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How to conduct qualitative interviews (tips and best practices)

Last updated

18 May 2023

Reviewed by

Miroslav Damyanov

However, conducting qualitative interviews can be challenging, even for seasoned researchers. Poorly conducted interviews can lead to inaccurate or incomplete data, significantly compromising the validity and reliability of your research findings.

When planning to conduct qualitative interviews, you must adequately prepare yourself to get the most out of your data. Fortunately, there are specific tips and best practices that can help you conduct qualitative interviews effectively.

• What is a qualitative interview?

A qualitative interview is a research technique used to gather in-depth information about people's experiences, attitudes, beliefs, and perceptions. Unlike a structured questionnaire or survey, a qualitative interview is a flexible, conversational approach that allows the interviewer to delve into the interviewee's responses and explore their insights and experiences.

In a qualitative interview, the researcher typically develops a set of open-ended questions that provide a framework for the conversation. However, the interviewer can also adapt to the interviewee's responses and ask follow-up questions to understand their experiences and views better.

• How to conduct interviews in qualitative research

Conducting interviews involves a well-planned and deliberate process to collect accurate and valid data. 

Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to conduct interviews in qualitative research, broken down into three stages:

1. Before the interview

The first step in conducting a qualitative interview is determining your research question . This will help you identify the type of participants you need to recruit . Once you have your research question, you can start recruiting participants by identifying potential candidates and contacting them to gauge their interest in participating in the study. 

After that, it's time to develop your interview questions. These should be open-ended questions that will elicit detailed responses from participants. You'll also need to get consent from the participants, ideally in writing, to ensure that they understand the purpose of the study and their rights as participants. Finally, choose a comfortable and private location to conduct the interview and prepare the interview guide.

2. During the interview

Start by introducing yourself and explaining the purpose of the study. Establish a rapport by putting the participants at ease and making them feel comfortable. Use the interview guide to ask the questions, but be flexible and ask follow-up questions to gain more insight into the participants' responses. 

Take notes during the interview, and ask permission to record the interview for transcription purposes. Be mindful of the time, and cover all the questions in the interview guide.

3. After the interview

Once the interview is over, transcribe the interview if you recorded it. If you took notes, review and organize them to make sure you capture all the important information. Then, analyze the data you collected by identifying common themes and patterns. Use the findings to answer your research question. 

Finally, debrief with the participants to thank them for their time, provide feedback on the study, and answer any questions they may have.

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• What kinds of questions should you ask in a qualitative interview?

Qualitative interviews involve asking questions that encourage participants to share their experiences, opinions, and perspectives on a particular topic. These questions are designed to elicit detailed and nuanced responses rather than simple yes or no answers.

Effective questions in a qualitative interview are generally open-ended and non-leading. They avoid presuppositions or assumptions about the participant's experience and allow them to share their views in their own words. 

In customer research , you might ask questions such as:

What motivated you to choose our product/service over our competitors?

How did you first learn about our product/service?

Can you walk me through your experience with our product/service?

What improvements or changes would you suggest for our product/service?

Have you recommended our product/service to others, and if so, why?

The key is to ask questions relevant to the research topic and allow participants to share their experiences meaningfully and informally. 

• How to determine the right qualitative interview participants

Choosing the right participants for a qualitative interview is a crucial step in ensuring the success and validity of the research . You need to consider several factors to determine the right participants for a qualitative interview. These may include:

Relevant experiences : Participants should have experiences related to the research topic that can provide valuable insights.

Diversity : Aim to include diverse participants to ensure the study's findings are representative and inclusive.

Access : Identify participants who are accessible and willing to participate in the study.

Informed consent : Participants should be fully informed about the study's purpose, methods, and potential risks and benefits and be allowed to provide informed consent.

You can use various recruitment methods, such as posting ads in relevant forums, contacting community organizations or social media groups, or using purposive sampling to identify participants who meet specific criteria.

• How to make qualitative interview subjects comfortable

Making participants comfortable during a qualitative interview is essential to obtain rich, detailed data. Participants are more likely to share their experiences openly when they feel at ease and not judged. 

Here are some ways to make interview subjects comfortable:

Explain the purpose of the study

Start the interview by explaining the research topic and its importance. The goal is to give participants a sense of what to expect.

Create a comfortable environment

Conduct the interview in a quiet, private space where the participant feels comfortable. Turn off any unnecessary electronics that can create distractions. Ensure your equipment works well ahead of time. Arrive at the interview on time. If you conduct a remote interview, turn on your camera and mute all notetakers and observers.

Build rapport

Greet the participant warmly and introduce yourself. Show interest in their responses and thank them for their time.

Use open-ended questions

Ask questions that encourage participants to elaborate on their thoughts and experiences.

Listen attentively

Resist the urge to multitask . Pay attention to the participant's responses, nod your head, or make supportive comments to show you’re interested in their answers. Avoid interrupting them.

Avoid judgment

Show respect and don't judge the participant's views or experiences. Allow the participant to speak freely without feeling judged or ridiculed.

Offer breaks

If needed, offer breaks during the interview, especially if the topic is sensitive or emotional.

Creating a comfortable environment and establishing rapport with the participant fosters an atmosphere of trust and encourages open communication. This helps participants feel at ease and willing to share their experiences.

• How to analyze a qualitative interview

Analyzing a qualitative interview involves a systematic process of examining the data collected to identify patterns, themes, and meanings that emerge from the responses. 

Here are some steps on how to analyze a qualitative interview:

1. Transcription

The first step is transcribing the interview into text format to have a written record of the conversation. This step is essential to ensure that you can refer back to the interview data and identify the important aspects of the interview.

2. Data reduction

Once you’ve transcribed the interview, read through it to identify key themes, patterns, and phrases emerging from the data. This process involves reducing the data into more manageable pieces you can easily analyze.

The next step is to code the data by labeling sections of the text with descriptive words or phrases that reflect the data's content. Coding helps identify key themes and patterns from the interview data.

4. Categorization

After coding, you should group the codes into categories based on their similarities. This process helps to identify overarching themes or sub-themes that emerge from the data.

5. Interpretation

You should then interpret the themes and sub-themes by identifying relationships, contradictions, and meanings that emerge from the data. Interpretation involves analyzing the themes in the context of the research question .

6. Comparison

The next step is comparing the data across participants or groups to identify similarities and differences. This step helps to ensure that the findings aren’t just specific to one participant but can be generalized to the wider population.

7. Triangulation

To ensure the findings are valid and reliable, you should use triangulation by comparing the findings with other sources, such as observations or interview data.

8. Synthesis

The final step is synthesizing the findings by summarizing the key themes and presenting them clearly and concisely. This step involves writing a report that presents the findings in a way that is easy to understand, using quotes and examples from the interview data to illustrate the themes.

• Tips for transcribing a qualitative interview

Transcribing a qualitative interview is a crucial step in the research process. It involves converting the audio or video recording of the interview into written text. 

Here are some tips for transcribing a qualitative interview:

Use transcription software

Transcription software can save time and increase accuracy by automatically transcribing audio or video recordings.

Listen carefully

When manually transcribing, listen carefully to the recording to ensure clarity. Pause and rewind the recording as necessary.

Use appropriate formatting

Use a consistent format for transcribing, such as marking pauses, overlaps, and interruptions. Indicate non-verbal cues such as laughter, sighs, or changes in tone.

Edit for clarity

Edit the transcription to ensure clarity and readability. Use standard grammar and punctuation, correct misspellings, and remove filler words like "um" and "ah."

Proofread and edit

Verify the accuracy of the transcription by listening to the recording again and reviewing the notes taken during the interview.

Use timestamps

Add timestamps to the transcription to reference specific interview sections.

Transcribing a qualitative interview can be time-consuming, but it’s essential to ensure the accuracy of the data collected. Following these tips can produce high-quality transcriptions useful for analysis and reporting.

• Why are interview techniques in qualitative research effective?

Unlike quantitative research methods, which rely on numerical data, qualitative research seeks to understand the richness and complexity of human experiences and perspectives. 

Interview techniques involve asking open-ended questions that allow participants to express their views and share their stories in their own words. This approach can help researchers to uncover unexpected or surprising insights that may not have been discovered through other research methods.

Interview techniques also allow researchers to establish rapport with participants, creating a comfortable and safe space for them to share their experiences. This can lead to a deeper level of trust and candor, leading to more honest and authentic responses.

• What are the weaknesses of qualitative interviews?

Qualitative interviews are an excellent research approach when used properly, but they have their drawbacks. 

The weaknesses of qualitative interviews include the following:

Subjectivity and personal biases

Qualitative interviews rely on the researcher's interpretation of the interviewee's responses. The researcher's biases or preconceptions can affect how the questions are framed and how the responses are interpreted, which can influence results.

Small sample size

The sample size in qualitative interviews is often small, which can limit the generalizability of the results to the larger population.

Data quality

The quality of data collected during interviews can be affected by various factors, such as the interviewee's mood, the setting of the interview, and the interviewer's skills and experience.

Socially desirable responses

Interviewees may provide responses that they believe are socially acceptable rather than truthful or genuine.

Conducting qualitative interviews can be expensive, especially if the researcher must travel to different locations to conduct the interviews.

Time-consuming

The data analysis process can be time-consuming and labor-intensive, as researchers need to transcribe and analyze the data manually.

Despite these weaknesses, qualitative interviews remain a valuable research tool . You can take steps to mitigate the impact of these weaknesses by incorporating the perspectives of other researchers or participants in the analysis process, using multiple data sources , and critically analyzing your biases and assumptions.

Mastering the art of qualitative interviews is an essential skill for businesses looking to gain deep insights into their customers' needs , preferences, and behaviors. By following the tips and best practices outlined in this article, you can conduct interviews that provide you with rich data that you can use to make informed decisions about your products, services, and marketing strategies. 

Remember that effective communication, active listening, and proper analysis are critical components of successful qualitative interviews. By incorporating these practices into your customer research, you can gain a competitive edge and build stronger customer relationships.

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In-Depth Interviews for Qualitative Analysis

This is part of our Practical Guide to Qualitative Content Analysis | Start a Free Trial of Delve | Take Our Free Online Qualitative Data Analysis Course

In-depth interviews in qualitative research often play a central role in the process of understanding human behaviors and experiences. These conversations are personal and thorough, geared towards uncovering an individual's experiences, perspectives, and emotions.

This article covers in-depth interviews in qualitative research, offers a step–by–step guide, and highlights tips and tools that can help organize the overall process.

Understanding In-Depth Interviews in Qualitative Research

In-depth interviews in research are open-ended talks with individual group members to discover new insights and grasp the group's social dynamics. Unlike casual chats with a friend or therapy sessions, these conversations aim to produce knowledge about a specific topic from the perspective of a particular group. 

Kvale & Brinkmann (2009) explain in-depth interviews as a distinct type of conversation – a “research conversation” about a general topic – governed by its own set of rules and guidelines. Zhang & Wildemuth (2009) emphasize their role in capturing people’s experiences “without imposing any a-priori categorization that may limit the field of inquiry.” [1,2]

Central to understanding personal experiences is grasping the language and beliefs of the people you are interviewing. Setting up a comfortable interview environment and building rapport are also inherent in making participants feel comfortable sharing genuine, insightful stories.

You don’t begin with set theories or questions in conducting these interviews. Rather, you allow the conversation's natural progression to bring new details to light. This flexible method helps you tune into the interviewee's narrative, discovering unforeseen themes and deeper perspectives.

Zhang & Wildemuth note that terms like unstructured, nonstandardized, and ethnographic interviews are often used interchangeably with in-depth interviews, all highlighting the same goal: understanding a topic through the interviewee’s perspective with an open-ended format.

Key Features of In-Depth Interviews

Rich, Detailed Data : They capture the nuances of personal experiences and attitudes.

Flexibility : Adapting to the respondent's narrative, in-depth interviews can uncover unexpected themes and insights.

Emotional Depth : Going beyond factual responses, they explore the emotional and psychological dimensions of the subject matter.

When to Use In-Depth Interviews

In-depth interviews are great for exploring how people seek and use information. They're especially useful for identifying patterns, developing models, or gaining insights into how individual experiences can reflect broader, collective trends.

In-depth interviews are used with various qualitative research methodologies, including:

Grounded Theory : In-depth interviews help in developing or refining theories based on real-world observations and experiences.

Ethnographic Research : In ethnographic studies, these interviews provide deep personal insights that complement observational data, offering a holistic view of the cultural or social context being studied.

Case Studies : They allow for a detailed examination of individual cases, enriching the analysis with personal narratives and experiences.

Framing the Process of In-Depth Interviews in Research

Let’s go back to the work of Kvale and Brinkmann, widely known for their influential work on conducting and analyzing in-depth interviews. From the role of the interviewer to conducting data analysis, we've distilled some of the key insights from their book on how to frame and approach the interview process:

The Interviewer’s Role : Think of yourself as a 'miner', extracting valuable information, and as a 'traveler', who journeys through the narratives of your interview participants.

The Purpose of Interviews : Your goal is to create meaning from the interviewees' stories, not just data collection. Interpretation is key to capturing the lived experience.

Ethical Standards : Prioritize ethical standards like informed consent and confidentiality. Respect for the interviewee's story underpins the integrity of your research.

Interviewing Skills : Develop the craft of interviewing with close listening, nuanced questioning, and rapport-building to foster a rich, open dialogue.

Data Analysis : Go through the iterative qualitative analysis process, applying coding by hand or with software like Delve to turn your interview data into clear insights.

As you think about your in-depth interviews, Kvale and Brinkmann provide a helpful heuristic for a structured process yet open to the complexities of human experience. 

Comparing In-Depth Interviews vs. Semi-Structured Interviews

Your interview approach can vary based on your conversation goals. Two options are in-depth interviews and semi-structured interviews . This section outlines some of the differences between these interview styles, which can help you choose the right method for your study.

In-depth interviews are useful when you need the full story. They are rich with personal context about complex issues or brand-new topics where you’re not just after what people think but why they think it. With their minimal structure and high adaptability, in-depth interviews are also great for delving into sensitive topics where the depth of personal insight is paramount.

In an ideal in-depth interview, you let the conversation flow naturally, asking spontaneous questions based on your interviewee’s story. While it’s flexible, having a loose ‘agenda’ helps guide the discussion and keep it on track. This isn't a strict script but a flexible outline of topics to touch upon and is adaptable based on the conversation. [3,4,5]

Semi-structured interviews , on the other hand, offer a blend of guidance and flexibility. These are ideal when you’ve got a clear objective and need solid, comparable insights across the board. You generally start with the same list of questions to ask each interviewee. They give you enough flexibility to dig deeper but keep things on track to meet your goals.

Regardless of the interview style you choose, each method is designed to help you unravel the complexities of human experiences through slightly different conversation styles.

In-Depth Interviews vs. Focus Groups

While both in-depth interviews and focus groups are qualitative research methods used to gather detailed insights, they serve different purposes and have distinct characteristics. This section quickly compares what to expect from in-depth interviews research in comparison to focus groups.

In-Depth Interviews:

Individual Sessions : Conducted one-on-one, allowing for a deep dive into the personal experiences, thoughts, and feelings of a participant.

Privacy : Offers a private setting that can encourage participants to open up more than they might in a group.

Flexibility : Highly flexible, with the interviewer able to adjust questions based on the participant's responses.

Depth of Data : Provides rich, detailed data from an individual's perspective, enabling a deep understanding of personal narratives.

Focus Groups:

Group Discussions : Involves a small group of participants discussing a topic, guided by a moderator.

Interaction : The group setting allows participants to interact, generating a broad range of views and stimulating discussions that might not arise in one-on-one interviews.

Dynamics : The social dynamics of a focus group can influence participants' responses, which can be both a source of rich data and a potential bias.

Efficiency : Can be more time and cost-efficient than conducting multiple in-depth interviews, as they gather perspectives from several participants simultaneously.

Key Differences:

Setting : In-depth interviews are more private and personal, while focus groups leverage the dynamics of group interaction.

Data Type : In-depth interviews often yield deep, nuanced insights into individual experiences, whereas focus groups offer a broader view of collective perceptions and social dynamics.

Influence on Responses : The presence of others in focus groups can affect participants' willingness to share, which is less of a concern in the one-on-one setting of in-depth interviews.

Both methods have their place in qualitative research, and the choice between them depends on the research goals, the nature of the topic, and the type of data needed.

Advantages and Disadvantages of In-Depth Interviews

In-depth interviews offer unique insights into participants' experiences, thoughts, and feelings. However, like any research method, they come with their own set of advantages and disadvantages.

Advantages of In-Depth Interviews:

Rich, Detailed Data : In-depth interviews provide a depth of understanding that surveys or questionnaires can't match. They allow participants to share their stories in their own words, offering nuanced insights into their experiences.

Flexibility : The open-ended nature of these interviews lets you explore topics as they arise during the conversation, leading to unexpected discoveries.

Personal Connection : You can gain trust by building rapport with participants and encouraging more open and honest responses. This connection often leads to more meaningful data.

Contextual Understanding : These interviews provide context for participants' behaviors and attitudes, helping you understand the 'why' behind their responses.

Disadvantages of In-Depth Interviews:

Time-Consuming : Conducting and transcribing in-depth interviews can be very time-intensive. The detailed analysis required to interpret the data also adds to the overall time commitment.

Cost : Given the time and resources needed for in-depth interviews, they can be more costly than other data collection methods.

Limited Generalizability : Because in-depth interviews usually involve a smaller sample size, it's challenging to generalize findings to a larger population.

Participant’s Reluctance : Some participants may be hesitant to share personal information or be unable to articulate their feelings clearly, affecting the quality of data collected.

Balancing these advantages and disadvantages is crucial for effectively using in-depth interviews in research.

An In-Depth Interview Guide

Let's create a cohesive guide with a pre-interview phase that leads into the linear steps of the interview and reporting process itself. Think of it as an in-depth interview protocol that synthesizes the more administrative focus of Zhang & Wildemuth’s suggestions with the practical steps laid out by Kvale & Brinkmann. 

Pre-Interview Phase

Before diving into the interviews, you need to lay the groundwork. Zhang & Wildemuth offer a few suggestions for how to approach the preparation process:

Accessing the Setting : Your first task is to navigate into the research setting. Are interviewees coming to you or vice versa? This might involve overcoming barriers, whether they're political, legal, or cultural. It's about getting your foot in the door and being accepted into the space where your research will unfold.

Understanding Language and Culture : Spend time understanding your interviewees' language and cultural context. It's not just about the words they use but aiming to interpret the meanings and experiences behind them accurately.

Deciding on Presentation : How you present yourself in this setting is crucial. You're there to learn, to absorb, and to understand. This requires a balance between being a professional researcher who stands apart and a receptive listener who blends in.

Choosing Interviewees : Choose your interviewees wisely. They should not only be willing to share their stories but also be insightful about the nuances of the setting.

