Interview

Recommendations for week 7's assignment.

Good evening all,

As part of week 7's assignment you are asked to transcribe your interviews word-for-word. There are lots of good resources out there to use, have a look around and see what one works best for you.

 

Some recommendations from my personal experience:

 

Try out transcription services online especially those who offer free trials. This is not an endorsement, just an example of a service - Temi (https://www.temi.com) – they offer a free transcription up to 45 minutes. Try out a couple of services and see which one you like best. This will save you time if you have to find a transcription service for your dissertation research.

 

Most of the transcription services are fairly accurate. None are 100% accurate. You do still need to take time to listen to the interview and correct errors - especially any jargon. I’m from Ireland and transcription services sometimes struggles with certain words I say. Most of these services “learn” so the more you use them the less issues they have with jargon or accents.

 

*Don’t see running through transcriptions as a waste of time. It gives you a sense of the data you have, starts you thinking about potential codes for future coding, and it makes you a better interviewer. I use less filler words and I annunciate my words better after listening to transcriptions of my own interviews.

 

My process is to go through an interview at regular speed, listen and correct errors. Take a break, then go back and listen at 1.5 times speed to see if I missed errors. Allow plenty of time to do this as you may have to stop the recording several times and go back and listen to certain areas. If an interview is 30 minutes in length, I plan an hour (or more) of time to review the transcription.

 

I separate out the speakers with a double space between each speaker’s – it increases readability, especially for coding later.

 

If something is inaudible – I note that with [inaudible].

 

If someone mentions a name or any other identifiable material I de-identify that with something such as [colleague name], [name of business], [role]. The [ ] indicates that you have edited the text.

 

I name my speakers as: Interviewer and whatever nomenclature I am using for the interviewee, e.g., Burns_1 (name of interviewer and the order of interviews) or Phoenix_2 (location and order of interviews). I don’t use interviewee as it is too hard to distinguish between interviewer and interviewee when you are coding etc.

 

You will find your own way of transcribing interviews – if my tips are helpful use them if not find something that works best for you.