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Qualitative Interviewing

•Qualitative interview is an interaction between an interviewer and a respondent where the interviewer has a general plan of inquiry, including topics to be covered.

•The interviewer might not have a specific set of questions to be asked in a particular order

•Can be thought of as a purposeful conversation.

•Allows researchers to study more complex processes or the “hows” involving human perspective

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•Qualitative interviews can be the sole way of gathering data in criminal justice studies

•Allows the research to understand the subjects’ perspectives

•Can gather first hand accounts of their impressions and their lived experience.

•Can also be used to understand how people feel about their roles and identities

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•Interview schedule: The structure of the interview that may have predetermined questions or topical areas to be discussed. •The interview schedule will influence how in-depth and interactive your interviews should be.

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•A structured interview schedule consists of predetermined questions and answer sets.

•Structured interviews created standardized responses so respondents are given the same stimulus, allowing for responses to be compared

•Semi-structured interview schedules have standardized questions but allows the interviewer to explore themes that emerge during the interview

•Researcher can probe for additional information.

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•Unstructured interviews are the most open style interviewing •Provides the most breadth, depth and natural interaction with participants. •Two main approaches: conversations and interview guide

•Conversations is an informal “chat” where conversation flows organically

•Interview guide includes a list of topical areas that you want to cover in the conversation

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•6-12 people brought together to engage in guided group discussion of some topic

•Focus groups can be used to generate hypotheses, or combined with other types of data gathering such as participant observation

•Can show how opinions are produced, expressed, and exchanged in everyday life.

•Can be either natural groups or artificial groups

•Natural groups have an existing connection

•Artificial groups are made up of individuals selected according to some criteria and are brought together for research purposes

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•Interview questions can assume different forms.

•The branch approach involves having a main topic with branching questions.

•The river-and-channel approach involves many streams of questioning that lead into the main channel, with some streams diverging.

•Must also decide what order to tell the story.

•A diachronic delivery of material starts at the beginning and progresses chronologically.

•A synchronic framework does not depend on time.

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•Best to create an outline of more categories of information you want to obtain before you start writing.

•You can create categories and nested sets of topical areas.

•How a question is worded can affect the response.

•Be sure the questions encompass the overall subject, that there is a good flow between questions, the order makes sense, and the language is appropriate.

•Avoid double-barreled questions, complex questions, difficult language, and affective words.

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•Prompt participants to elaborate on responses by filling in more detail and depth.

•It is important to have built in prompts in case you have quiet respondents.

•You can use an attention probe (e.g., lean in), a continuation probe (e.g., nod), clarification probe (e.g., ask the respondent to clarify), or follow-up questions.

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•Establish your role: determine if you are an insider or outsider.

•To gain access to a formal organization, you will need identify yourself as a researcher and make a formal request and receive formal approval.

•Best to use a four step process: sponsor, letter, phone call, and meeting.

•To gain access to information subcultures researchers can gain access using a sponsor or hang out where subjects hang out.

•Compensation might be necessary to encourage participation.

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•Qualitative interviews can be in-person, on the phone, online, or a survey.

•Face-to-face are most common.

•Reflexivity refers to your subjectivity and the meaning you give to information.

•It is important to remain critically conscious of your reflexivity when conducting qualitative interviews.

•During interviews you will need to develop a rapport with respondents.

•This can be done through informal conversations or finding something you and the respondent have in common.

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•Might need to conduct several conversations with the respondents.

•Active interviewing is a social exchange that allows for natural conversation and spontaneity.

•The respondents answers determine the subsequent questions.

•During an interactive interview, you are purposefully interactive.

•The researcher must put on a social performance where he or she must be the actor, director and choreographer.

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•Must decide whether to have a natural or artificial group, what the physical arrangement of the group should be, and the appropriate length of the interview.

•Need to be aware of groupthink and dominant group members.

•If you are gathering data on a sensitive topic, you must realize that participants can be upset by having to share such information and that you cannot ensure confidentiality.

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•After recording information, researchers must transcribe the dialogue verbatim.

•After returning from interviews, you must write up field notes no later than the morning after.

•Memoing involves writing about your research process and is important to recognize subjectivity.

•Operational, coding and analytic are three types of memos.•Operational memos are steps that you took in the research process

•Coding memos allow you to document how you coded data

•Analytic memos provide ways to explore relationships in the data.

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•Data is managed through tables, charts and other visual displays.

•Data reduction involves putting aside information that seems irrelevant.

•Thinking units can also be used to sort stories.

•Lofland and Lofland (1995) suggests the following thinking units: meanings, practices, episodes, encounters, roles, relationships, groups, organizations, settlements, social worlds and lifestyles.

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•Coding assigns meaning to data.

•Process of organizing raw data into categories.

•Open coding involves exploring all possible meanings before assigning conceptual definitions.

•Microanalysis involves going deeper into the data and challenging your original frame of reference.

•The next step is to form categories and assign data to these categories.

•Data will have higher-level themes and lower-level categories.

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•To enhance the quality of qualitative analysis, researchers should have an established audit trail.

•An important check is to look for negative cases that contradict the emerging themes.

•Also perform member checks where other researchers read the descriptions and verify the accuracy of the work.

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