March 17th, 2021
SOCI2151H Week 9: Qualitative Technique - Interviewing
Reading: Chapter 11
Part One: In-depth Interviewing
Participant observation
● A common technique used in qualitative methods
○ To elicit from people the organizing constructs in their experiences
● Careful and deliberate observation is integral to describe how events actually
unfold
● The researcher must be able to take several aspects into account before and
during the research
○ Assessment of types of questions addressed
○ Selecting appropriate research site
○ An “in” on the group studied
● Recall: the “complete” and “active” participant
○ Role of the researcher
Overview of the in-depth interview
● Not standardized, qualitative interviewing provides respondents freedom to
elaborate on their responses
● The purpose of this method is usually exploratory, which offers great detail i
understanding of unanticipated issues
● A powerful scientific tool of understanding
○ Tremendous depth of understanding and clarity
● Can be used as secondary sources
● Mix methods (example:in-depth interviews + large scale survey)
Part One of In-depth Interviewing
● When asking open-ended questions, use follow up prompts/probes to “dig”
deeper while keeping a detailed record of answers
○ Probing and prompting
● Should be semi-structured: Guidelines to address specific interests of your topic:
Goal is to understand experiences, feelings, attitudes, stories of the respondent
○ Guidelines to remember all points of interest to cover
● Flexibility: initial answers will shape the subsequent ones
○ Important to create a nice flow of the conversation by asking, listening,
interpreting all at the same time in order to frame the next question
● Use probes: detailed clarification and get examples
○ Always allow respondent to fill in silences
, 2
● Natural flow, yet guided, conversations: you are the quintessential “student” in
the conversation who needs to be taught by the respondent
● Use an “interview guide”: a list of items you need to answer for your research
questions
○ But must be flexible. Allow respondent to provide answers on their own
terms
● This is why it’s called semi-structured interviewing
○ Some guide to allow for flow
Primary data collection
● Very much a primary source of data collection
● Giving a voice to those being studied
○ Marginalized groups often studied
● The purpose is looking for explanations and processes (not frequencies and
numbers of patterns):
○ Recall: exploratory; providing great depth of understanding: the where and
why people come to believe what they think/say
Model of being human
● Must accept humans as persons who construct the meanings and significance of
their own realities (they are not animals or objects to test and experiment on)
● By bringing to bear a complex personal framework of beliefs and values, which
are developed over their lives to categorize, characterize, explain and predict the
events in their real life-worlds
The structure of in-depth interviews
● Non-probability sampling such as purposive and snowballing (next week!)
● Issues emerge quite easily (compared with structured interviews)
● No a priori (pre-determined) predictions can be conceptualized before any
interview
○ A long list of prepared questions is not in-depth interviewing
○ This is pre-structuring an interview: the researcher’s frame of reference;
not the respondents. Thus, no time or space to provide their own
elaborations or thoughts
○ Could miss valuable explorations that are simply unpredictable (each
respondent has their own story to tell that is different than other
respondents within the same research)
● Nevertheless...there is no such thing as a totally unstructured interview!!!!!
SOCI2151H Week 9: Qualitative Technique - Interviewing
Reading: Chapter 11
Part One: In-depth Interviewing
Participant observation
● A common technique used in qualitative methods
○ To elicit from people the organizing constructs in their experiences
● Careful and deliberate observation is integral to describe how events actually
unfold
● The researcher must be able to take several aspects into account before and
during the research
○ Assessment of types of questions addressed
○ Selecting appropriate research site
○ An “in” on the group studied
● Recall: the “complete” and “active” participant
○ Role of the researcher
Overview of the in-depth interview
● Not standardized, qualitative interviewing provides respondents freedom to
elaborate on their responses
● The purpose of this method is usually exploratory, which offers great detail i
understanding of unanticipated issues
● A powerful scientific tool of understanding
○ Tremendous depth of understanding and clarity
● Can be used as secondary sources
● Mix methods (example:in-depth interviews + large scale survey)
Part One of In-depth Interviewing
● When asking open-ended questions, use follow up prompts/probes to “dig”
deeper while keeping a detailed record of answers
○ Probing and prompting
● Should be semi-structured: Guidelines to address specific interests of your topic:
Goal is to understand experiences, feelings, attitudes, stories of the respondent
○ Guidelines to remember all points of interest to cover
● Flexibility: initial answers will shape the subsequent ones
○ Important to create a nice flow of the conversation by asking, listening,
interpreting all at the same time in order to frame the next question
● Use probes: detailed clarification and get examples
○ Always allow respondent to fill in silences
, 2
● Natural flow, yet guided, conversations: you are the quintessential “student” in
the conversation who needs to be taught by the respondent
● Use an “interview guide”: a list of items you need to answer for your research
questions
○ But must be flexible. Allow respondent to provide answers on their own
terms
● This is why it’s called semi-structured interviewing
○ Some guide to allow for flow
Primary data collection
● Very much a primary source of data collection
● Giving a voice to those being studied
○ Marginalized groups often studied
● The purpose is looking for explanations and processes (not frequencies and
numbers of patterns):
○ Recall: exploratory; providing great depth of understanding: the where and
why people come to believe what they think/say
Model of being human
● Must accept humans as persons who construct the meanings and significance of
their own realities (they are not animals or objects to test and experiment on)
● By bringing to bear a complex personal framework of beliefs and values, which
are developed over their lives to categorize, characterize, explain and predict the
events in their real life-worlds
The structure of in-depth interviews
● Non-probability sampling such as purposive and snowballing (next week!)
● Issues emerge quite easily (compared with structured interviews)
● No a priori (pre-determined) predictions can be conceptualized before any
interview
○ A long list of prepared questions is not in-depth interviewing
○ This is pre-structuring an interview: the researcher’s frame of reference;
not the respondents. Thus, no time or space to provide their own
elaborations or thoughts
○ Could miss valuable explorations that are simply unpredictable (each
respondent has their own story to tell that is different than other
respondents within the same research)
● Nevertheless...there is no such thing as a totally unstructured interview!!!!!