Building Trust and Rapport : Before any real interviewing begins, focus on building a relationship of trust with your informants. From understanding language to how you dress, this rapport is what will open doors to deeper, more honest conversations

Ethical Considerations : Adhere to international and national ethical research standards. Obtain approval from ethical research committees if required, ensuring all research is conducted responsibly.

These aren’t linear suggestions. Try to keep them in mind as you sit down with participants. Once you've laid this foundation, you're ready to begin the formal interview process.

Interview, Analysis & Reporting

Kvale and Brinkmann outline a seven-stage process for conducting in-depth interviews, which includes thematizing, designing, interviewing, transcribing, analyzing, verifying, and reporting.

Here's an overview of their approach to in-depth interviews, as discussed in their work:

1. Thematizing : Start with a broad idea of what your study is about. The preparation phase above is a good primer to get you thinking about thematic elements to investigate further. This isn't set in stone – think of it more as setting the direction. Your aim here is to sketch out the purpose and goals, but be open to refining them as you delve deeper. 

2. Designing : Now, plan how your interviews will unfold. Decide how many people you'll talk to and who they should be. You need a general idea of where you're headed, but can expect that the path might change as you go. Having a rough agenda can help to make sure your interviews really get to the core of your research question.

3. Interviewing : Before you begin with each interviewee, explain the study's purpose, why they were chosen, and the expected duration of the interview.

Then, start your interviews with your rough agenda in hand, but stay flexible and open to wherever the conversation goes; often, the most valuable insights come from spontaneous conversation. Record everything (with permission) and watch for non-verbal cues—they're revealing.

Opt for audio recording over note-taking to maintain the conversation’s flow. If note-taking is necessary (e.g., capturing non-verbal cues), do it discreetly and follow up with detailed notes after the interview is finished. 

4. Transcribing : After the interview, get all your insights down on paper (or screen). Do this quickly while it's all fresh in your mind. If the interview was recorded, it needs to be transcribed . Accuracy is key here – you want to capture the exact words and the tone behind them. This transcript is like your raw data, so handle it with care.

5. Analyzing : Now, it’s time to make sense of the data. Go through your transcripts line by line, looking for patterns or themes that stand out. This is where you start making sense of all that raw data, piecing together the story it tells. It can help to return to step 1 to compare your initial thematization ideas with where you are now. 

Use coding to organize the data and interpret the meanings behind responses. You can do this manually by hand or streamline the process with qualitative data analysis tools like Delve .

6. Verifying : Double-check your findings. Are they consistent? Do they hold up against existing research? This is about making sure your conclusions are solid and reliable. Sharing your findings with a peer-debriefer (with experience in conducting research similar to yours) can provide additional feedback, perspectives or potential corrections. 

7. Reporting : Finally, share what you’ve found. Put together a report that’s right for your audience and send a copy to your interviewees. Remember to sprinkle in some direct quotes from your interviews – they add flavor and authenticity to your findings.

From before interviews ever begin to final reporting, you now have a full toolkit for navigating in-depth interviews from start to finish.

Tips & Skills: Crafting In-Depth Interview Questions

Creating effective in-depth interview questions unlocks the rich, detailed insights that this qualitative research method is known for. You aim for questions designed to encourage participants to share personal narratives about their experiences, perspectives, and emotions.

Key Considerations:

Open-Ended : Questions should be open-ended to allow participants the freedom to express themselves fully without being restricted to yes/no answers.

Exploratory : Aim to explore the 'how' and 'why' behind participants' thoughts and behaviors to understand their experiences better.

Non-Leading : Ensure questions are neutral and non-leading, avoiding any assumptions that could influence the participant's responses.

Adaptable : While having a set of core questions is important, be prepared to adapt and follow up based on the conversation's flow to explore unexpected areas.

In-Depth Interview Sample Questions:

"Can you describe a recent experience that stood out to you regarding [topic]?"

"How did that experience make you feel, and why?"

"What challenges have you faced in [context], and how did you address them?"

"Can you walk me through the decision-making process you went through for [specific decision]?"

These questions are just a starting point. The art of in-depth interviewing lies in how you use these questions to facilitate a conversation that reveals the complexities of human experience, making each interview a unique journey into your participant's world.

In-Depth Interview Template

Use the tips and skills in this template to ensure each in-depth interview is as revealing, efficient, and insightful as possible.

The Role of Delve Software in Enhancing In-Depth Interviews

Delve software facilitates the in-depth interview process by:

Streamlining Data Management : Organizes and stores transcripts for easy access.

Enhancing Analysis : Offers tools for coding and identifying patterns quickly.

Focusing on Insights : Frees up time to concentrate on extracting meaningful insights.

With Delve, handling qualitative data becomes more efficient, letting researchers dive deeper into their analysis and uncover impactful findings.

Wrapping Up

In-depth interviews are a cornerstone of qualitative research, especially in approaches like grounded theory and ethnography where understanding the nuances of personal experiences and cultural contexts is key to developing rich, grounded theories.

By using QDA coding tools like Delve , handling the wealth of data from these interviews is much easier, allowing you to focus on what really matters—the in-depth insights.

References:

Zhang, Y., & Wildemuth, B. M. (2009). Unstructured Interviews : Applications of Social Research Methods to Questions in Information and Library Science. Exeter: Libraries Unlimited.

Brinkmann, S., & Kvale, S. (2018). Doing interviews . SAGE Publications Ltd, https://doi.org/10.4135/9781529716665

Minichiello, V., Aroni, R., Timewell, E., & Alexander, L. (1990). In-Depth Interviewing: Researching People. Hong Kong: Longman Cheshire

Briggs, C. (2000). Interview. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, 9(1-2), 137-140.

McCann T, Clark E. Using unstructured interviews with participants who have schizophrenia. Nurse Res . 2005;13(1):7-18. doi: 10.7748/nr2005.07.13.1.7.c5996 .

Cite This Article

Delve, Ho, L., & Limpaecher, A. (2024c, Feb 5). In-Depth Interviews for Qualitative Analysis https://delvetool.com/blog/in-depth-interviews

Chapter 11. Interviewing

Introduction.

Interviewing people is at the heart of qualitative research. It is not merely a way to collect data but an intrinsically rewarding activity—an interaction between two people that holds the potential for greater understanding and interpersonal development. Unlike many of our daily interactions with others that are fairly shallow and mundane, sitting down with a person for an hour or two and really listening to what they have to say is a profound and deep enterprise, one that can provide not only “data” for you, the interviewer, but also self-understanding and a feeling of being heard for the interviewee. I always approach interviewing with a deep appreciation for the opportunity it gives me to understand how other people experience the world. That said, there is not one kind of interview but many, and some of these are shallower than others. This chapter will provide you with an overview of interview techniques but with a special focus on the in-depth semistructured interview guide approach, which is the approach most widely used in social science research.

An interview can be variously defined as “a conversation with a purpose” ( Lune and Berg 2018 ) and an attempt to understand the world from the point of view of the person being interviewed: “to unfold the meaning of peoples’ experiences, to uncover their lived world prior to scientific explanations” ( Kvale 2007 ). It is a form of active listening in which the interviewer steers the conversation to subjects and topics of interest to their research but also manages to leave enough space for those interviewed to say surprising things. Achieving that balance is a tricky thing, which is why most practitioners believe interviewing is both an art and a science. In my experience as a teacher, there are some students who are “natural” interviewers (often they are introverts), but anyone can learn to conduct interviews, and everyone, even those of us who have been doing this for years, can improve their interviewing skills. This might be a good time to highlight the fact that the interview is a product between interviewer and interviewee and that this product is only as good as the rapport established between the two participants. Active listening is the key to establishing this necessary rapport.

Patton ( 2002 ) makes the argument that we use interviews because there are certain things that are not observable. In particular, “we cannot observe feelings, thoughts, and intentions. We cannot observe behaviors that took place at some previous point in time. We cannot observe situations that preclude the presence of an observer. We cannot observe how people have organized the world and the meanings they attach to what goes on in the world. We have to ask people questions about those things” ( 341 ).

Types of Interviews

There are several distinct types of interviews. Imagine a continuum (figure 11.1). On one side are unstructured conversations—the kind you have with your friends. No one is in control of those conversations, and what you talk about is often random—whatever pops into your head. There is no secret, underlying purpose to your talking—if anything, the purpose is to talk to and engage with each other, and the words you use and the things you talk about are a little beside the point. An unstructured interview is a little like this informal conversation, except that one of the parties to the conversation (you, the researcher) does have an underlying purpose, and that is to understand the other person. You are not friends speaking for no purpose, but it might feel just as unstructured to the “interviewee” in this scenario. That is one side of the continuum. On the other side are fully structured and standardized survey-type questions asked face-to-face. Here it is very clear who is asking the questions and who is answering them. This doesn’t feel like a conversation at all! A lot of people new to interviewing have this ( erroneously !) in mind when they think about interviews as data collection. Somewhere in the middle of these two extreme cases is the “ semistructured” interview , in which the researcher uses an “interview guide” to gently move the conversation to certain topics and issues. This is the primary form of interviewing for qualitative social scientists and will be what I refer to as interviewing for the rest of this chapter, unless otherwise specified.

Informal (unstructured conversations). This is the most “open-ended” approach to interviewing. It is particularly useful in conjunction with observational methods (see chapters 13 and 14). There are no predetermined questions. Each interview will be different. Imagine you are researching the Oregon Country Fair, an annual event in Veneta, Oregon, that includes live music, artisan craft booths, face painting, and a lot of people walking through forest paths. It’s unlikely that you will be able to get a person to sit down with you and talk intensely about a set of questions for an hour and a half. But you might be able to sidle up to several people and engage with them about their experiences at the fair. You might have a general interest in what attracts people to these events, so you could start a conversation by asking strangers why they are here or why they come back every year. That’s it. Then you have a conversation that may lead you anywhere. Maybe one person tells a long story about how their parents brought them here when they were a kid. A second person talks about how this is better than Burning Man. A third person shares their favorite traveling band. And yet another enthuses about the public library in the woods. During your conversations, you also talk about a lot of other things—the weather, the utilikilts for sale, the fact that a favorite food booth has disappeared. It’s all good. You may not be able to record these conversations. Instead, you might jot down notes on the spot and then, when you have the time, write down as much as you can remember about the conversations in long fieldnotes. Later, you will have to sit down with these fieldnotes and try to make sense of all the information (see chapters 18 and 19).

Interview guide ( semistructured interview ). This is the primary type employed by social science qualitative researchers. The researcher creates an “interview guide” in advance, which she uses in every interview. In theory, every person interviewed is asked the same questions. In practice, every person interviewed is asked mostly the same topics but not always the same questions, as the whole point of a “guide” is that it guides the direction of the conversation but does not command it. The guide is typically between five and ten questions or question areas, sometimes with suggested follow-ups or prompts . For example, one question might be “What was it like growing up in Eastern Oregon?” with prompts such as “Did you live in a rural area? What kind of high school did you attend?” to help the conversation develop. These interviews generally take place in a quiet place (not a busy walkway during a festival) and are recorded. The recordings are transcribed, and those transcriptions then become the “data” that is analyzed (see chapters 18 and 19). The conventional length of one of these types of interviews is between one hour and two hours, optimally ninety minutes. Less than one hour doesn’t allow for much development of questions and thoughts, and two hours (or more) is a lot of time to ask someone to sit still and answer questions. If you have a lot of ground to cover, and the person is willing, I highly recommend two separate interview sessions, with the second session being slightly shorter than the first (e.g., ninety minutes the first day, sixty minutes the second). There are lots of good reasons for this, but the most compelling one is that this allows you to listen to the first day’s recording and catch anything interesting you might have missed in the moment and so develop follow-up questions that can probe further. This also allows the person being interviewed to have some time to think about the issues raised in the interview and go a little deeper with their answers.

Standardized questionnaire with open responses ( structured interview ). This is the type of interview a lot of people have in mind when they hear “interview”: a researcher comes to your door with a clipboard and proceeds to ask you a series of questions. These questions are all the same whoever answers the door; they are “standardized.” Both the wording and the exact order are important, as people’s responses may vary depending on how and when a question is asked. These are qualitative only in that the questions allow for “open-ended responses”: people can say whatever they want rather than select from a predetermined menu of responses. For example, a survey I collaborated on included this open-ended response question: “How does class affect one’s career success in sociology?” Some of the answers were simply one word long (e.g., “debt”), and others were long statements with stories and personal anecdotes. It is possible to be surprised by the responses. Although it’s a stretch to call this kind of questioning a conversation, it does allow the person answering the question some degree of freedom in how they answer.

Survey questionnaire with closed responses (not an interview!). Standardized survey questions with specific answer options (e.g., closed responses) are not really interviews at all, and they do not generate qualitative data. For example, if we included five options for the question “How does class affect one’s career success in sociology?”—(1) debt, (2) social networks, (3) alienation, (4) family doesn’t understand, (5) type of grad program—we leave no room for surprises at all. Instead, we would most likely look at patterns around these responses, thinking quantitatively rather than qualitatively (e.g., using regression analysis techniques, we might find that working-class sociologists were twice as likely to bring up alienation). It can sometimes be confusing for new students because the very same survey can include both closed-ended and open-ended questions. The key is to think about how these will be analyzed and to what level surprises are possible. If your plan is to turn all responses into a number and make predictions about correlations and relationships, you are no longer conducting qualitative research. This is true even if you are conducting this survey face-to-face with a real live human. Closed-response questions are not conversations of any kind, purposeful or not.

In summary, the semistructured interview guide approach is the predominant form of interviewing for social science qualitative researchers because it allows a high degree of freedom of responses from those interviewed (thus allowing for novel discoveries) while still maintaining some connection to a research question area or topic of interest. The rest of the chapter assumes the employment of this form.

Creating an Interview Guide

Your interview guide is the instrument used to bridge your research question(s) and what the people you are interviewing want to tell you. Unlike a standardized questionnaire, the questions actually asked do not need to be exactly what you have written down in your guide. The guide is meant to create space for those you are interviewing to talk about the phenomenon of interest, but sometimes you are not even sure what that phenomenon is until you start asking questions. A priority in creating an interview guide is to ensure it offers space. One of the worst mistakes is to create questions that are so specific that the person answering them will not stray. Relatedly, questions that sound “academic” will shut down a lot of respondents. A good interview guide invites respondents to talk about what is important to them, not feel like they are performing or being evaluated by you.

Good interview questions should not sound like your “research question” at all. For example, let’s say your research question is “How do patriarchal assumptions influence men’s understanding of climate change and responses to climate change?” It would be worse than unhelpful to ask a respondent, “How do your assumptions about the role of men affect your understanding of climate change?” You need to unpack this into manageable nuggets that pull your respondent into the area of interest without leading him anywhere. You could start by asking him what he thinks about climate change in general. Or, even better, whether he has any concerns about heatwaves or increased tornadoes or polar icecaps melting. Once he starts talking about that, you can ask follow-up questions that bring in issues around gendered roles, perhaps asking if he is married (to a woman) and whether his wife shares his thoughts and, if not, how they negotiate that difference. The fact is, you won’t really know the right questions to ask until he starts talking.

There are several distinct types of questions that can be used in your interview guide, either as main questions or as follow-up probes. If you remember that the point is to leave space for the respondent, you will craft a much more effective interview guide! You will also want to think about the place of time in both the questions themselves (past, present, future orientations) and the sequencing of the questions.

Researcher Note

Suggestion : As you read the next three sections (types of questions, temporality, question sequence), have in mind a particular research question, and try to draft questions and sequence them in a way that opens space for a discussion that helps you answer your research question.

Type of Questions

Experience and behavior questions ask about what a respondent does regularly (their behavior) or has done (their experience). These are relatively easy questions for people to answer because they appear more “factual” and less subjective. This makes them good opening questions. For the study on climate change above, you might ask, “Have you ever experienced an unusual weather event? What happened?” Or “You said you work outside? What is a typical summer workday like for you? How do you protect yourself from the heat?”

Opinion and values questions , in contrast, ask questions that get inside the minds of those you are interviewing. “Do you think climate change is real? Who or what is responsible for it?” are two such questions. Note that you don’t have to literally ask, “What is your opinion of X?” but you can find a way to ask the specific question relevant to the conversation you are having. These questions are a bit trickier to ask because the answers you get may depend in part on how your respondent perceives you and whether they want to please you or not. We’ve talked a fair amount about being reflective. Here is another place where this comes into play. You need to be aware of the effect your presence might have on the answers you are receiving and adjust accordingly. If you are a woman who is perceived as liberal asking a man who identifies as conservative about climate change, there is a lot of subtext that can be going on in the interview. There is no one right way to resolve this, but you must at least be aware of it.

Feeling questions are questions that ask respondents to draw on their emotional responses. It’s pretty common for academic researchers to forget that we have bodies and emotions, but people’s understandings of the world often operate at this affective level, sometimes unconsciously or barely consciously. It is a good idea to include questions that leave space for respondents to remember, imagine, or relive emotional responses to particular phenomena. “What was it like when you heard your cousin’s house burned down in that wildfire?” doesn’t explicitly use any emotion words, but it allows your respondent to remember what was probably a pretty emotional day. And if they respond emotionally neutral, that is pretty interesting data too. Note that asking someone “How do you feel about X” is not always going to evoke an emotional response, as they might simply turn around and respond with “I think that…” It is better to craft a question that actually pushes the respondent into the affective category. This might be a specific follow-up to an experience and behavior question —for example, “You just told me about your daily routine during the summer heat. Do you worry it is going to get worse?” or “Have you ever been afraid it will be too hot to get your work accomplished?”

Knowledge questions ask respondents what they actually know about something factual. We have to be careful when we ask these types of questions so that respondents do not feel like we are evaluating them (which would shut them down), but, for example, it is helpful to know when you are having a conversation about climate change that your respondent does in fact know that unusual weather events have increased and that these have been attributed to climate change! Asking these questions can set the stage for deeper questions and can ensure that the conversation makes the same kind of sense to both participants. For example, a conversation about political polarization can be put back on track once you realize that the respondent doesn’t really have a clear understanding that there are two parties in the US. Instead of asking a series of questions about Republicans and Democrats, you might shift your questions to talk more generally about political disagreements (e.g., “people against abortion”). And sometimes what you do want to know is the level of knowledge about a particular program or event (e.g., “Are you aware you can discharge your student loans through the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program?”).

Sensory questions call on all senses of the respondent to capture deeper responses. These are particularly helpful in sparking memory. “Think back to your childhood in Eastern Oregon. Describe the smells, the sounds…” Or you could use these questions to help a person access the full experience of a setting they customarily inhabit: “When you walk through the doors to your office building, what do you see? Hear? Smell?” As with feeling questions , these questions often supplement experience and behavior questions . They are another way of allowing your respondent to report fully and deeply rather than remain on the surface.

