Data Collection: Interviews in research

Content:

• Introduction
• Communication in interviews
• Approaches to interviews
• Contexts for interviews
• The practical aspects
• Further reading and bibliography

Overview and Introduction

The interview is a widely used means of data collection and is central in most research designs.  This resource addresses some of the principles and practices of interviewing.

In this introduction, we consider the following topics:

• The decision to use interviews
• How many interviews?
• Thinking ahead
• The issue of objectivity v subjectivity

The decision to use interviews

The decision to use interviews in research takes place at the research design phase.  Methods are selected because they are the best way of finding out what you want to know, and interviews are generally seen as an effective way of seeking people’s views.

The type of inquiry you are undertaking will determine how interviews will be built in to your design, for example:

• Some research studies will be carried out entirely by interviewing those who have been identified as key players in the field being researched.
• Interviews are often used alongside other approaches to data collection, e.g. questionnaire surveys, observation, and documentary analysis.  They are used to explore participants’ views in some depth either in preparation for the other approaches or as a follow up to them.

The purpose of your research, i.e. what you want to know, will determine the approach that you take, for example:

• If you are looking for common themes amongst participants you will probably want to ensure that all interviewees are asked the same questions and are more likely to adopt a structured or semi-structured approach.
• If you are interested in exploring people’s perceptions and looking for unique insights you are more likely to adopt an unstructured approach.

As a scene setting activity, link to http://www.v-resort.ac.uk/ to listen to one of the researchers talking about the use of interviews in her research.  You have to register to access the resources on this website.  Once you have registered, select the option to look for a video-clip.  In the dialogue box, select interviews.  We suggest that you look at Carolyn Jackson’s video-clips.  Looking at all 4 gives an interesting overview of her research including design, carrying out the interviews, ethics and validity issues and takes about 20 minutes.  However, if you want to spend less time look at clips 1 and 3 in which she talks about interviews as part of her research design and how they relate to her questionnaire data.

How many interviews?

Carolyn Jackson in the above clips talks about interviewing 153 pupils and 30 teachers.  As indicated in the clip, this is a very large number of interviews, which she justifies in terms of getting the range of experience and views she required for her research.  She also explained that she felt individual interviews were important because of the issues she was addressing.  She says that interviews are about co-constructing knowledge, and that interviews are performances.  In her research, she felt using group interviews would have altered that and the responses given by the pupils.

How many interviews should you plan to carry out?

• The decision as to how many interviews you plan to do should be decided at the design stage of your research and planned for.  In reality, time and resources are often key factors which determine the number of interviews you carry out.
• It also depends on the purpose of your interviews
  • If you are using a structured approach and undertaking a survey, the design may require a large sample, often carried out by a team of trained research assistants
  • If supplementing other means of data collection, you will need a sufficient number to represent a range of relevant informants for the research topic
  • In unstructured qualitative research, the quality of the information collected is more important than quantity and so a small number of interviews may be sufficient, often around six to twelve.  The exact number may not be pre-determined but the team of researchers may determine that no new quality information is emerging and sufficient interviews have been carried out – what is known as ‘saturation.’
  • If you are carrying out an in-depth life history, then your research may involve one interviewee over several interviews.

Thinking ahead

As with all data collection, your design stages should include planning ahead to how the data will be analysed and interpreted.  You want to make sure that you have planned in time to review interview data and emerging issues as you go along and not leave it all until the end of your project.  Especially in studies using semi-structured and unstructured approaches you will want to be sure that you are eliciting the responses you require for your research; if the interviews are not transcribed or reviewed until they have all been completed you may miss opportunities for clarifying key points as they emerge.  (See also the section on the practical aspects .)

BENEFITS	LIMITATIONS
Interviewer can give a clear explanation of the purpose of the research and answer questions about it to help motivate the interviewees. Interviewer can give a clear explanation of the purpose of the research and answer questions about it to help motivate the interviewees.	Interviewing is time consuming, not only in carrying out the interview but also in arranging them, travelling to do them with potential delays and post-interview transcription and analysis of the data.
Interviewer can probe responses and seek further information in way not possible with a questionnaire.	Interviews are usually seen as subjective experiences and so there is the risk of influence and bias. Things which can cause bias include: interviewees desire to please interviewer saying what they think the interviewer wants to hear e.g. gives the official viewpoint rather than their personal view desire to create a good impression i.e. not answer ‘honestly’ the tendency to say something rather than nothing if they cannot answer a question or have nothing to say on a topic interviewers’ own views coming across and influencing responses e.g. expressing surprise or disapproval.
Interviewees can ask for clarification if they don’t understand a question.	Interviews on personal and intimate subjects can evoke strong feelings and need to be handled with great sensitivity
Interviews can allow for detailed responses by interviewee
It is possible to explore people’s reasons for behaving in certain ways, or their interpretations of events.
It is more appropriate for some groups than completing a written questionnaire, e.g. those with reading or writing difficulties.
Research participants can experience interviews as a highly rewarding experience: stimulating self-exploration and discovery.

The issue of objectivity v subjectivity

The personal nature of interviews can be viewed as both a strength and a limitation.  Views on subjectivity and objectivity of the interview situation vary.

• Oppenheim (1992, pp 66 and 67) states that an interview ….
  …. is essentially a one-way process.  Indeed, if it should become a two-way process of communication (more like a genuine conversation) it will lose much of its value because of the biases introduced by the interviewer. ….. [The interviewers] must ‘switch off’ their own personality and attitudes … and try to be unaffected by circumstances, by their attitude to the topic or the respondent, or by personal involvement. …. The interviewers will seek to reduce their own role to an absolute minimum, to avoid leading the respondent.
• Bias is inevitable but it should be recognised and controlled.  For example, overcoming bias can be addressed by matching interviewer with interviewee e.g. age, gender, race, dress.
  Interviews are ‘intersubjective’, neither exclusively subjective nor objective, but a shared construction of knowledge (Laing, 1967, in Cohen et al 2007, p349).
• Adler and Adler (1994) referred to in Mertens (2005) describe interviews ….
  … in the ethnographic sense as including formal and informal interviewing in which the interviewer freely answers the questions asked by respondents and expresses his or her own feeling during the interview.  The goal is to have a human-to-human relationship with respondents and to understand their perspective (p387).

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