Discussion 2: What Makes a Good Interview?

Student 1

interviews are present in everyday life mainly at our schools, universities, place of employment, and carrying out a research topic. Interviews ranges from informal interview, formal interview, structured interview, semi-structured interview, face to face interview and so on. Also, in addition to the ranges of interviews, interviews can be of several types: experimental interview, quantitative interview and qualitative interview.

For the sake of discussion, I will be elaborating on the characteristics of qualitative interview. Some of the characteristics of qualitative interview are as follows: they are goal-driven, for example, a person who conducts a qualitative interview ought to have an objective to achieve (Ravitch, & Carl, (2016). Another characteristic of a qualitative interview is that it has a question and answer and where in the person undertaking the interview asks questions and expects the interviewees to answer the questions. The person ought to be knowledgeable and skillfully and must be a good listener. Another characteristic of qualitative interview is that it is well structured and organized. 

A good interview guide serves as a guide or cheat-sheet for the interviewer to follow or abide to. The interview guide contains list of short questions and answers based on the topic of discussion and is follow by short prompts. For example, the Yob and Brwer article (n.d.) contains good interview guide questions. The questions are open ended questions mainly when, who, what, how, is, from and was questions. One of the interview questions was “was working for social change important to you before you came to this institution”? Another interview question was “from your perspective, what is “social change”? These are all straight forward questions that ought to guide the interviewer when asking questions.

1. What was it like during your time with the Houston Police Department?

2. How were conditions of service when you were with the Houston Police Department?

3. I will be interviewing my coworker who is a retired Houston Police Officer

References

Laureate Education (Producer). (2016). Doctoral research: Interviewing techniques, part two [Video file]. Baltimore, MD: Author.

Ravitch, S. M., & Carl, N. M. (2016). Qualitative research: Bridging the conceptual, theoretical, and methodological. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Yob, I., & Brewer, P. (n.d.). Working toward the common good: An online university's perspectives  on social change, 1-25.

Student 2

The Methodology for Qualitative Interviewing

     In this area for interviewing its important to plan, think, listen and select the format that will be presented for the interviewee.  I have learned through all the quotes of Rubin & Rubin and the videos the importance of listening and analyzing all  information for  notation on paper onto the comfort portrayed to the interviewee ,with  an equality behavior that will get the most information for the interviewer.  Its called respect, being mindful to space and appreciative someone wants to share their knowledge for a research topic. I have listed some quotes and areas of importance for an interviewer.

“Qualitative Interviewing is an adventure in learning about teaching in different countries, their cultural views, their problems and solutions, and how their practices are similar and different than our own. The way we interview depends on what we want to know. It is a process of finding out what others feel and think about their worlds. The result is to understand the major points of their message and how it compares [similar & different] to your own situation. Not only do you need to be a good conversationalist, but also a good listener.”

[Rubin, Herbert & Rubin, Irene. (1995). Qualitative interviewing: The art of hearing data. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.]

 Several types of interviews exist topical oral history, life history, evaluation interview, focus group interview, and cultural interviews.

Topical interviews  are concerned with the facts and sequence of an event. The interviewer is interested in a reconstruction of the experience and what happened; for instance, what happened at the In SEA Conference in Brisbane Australia. The researcher actively directs questions in pursuit of precise facts.

Life histories  deal with individual experiences or rites of passage. In oral histories, one collects information about a dying lifestyle or art skills. These result in narratives and stories that interpret the past.

Evaluation interview s examine new programs or school developments and suggests improvements. Since evaluation deals with incorrect behaviors as well as positive ones, justifications [accounts] of behaviors result. The result may consist of myths and unresolved tensions (Patton, 1990).

In  focus group interviews  people meet to share their impressions and changes of thinking or behavior regarding a product or an institution. Participants may be strangers and make an effort to preserve their competency and may not admit faults.

Qualitative Interviewing is part of Ethnography,  a systematic study of ethnos (usually an ethnic group). Building ethnographic research is like a detective story. Need to use your sociological imagination to find out what made it possible (p.7).Alasuutari (1998) admires work of Sir Conan “Doyle or Sherlock Holmes; e.g., A Study in Scarlet (1887). If common sense is thin description, then ethnographic sense is � thick description � (Geertz, 1973).”

“Interviewers have different styles .  Style  is an organized assembly of different manifestations, which can be described in different �languages� such as music, dress, and behavior (p.110). However,  style,  in the sense of this all-pervasive idea, is not reduced to an single element reflecting or defining it, nor to any external cause or factor. It reflects the whole culture. Difference in male & female styles?”

[Alasuutari, Pertti. (1998). An invitation to social research. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE. Southern Illinois University @ Carbondale].

The Purpose of Interviews by an Interviewer

    The purpose for the aide of an interviewee is in the exploring opinions, behaviors and experiences by the interviewee on a diverse answer to questions being questioned.  The phenomenon of interviews is the interviewer has the inventory of knowledge with the analyzation of the influence of interviewee experiences and opinions of research. Remember diversity of interviewing brings a cultural art of others to help answer the questioning to answer the learning questions to be answered in a diverse problem solving. As an interviewer I can say that to ease the pain of interviewing is practice before the interview is to take place and practice how to make the interview as talking to two great friends. Its friendly environment and respecting others who agreed to volunteer for the interview.

References

Laureate Education (Producer). (2016). Doctoral research: Interviewing techniques, part two [Video file]. Baltimore, MD: Author.

Ravitch, S. M., & Carl, N. M. (2016). Qualitative research: Bridging the conceptual, theoretical, and methodological. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Yob, I., & Brewer, P. (n.d.). Working toward the common good: An online university's perspectives  on social change, 1-25.