Creative questions employ illustrative examples, suggested scenarios, or simulations to get respondents to think more deeply about an issue, topic, or experience. There are many options here. In The Trouble with Passion , Erin Cech ( 2021 ) provides a scenario in which “Joe” is trying to decide whether to stay at his decent but boring computer job or follow his passion by opening a restaurant. She asks respondents, “What should Joe do?” Their answers illuminate the attraction of “passion” in job selection. In my own work, I have used a news story about an upwardly mobile young man who no longer has time to see his mother and sisters to probe respondents’ feelings about the costs of social mobility. Jessi Streib and Betsy Leondar-Wright have used single-page cartoon “scenes” to elicit evaluations of potential racial discrimination, sexual harassment, and classism. Barbara Sutton ( 2010 ) has employed lists of words (“strong,” “mother,” “victim”) on notecards she fans out and asks her female respondents to select and discuss.

Background/Demographic Questions

You most definitely will want to know more about the person you are interviewing in terms of conventional demographic information, such as age, race, gender identity, occupation, and educational attainment. These are not questions that normally open up inquiry. [1] For this reason, my practice has been to include a separate “demographic questionnaire” sheet that I ask each respondent to fill out at the conclusion of the interview. Only include those aspects that are relevant to your study. For example, if you are not exploring religion or religious affiliation, do not include questions about a person’s religion on the demographic sheet. See the example provided at the end of this chapter.

Temporality

Any type of question can have a past, present, or future orientation. For example, if you are asking a behavior question about workplace routine, you might ask the respondent to talk about past work, present work, and ideal (future) work. Similarly, if you want to understand how people cope with natural disasters, you might ask your respondent how they felt then during the wildfire and now in retrospect and whether and to what extent they have concerns for future wildfire disasters. It’s a relatively simple suggestion—don’t forget to ask about past, present, and future—but it can have a big impact on the quality of the responses you receive.

Question Sequence

Having a list of good questions or good question areas is not enough to make a good interview guide. You will want to pay attention to the order in which you ask your questions. Even though any one respondent can derail this order (perhaps by jumping to answer a question you haven’t yet asked), a good advance plan is always helpful. When thinking about sequence, remember that your goal is to get your respondent to open up to you and to say things that might surprise you. To establish rapport, it is best to start with nonthreatening questions. Asking about the present is often the safest place to begin, followed by the past (they have to know you a little bit to get there), and lastly, the future (talking about hopes and fears requires the most rapport). To allow for surprises, it is best to move from very general questions to more particular questions only later in the interview. This ensures that respondents have the freedom to bring up the topics that are relevant to them rather than feel like they are constrained to answer you narrowly. For example, refrain from asking about particular emotions until these have come up previously—don’t lead with them. Often, your more particular questions will emerge only during the course of the interview, tailored to what is emerging in conversation.

Once you have a set of questions, read through them aloud and imagine you are being asked the same questions. Does the set of questions have a natural flow? Would you be willing to answer the very first question to a total stranger? Does your sequence establish facts and experiences before moving on to opinions and values? Did you include prefatory statements, where necessary; transitions; and other announcements? These can be as simple as “Hey, we talked a lot about your experiences as a barista while in college.… Now I am turning to something completely different: how you managed friendships in college.” That is an abrupt transition, but it has been softened by your acknowledgment of that.

Probes and Flexibility

Once you have the interview guide, you will also want to leave room for probes and follow-up questions. As in the sample probe included here, you can write out the obvious probes and follow-up questions in advance. You might not need them, as your respondent might anticipate them and include full responses to the original question. Or you might need to tailor them to how your respondent answered the question. Some common probes and follow-up questions include asking for more details (When did that happen? Who else was there?), asking for elaboration (Could you say more about that?), asking for clarification (Does that mean what I think it means or something else? I understand what you mean, but someone else reading the transcript might not), and asking for contrast or comparison (How did this experience compare with last year’s event?). “Probing is a skill that comes from knowing what to look for in the interview, listening carefully to what is being said and what is not said, and being sensitive to the feedback needs of the person being interviewed” ( Patton 2002:374 ). It takes work! And energy. I and many other interviewers I know report feeling emotionally and even physically drained after conducting an interview. You are tasked with active listening and rearranging your interview guide as needed on the fly. If you only ask the questions written down in your interview guide with no deviations, you are doing it wrong. [2]

The Final Question

Every interview guide should include a very open-ended final question that allows for the respondent to say whatever it is they have been dying to tell you but you’ve forgotten to ask. About half the time they are tired too and will tell you they have nothing else to say. But incredibly, some of the most honest and complete responses take place here, at the end of a long interview. You have to realize that the person being interviewed is often discovering things about themselves as they talk to you and that this process of discovery can lead to new insights for them. Making space at the end is therefore crucial. Be sure you convey that you actually do want them to tell you more, that the offer of “anything else?” is not read as an empty convention where the polite response is no. Here is where you can pull from that active listening and tailor the final question to the particular person. For example, “I’ve asked you a lot of questions about what it was like to live through that wildfire. I’m wondering if there is anything I’ve forgotten to ask, especially because I haven’t had that experience myself” is a much more inviting final question than “Great. Anything you want to add?” It’s also helpful to convey to the person that you have the time to listen to their full answer, even if the allotted time is at the end. After all, there are no more questions to ask, so the respondent knows exactly how much time is left. Do them the courtesy of listening to them!

Conducting the Interview

Once you have your interview guide, you are on your way to conducting your first interview. I always practice my interview guide with a friend or family member. I do this even when the questions don’t make perfect sense for them, as it still helps me realize which questions make no sense, are poorly worded (too academic), or don’t follow sequentially. I also practice the routine I will use for interviewing, which goes something like this:

• Introduce myself and reintroduce the study
• Provide consent form and ask them to sign and retain/return copy
• Ask if they have any questions about the study before we begin
• Ask if I can begin recording
• Ask questions (from interview guide)
• Turn off the recording device
• Ask if they are willing to fill out my demographic questionnaire
• Collect questionnaire and, without looking at the answers, place in same folder as signed consent form
• Thank them and depart

A note on remote interviewing: Interviews have traditionally been conducted face-to-face in a private or quiet public setting. You don’t want a lot of background noise, as this will make transcriptions difficult. During the recent global pandemic, many interviewers, myself included, learned the benefits of interviewing remotely. Although face-to-face is still preferable for many reasons, Zoom interviewing is not a bad alternative, and it does allow more interviews across great distances. Zoom also includes automatic transcription, which significantly cuts down on the time it normally takes to convert our conversations into “data” to be analyzed. These automatic transcriptions are not perfect, however, and you will still need to listen to the recording and clarify and clean up the transcription. Nor do automatic transcriptions include notations of body language or change of tone, which you may want to include. When interviewing remotely, you will want to collect the consent form before you meet: ask them to read, sign, and return it as an email attachment. I think it is better to ask for the demographic questionnaire after the interview, but because some respondents may never return it then, it is probably best to ask for this at the same time as the consent form, in advance of the interview.

What should you bring to the interview? I would recommend bringing two copies of the consent form (one for you and one for the respondent), a demographic questionnaire, a manila folder in which to place the signed consent form and filled-out demographic questionnaire, a printed copy of your interview guide (I print with three-inch right margins so I can jot down notes on the page next to relevant questions), a pen, a recording device, and water.

After the interview, you will want to secure the signed consent form in a locked filing cabinet (if in print) or a password-protected folder on your computer. Using Excel or a similar program that allows tables/spreadsheets, create an identifying number for your interview that links to the consent form without using the name of your respondent. For example, let’s say that I conduct interviews with US politicians, and the first person I meet with is George W. Bush. I will assign the transcription the number “INT#001” and add it to the signed consent form. [3] The signed consent form goes into a locked filing cabinet, and I never use the name “George W. Bush” again. I take the information from the demographic sheet, open my Excel spreadsheet, and add the relevant information in separate columns for the row INT#001: White, male, Republican. When I interview Bill Clinton as my second interview, I include a second row: INT#002: White, male, Democrat. And so on. The only link to the actual name of the respondent and this information is the fact that the consent form (unavailable to anyone but me) has stamped on it the interview number.

Many students get very nervous before their first interview. Actually, many of us are always nervous before the interview! But do not worry—this is normal, and it does pass. Chances are, you will be pleasantly surprised at how comfortable it begins to feel. These “purposeful conversations” are often a delight for both participants. This is not to say that sometimes things go wrong. I often have my students practice several “bad scenarios” (e.g., a respondent that you cannot get to open up; a respondent who is too talkative and dominates the conversation, steering it away from the topics you are interested in; emotions that completely take over; or shocking disclosures you are ill-prepared to handle), but most of the time, things go quite well. Be prepared for the unexpected, but know that the reason interviews are so popular as a technique of data collection is that they are usually richly rewarding for both participants.

One thing that I stress to my methods students and remind myself about is that interviews are still conversations between people. If there’s something you might feel uncomfortable asking someone about in a “normal” conversation, you will likely also feel a bit of discomfort asking it in an interview. Maybe more importantly, your respondent may feel uncomfortable. Social research—especially about inequality—can be uncomfortable. And it’s easy to slip into an abstract, intellectualized, or removed perspective as an interviewer. This is one reason trying out interview questions is important. Another is that sometimes the question sounds good in your head but doesn’t work as well out loud in practice. I learned this the hard way when a respondent asked me how I would answer the question I had just posed, and I realized that not only did I not really know how I would answer it, but I also wasn’t quite as sure I knew what I was asking as I had thought.

—Elizabeth M. Lee, Associate Professor of Sociology at Saint Joseph’s University, author of Class and Campus Life , and co-author of Geographies of Campus Inequality

How Many Interviews?

Your research design has included a targeted number of interviews and a recruitment plan (see chapter 5). Follow your plan, but remember that “ saturation ” is your goal. You interview as many people as you can until you reach a point at which you are no longer surprised by what they tell you. This means not that no one after your first twenty interviews will have surprising, interesting stories to tell you but rather that the picture you are forming about the phenomenon of interest to you from a research perspective has come into focus, and none of the interviews are substantially refocusing that picture. That is when you should stop collecting interviews. Note that to know when you have reached this, you will need to read your transcripts as you go. More about this in chapters 18 and 19.

Your Final Product: The Ideal Interview Transcript

A good interview transcript will demonstrate a subtly controlled conversation by the skillful interviewer. In general, you want to see replies that are about one paragraph long, not short sentences and not running on for several pages. Although it is sometimes necessary to follow respondents down tangents, it is also often necessary to pull them back to the questions that form the basis of your research study. This is not really a free conversation, although it may feel like that to the person you are interviewing.

Final Tips from an Interview Master

Annette Lareau is arguably one of the masters of the trade. In Listening to People , she provides several guidelines for good interviews and then offers a detailed example of an interview gone wrong and how it could be addressed (please see the “Further Readings” at the end of this chapter). Here is an abbreviated version of her set of guidelines: (1) interview respondents who are experts on the subjects of most interest to you (as a corollary, don’t ask people about things they don’t know); (2) listen carefully and talk as little as possible; (3) keep in mind what you want to know and why you want to know it; (4) be a proactive interviewer (subtly guide the conversation); (5) assure respondents that there aren’t any right or wrong answers; (6) use the respondent’s own words to probe further (this both allows you to accurately identify what you heard and pushes the respondent to explain further); (7) reuse effective probes (don’t reinvent the wheel as you go—if repeating the words back works, do it again and again); (8) focus on learning the subjective meanings that events or experiences have for a respondent; (9) don’t be afraid to ask a question that draws on your own knowledge (unlike trial lawyers who are trained never to ask a question for which they don’t already know the answer, sometimes it’s worth it to ask risky questions based on your hypotheses or just plain hunches); (10) keep thinking while you are listening (so difficult…and important); (11) return to a theme raised by a respondent if you want further information; (12) be mindful of power inequalities (and never ever coerce a respondent to continue the interview if they want out); (13) take control with overly talkative respondents; (14) expect overly succinct responses, and develop strategies for probing further; (15) balance digging deep and moving on; (16) develop a plan to deflect questions (e.g., let them know you are happy to answer any questions at the end of the interview, but you don’t want to take time away from them now); and at the end, (17) check to see whether you have asked all your questions. You don’t always have to ask everyone the same set of questions, but if there is a big area you have forgotten to cover, now is the time to recover ( Lareau 2021:93–103 ).

Sample: Demographic Questionnaire

ASA Taskforce on First-Generation and Working-Class Persons in Sociology – Class Effects on Career Success

Supplementary Demographic Questionnaire

Thank you for your participation in this interview project. We would like to collect a few pieces of key demographic information from you to supplement our analyses. Your answers to these questions will be kept confidential and stored by ID number. All of your responses here are entirely voluntary!

What best captures your race/ethnicity? (please check any/all that apply)

• White (Non Hispanic/Latina/o/x)
• Black or African American
• Hispanic, Latino/a/x of Spanish
• Asian or Asian American
• American Indian or Alaska Native
• Middle Eastern or North African
• Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander
• Other : (Please write in: ________________)

What is your current position?

• Grad Student
• Full Professor

Please check any and all of the following that apply to you:

• I identify as a working-class academic
• I was the first in my family to graduate from college
• I grew up poor

What best reflects your gender?

• Transgender female/Transgender woman
• Transgender male/Transgender man
• Gender queer/ Gender nonconforming

Anything else you would like us to know about you?

Example: Interview Guide

In this example, follow-up prompts are italicized.  Note the sequence of questions.  That second question often elicits an entire life history , answering several later questions in advance.

Introduction Script/Question

Thank you for participating in our survey of ASA members who identify as first-generation or working-class.  As you may have heard, ASA has sponsored a taskforce on first-generation and working-class persons in sociology and we are interested in hearing from those who so identify.  Your participation in this interview will help advance our knowledge in this area.

• The first thing we would like to as you is why you have volunteered to be part of this study? What does it mean to you be first-gen or working class?  Why were you willing to be interviewed?
• How did you decide to become a sociologist?
• Can you tell me a little bit about where you grew up? ( prompts: what did your parent(s) do for a living?  What kind of high school did you attend?)
• Has this identity been salient to your experience? (how? How much?)
• How welcoming was your grad program? Your first academic employer?
• Why did you decide to pursue sociology at the graduate level?
• Did you experience culture shock in college? In graduate school?
• Has your FGWC status shaped how you’ve thought about where you went to school? debt? etc?
• Were you mentored? How did this work (not work)?  How might it?
• What did you consider when deciding where to go to grad school? Where to apply for your first position?
• What, to you, is a mark of career success? Have you achieved that success?  What has helped or hindered your pursuit of success?
• Do you think sociology, as a field, cares about prestige?
• Let’s talk a little bit about intersectionality. How does being first-gen/working class work alongside other identities that are important to you?
• What do your friends and family think about your career? Have you had any difficulty relating to family members or past friends since becoming highly educated?
• Do you have any debt from college/grad school? Are you concerned about this?  Could you explain more about how you paid for college/grad school?  (here, include assistance from family, fellowships, scholarships, etc.)
• (You’ve mentioned issues or obstacles you had because of your background.) What could have helped?  Or, who or what did? Can you think of fortuitous moments in your career?
• Do you have any regrets about the path you took?
• Is there anything else you would like to add? Anything that the Taskforce should take note of, that we did not ask you about here?

Further Readings

Britten, Nicky. 1995. “Qualitative Interviews in Medical Research.” BMJ: British Medical Journal 31(6999):251–253. A good basic overview of interviewing particularly useful for students of public health and medical research generally.

Corbin, Juliet, and Janice M. Morse. 2003. “The Unstructured Interactive Interview: Issues of Reciprocity and Risks When Dealing with Sensitive Topics.” Qualitative Inquiry 9(3):335–354. Weighs the potential benefits and harms of conducting interviews on topics that may cause emotional distress. Argues that the researcher’s skills and code of ethics should ensure that the interviewing process provides more of a benefit to both participant and researcher than a harm to the former.

Gerson, Kathleen, and Sarah Damaske. 2020. The Science and Art of Interviewing . New York: Oxford University Press. A useful guidebook/textbook for both undergraduates and graduate students, written by sociologists.

Kvale, Steiner. 2007. Doing Interviews . London: SAGE. An easy-to-follow guide to conducting and analyzing interviews by psychologists.

Lamont, Michèle, and Ann Swidler. 2014. “Methodological Pluralism and the Possibilities and Limits of Interviewing.” Qualitative Sociology 37(2):153–171. Written as a response to various debates surrounding the relative value of interview-based studies and ethnographic studies defending the particular strengths of interviewing. This is a must-read article for anyone seriously engaging in qualitative research!

Pugh, Allison J. 2013. “What Good Are Interviews for Thinking about Culture? Demystifying Interpretive Analysis.” American Journal of Cultural Sociology 1(1):42–68. Another defense of interviewing written against those who champion ethnographic methods as superior, particularly in the area of studying culture. A classic.

Rapley, Timothy John. 2001. “The ‘Artfulness’ of Open-Ended Interviewing: Some considerations in analyzing interviews.” Qualitative Research 1(3):303–323. Argues for the importance of “local context” of data production (the relationship built between interviewer and interviewee, for example) in properly analyzing interview data.

Weiss, Robert S. 1995. Learning from Strangers: The Art and Method of Qualitative Interview Studies . New York: Simon and Schuster. A classic and well-regarded textbook on interviewing. Because Weiss has extensive experience conducting surveys, he contrasts the qualitative interview with the survey questionnaire well; particularly useful for those trained in the latter.

• I say “normally” because how people understand their various identities can itself be an expansive topic of inquiry. Here, I am merely talking about collecting otherwise unexamined demographic data, similar to how we ask people to check boxes on surveys. ↵
• Again, this applies to “semistructured in-depth interviewing.” When conducting standardized questionnaires, you will want to ask each question exactly as written, without deviations! ↵
• I always include “INT” in the number because I sometimes have other kinds of data with their own numbering: FG#001 would mean the first focus group, for example. I also always include three-digit spaces, as this allows for up to 999 interviews (or, more realistically, allows for me to interview up to one hundred persons without having to reset my numbering system). ↵

A method of data collection in which the researcher asks the participant questions; the answers to these questions are often recorded and transcribed verbatim. There are many different kinds of interviews - see also semistructured interview , structured interview , and unstructured interview .

A document listing key questions and question areas for use during an interview.  It is used most often for semi-structured interviews.  A good interview guide may have no more than ten primary questions for two hours of interviewing, but these ten questions will be supplemented by probes and relevant follow-ups throughout the interview.  Most IRBs require the inclusion of the interview guide in applications for review.  See also interview and  semi-structured interview .

