40. Surveys: Questionnaires
Think clearly about questions (need to
constrain answers as much as
possible)
Make sure results will answer your
research question
Can use Internet for conducting
surveys if need to cover wide
geographic reach

41. Surveys: Questionnaires
“This survey sets out to ...
Please note if you fill in this questionnaire, your answers will be
treated in highly confidential way. Neither I, the Dublin Institute
of Technology nor any other third part will identify your name,
email address or any other personal details, nor will it be
possible to identify you in any way in the report I will publish as
part of my MSc dissertation. I would like to personally thank
you for your time in taking part in this survey.”

42. Questionnaires
Open-ended
Close-ended
Combination of both

43. Questionnaires
Open-ended Close-ended

44. Questionnaires
Open-ended
Slower to administer
Harder to record responses
Does not stifle response
Answerer can raise new issues
Answerer feels they can speak their mind
What does a blank answer mean ????

45. Questionnaires
Close-ended
Faster to administer
Easier to record responses
Answerer can only give predefined answers
Answerer cannot raise new issues
Answerer feels constrained
More likely to answer all questions (box tick)

46. Questionnaires
Self-administered
Interviewer administered

47. Questionnaires

48. Questionnaires
Keep questions short and simple
Avoid questions with “not”
Avoid questions with bias
Avoid sensitive questions (ask indirectly)
Do not ask compound questions, just ask
one question at a time
e.g. "Do you know what services are available to
you and how to find out?"

49. Questionnaires
Likert scales
Poor, Weak, O.K., Good, Excellent
Very Low, Low, O.K., High, Very High
1, 2, 3, 4, 5

50. Thank them
"Thank you for taking the time to
participate in this survey"

51. Incentives
Survey research suggests that there
is a chance that offering an incentive
may add bias to a survey
e.g. Singer, E., Bossarte, R., 2006, “Incentives for
Survey Participation: When Are They “Coercive”?,
American Journal of Preventive Medicine, Volume
31, Issue 5, Pages 411-418

52. Other Useful Approaches

53. Focus groups
Take time to arrange, so prepare in advance
(use an intermediary to help you if you can)
Who will be in your focus group? (e.g. age,
gender)
Size of focus group (8-10 is typical)
Consider whether or not to have separate
focus groups for different ages or genders
(e.g. discussing sex and sexuality)

54. Site visits and observation
Site visits involve visiting an organization,
community project etc
Consider using a guide
Observation is when you visit a location and
observe what is going on, drawing your own
conclusions
Both facilitate making your research more
relevant and concrete

55. Case studies
Method of capturing and presenting
concrete details of real or fictional
situations in a structured way
Good for comparative analysis

56. Participatory research
Allows participation of community being
researched in research process (e.g.
developing research question; choosing
methodology; analysing results)
Good way to ensure research does not
simply reinforce prejudices and
presumptions of researcher
Good for raising awareness in community
and developing appropriate action plans