A data-collection method that relies on casual, conversational, and informal interviewing.  Despite its apparent conversational nature, the researcher usually has a set of particular questions or question areas in mind but allows the interview to unfold spontaneously.  This is a common data-collection technique among ethnographers.  Compare to the semi-structured or in-depth interview .

A form of interview that follows a standard guide of questions asked, although the order of the questions may change to match the particular needs of each individual interview subject, and probing “follow-up” questions are often added during the course of the interview.  The semi-structured interview is the primary form of interviewing used by qualitative researchers in the social sciences.  It is sometimes referred to as an “in-depth” interview.  See also interview and  interview guide .

The cluster of data-collection tools and techniques that involve observing interactions between people, the behaviors, and practices of individuals (sometimes in contrast to what they say about how they act and behave), and cultures in context.  Observational methods are the key tools employed by ethnographers and Grounded Theory .

Follow-up questions used in a semi-structured interview  to elicit further elaboration.  Suggested prompts can be included in the interview guide  to be used/deployed depending on how the initial question was answered or if the topic of the prompt does not emerge spontaneously.

A form of interview that follows a strict set of questions, asked in a particular order, for all interview subjects.  The questions are also the kind that elicits short answers, and the data is more “informative” than probing.  This is often used in mixed-methods studies, accompanying a survey instrument.  Because there is no room for nuance or the exploration of meaning in structured interviews, qualitative researchers tend to employ semi-structured interviews instead.  See also interview.

The point at which you can conclude data collection because every person you are interviewing, the interaction you are observing, or content you are analyzing merely confirms what you have already noted.  Achieving saturation is often used as the justification for the final sample size.

An interview variant in which a person’s life story is elicited in a narrative form.  Turning points and key themes are established by the researcher and used as data points for further analysis.

Introduction to Qualitative Research Methods Copyright © 2023 by Allison Hurst is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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How to carry out great interviews in qualitative research.

11 min read An interview is one of the most versatile methods used in qualitative research. Here’s what you need to know about conducting great qualitative interviews.

What is a qualitative research interview?

Qualitative research interviews are a mainstay among q ualitative research techniques, and have been in use for decades either as a primary data collection method or as an adjunct to a wider research process. A qualitative research interview is a one-to-one data collection session between a researcher and a participant. Interviews may be carried out face-to-face, over the phone or via video call using a service like Skype or Zoom.

There are three main types of qualitative research interview – structured, unstructured or semi-structured.

• Structured interviews Structured interviews are based around a schedule of predetermined questions and talking points that the researcher has developed. At their most rigid, structured interviews may have a precise wording and question order, meaning that they can be replicated across many different interviewers and participants with relatively consistent results.
• Unstructured interviews Unstructured interviews have no predetermined format, although that doesn’t mean they’re ad hoc or unplanned. An unstructured interview may outwardly resemble a normal conversation, but the interviewer will in fact be working carefully to make sure the right topics are addressed during the interaction while putting the participant at ease with a natural manner.
• Semi-structured interviews Semi-structured interviews are the most common type of qualitative research interview, combining the informality and rapport of an unstructured interview with the consistency and replicability of a structured interview. The researcher will come prepared with questions and topics, but will not need to stick to precise wording. This blended approach can work well for in-depth interviews.

Free eBook: The qualitative research design handbook

What are the pros and cons of interviews in qualitative research?

As a qualitative research method interviewing is hard to beat, with applications in social research, market research, and even basic and clinical pharmacy. But like any aspect of the research process, it’s not without its limitations. Before choosing qualitative interviewing as your research method, it’s worth weighing up the pros and cons.

Pros of qualitative interviews:

• provide in-depth information and context
• can be used effectively when their are low numbers of participants
• provide an opportunity to discuss and explain questions
• useful for complex topics
• rich in data – in the case of in-person or video interviews , the researcher can observe body language and facial expression as well as the answers to questions

Cons of qualitative interviews:

• can be time-consuming to carry out
• costly when compared to some other research methods
• because of time and cost constraints, they often limit you to a small number of participants
• difficult to standardize your data across different researchers and participants unless the interviews are very tightly structured
• As the Open University of Hong Kong notes, qualitative interviews may take an emotional toll on interviewers

Qualitative interview guides

Semi-structured interviews are based on a qualitative interview guide, which acts as a road map for the researcher. While conducting interviews, the researcher can use the interview guide to help them stay focused on their research questions and make sure they cover all the topics they intend to.

An interview guide may include a list of questions written out in full, or it may be a set of bullet points grouped around particular topics. It can prompt the interviewer to dig deeper and ask probing questions during the interview if appropriate.

Consider writing out the project’s research question at the top of your interview guide, ahead of the interview questions. This may help you steer the interview in the right direction if it threatens to head off on a tangent.

Avoid bias in qualitative research interviews

According to Duke University , bias can create significant problems in your qualitative interview.

• Acquiescence bias is common to many qualitative methods, including focus groups. It occurs when the participant feels obliged to say what they think the researcher wants to hear. This can be especially problematic when there is a perceived power imbalance between participant and interviewer. To counteract this, Duke University’s experts recommend emphasizing the participant’s expertise in the subject being discussed, and the value of their contributions.
• Interviewer bias is when the interviewer’s own feelings about the topic come to light through hand gestures, facial expressions or turns of phrase. Duke’s recommendation is to stick to scripted phrases where this is an issue, and to make sure researchers become very familiar with the interview guide or script before conducting interviews, so that they can hone their delivery.

What kinds of questions should you ask in a qualitative interview?

The interview questions you ask need to be carefully considered both before and during the data collection process. As well as considering the topics you’ll cover, you will need to think carefully about the way you ask questions.

Open-ended interview questions – which cannot be answered with a ‘yes’ ‘no’ or ‘maybe’ – are recommended by many researchers as a way to pursue in depth information.

An example of an open-ended question is “What made you want to move to the East Coast?” This will prompt the participant to consider different factors and select at least one. Having thought about it carefully, they may give you more detailed information about their reasoning.

A closed-ended question , such as “Would you recommend your neighborhood to a friend?” can be answered without too much deliberation, and without giving much information about personal thoughts, opinions and feelings.

Follow-up questions can be used to delve deeper into the research topic and to get more detail from open-ended questions. Examples of follow-up questions include:

• What makes you say that?
• What do you mean by that?
• Can you tell me more about X?
• What did/does that mean to you?

As well as avoiding closed-ended questions, be wary of leading questions. As with other qualitative research techniques such as surveys or focus groups, these can introduce bias in your data. Leading questions presume a certain point of view shared by the interviewer and participant, and may even suggest a foregone conclusion.

An example of a leading question might be: “You moved to New York in 1990, didn’t you?” In answering the question, the participant is much more likely to agree than disagree. This may be down to acquiescence bias or a belief that the interviewer has checked the information and already knows the correct answer.

Other leading questions involve adjectival phrases or other wording that introduces negative or positive connotations about a particular topic. An example of this kind of leading question is: “Many employees dislike wearing masks to work. How do you feel about this?” It presumes a positive opinion and the participant may be swayed by it, or not want to contradict the interviewer.

Harvard University’s guidelines for qualitative interview research add that you shouldn’t be afraid to ask embarrassing questions – “if you don’t ask, they won’t tell.” Bear in mind though that too much probing around sensitive topics may cause the interview participant to withdraw. The Harvard guidelines recommend leaving sensitive questions til the later stages of the interview when a rapport has been established.

More tips for conducting qualitative interviews

Observing a participant’s body language can give you important data about their thoughts and feelings. It can also help you decide when to broach a topic, and whether to use a follow-up question or return to the subject later in the interview.

Be conscious that the participant may regard you as the expert, not themselves. In order to make sure they express their opinions openly, use active listening skills like verbal encouragement and paraphrasing and clarifying their meaning to show how much you value what they are saying.

Remember that part of the goal is to leave the interview participant feeling good about volunteering their time and their thought process to your research. Aim to make them feel empowered , respected and heard.

Unstructured interviews can demand a lot of a researcher, both cognitively and emotionally. Be sure to leave time in between in-depth interviews when scheduling your data collection to make sure you maintain the quality of your data, as well as your own well-being .

Recording and transcribing interviews

Historically, recording qualitative research interviews and then transcribing the conversation manually would have represented a significant part of the cost and time involved in research projects that collect qualitative data.

Fortunately, researchers now have access to digital recording tools, and even speech-to-text technology that can automatically transcribe interview data using AI and machine learning. This type of tool can also be used to capture qualitative data from qualitative research (focus groups,ect.) making this kind of social research or market research much less time consuming.

Data analysis

Qualitative interview data is unstructured, rich in content and difficult to analyze without the appropriate tools. Fortunately, machine learning and AI can once again make things faster and easier when you use qualitative methods like the research interview.

Text analysis tools and natural language processing software can ‘read’ your transcripts and voice data and identify patterns and trends across large volumes of text or speech. They can also perform khttps://www.qualtrics.com/experience-management/research/sentiment-analysis/

which assesses overall trends in opinion and provides an unbiased overall summary of how participants are feeling.

Another feature of text analysis tools is their ability to categorize information by topic, sorting it into groupings that help you organize your data according to the topic discussed.

All in all, interviews are a valuable technique for qualitative research in business, yielding rich and detailed unstructured data. Historically, they have only been limited by the human capacity to interpret and communicate results and conclusions, which demands considerable time and skill.

When you combine this data with AI tools that can interpret it quickly and automatically, it becomes easy to analyze and structure, dovetailing perfectly with your other business data. An additional benefit of natural language analysis tools is that they are free of subjective biases, and can replicate the same approach across as much data as you choose. By combining human research skills with machine analysis, qualitative research methods such as interviews are more valuable than ever to your business.

Related resources

Mixed methods research 17 min read, market intelligence 10 min read, marketing insights 11 min read, ethnographic research 11 min read, qualitative vs quantitative research 13 min read, qualitative research questions 11 min read, qualitative research design 12 min read, request demo.

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• Published: 15 September 2022

Interviews in the social sciences

• Eleanor Knott   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-9131-3939 1 ,
• Aliya Hamid Rao   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-0674-4206 1 ,
• Kate Summers   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-9964-0259 1 &
• Chana Teeger   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-5046-8280 1  

Nature Reviews Methods Primers volume  2 , Article number:  73 ( 2022 ) Cite this article

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• Interdisciplinary studies

In-depth interviews are a versatile form of qualitative data collection used by researchers across the social sciences. They allow individuals to explain, in their own words, how they understand and interpret the world around them. Interviews represent a deceptively familiar social encounter in which people interact by asking and answering questions. They are, however, a very particular type of conversation, guided by the researcher and used for specific ends. This dynamic introduces a range of methodological, analytical and ethical challenges, for novice researchers in particular. In this Primer, we focus on the stages and challenges of designing and conducting an interview project and analysing data from it, as well as strategies to overcome such challenges.

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Introduction.

In-depth interviews are a qualitative research method that follow a deceptively familiar logic of human interaction: they are conversations where people talk with each other, interact and pose and answer questions 1 . An interview is a specific type of interaction in which — usually and predominantly — a researcher asks questions about someone’s life experience, opinions, dreams, fears and hopes and the interview participant answers the questions 1 .

Interviews will often be used as a standalone method or combined with other qualitative methods, such as focus groups or ethnography, or quantitative methods, such as surveys or experiments. Although interviewing is a frequently used method, it should not be viewed as an easy default for qualitative researchers 2 . Interviews are also not suited to answering all qualitative research questions, but instead have specific strengths that should guide whether or not they are deployed in a research project. Whereas ethnography might be better suited to trying to observe what people do, interviews provide a space for extended conversations that allow the researcher insights into how people think and what they believe. Quantitative surveys also give these kinds of insights, but they use pre-determined questions and scales, privileging breadth over depth and often overlooking harder-to-reach participants.

In-depth interviews can take many different shapes and forms, often with more than one participant or researcher. For example, interviews might be highly structured (using an almost survey-like interview guide), entirely unstructured (taking a narrative and free-flowing approach) or semi-structured (using a topic guide ). Researchers might combine these approaches within a single project depending on the purpose of the interview and the characteristics of the participant. Whatever form the interview takes, researchers should be mindful of the dynamics between interviewer and participant and factor these in at all stages of the project.

In this Primer, we focus on the most common type of interview: one researcher taking a semi-structured approach to interviewing one participant using a topic guide. Focusing on how to plan research using interviews, we discuss the necessary stages of data collection. We also discuss the stages and thought-process behind analysing interview material to ensure that the richness and interpretability of interview material is maintained and communicated to readers. The Primer also tracks innovations in interview methods and discusses the developments we expect over the next 5–10 years.

We wrote this Primer as researchers from sociology, social policy and political science. We note our disciplinary background because we acknowledge that there are disciplinary differences in how interviews are approached and understood as a method.

Experimentation

Here we address research design considerations and data collection issues focusing on topic guide construction and other pragmatics of the interview. We also explore issues of ethics and reflexivity that are crucial throughout the research project.

Research design

Participant selection.

Participants can be selected and recruited in various ways for in-depth interview studies. The researcher must first decide what defines the people or social groups being studied. Often, this means moving from an abstract theoretical research question to a more precise empirical one. For example, the researcher might be interested in how people talk about race in contexts of diversity. Empirical settings in which this issue could be studied could include schools, workplaces or adoption agencies. The best research designs should clearly explain why the particular setting was chosen. Often there are both intrinsic and extrinsic reasons for choosing to study a particular group of people at a specific time and place 3 . Intrinsic motivations relate to the fact that the research is focused on an important specific social phenomenon that has been understudied. Extrinsic motivations speak to the broader theoretical research questions and explain why the case at hand is a good one through which to address them empirically.

Next, the researcher needs to decide which types of people they would like to interview. This decision amounts to delineating the inclusion and exclusion criteria for the study. The criteria might be based on demographic variables, like race or gender, but they may also be context-specific, for example, years of experience in an organization. These should be decided based on the research goals. Researchers should be clear about what characteristics would make an individual a candidate for inclusion in the study (and what would exclude them).

The next step is to identify and recruit the study’s sample . Usually, many more people fit the inclusion criteria than can be interviewed. In cases where lists of potential participants are available, the researcher might want to employ stratified sampling , dividing the list by characteristics of interest before sampling.

When there are no lists, researchers will often employ purposive sampling . Many researchers consider purposive sampling the most useful mode for interview-based research since the number of interviews to be conducted is too small to aim to be statistically representative 4 . Instead, the aim is not breadth, via representativeness, but depth via rich insights about a set of participants. In addition to purposive sampling, researchers often use snowball sampling . Both purposive and snowball sampling can be combined with quota sampling . All three types of sampling aim to ensure a variety of perspectives within the confines of a research project. A goal for in-depth interview studies can be to sample for range, being mindful of recruiting a diversity of participants fitting the inclusion criteria.

Study design

The total number of interviews depends on many factors, including the population studied, whether comparisons are to be made and the duration of interviews. Studies that rely on quota sampling where explicit comparisons are made between groups will require a larger number of interviews than studies focused on one group only. Studies where participants are interviewed over several hours, days or even repeatedly across years will tend to have fewer participants than those that entail a one-off engagement.

Researchers often stop interviewing when new interviews confirm findings from earlier interviews with no new or surprising insights (saturation) 4 , 5 , 6 . As a criterion for research design, saturation assumes that data collection and analysis are happening in tandem and that researchers will stop collecting new data once there is no new information emerging from the interviews. This is not always possible. Researchers rarely have time for systematic data analysis during data collection and they often need to specify their sample in funding proposals prior to data collection. As a result, researchers often draw on existing reports of saturation to estimate a sample size prior to data collection. These suggest between 12 and 20 interviews per category of participant (although researchers have reported saturation with samples that are both smaller and larger than this) 7 , 8 , 9 . The idea of saturation has been critiqued by many qualitative researchers because it assumes that meaning inheres in the data, waiting to be discovered — and confirmed — once saturation has been reached 7 . In-depth interview data are often multivalent and can give rise to different interpretations. The important consideration is, therefore, not merely how many participants are interviewed, but whether one’s research design allows for collecting rich and textured data that provide insight into participants’ understandings, accounts, perceptions and interpretations.

Sometimes, researchers will conduct interviews with more than one participant at a time. Researchers should consider the benefits and shortcomings of such an approach. Joint interviews may, for example, give researchers insight into how caregivers agree or debate childrearing decisions. At the same time, they may be less adaptive to exploring aspects of caregiving that participants may not wish to disclose to each other. In other cases, there may be more than one person interviewing each participant, such as when an interpreter is used, and so it is important to consider during the research design phase how this might shape the dynamics of the interview.

Data collection

Semi-structured interviews are typically organized around a topic guide comprised of an ordered set of broad topics (usually 3–5). Each topic includes a set of questions that form the basis of the discussion between the researcher and participant (Fig.  1 ). These topics are organized around key concepts that the researcher has identified (for example, through a close study of prior research, or perhaps through piloting a small, exploratory study) 5 .

a | Elaborated topics the researcher wants to cover in the interview and example questions. b | An example topic arc. Using such an arc, one can think flexibly about the order of topics. Considering the main question for each topic will help to determine the best order for the topics. After conducting some interviews, the researcher can move topics around if a different order seems to make sense.

Topic guide

One common way to structure a topic guide is to start with relatively easy, open-ended questions (Table  1 ). Opening questions should be related to the research topic but broad and easy to answer, so that they help to ease the participant into conversation.

After these broad, opening questions, the topic guide may move into topics that speak more directly to the overarching research question. The interview questions will be accompanied by probes designed to elicit concrete details and examples from the participant (see Table  1 ).

Abstract questions are often easier for participants to answer once they have been asked more concrete questions. In our experience, for example, questions about feelings can be difficult for some participants to answer, but when following probes concerning factual experiences these questions can become less challenging. After the main themes of the topic guide have been covered, the topic guide can move onto closing questions. At this stage, participants often repeat something they have said before, although they may sometimes introduce a new topic.

Interviews are especially well suited to gaining a deeper insight into people’s experiences. Getting these insights largely depends on the participants’ willingness to talk to the researcher. We recommend designing open-ended questions that are more likely to elicit an elaborated response and extended reflection from participants rather than questions that can be answered with yes or no.

Questions should avoid foreclosing the possibility that the participant might disagree with the premise of the question. Take for example the question: “Do you support the new family-friendly policies?” This question minimizes the possibility of the participant disagreeing with the premise of this question, which assumes that the policies are ‘family-friendly’ and asks for a yes or no answer. Instead, asking more broadly how a participant feels about the specific policy being described as ‘family-friendly’ (for example, a work-from-home policy) allows them to express agreement, disagreement or impartiality and, crucially, to explain their reasoning 10 .

For an uninterrupted interview that will last between 90 and 120 minutes, the topic guide should be one to two single-spaced pages with questions and probes. Ideally, the researcher will memorize the topic guide before embarking on the first interview. It is fine to carry a printed-out copy of the topic guide but memorizing the topic guide ahead of the interviews can often make the interviewer feel well prepared in guiding the participant through the interview process.

Although the topic guide helps the researcher stay on track with the broad areas they want to cover, there is no need for the researcher to feel tied down by the topic guide. For instance, if a participant brings up a theme that the researcher intended to discuss later or a point the researcher had not anticipated, the researcher may well decide to follow the lead of the participant. The researcher’s role extends beyond simply stating the questions; it entails listening and responding, making split-second decisions about what line of inquiry to pursue and allowing the interview to proceed in unexpected directions.

Optimizing the interview

The ideal place for an interview will depend on the study and what is feasible for participants. Generally, a place where the participant and researcher can both feel relaxed, where the interview can be uninterrupted and where noise or other distractions are limited is ideal. But this may not always be possible and so the researcher needs to be prepared to adapt their plans within what is feasible (and desirable for participants).

Another key tool for the interview is a recording device (assuming that permission for recording has been given). Recording can be important to capture what the participant says verbatim. Additionally, it can allow the researcher to focus on determining what probes and follow-up questions they want to pursue rather than focusing on taking notes. Sometimes, however, a participant may not allow the researcher to record, or the recording may fail. If the interview is not recorded we suggest that the researcher takes brief notes during the interview, if feasible, and then thoroughly make notes immediately after the interview and try to remember the participant’s facial expressions, gestures and tone of voice. Not having a recording of an interview need not limit the researcher from getting analytical value from it.

As soon as possible after each interview, we recommend that the researcher write a one-page interview memo comprising three key sections. The first section should identify two to three important moments from the interview. What constitutes important is up to the researcher’s discretion 9 . The researcher should note down what happened in these moments, including the participant’s facial expressions, gestures, tone of voice and maybe even the sensory details of their surroundings. This exercise is about capturing ethnographic detail from the interview. The second part of the interview memo is the analytical section with notes on how the interview fits in with previous interviews, for example, where the participant’s responses concur or diverge from other responses. The third part consists of a methodological section where the researcher notes their perception of their relationship with the participant. The interview memo allows the researcher to think critically about their positionality and practice reflexivity — key concepts for an ethical and transparent research practice in qualitative methodology 11 , 12 .

Ethics and reflexivity

All elements of an in-depth interview can raise ethical challenges and concerns. Good ethical practice in interview studies often means going beyond the ethical procedures mandated by institutions 13 . While discussions and requirements of ethics can differ across disciplines, here we focus on the most pertinent considerations for interviews across the research process for an interdisciplinary audience.

Ethical considerations prior to interview

Before conducting interviews, researchers should consider harm minimization, informed consent, anonymity and confidentiality, and reflexivity and positionality. It is important for the researcher to develop their own ethical sensitivities and sensibilities by gaining training in interview and qualitative methods, reading methodological and field-specific texts on interviews and ethics and discussing their research plans with colleagues.

Researchers should map the potential harm to consider how this can be minimized. Primarily, researchers should consider harm from the participants’ perspective (Box  1 ). But, it is also important to consider and plan for potential harm to the researcher, research assistants, gatekeepers, future researchers and members of the wider community 14 . Even the most banal of research topics can potentially pose some form of harm to the participant, researcher and others — and the level of harm is often highly context-dependent. For example, a research project on religion in society might have very different ethical considerations in a democratic versus authoritarian research context because of how openly or not such topics can be discussed and debated 15 .

The researcher should consider how they will obtain and record informed consent (for example, written or oral), based on what makes the most sense for their research project and context 16 . Some institutions might specify how informed consent should be gained. Regardless of how consent is obtained, the participant must be made aware of the form of consent, the intentions and procedures of the interview and potential forms of harm and benefit to the participant or community before the interview commences. Moreover, the participant must agree to be interviewed before the interview commences. If, in addition to interviews, the study contains an ethnographic component, it is worth reading around this topic (see, for example, Murphy and Dingwall 17 ). Informed consent must also be gained for how the interview will be recorded before the interview commences. These practices are important to ensure the participant is contributing on a voluntary basis. It is also important to remind participants that they can withdraw their consent at any time during the interview and for a specified period after the interview (to be decided with the participant). The researcher should indicate that participants can ask for anything shared to be off the record and/or not disseminated.

In terms of anonymity and confidentiality, it is standard practice when conducting interviews to agree not to use (or even collect) participants’ names and personal details that are not pertinent to the study. Anonymizing can often be the safer option for minimizing harm to participants as it is hard to foresee all the consequences of de-anonymizing, even if participants agree. Regardless of what a researcher decides, decisions around anonymity must be agreed with participants during the process of gaining informed consent and respected following the interview.

Although not all ethical challenges can be foreseen or planned for 18 , researchers should think carefully — before the interview — about power dynamics, participant vulnerability, emotional state and interactional dynamics between interviewer and participant, even when discussing low-risk topics. Researchers may then wish to plan for potential ethical issues, for example by preparing a list of relevant organizations to which participants can be signposted. A researcher interviewing a participant about debt, for instance, might prepare in advance a list of debt advice charities, organizations and helplines that could provide further support and advice. It is important to remember that the role of an interviewer is as a researcher rather than as a social worker or counsellor because researchers may not have relevant and requisite training in these other domains.

Box 1 Mapping potential forms of harm

Social: researchers should avoid causing any relational detriment to anyone in the course of interviews, for example, by sharing information with other participants or causing interview participants to be shunned or mistreated by their community as a result of participating.

Economic: researchers should avoid causing financial detriment to anyone, for example, by expecting them to pay for transport to be interviewed or to potentially lose their job as a result of participating.

Physical: researchers should minimize the risk of anyone being exposed to violence as a result of the research both from other individuals or from authorities, including police.

Psychological: researchers should minimize the risk of causing anyone trauma (or re-traumatization) or psychological anguish as a result of the research; this includes not only the participant but importantly the researcher themselves and anyone that might read or analyse the transcripts, should they contain triggering information.

Political: researchers should minimize the risk of anyone being exposed to political detriment as a result of the research, such as retribution.

Professional/reputational: researchers should minimize the potential for reputational damage to anyone connected to the research (this includes ensuring good research practices so that any researchers involved are not harmed reputationally by being involved with the research project).

The task here is not to map exhaustively the potential forms of harm that might pertain to a particular research project (that is the researcher’s job and they should have the expertise most suited to mapping such potential harms relative to the specific project) but to demonstrate the breadth of potential forms of harm.

Ethical considerations post-interview

Researchers should consider how interview data are stored, analysed and disseminated. If participants have been offered anonymity and confidentiality, data should be stored in a way that does not compromise this. For example, researchers should consider removing names and any other unnecessary personal details from interview transcripts, password-protecting and encrypting files and using pseudonyms to label and store all interview data. It is also important to address where interview data are taken (for example, across borders in particular where interview data might be of interest to local authorities) and how this might affect the storage of interview data.

Examining how the researcher will represent participants is a paramount ethical consideration both in the planning stages of the interview study and after it has been conducted. Dissemination strategies also need to consider questions of anonymity and representation. In small communities, even if participants are given pseudonyms, it might be obvious who is being described. Anonymizing not only the names of those participating but also the research context is therefore a standard practice 19 . With particularly sensitive data or insights about the participant, it is worth considering describing participants in a more abstract way rather than as specific individuals. These practices are important both for protecting participants’ anonymity but can also affect the ability of the researcher and others to return ethically to the research context and similar contexts 20 .

Reflexivity and positionality

Reflexivity and positionality mean considering the researcher’s role and assumptions in knowledge production 13 . A key part of reflexivity is considering the power relations between the researcher and participant within the interview setting, as well as how researchers might be perceived by participants. Further, researchers need to consider how their own identities shape the kind of knowledge and assumptions they bring to the interview, including how they approach and ask questions and their analysis of interviews (Box  2 ). Reflexivity is a necessary part of developing ethical sensibility as a researcher by adapting and reflecting on how one engages with participants. Participants should not feel judged, for example, when they share information that researchers might disagree with or find objectionable. How researchers deal with uncomfortable moments or information shared by participants is at their discretion, but they should consider how they will react both ahead of time and in the moment.

Researchers can develop their reflexivity by considering how they themselves would feel being asked these interview questions or represented in this way, and then adapting their practice accordingly. There might be situations where these questions are not appropriate in that they unduly centre the researchers’ experiences and worldview. Nevertheless, these prompts can provide a useful starting point for those beginning their reflexive journey and developing an ethical sensibility.

Reflexivity and ethical sensitivities require active reflection throughout the research process. For example, researchers should take care in interview memos and their notes to consider their assumptions, potential preconceptions, worldviews and own identities prior to and after interviews (Box  2 ). Checking in with assumptions can be a way of making sure that researchers are paying close attention to their own theoretical and analytical biases and revising them in accordance with what they learn through the interviews. Researchers should return to these notes (especially when analysing interview material), to try to unpack their own effects on the research process as well as how participants positioned and engaged with them.

Box 2 Aspects to reflect on reflexively

For reflexive engagement, and understanding the power relations being co-constructed and (re)produced in interviews, it is necessary to reflect, at a minimum, on the following.

Ethnicity, race and nationality, such as how does privilege stemming from race or nationality operate between the researcher, the participant and research context (for example, a researcher from a majority community may be interviewing a member of a minority community)

Gender and sexuality, see above on ethnicity, race and nationality

Social class, and in particular the issue of middle-class bias among researchers when formulating research and interview questions

Economic security/precarity, see above on social class and thinking about the researcher’s relative privilege and the source of biases that stem from this

Educational experiences and privileges, see above

Disciplinary biases, such as how the researcher’s discipline/subfield usually approaches these questions, possibly normalizing certain assumptions that might be contested by participants and in the research context

Political and social values

Lived experiences and other dimensions of ourselves that affect and construct our identity as researchers

In this section, we discuss the next stage of an interview study, namely, analysing the interview data. Data analysis may begin while more data are being collected. Doing so allows early findings to inform the focus of further data collection, as part of an iterative process across the research project. Here, the researcher is ultimately working towards achieving coherence between the data collected and the findings produced to answer successfully the research question(s) they have set.

The two most common methods used to analyse interview material across the social sciences are thematic analysis 21 and discourse analysis 22 . Thematic analysis is a particularly useful and accessible method for those starting out in analysis of qualitative data and interview material as a method of coding data to develop and interpret themes in the data 21 . Discourse analysis is more specialized and focuses on the role of discourse in society by paying close attention to the explicit, implicit and taken-for-granted dimensions of language and power 22 , 23 . Although thematic and discourse analysis are often discussed as separate techniques, in practice researchers might flexibly combine these approaches depending on the object of analysis. For example, those intending to use discourse analysis might first conduct thematic analysis as a way to organize and systematize the data. The object and intention of analysis might differ (for example, developing themes or interrogating language), but the questions facing the researcher (such as whether to take an inductive or deductive approach to analysis) are similar.

Preparing data

Data preparation is an important step in the data analysis process. The researcher should first determine what comprises the corpus of material and in what form it will it be analysed. The former refers to whether, for example, alongside the interviews themselves, analytic memos or observational notes that may have been taken during data collection will also be directly analysed. The latter refers to decisions about how the verbal/audio interview data will be transformed into a written form, making it suitable for processes of data analysis. Typically, interview audio recordings are transcribed to produce a written transcript. It is important to note that the process of transcription is one of transformation. The verbal interview data are transformed into a written transcript through a series of decisions that the researcher must make. The researcher should consider the effect of mishearing what has been said or how choosing to punctuate a sentence in a particular way will affect the final analysis.

Box  3 shows an example transcript excerpt from an interview with a teacher conducted by Teeger as part of her study of history education in post-apartheid South Africa 24 (Box  3 ). Seeing both the questions and the responses means that the reader can contextualize what the participant (Ms Mokoena) has said. Throughout the transcript the researcher has used square brackets, for example to indicate a pause in speech, when Ms Mokoena says “it’s [pause] it’s a difficult topic”. The transcription choice made here means that we see that Ms Mokoena has taken time to pause, perhaps to search for the right words, or perhaps because she has a slight apprehension. Square brackets are also included as an overt act of communication to the reader. When Ms Mokoena says “ja”, the English translation (“yes”) of the word in Afrikaans is placed in square brackets to ensure that the reader can follow the meaning of the speech.

Decisions about what to include when transcribing will be hugely important for the direction and possibilities of analysis. Researchers should decide what they want to capture in the transcript, based on their analytic focus. From a (post)positivist perspective 25 , the researcher may be interested in the manifest content of the interview (such as what is said, not how it is said). In that case, they may choose to transcribe intelligent verbatim . From a constructivist perspective 25 , researchers may choose to record more aspects of speech (including, for example, pauses, repetitions, false starts, talking over one another) so that these features can be analysed. Those working from this perspective argue that to recognize the interactional nature of the interview setting adequately and to avoid misinterpretations, features of interaction (pauses, overlaps between speakers and so on) should be preserved in transcription and therefore in the analysis 10 . Readers interested in learning more should consult Potter and Hepburn’s summary of how to present interaction through transcription of interview data 26 .

The process of analysing semi-structured interviews might be thought of as a generative rather than an extractive enterprise. Findings do not already exist within the interview data to be discovered. Rather, researchers create something new when analysing the data by applying their analytic lens or approach to the transcripts. At a high level, there are options as to what researchers might want to glean from their interview data. They might be interested in themes, whereby they identify patterns of meaning across the dataset 21 . Alternatively, they may focus on discourse(s), looking to identify how language is used to construct meanings and therefore how language reinforces or produces aspects of the social world 27 . Alternatively, they might look at the data to understand narrative or biographical elements 28 .

A further overarching decision to make is the extent to which researchers bring predetermined framings or understandings to bear on their data, or instead begin from the data themselves to generate an analysis. One way of articulating this is the extent to which researchers take a deductive approach or an inductive approach to analysis. One example of a truly inductive approach is grounded theory, whereby the aim of the analysis is to build new theory, beginning with one’s data 6 , 29 . In practice, researchers using thematic and discourse analysis often combine deductive and inductive logics and describe their process instead as iterative (referred to also as an abductive approach ) 30 , 31 . For example, researchers may decide that they will apply a given theoretical framing, or begin with an initial analytic framework, but then refine or develop these once they begin the process of analysis.

Box 3 Excerpt of interview transcript (from Teeger 24 )

Interviewer : Maybe you could just start by talking about what it’s like to teach apartheid history.

Ms Mokoena : It’s a bit challenging. You’ve got to accommodate all the kids in the class. You’ve got to be sensitive to all the racial differences. You want to emphasize the wrongs that were done in the past but you also want to, you know, not to make kids feel like it’s their fault. So you want to use the wrongs of the past to try and unite the kids …

Interviewer : So what kind of things do you do?

Ms Mokoena : Well I normally highlight the fact that people that were struggling were not just the blacks, it was all the races. And I give examples of the people … from all walks of life, all races, and highlight how they suffered as well as a result of apartheid, particularly the whites… . What I noticed, particularly my first year of teaching apartheid, I noticed that the black kids made the others feel responsible for what happened… . I had a lot of fights…. A lot of kids started hating each other because, you know, the others are white and the others were black. And they started saying, “My mother is a domestic worker because she was never allowed an opportunity to get good education.” …

Interviewer : I didn’t see any of that now when I was observing.

Ms Mokoena : … Like I was saying I think that because of the re-emphasis of the fact that, look, everybody did suffer one way or the other, they sort of got to see that it was everybody’s struggle … . They should now get to understand that that’s why we’re called a Rainbow Nation. Not everybody agreed with apartheid and not everybody suffered. Even all the blacks, not all blacks got to feel what the others felt . So ja [yes], it’s [pause] it’s a difficult topic, ja . But I think if you get the kids to understand why we’re teaching apartheid in the first place and you show the involvement of all races in all the different sides , then I think you have managed to teach it properly. So I think because of my inexperience then — that was my first year of teaching history — so I think I — maybe I over-emphasized the suffering of the blacks versus the whites [emphasis added].

Reprinted with permission from ref. 24 , Sage Publications.

From data to codes

Coding data is a key building block shared across many approaches to data analysis. Coding is a way of organizing and describing data, but is also ultimately a way of transforming data to produce analytic insights. The basic practice of coding involves highlighting a segment of text (this may be a sentence, a clause or a longer excerpt) and assigning a label to it. The aim of the label is to communicate some sort of summary of what is in the highlighted piece of text. Coding is an iterative process, whereby researchers read and reread their transcripts, applying and refining their codes, until they have a coding frame (a set of codes) that is applied coherently across the dataset and that captures and communicates the key features of what is contained in the data as it relates to the researchers’ analytic focus.

What one codes for is entirely contingent on the focus of the research project and the choices the researcher makes about the approach to analysis. At first, one might apply descriptive codes, summarizing what is contained in the interviews. It is rarely desirable to stop at this point, however, because coding is a tool to move from describing the data to interpreting the data. Suppose the researcher is pursuing some version of thematic analysis. In that case, it might be that the objects of coding are aspects of reported action, emotions, opinions, norms, relationships, routines, agreement/disagreement and change over time. A discourse analysis might instead code for different types of speech acts, tropes, linguistic or rhetorical devices. Multiple types of code might be generated within the same research project. What is important is that researchers are aware of the choices they are making in terms of what they are coding for. Moreover, through the process of refinement, the aim is to produce a set of discrete codes — in which codes are conceptually distinct, as opposed to overlapping. By using the same codes across the dataset, the researcher can capture commonalities across the interviews. This process of refinement involves relabelling codes and reorganizing how and where they are applied in the dataset.

From coding to analysis and writing

Data analysis is also an iterative process in which researchers move closer to and further away from the data. As they move away from the data, they synthesize their findings, thus honing and articulating their analytic insights. As they move closer to the data, they ground these insights in what is contained in the interviews. The link should not be broken between the data themselves and higher-order conceptual insights or claims being made. Researchers must be able to show evidence for their claims in the data. Figure  2 summarizes this iterative process and suggests the sorts of activities involved at each stage more concretely.

As well as going through steps 1 to 6 in order, the researcher will also go backwards and forwards between stages. Some stages will themselves be a forwards and backwards processing of coding and refining when working across different interview transcripts.

At the stage of synthesizing, there are some common quandaries. When dealing with a dataset consisting of multiple interviews, there will be salient and minority statements across different participants, or consensus or dissent on topics of interest to the researcher. A strength of qualitative interviews is that we can build in these nuances and variations across our data as opposed to aggregating them away. When exploring and reporting data, researchers should be asking how different findings are patterned and which interviews contain which codes, themes or tropes. Researchers should think about how these variations fit within the longer flow of individual interviews and what these variations tell them about the nature of their substantive research interests.

A further consideration is how to approach analysis within and across interview data. Researchers may look at one individual code, to examine the forms it takes across different participants and what they might be able to summarize about this code in the round. Alternatively, they might look at how a code or set of codes pattern across the account of one participant, to understand the code(s) in a more contextualized way. Further analysis might be done according to different sampling characteristics, where researchers group together interviews based on certain demographic characteristics and explore these together.

When it comes to writing up and presenting interview data, key considerations tend to rest on what is often termed transparency. When presenting the findings of an interview-based study, the reader should be able to understand and trace what the stated findings are based upon. This process typically involves describing the analytic process, how key decisions were made and presenting direct excerpts from the data. It is important to account for how the interview was set up and to consider the active part that the researcher has played in generating the data 32 . Quotes from interviews should not be thought of as merely embellishing or adding interest to a final research output. Rather, quotes serve the important function of connecting the reader directly to the underlying data. Quotes, therefore, should be chosen because they provide the reader with the most apt insight into what is being discussed. It is good practice to report not just on what participants said, but also on the questions that were asked to elicit the responses.

Researchers have increasingly used specialist qualitative data analysis software to organize and analyse their interview data, such as NVivo or ATLAS.ti. It is important to remember that such software is a tool for, rather than an approach or technique of, analysis. That said, software also creates a wide range of possibilities in terms of what can be done with the data. As researchers, we should reflect on how the range of possibilities of a given software package might be shaping our analytical choices and whether these are choices that we do indeed want to make.

Applications

This section reviews how and why in-depth interviews have been used by researchers studying gender, education and inequality, nationalism and ethnicity and the welfare state. Although interviews can be employed as a method of data collection in just about any social science topic, the applications below speak directly to the authors’ expertise and cutting-edge areas of research.

When it comes to the broad study of gender, in-depth interviews have been invaluable in shaping our understanding of how gender functions in everyday life. In a study of the US hedge fund industry (an industry dominated by white men), Tobias Neely was interested in understanding the factors that enable white men to prosper in the industry 33 . The study comprised interviews with 45 hedge fund workers and oversampled women of all races and men of colour to capture a range of experiences and beliefs. Tobias Neely found that practices of hiring, grooming and seeding are key to maintaining white men’s dominance in the industry. In terms of hiring, the interviews clarified that white men in charge typically preferred to hire people like themselves, usually from their extended networks. When women were hired, they were usually hired to less lucrative positions. In terms of grooming, Tobias Neely identifies how older and more senior men in the industry who have power and status will select one or several younger men as their protégés, to include in their own elite networks. Finally, in terms of her concept of seeding, Tobias Neely describes how older men who are hedge fund managers provide the seed money (often in the hundreds of millions of dollars) for a hedge fund to men, often their own sons (but not their daughters). These interviews provided an in-depth look into gendered and racialized mechanisms that allow white men to flourish in this industry.

Research by Rao draws on dozens of interviews with men and women who had lost their jobs, some of the participants’ spouses and follow-up interviews with about half the sample approximately 6 months after the initial interview 34 . Rao used interviews to understand the gendered experience and understanding of unemployment. Through these interviews, she found that the very process of losing their jobs meant different things for men and women. Women often saw job loss as being a personal indictment of their professional capabilities. The women interviewed often referenced how years of devaluation in the workplace coloured their interpretation of their job loss. Men, by contrast, were also saddened by their job loss, but they saw it as part and parcel of a weak economy rather than a personal failing. How these varied interpretations occurred was tied to men’s and women’s very different experiences in the workplace. Further, through her analysis of these interviews, Rao also showed how these gendered interpretations had implications for the kinds of jobs men and women sought to pursue after job loss. Whereas men remained tied to participating in full-time paid work, job loss appeared to be a catalyst pushing some of the women to re-evaluate their ties to the labour force.

In a study of workers in the tech industry, Hart used interviews to explain how individuals respond to unwanted and ambiguously sexual interactions 35 . Here, the researcher used interviews to allow participants to describe how these interactions made them feel and act and the logics of how they interpreted, classified and made sense of them 35 . Through her analysis of these interviews, Hart showed that participants engaged in a process she termed “trajectory guarding”, whereby they sought to monitor unwanted and ambiguously sexual interactions to avoid them from escalating. Yet, as Hart’s analysis proficiently demonstrates, these very strategies — which protect these workers sexually — also undermined their workplace advancement.

Drawing on interviews, these studies have helped us to understand better how gendered mechanisms, gendered interpretations and gendered interactions foster gender inequality when it comes to paid work. Methodologically, these studies illuminate the power of interviews to reveal important aspects of social life.

Nationalism and ethnicity

Traditionally, nationalism has been studied from a top-down perspective, through the lens of the state or using historical methods; in other words, in-depth interviews have not been a common way of collecting data to study nationalism. The methodological turn towards everyday nationalism has encouraged more scholars to go to the field and use interviews (and ethnography) to understand nationalism from the bottom up: how people talk about, give meaning, understand, navigate and contest their relation to nation, national identification and nationalism 36 , 37 , 38 , 39 . This turn has also addressed the gap left by those studying national and ethnic identification via quantitative methods, such as surveys.

Surveys can enumerate how individuals ascribe to categorical forms of identification 40 . However, interviews can question the usefulness of such categories and ask whether these categories are reflected, or resisted, by participants in terms of the meanings they give to identification 41 , 42 . Categories often pitch identification as a mutually exclusive choice; but identification might be more complex than such categories allow. For example, some might hybridize these categories or see themselves as moving between and across categories 43 . Hearing how people talk about themselves and their relation to nations, states and ethnicities, therefore, contributes substantially to the study of nationalism and national and ethnic forms of identification.

One particular approach to studying these topics, whether via everyday nationalism or alternatives, is that of using interviews to capture both articulations and narratives of identification, relations to nationalism and the boundaries people construct. For example, interviews can be used to gather self–other narratives by studying how individuals construct I–we–them boundaries 44 , including how participants talk about themselves, who participants include in their various ‘we’ groupings and which and how participants create ‘them’ groupings of others, inserting boundaries between ‘I/we’ and ‘them’. Overall, interviews hold great potential for listening to participants and understanding the nuances of identification and the construction of boundaries from their point of view.

Education and inequality

Scholars of social stratification have long noted that the school system often reproduces existing social inequalities. Carter explains that all schools have both material and sociocultural resources 45 . When children from different backgrounds attend schools with different material resources, their educational and occupational outcomes are likely to vary. Such material resources are relatively easy to measure. They are operationalized as teacher-to-student ratios, access to computers and textbooks and the physical infrastructure of classrooms and playgrounds.

Drawing on Bourdieusian theory 46 , Carter conceptualizes the sociocultural context as the norms, values and dispositions privileged within a social space 45 . Scholars have drawn on interviews with students and teachers (as well as ethnographic observations) to show how schools confer advantages on students from middle-class families, for example, by rewarding their help-seeking behaviours 47 . Focusing on race, researchers have revealed how schools can remain socioculturally white even as they enrol a racially diverse student population. In such contexts, for example, teachers often misrecognize the aesthetic choices made by students of colour, wrongly inferring that these students’ tastes in clothing and music reflect negative orientations to schooling 48 , 49 , 50 . These assessments can result in disparate forms of discipline and may ultimately shape educators’ assessments of students’ academic potential 51 .

Further, teachers and administrators tend to view the appropriate relationship between home and school in ways that resonate with white middle-class parents 52 . These parents are then able to advocate effectively for their children in ways that non-white parents are not 53 . In-depth interviews are particularly good at tapping into these understandings, revealing the mechanisms that confer privilege on certain groups of students and thereby reproduce inequality.

In addition, interviews can shed light on the unequal experiences that young people have within educational institutions, as the views of dominant groups are affirmed while those from disadvantaged backgrounds are delegitimized. For example, Teeger’s interviews with South African high schoolers showed how — because racially charged incidents are often framed as jokes in the broader school culture — Black students often feel compelled to ignore and keep silent about the racism they experience 54 . Interviews revealed that Black students who objected to these supposed jokes were coded by other students as serious or angry. In trying to avoid such labels, these students found themselves unable to challenge the racism they experienced. Interviews give us insight into these dynamics and help us see how young people understand and interpret the messages transmitted in schools — including those that speak to issues of inequality in their local school contexts as well as in society more broadly 24 , 55 .

The welfare state

In-depth interviews have also proved to be an important method for studying various aspects of the welfare state. By welfare state, we mean the social institutions relating to the economic and social wellbeing of a state’s citizens. Notably, using interviews has been useful to look at how policy design features are experienced and play out on the ground. Interviews have often been paired with large-scale surveys to produce mixed-methods study designs, therefore achieving both breadth and depth of insights.

In-depth interviews provide the opportunity to look behind policy assumptions or how policies are designed from the top down, to examine how these play out in the lives of those affected by the policies and whose experiences might otherwise be obscured or ignored. For example, the Welfare Conditionality project used interviews to critique the assumptions that conditionality (such as, the withdrawal of social security benefits if recipients did not perform or meet certain criteria) improved employment outcomes and instead showed that conditionality was harmful to mental health, living standards and had many other negative consequences 56 . Meanwhile, combining datasets from two small-scale interview studies with recipients allowed Summers and Young to critique assumptions around the simplicity that underpinned the design of Universal Credit in 2020, for example, showing that the apparently simple monthly payment design instead burdened recipients with additional money management decisions and responsibilities 57 .

Similarly, the Welfare at a (Social) Distance project used a mixed-methods approach in a large-scale study that combined national surveys with case studies and in-depth interviews to investigate the experience of claiming social security benefits during the COVID-19 pandemic. The interviews allowed researchers to understand in detail any issues experienced by recipients of benefits, such as delays in the process of claiming, managing on a very tight budget and navigating stigma and claiming 58 .

These applications demonstrate the multi-faceted topics and questions for which interviews can be a relevant method for data collection. These applications highlight not only the relevance of interviews, but also emphasize the key added value of interviews, which might be missed by other methods (surveys, in particular). Interviews can expose and question what is taken for granted and directly engage with communities and participants that might otherwise be ignored, obscured or marginalized.

Reproducibility and data deposition

There is a robust, ongoing debate about reproducibility in qualitative research, including interview studies. In some research paradigms, reproducibility can be a way of interrogating the rigour and robustness of research claims, by seeing whether these hold up when the research process is repeated. Some scholars have suggested that although reproducibility may be challenging, researchers can facilitate it by naming the place where the research was conducted, naming participants, sharing interview and fieldwork transcripts (anonymized and de-identified in cases where researchers are not naming people or places) and employing fact-checkers for accuracy 11 , 59 , 60 .

In addition to the ethical concerns of whether de-anonymization is ever feasible or desirable, it is also important to address whether the replicability of interview studies is meaningful. For example, the flexibility of interviews allows for the unexpected and the unforeseen to be incorporated into the scope of the research 61 . However, this flexibility means that we cannot expect reproducibility in the conventional sense, given that different researchers will elicit different types of data from participants. Sharing interview transcripts with other researchers, for instance, downplays the contextual nature of an interview.

Drawing on Bauer and Gaskell, we propose several measures to enhance rigour in qualitative research: transparency, grounding interpretations and aiming for theoretical transferability and significance 62 .

Researchers should be transparent when describing their methodological choices. Transparency means documenting who was interviewed, where and when (without requiring de-anonymization, for example, by documenting their characteristics), as well as the questions they were asked. It means carefully considering who was left out of the interviews and what that could mean for the researcher’s findings. It also means carefully considering who the researcher is and how their identity shaped the research process (integrating and articulating reflexivity into whatever is written up).

Second, researchers should ground their interpretations in the data. Grounding means presenting the evidence upon which the interpretation relies. Quotes and extracts should be extensive enough to allow the reader to evaluate whether the researcher’s interpretations are grounded in the data. At each step, researchers should carefully compare their own explanations and interpretations with alternative explanations. Doing so systematically and frequently allows researchers to become more confident in their claims. Here, researchers should justify the link between data and analysis by using quotes to justify and demonstrate the analytical point, while making sure the analytical point offers an interpretation of quotes (Box  4 ).

An important step in considering alternative explanations is to seek out disconfirming evidence 4 , 63 . This involves looking for instances where participants deviate from what the majority are saying and thus bring into question the theory (or explanation) that the researcher is developing. Careful analysis of such examples can often demonstrate the salience and meaning of what appears to be the norm (see Table  2 for examples) 54 . Considering alternative explanations and paying attention to disconfirming evidence allows the researcher to refine their own theories in respect of the data.

Finally, researchers should aim for theoretical transferability and significance in their discussions of findings. One way to think about this is to imagine someone who is not interested in the empirical study. Articulating theoretical transferability and significance usually takes the form of broadening out from the specific findings to consider explicitly how the research has refined or altered prior theoretical approaches. This process also means considering under what other conditions, aside from those of the study, the researcher thinks their theoretical revision would be supported by and why. Importantly, it also includes thinking about the limitations of one’s own approach and where the theoretical implications of the study might not hold.

Box 4 An example of grounding interpretations in data (from Rao 34 )

In an article explaining how unemployed men frame their job loss as a pervasive experience, Rao writes the following: “Unemployed men in this study understood unemployment to be an expected aspect of paid work in the contemporary United States. Robert, a white unemployed communications professional, compared the economic landscape after the Great Recession with the tragic events of September 11, 2001:

Part of your post-9/11 world was knowing people that died as a result of terrorism. The same thing is true with the [Great] Recession, right? … After the Recession you know somebody who was unemployed … People that really should be working.

The pervasiveness of unemployment rendered it normal, as Robert indicates.”

Here, the link between the quote presented and the analytical point Rao is making is clear: the analytical point is grounded in a quote and an interpretation of the quote is offered 34 .

Limitations and optimizations

When deciding which research method to use, the key question is whether the method provides a good fit for the research questions posed. In other words, researchers should consider whether interviews will allow them to successfully access the social phenomena necessary to answer their question(s) and whether the interviews will do so more effectively than other methods. Table  3 summarizes the major strengths and limitations of interviews. However, the accompanying text below is organized around some key issues, where relative strengths and weaknesses are presented alongside each other, the aim being that readers should think about how these can be balanced and optimized in relation to their own research.

Breadth versus depth of insight

Achieving an overall breadth of insight, in a statistically representative sense, is not something that is possible or indeed desirable when conducting in-depth interviews. Instead, the strength of conducting interviews lies in their ability to generate various sorts of depth of insight. The experiences or views of participants that can be accessed by conducting interviews help us to understand participants’ subjective realities. The challenge, therefore, is for researchers to be clear about why depth of insight is the focus and what we should aim to glean from these types of insight.

Naturalistic or artificial interviews

Interviews make use of a form of interaction with which people are familiar 64 . By replicating a naturalistic form of interaction as a tool to gather social science data, researchers can capitalize on people’s familiarity and expectations of what happens in a conversation. This familiarity can also be a challenge, as people come to the interview with preconceived ideas about what this conversation might be for or about. People may draw on experiences of other similar conversations when taking part in a research interview (for example, job interviews, therapy sessions, confessional conversations, chats with friends). Researchers should be aware of such potential overlaps and think through their implications both in how the aims and purposes of the research interview are communicated to participants and in how interview data are interpreted.

Further, some argue that a limitation of interviews is that they are an artificial form of data collection. By taking people out of their daily lives and asking them to stand back and pass comment, we are creating a distance that makes it difficult to use such data to say something meaningful about people’s actions, experiences and views. Other approaches, such as ethnography, might be more suitable for tapping into what people actually do, as opposed to what they say they do 65 .

Dynamism and replicability

Interviews following a semi-structured format offer flexibility both to the researcher and the participant. As the conversation develops, the interlocutors can explore the topics raised in much more detail, if desired, or pass over ones that are not relevant. This flexibility allows for the unexpected and the unforeseen to be incorporated into the scope of the research.

However, this flexibility has a related challenge of replicability. Interviews cannot be reproduced because they are contingent upon the interaction between the researcher and the participant in that given moment of interaction. In some research paradigms, replicability can be a way of interrogating the robustness of research claims, by seeing whether they hold when they are repeated. This is not a useful framework to bring to in-depth interviews and instead quality criteria (such as transparency) tend to be employed as criteria of rigour.

Accessing the private and personal

Interviews have been recognized for their strength in accessing private, personal issues, which participants may feel more comfortable talking about in a one-to-one conversation. Furthermore, interviews are likely to take a more personable form with their extended questions and answers, perhaps making a participant feel more at ease when discussing sensitive topics in such a context. There is a similar, but separate, argument made about accessing what are sometimes referred to as vulnerable groups, who may be difficult to make contact with using other research methods.

There is an associated challenge of anonymity. There can be types of in-depth interview that make it particularly challenging to protect the identities of participants, such as interviewing within a small community, or multiple members of the same household. The challenge to ensure anonymity in such contexts is even more important and difficult when the topic of research is of a sensitive nature or participants are vulnerable.

Increasingly, researchers are collaborating in large-scale interview-based studies and integrating interviews into broader mixed-methods designs. At the same time, interviews can be seen as an old-fashioned (and perhaps outdated) mode of data collection. We review these debates and discussions and point to innovations in interview-based studies. These include the shift from face-to-face interviews to the use of online platforms, as well as integrating and adapting interviews towards more inclusive methodologies.

Collaborating and mixing

Qualitative researchers have long worked alone 66 . Increasingly, however, researchers are collaborating with others for reasons such as efficiency, institutional incentives (for example, funding for collaborative research) and a desire to pool expertise (for example, studying similar phenomena in different contexts 67 or via different methods). Collaboration can occur across disciplines and methods, cases and contexts and between industry/business, practitioners and researchers. In many settings and contexts, collaboration has become an imperative 68 .

Cheek notes how collaboration provides both advantages and disadvantages 68 . For example, collaboration can be advantageous, saving time and building on the divergent knowledge, skills and resources of different researchers. Scholars with different theoretical or case-based knowledge (or contacts) can work together to build research that is comparative and/or more than the sum of its parts. But such endeavours also carry with them practical and political challenges in terms of how resources might actually be pooled, shared or accounted for. When undertaking such projects, as Morse notes, it is worth thinking about the nature of the collaboration and being explicit about such a choice, its advantages and its disadvantages 66 .

A further tension, but also a motivation for collaboration, stems from integrating interviews as a method in a mixed-methods project, whether with other qualitative researchers (to combine with, for example, focus groups, document analysis or ethnography) or with quantitative researchers (to combine with, for example, surveys, social media analysis or big data analysis). Cheek and Morse both note the pitfalls of collaboration with quantitative researchers: that quality of research may be sacrificed, qualitative interpretations watered down or not taken seriously, or tensions experienced over the pace and different assumptions that come with different methods and approaches of research 66 , 68 .

At the same time, there can be real benefits of such mixed-methods collaboration, such as reaching different and more diverse audiences or testing assumptions and theories between research components in the same project (for example, testing insights from prior quantitative research via interviews, or vice versa), as long as the skillsets of collaborators are seen as equally beneficial to the project. Cheek provides a set of questions that, as a starting point, can be useful for guiding collaboration, whether mixed methods or otherwise. First, Cheek advises asking all collaborators about their assumptions and understandings concerning collaboration. Second, Cheek recommends discussing what each perspective highlights and focuses on (and conversely ignores or sidelines) 68 .

A different way to engage with the idea of collaboration and mixed methods research is by fostering greater collaboration between researchers in the Global South and Global North, thus reversing trends of researchers from the Global North extracting knowledge from the Global South 69 . Such forms of collaboration also align with interview innovations, discussed below, that seek to transform traditional interview approaches into more participatory and inclusive (as part of participatory methodologies).

Digital innovations and challenges

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has centred the question of technology within interview-based fieldwork. Although conducting synchronous oral interviews online — for example, via Zoom, Skype or other such platforms — has been a method used by a small constituency of researchers for many years, it became (and remains) a necessity for many researchers wanting to continue or start interview-based projects while COVID-19 prevents face-to-face data collection.

In the past, online interviews were often framed as an inferior form of data collection for not providing the kinds of (often necessary) insights and forms of immersion face-to-face interviews allow 70 , 71 . Online interviews do tend to be more decontextualized than interviews conducted face-to-face 72 . For example, it is harder to recognize, engage with and respond to non-verbal cues 71 . At the same time, they broaden participation to those who might not have been able to access or travel to sites where interviews would have been conducted otherwise, for example people with disabilities. Online interviews also offer more flexibility in terms of scheduling and time requirements. For example, they provide more flexibility around precarious employment or caring responsibilities without having to travel and be away from home. In addition, online interviews might also reduce discomfort between researchers and participants, compared with face-to-face interviews, enabling more discussion of sensitive material 71 . They can also provide participants with more control, enabling them to turn on and off the microphone and video as they choose, for example, to provide more time to reflect and disconnect if they so wish 72 .

That said, online interviews can also introduce new biases based on access to technology 72 . For example, in the Global South, there are often urban/rural and gender gaps between who has access to mobile phones and who does not, meaning that some population groups might be overlooked unless researchers sample mindfully 71 . There are also important ethical considerations when deciding between online and face-to-face interviews. Online interviews might seem to imply lower ethical risks than face-to-face interviews (for example, they lower the chances of identification of participants or researchers), but they also offer more barriers to building trust between researchers and participants 72 . Interacting only online with participants might not provide the information needed to assess risk, for example, participants’ access to a private space to speak 71 . Just because online interviews might be more likely to be conducted in private spaces does not mean that private spaces are safe, for example, for victims of domestic violence. Finally, online interviews prompt further questions about decolonizing research and engaging with participants if research is conducted from afar 72 , such as how to include participants meaningfully and challenge dominant assumptions while doing so remotely.

A further digital innovation, modulating how researchers conduct interviews and the kinds of data collected and analysed, stems from the use and integration of (new) technology, such as WhatsApp text or voice notes to conduct synchronous or asynchronous oral or written interviews 73 . Such methods can provide more privacy, comfort and control to participants and make recruitment easier, allowing participants to share what they want when they want to, using technology that already forms a part of their daily lives, especially for young people 74 , 75 . Such technology is also emerging in other qualitative methods, such as focus groups, with similar arguments around greater inclusivity versus traditional offline modes. Here, the digital challenge might be higher for researchers than for participants if they are less used to such technology 75 . And while there might be concerns about the richness, depth and quality of written messages as a form of interview data, Gibson reports that the reams of transcripts that resulted from a study using written messaging were dense with meaning to be analysed 75 .

Like with online and face-to-face interviews, it is important also to consider the ethical questions and challenges of using such technology, from gaining consent to ensuring participant safety and attending to their distress, without cues, like crying, that might be more obvious in a face-to-face setting 75 , 76 . Attention to the platform used for such interviews is also important and researchers should be attuned to the local and national context. For example, in China, many platforms are neither legal nor available 76 . There, more popular platforms — like WeChat — can be highly monitored by the government, posing potential risks to participants depending on the topic of the interview. Ultimately, researchers should consider trade-offs between online and offline interview modalities, being attentive to the social context and power dynamics involved.

The next 5–10 years

Continuing to integrate (ethically) this technology will be among the major persisting developments in interview-based research, whether to offer more flexibility to researchers or participants, or to diversify who can participate and on what terms.

Pushing the idea of inclusion even further is the potential for integrating interview-based studies within participatory methods, which are also innovating via integrating technology. There is no hard and fast line between researchers using in-depth interviews and participatory methods; many who employ participatory methods will use interviews at the beginning, middle or end phases of a research project to capture insights, perspectives and reflections from participants 77 , 78 . Participatory methods emphasize the need to resist existing power and knowledge structures. They broaden who has the right and ability to contribute to academic knowledge by including and incorporating participants not only as subjects of data collection, but as crucial voices in research design and data analysis 77 . Participatory methods also seek to facilitate local change and to produce research materials, whether for academic or non-academic audiences, including films and documentaries, in collaboration with participants.

In responding to the challenges of COVID-19, capturing the fraught situation wrought by the pandemic and the momentum to integrate technology, participatory researchers have sought to continue data collection from afar. For example, Marzi has adapted an existing project to co-produce participatory videos, via participants’ smartphones in Medellin, Colombia, alongside regular check-in conversations/meetings/interviews with participants 79 . Integrating participatory methods into interview studies offers a route by which researchers can respond to the challenge of diversifying knowledge, challenging assumptions and power hierarchies and creating more inclusive and collaborative partnerships between participants and researchers in the Global North and South.

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A pre-written interview outline for a semi-structured interview that provides both a topic structure and the ability to adapt flexibly to the content and context of the interview and the interaction between the interviewer and participant. Others may refer to the topic guide as an interview protocol.

Here we refer to the participants that take part in the study as the sample. Other researchers may refer to the participants as a participant group or dataset.

This involves dividing a population into smaller groups based on particular characteristics, for example, age or gender, and then sampling randomly within each group.

A sampling method where the guiding logic when deciding who to recruit is to achieve the most relevant participants for the research topic, in terms of being rich in information or insights.

Researchers ask participants to introduce the researcher to others who meet the study’s inclusion criteria.

Similar to stratified sampling, but participants are not necessarily randomly selected. Instead, the researcher determines how many people from each category of participants should be recruited. Recruitment can happen via snowball or purposive sampling.

A method for developing, analysing and interpreting patterns across data by coding in order to develop themes.

An approach that interrogates the explicit, implicit and taken-for-granted dimensions of language as well as the contexts in which it is articulated to unpack its purposes and effects.

A form of transcription that simplifies what has been said by removing certain verbal and non-verbal details that add no further meaning, such as ‘ums and ahs’ and false starts.

The analytic framework, theoretical approach and often hypotheses, are developed prior to examining the data and then applied to the dataset.

The analytic framework and theoretical approach is developed from analysing the data.

An approach that combines deductive and inductive components to work recursively by going back and forth between data and existing theoretical frameworks (also described as an iterative approach). This approach is increasingly recognized not only as a more realistic but also more desirable third alternative to the more traditional inductive versus deductive binary choice.

A theoretical apparatus that emphasizes the role of cultural processes and capital in (intergenerational) social reproduction.

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• Interviews as a Method for Qualitative Research (video) This short video summarizes why interviews can serve as useful data in qualitative research.  
• InterViews by Steinar Kvale  Interviewing is an essential tool in qualitative research and this introduction to interviewing outlines both the theoretical underpinnings and the practical aspects of the process. After examining the role of the interview in the research process, Steinar Kvale considers some of the key philosophical issues relating to interviewing: the interview as conversation, hermeneutics, phenomenology, concerns about ethics as well as validity, and postmodernism. Having established this framework, the author then analyzes the seven stages of the interview process - from designing a study to writing it up.  
• Practical Evaluation by Michael Quinn Patton  Surveys different interviewing strategies, from, a) informal/conversational, to b) interview guide approach, to c) standardized and open-ended, to d) closed/quantitative. Also discusses strategies for wording questions that are open-ended, clear, sensitive, and neutral, while supporting the speaker. Provides suggestions for probing and maintaining control of the interview process, as well as suggestions for recording and transcription.  
• The SAGE Handbook of Interview Research by Amir B. Marvasti (Editor); James A. Holstein (Editor); Jaber F. Gubrium (Editor); Karyn D. McKinney (Editor)  The new edition of this landmark volume emphasizes the dynamic, interactional, and reflexive dimensions of the research interview. Contributors highlight the myriad dimensions of complexity that are emerging as researchers increasingly frame the interview as a communicative opportunity as much as a data-gathering format. The book begins with the history and conceptual transformations of the interview, which is followed by chapters that discuss the main components of interview practice. Taken together, the contributions to The SAGE Handbook of Interview Research: The Complexity of the Craft encourage readers simultaneously to learn the frameworks and technologies of interviewing and to reflect on the epistemological foundations of the interview craft.
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What are the important steps involved in interviews?

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Is training an interviewer important?

Yes, since the interviewer can control the quality of the result, training the interviewer becomes crucial.  If more than one interviewers are involved in your study, it is important to have every interviewer understand the interviewing procedure and rehearse the interviewing process before beginning the formal study.

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• Examples of qualitative data
• Qualitative vs. quantitative research
• Mixed methods
• Qualitative research preparation
• Theoretical perspective
• Theoretical framework
• Literature reviews
• Research question
• Conceptual framework
• Conceptual vs. theoretical framework
• Data collection
• Qualitative research methods
• Introduction

What is an interview and its purpose in qualitative research?

What are some examples of interviews in research, how to carry out great interviews in qualitative research, fundamental types of interviews, process of conducting an interview.

• Focus groups
• Observational research
• Case studies
• Ethnographical research

Ethical considerations

• Confidentiality and privacy
• Power dynamics
• Reflexivity

Interviews: Research methods and approaches

As a qualitative research method, interviewing is widely used to gather in-depth information from participants about their experiences, opinions, and perspectives on a specific topic. There are various qualitative research techniques for interviews available to researchers to achieve the greatest potential in data collection .

This section will provide an overview of the importance of interviews, the different types of interviews, tools for conducting interviews, analysis of interview data , and ethical considerations in this research method. Note that the focus group interview is a related concept but will be discussed in greater detail in the next section of this guide, as focus groups have slightly different dynamics to consider.

Interviews, as a qualitative research method , play a pivotal role in uncovering complexities in human behavior and decision-making. Researchers can observe behavior, on the one hand, or they can investigate the perspectives and values informing that behavior by interviewing research participants.

Purpose and importance

Interviews allow researchers to delve into the subjective experiences of individuals, providing insights that may not be accessible through other research methods. They illuminate people's perceptions, thoughts, feelings, and understandings about a particular phenomenon. Data representing these views can form the foundation for identifying recurring themes regarding that phenomenon.

Unlike quantitative methods, which typically collect numerical data that can be statistically analyzed, interviews capture rich, detailed data in the form of words, ideas, and themes. They allow researchers to collect data on people's experiences in a manner that is sensitive to the context and the individual's perspective. Through interviews, researchers can explore the meanings people attribute to their experiences and gain a deeper understanding of the phenomena being studied.

Interviews also empower participants by giving them a voice. The interviewee has the opportunity to express their views, feelings, and experiences in their own words. This participatory aspect of interviews underscores the respect for individual experiences and perspectives, which is a central tenet of qualitative research.

Comparing interviews with other methods

While interviews share many similarities with other qualitative methods, they also have unique features that set them apart. Unlike interviews, methods like observations are more passive and rely more on the researcher's interpretation of events.

On the other hand, interviews actively involve participants in the data generation process. Compared to surveys , which may limit responses to predetermined choices or word limits, interviews allow for open-ended responses and the flexibility to explore topics in depth.

However, it's worth noting that interviews do not have to be a stand-alone method. They are often used with other methods, such as observation or document analysis , in a multi-method or mixed-methods research design . This combination of methods can enhance the richness and credibility of the data collected, providing a more holistic understanding of the research problem.

The qualitative research interview can be conducted in various formats, each with its own strengths and limitations. Choosing the appropriate type of interview to use largely depends on the research question, the nature of the topic, the characteristics of the participants, and the resources available to the researcher.

Face-to-face interviews

In-person interviews are often considered the traditional form of interviewing. They involve a direct conversation between the interviewer and the interviewee. This form allows for comprehensive communication as it includes verbal and non-verbal cues such as body language, facial expressions, and tone of voice.

This type of interview allows for immediate clarification of responses and can help foster rapport between the interviewer and interviewee, which may lead to richer, more nuanced data. However, these kinds of interviews can be time-consuming, expensive, and limited by geographic location.

Telephone interviews

Telephone interviews can be a practical alternative when face-to-face interviews are not feasible due to distance, time, or budget constraints. Phone interviews allow researchers to reach participants who may be geographically dispersed and offer a level of anonymity that may encourage candid responses, particularly on sensitive topics.

However, they might lack non-verbal cues that can provide additional context to a participant's responses. A phone interview may differ from a conversation in person in that you can't see someone's face, gestures, or other body language, which might be useful for contextualizing detailed information.

Online/internet-based interviews

Online or internet-based interviews conducted through platforms such as Zoom, Skype, or email have become increasingly popular in recent years. They can be synchronous (occurring in real-time, like video calls) or asynchronous (participants respond in their own time, such as email interviews).

These interviews can reach participants globally, are often cost-effective, and can be more convenient for both the researcher and the participant. However, they rely on technology and internet access, which may not be available to all potential participants.

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Qualitative interviews are more than just casual conversations. Some qualitative research interviews may not follow a strict structure and allow the researcher to explore any topics in the moment. In contrast, other interviews may be highly structured and aim to collect the same kind of information across participants. As a matter of empirical research, research interviews require careful planning, execution, and reflection to ensure they yield valuable and trustworthy data. Here are some key components to consider:

Developing appropriate interview questions

The foundation of any successful interview lies in its questions. Good interview questions are open-ended, clear, and directly related to the research objectives. They should allow participants to share their experiences, opinions, and feelings without leading them toward certain answers. In qualitative research, it's often useful to have a mix of more and less structured questions, allowing for both depth and breadth in responses.

Building rapport with participants

Establishing rapport with interviewees is crucial to encourage open and honest responses. In-depth interviews can be challenging if the interviewer doesn't know the interviewee in detail or hasn't established the necessary trust.

Researchers establish rapport with interviewees by displaying empathy, active listening, and respect. Clarifying the purpose of the interview, ensuring confidentiality, and asking for consent before beginning can also help in building trust.

Note-taking and recording

Accurate and comprehensive documentation of interview data is critical. While audio or video recording is highly recommended for completeness and accuracy, it's also beneficial to take notes during or immediately after the interview. These notes can capture non-verbal cues, the interviewer's impressions, and any issues or incidents that occur during the interview.

Ethical considerations are paramount in any research involving human participants. Researchers must obtain informed consent , respect participants' privacy and confidentiality , and ensure participants understand their right to withdraw from the study at any time without any negative consequences. It's also important to be aware of power dynamics and strive for a respectful and equitable researcher-participant relationship.

The effectiveness of a qualitative interview largely depends on the thoughtfulness and rigor with which these components are addressed. Interviews are not just a data collection tool; they are a way of acknowledging and respecting participants' lived experiences and perspectives. Therefore, each component should be handled with utmost care and consideration.

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The structure of an interview can greatly influence the data collected. The level of structure varies along a continuum, with structured and unstructured interviews occupying opposite ends of that spectrum.

Unstructured interviews

Unstructured interviews are characterized by their flexibility. The researcher usually only has a list of topics or themes to be covered, known as an interview guide, but the conversation does not follow a predetermined set of questions. Instead, the interviewer allows the conversation to flow naturally, following leads provided by the interviewee. An unstructured interview is particularly useful when the researcher is exploring a new area of study and aims to gather as much information as possible without preconceived notions.

Semi-structured interviews

Semi-structured interviews strike a balance between flexibility and structure. The researcher has a list of predetermined questions to conduct interviews but is free to ask additional open-ended questions or to deviate from the list based on the interviewee's responses. The semi-structured interview is the most common form of interview in qualitative research, as it provides deep, rich data while still ensuring that all necessary topics are covered.

Structured interviews

Structured interviews , sometimes called standardized interviews, are the most rigid form of interview. The researcher asks the same set of predetermined questions in the same order to all participants, with little to no deviation.

While a structured interview may limit the depth of data collected, it allows for greater consistency across interviews. This can be helpful for keeping responses confined to the research topic and comparing responses between participants.

In determining the level of structure for an interview, researchers should consider their research objectives, the nature of the topic, and the characteristics of the participants. Different structures lend themselves to different research goals, and the most effective interviewers are those who can adapt their approach based on the needs of their study.

Conducting an interview in qualitative research involves a series of well-planned steps before, during, and after the interview. These steps ensure that the process is systematic, ethical, and capable of yielding high-quality data.

Pre-interview preparation and research

Before conducting the interview, the researcher needs to thoroughly understand the research topic, define the purpose of the interview, and identify potential interviewees. Preparing an interview guide with key themes or questions is essential, though the level of detail will depend on the interview structure. Logistics, such as scheduling the interview at a convenient time and place for the participant and ensuring necessary equipment is available and working, also need to be addressed.

Conducting the interview

The interview begins with an introduction in which the interviewer explains the purpose of the interview, assures confidentiality, and obtains consent from the participant. Throughout the interview, the researcher should aim to build rapport, listen attentively, and adapt their questioning based on the interviewee's responses. Non-verbal cues should also be observed and noted, as they can provide additional insights.

Post-interview activities

After the interview, it is important to thank the participant for their time and contribution. Researchers should then promptly transcribe the interview while the details are still fresh. Reflections and observations about the interview should also be noted, including the context, the behavior of the participant, and any unexpected occurrences. These notes can provide valuable context during data analysis.

Executing each of these stages effectively requires not only good planning and organization but also interpersonal skills, flexibility, and respect for the participant. The quality of the data collected during an interview is largely dependent on how well the interview process is managed.

Transcribing interviews

The transcription of interview data is a critical step in the qualitative research process. This involves converting the recorded audio or video interviews into written text, providing a detailed account of the dialogues that took place during the interviews.

Transcriptions allow for more detailed examination, analysis, and reporting of the data. However, making transcriptions can be arduous and time-consuming. Here are some key considerations in the transcription process:

Types of transcription

There are two main types of transcription: verbatim and clean. Verbatim transcription involves writing down every single word, pause, and utterance made during the interview. This is a very detailed and time-consuming process, but it can be useful when the researcher needs to analyze not just the content of the interview but also the way it was expressed. On the other hand, clean transcription omits irrelevant elements like stutters, repetitions, and filler words, focusing instead on the core content of the conversation.

Manual vs. automated transcription

Researchers may choose to transcribe interviews manually or use transcription software. Manual transcription, while time-consuming, allows researchers to become intimately familiar with the data and can be more accurate, especially for complex or nuanced dialogues.

Automated transcription software, however, can save time and effort, particularly for large volumes of data, although it may require manual checking and correction for errors. Some researchers choose a hybrid approach, using software for the initial transcription and then manually checking and correcting the output.

Formatting and anonymizing transcripts

To facilitate analysis, transcripts should be formatted consistently, with clear identifiers for different speakers and timestamps for reference. If there are multiple interviewers or participants, each individual's speech should be clearly marked. Additionally, to ensure confidentiality, any personally identifiable information should be removed or anonymized in the transcript. This is especially important to consider in qualitative data, because participants may talk about aspects of their lives through which they could be identified, for instance if they mention specific names, their neighborhood, or place of work.

Quality checks

Finally, it's important to check the quality of the transcript. This could involve a second person checking the transcription against the audio or the researcher re-listening to portions of the recording to confirm accuracy. Any unclear or inaudible sections should be marked in the transcript.

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Research Interviews: An effective and insightful way of data collection

Research interviews play a pivotal role in collecting data for various academic, scientific, and professional endeavors. They provide researchers with an opportunity to delve deep into the thoughts, experiences, and perspectives of an individual, thus enabling a comprehensive understanding of complex phenomena. It is important for researchers to design an effective and insightful method of data collection on a particular topic. A research interview is typically a two-person meeting conducted to collect information on a certain topic. It is a qualitative data collection method to gain primary information.

The three key features of a research interview are as follows:

Table of Contents

The Significance of Research Interviews in Gathering Primary Data

The role of research interviews in gathering first-hand information is invaluable. Additionally, they allow researchers to interact directly with participants, enabling them to collect unfiltered primary data.

1. Subjective Experience

Research interviews facilitate in-depth exploration of a research topic. Thus, by engaging in one-to-one conversation with participants, researchers can delve into the nuances and complexities of their experiences, perspectives, and opinions. This allows comprehensive understanding of the research subject that may not be possible through other methods. Also, research interviews offer the unique advantage of capturing subjective experiences through personal narratives. Moreover, participants can express their thoughts, feelings, and beliefs, which add depth to the findings.

2. Personal Insights

Research interviews offer an opportunity for participants to share their views and opinions on the objective they are being interviewed for. Furthermore, participants can express their thoughts and experiences, providing rich qualitative data . Consequently, these personal narratives add a human element to the research, thus enhancing the understanding of the topic from the participants’ perspectives. Research interviews offer the opportunity to uncover unanticipated insights or emerging themes. Additionally, open-ended questions and active listening can help the researchers to identify new perspectives, ideas, or patterns that may not have been initially considered. As a result, these factors can lead to new avenues for exploration.

3. Clarification and Validation

Researchers can clarify participants’ responses and validate their understanding during an interview. This ensures accurate data collection and interpretation. Additionally, researchers can probe deeper into participants’ statements and seek clarification on any ambiguity in the information.

4. Contextual Information

Research interviews allow researchers to gather contextual information that offers a comprehensive understanding of the research topic. Additionally, participants can provide insights into the social, cultural, or environmental factors that shape their experiences, behaviors, and beliefs. This contextual information helps researchers place the data in a broader context and facilitates a more nuanced analysis.

5. Non-verbal Cues

In addition to verbal responses, research interviews allow researchers to observe non-verbal cues such as body language, facial expressions, and tone of voice. Additionally, non-verbal cues can convey information, such as emotions, attitudes, or levels of comfort. Furthermore, integrating non-verbal cues with verbal responses provides a more holistic understanding of participants’ experiences and enriches the data collection process.

Research interviews offer several advantages, making them a reliable tool for collecting information. However, choosing the right type of research interview is essential for collecting useful data.

Types of Research Interviews

There are several types of research interviews that researchers can use based on their research goals , the nature of their study, and the data they aim to collect. Here are some common types of research interviews:

1. Structured Interviews

• Structured interviews are standardized and follow a fixed format.
• Therefore, these interviews have a pre-determined set of questions.
• All the participants are asked the same set of questions in the same order.
• Therefore, this type of interview facilitates standardization and allows easy comparison and quantitative analysis of responses.
• As a result, structured interviews are used in surveys or studies which aims for a high level of standardization and comparability.

2. Semi-structured Interviews

• Semi-structured interviews offer a flexible framework by combining pre-determined questions.
• So, this gives an opportunity for follow-up questions and open-ended discussions.
• Researchers have a list of core questions but can adapt the interview depending on the participant’s responses.
• Consequently, this allows for in-depth exploration while maintaining some level of consistency across interviews.
• As a result, semi-structured interviews are widely used in qualitative research, where content-rich data is desired.

3. Unstructured Interviews

• Unstructured interviews provide the greatest flexibility and freedom in the interview process.
• This type do not have a pre-determined set of questions.
• Thus, the conversation flows naturally based on the participant’s responses and the researcher’s interests.
• Moreover, this type of interview allows for open-ended exploration and encourages participants to share their experiences, thoughts, and perspectives freely.
• Unstructured interviews useful to explore new or complex research topics, with limited preconceived questions.

4. Group Interviews (Focus Groups)

• Group interviews involve multiple participants who engage in a facilitated discussion on a specific topic.
• This format allows the interaction and exchange of ideas among participants, generating a group dynamic.
• Therefore, group interviews are beneficial for capturing diverse perspectives, and generating collective insights.
• They are often used in market research, social sciences, or studies demanding shared experiences.

5. Narrative Interviews

• Narrative interviews focus on eliciting participants’ personal stories, views, experiences, and narratives. Researchers aim to look into the individual’s life journey.
• As a result, this type of interview allows participants to construct and share their own narratives, providing rich qualitative data.
• Qualitative research, oral history, or studies focusing on individual experiences and identities uses narrative interviews.

6. Ethnographic Interviews

• Ethnographic interviews are conducted within the context of ethnographic research, where researchers immerse themselves in a specific social or cultural setting.
• These interviews aim to understand participants’ experiences, beliefs, and practices within their cultural context, thereby understanding diversity in different ethnic groups.
• Furthermore, ethnographic interviews involve building rapport, observing the participants’ daily lives, and engaging in conversations that capture the nuances of the culture under study.

It must be noted that these interview types are not mutually exclusive. Therefore, researchers often employ a combination of approaches to gather the most comprehensive data for their research. The choice of interview type depends on the research objectives and the nature of the research topic.

Steps of Conducting a Research Interview

Research interviews offer several benefits, and thus careful planning and execution of the entire process are important to gather in-depth information from the participants. While conducting an interview, it is essential to know the necessary steps to follow for ensuring success. The steps to conduct a research interview are as follows:

• Identify the objectives and understand the goals
• Select an appropriate interview format
• Organize the necessary materials for the interview
• Understand the questions to be addressed
• Analyze the demographics of interviewees
• Select the interviewees
• Design the interview questions to gather sufficient information
• Schedule the interview
• Explain the purpose of the interview
• Analyze the interviewee based on his/her responses

Considerations for Research Interviews

Since the flexible nature of research interviews makes them an invaluable tool for data collection, researchers must consider certain factors to make the process effective. They should avoid bias and preconceived notion against the participants. Furthermore, researchers must comply with ethical considerations and respect the cultural differences between them and the participants. Also, they should ensure careful tailoring of the questions to avoid making them offensive or derogatory. The interviewers must respect the privacy of the participants and ensure the confidentiality of their details.

By ensuring due diligence of these considerations associated with research interviews, researchers can maximize the validity and reliability of the collected data, leading to robust and meaningful research outcomes.

Have you ever conducted a research interview? What was your experience? What factors did you consider when conducting a research interview? Share it with researchers worldwide by submitting your thought piece on Enago Academy’s Open Blogging Platform .

Frequently Asked Questions

• Identify the objectives of the interview • State and explain the purpose of the interview • Select an appropriate interview format • Organize the necessary materials for the Interview • Check the demographics of the participants • Select the Interviewees or the participants • Prepare the list of questions to gather maximum useful data from the participants • Schedule the Interview • Analyze the participant based on his/ her Responses

Interviews are important in research as it helps to gather elaborative first-hand information. It helps to draw conclusions from the non-verbal views and personal experiences. It reduces the ambiguity of data through detailed discussions.

The advantages of research interviews are: • It offers first-hand information • Offers detailed assessment which can result in elaborate conclusions • It is easy to conduct • Provides non-verbal cues The disadvantages of research interviews are: • There is a risk of personal bias • It can be time consuming • The outcomes might be unpredictable

The difference between structured and unstructured interview are: • Structured interviews have well-structured questions in a pre-determined order; while unstructured interviews are flexible and do not have a pre-planned set of questions. • Structured interview is more detailed; while unstructured interviews are exploratory in nature. • Structured interview is easier to replicate as compared to unstructured interview.

Focus groups is a group of multiple participants engaging in a facilitated discussion on a specific topic. This format allows for interaction and exchange of ideas among participants.

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Home Market Research

Types of Interviews in Research and Methods

There are more types of interviews than most people think. An interview is generally a qualitative research technique that involves asking open-ended questions to converse with respondents and collect elicit data about a subject.

The interviewer, in most cases, is the subject matter expert who intends to understand respondent opinions in a well-planned and executed series of star questions and answers . 

Interviews are similar to focus groups and surveys for garnering information from the target market but are entirely different in their operation – focus groups are restricted to a small group of 6-10 individuals, whereas surveys are quantitative.

Interviews are conducted with a sample from a population, and the key characteristic they exhibit is their conversational tone.

LEARN ABOUT: telephone survey

What is An Interview?

An interview is a way to get information from a person by asking questions and hearing their answers.

An interview is a question-and-answer session where one person asks questions, and the other person answers those questions. It can be a one-on-one, two-way conversation, or there can be more than one interviewer and more than one participant.

The interview is the most important part of the whole selection bias process. It is used to decide if a person should be interviewed further, hired, or taken out of consideration. It is the main way to learn more about applicants and the basis for judging their job-related knowledge, research skills , and abilities.

Fundamental Types of Interviews in Research

A researcher has to conduct interviews with a group of participants at a juncture in the research where information can only be obtained by meeting and personally connecting with a section of their target audience. Interviews offer the researchers a platform to prompt their participants and obtain inputs in the desired detail. There are three fundamental types of interviews in research:

1. Structured Interviews:

Structured interviews are defined as research tools that could be more flexible in their operations are allow more or no scope of prompting the participants to obtain and analyze results. It is thus also known as a standardized interview and is significantly quantitative in its approach. 

Questions in this interview are pre-decided according to the required detail of information. This can be used in a focus group interview and an in-person interview.

These interviews are excessively used in survey research with the intention of maintaining uniformity throughout all the interview sessions.

LEARN ABOUT: Research Process Steps

They can be closed-ended and open-ended – according to the type of target population. Closed-ended questions can be included to understand user preferences from a collection of answer options. In contrast, open-ended ones can be included to gain details about a particular section in the interview.

Example of a structured interview question:

Here’s an example of a structured question for a job interview for a customer service job:

• Can you talk about what it was like to work in customer service?
• How do you deal with an angry or upset customer?
• How do you ensure that the information you give customers is correct?
• Tell us about when you went out of your way to help a customer.
• How do you handle a lot of customers or tasks at once?
• Can you talk about how you’ve used software or tools for customer service?
• How do you set priorities and use your time well while giving good customer service?
• Can you tell us about when you had to get a customer to calm down?
• How do you deal with a customer who wants something that goes against your company’s rules?
• Tell me about a time when you had to deal with a hard customer or coworker.

Advantages of structured interviews:

• It focuses on the accuracy of different responses, due to which extremely organized data can be collected. Different respondents have different types of answers to the same structure of questions – answers obtained can be collectively analyzed.
• They can be used to get in touch with a large sample of the target population.
• The interview procedure is made easy due to the standardization offered by it.
• Replication across multiple samples becomes easy due to the same structure of the interview.
• As the scope of detail is already considered while designing the interview questions, better information can be obtained. The researcher can analyze the research problem comprehensively by asking accurate research questions .
• Since the structure of the interview is fixed, it often generates reliable results and is quick to execute.
• The relationship between the researcher and the respondent is not formal, due to which the researcher can clearly understand the margin of error in case the respondent either degree to be a part of the survey or is just not interested in providing the right information.

Disadvantages of structured interviews:

• The limited scope of assessment of obtained results.
• The accuracy of information overpowers the detail of information.
• Respondents are forced to select from the provided answer options.
• The researcher is expected to always adhere to the list of decided questions, irrespective of how interesting the conversation is turning out to be with the participants.
• A significant amount of time is required for a structured interview. 

Learn more: Market Research

2. Semi-Structured Types of Interviews:

Semi-structured interviews offer a considerable amount of leeway to the researcher to probe the respondents, along with maintaining a basic interview structure. Even if it is a guided conversation between researchers and interviewees – appreciable flexibility is offered to the researchers. A researcher can be assured that multiple interview rounds will not be required in the presence of structure in this type of research interview.

Keeping the structure in mind, the researcher can follow any idea or take creative advantage of the entire interview. Additional respondent probing is always necessary to garner information for a research study. The best application of semi-structured interviews is when the researcher doesn’t have time to conduct research and requires detailed information about the topic.

Example of a semi-structured interview question:

Here’s an example of a semi-structured marketing job interviews question:

• Can you tell us about the marketing work you’ve done?
• What do you think are the most important parts of a marketing campaign that works?
• Tell me about a campaign you worked on that you’re very proud of.
• How do you do research on the market and look at data to help you make marketing decisions?
• Can you tell us about a time when you had to change your marketing plan because of something that didn’t go as planned?
• How do you figure out if a marketing campaign worked?
• Can you talk about how you’ve used social media to market?
• How do you ensure your marketing message gets through to the people you want to hear it?
• Can you tell us about a time when you had to run a marketing campaign on a small budget?
• How do you keep up with changes and trends in marketing?

Advantages of semi-structured interviews:

• Questions from semi-structured interview questions are prepared before the scheduled interview, giving the researcher time to prepare and analyze the questions.
• It is flexible to an extent while maintaining the research guidelines.
• Unlike a structured interview, researchers can express the interview questions in the preferred format.
• Reliable qualitative data can be collected via these interviews.
• The flexible structure of the interview.

Learn more: Quantitative Data

Disadvantages of semi-structured interviews:

• Participants may question the reliability factor of these interviews due to the flexibility offered.
• Comparing two different answers becomes difficult as the guideline for conducting interviews is not entirely followed. No two questions will have the exact same structure, and the result will be an inability to compare are infer results.

3. Unstructured Interviews:

Also called in-depth interviews , unstructured interviews are usually described as conversations held with a purpose in mind – to gather data about the research study. These interviews have the least number of questions as they lean more towards a normal conversation but with an underlying subject.

The main objective of most researchers using unstructured interviews is to build a bond with the respondents, due to which there is a high chance that the respondents will be 100% truthful with their answers. There are no guidelines for the researchers to follow. So they can approach the participants ethically to gain as much information as possible about their research topic.

Since there are no guidelines for these interviews, a researcher is expected to keep their approach in check so that the respondents do not sway away from the main research motive. 

For a researcher to obtain the desired outcome, he/she must keep the following factors in mind:

• The intent of the interview.
• The interview should primarily take into consideration the participant’s interests and skills.
• All the conversations should be conducted within the permissible limits of research, and the researcher should try and stick by these limits.
• The researcher’s skills and knowledge should match the interview’s purpose.
• Researchers should understand the dos and don’ts of it.

Example of an unstructured interview question:

Here’s an example of a question asked in an unstructured interview:

• Can you tell me about when you had to deal with something hard and how you did it?
• What are some of the things you’re most proud of, and what did you learn from them?
• How do you deal with ambiguity or not knowing what to do at work?
• Can you describe how you lead and how you get your team going?
• Tell me about a time when you had to take a chance and how it turned out.
• What do you think are the most important qualities for success in this role?
• How do you deal with setbacks or failures, and what do you learn from them?
• Can you tell me about a time when you had to solve a problem by thinking outside the box?
• What do you think makes you different from the other people who want this job?
• Can you tell me about a time when you had to make a hard choice and how you made that choice?

Advantages of Unstructured Interviews:

• Due to this type of interview’s informal nature, it becomes extremely easy for researchers to try and develop a friendly rapport with the participants. This leads to gaining insights in extreme detail without much conscious effort.
• The participants can clarify all their doubts about the questions, and the researcher can take each opportunity to explain his/her intention for better answers.
• There are no questions that the researcher has to abide by, and this usually increases the flexibility of the entire research process.

Disadvantages of Unstructured Interviews:

• Researchers take time to execute these interviews because there is no structure to the interview process.
• The absence of a standardized set of questions and guidelines indicates that its reliability of it is questionable.
• The ethics involved in these interviews are often considered borderline upsetting.

Learn more: Qualitative Market Research & Qualitative Data Collection

Other Types of Interviews

Besides the 3 basic interview types, we have already mentioned there are more. Here are some other interview types that are commonly used in a job interview:

Behavioral Interview

During this type of interview, candidates are asked to give specific examples of how they have acted in the past. The idea behind this kind of interview is that what someone did in the past can be a sign of how they will act in the future. And by this interview, the company can also understand the interviewee’s behavior through body language.

Panel Interview

During a panel interview, three or more interviewers usually ask questions and evaluate the candidate’s answers as a group. This is a good way to get a full picture of a candidate’s skills and suitability for the job.

Group Types of Interviews

Multiple people are interviewed at the same time in group interviews. This form of interview often focus groups that are utilized on entry-level positions or employment in customer service to examine how well candidates get along with others and function as a team.

Case Interview

During a case interview, candidates are given a business problem or scenario and asked to think about how to solve it. In the consulting and finance fields, this kind of interview is common.

Technical Interview

A candidate’s technical skills and knowledge are tested during a technical interview, usually in fields like engineering or software development. Most of the time, candidates are asked to solve problems or complete technical tasks.

Stress Interview

During a stress interview, candidates are put under pressure or asked difficult or confrontational questions on purpose to see how they react in stressful situations. This kind of interview is used to see how well a candidate can deal with stress and hard situations.

Methods of Research Interviews:

There are four methods to conduct research interviews, each of which is peculiar in its application and can be used according to the research study requirement.

Personal Interviews:

Personal interviews are one of the most used types of interviews, where the questions are asked personally directly to the respondent as a form of an individual interview. One of the many in-person interviews is a lunch interview, which is frequently better suited for casual inquiries and discussions.

For this, a researcher can have a guide to online surveys to take note of the answers. A researcher can design his/her survey in such a way that they take notes of the comments or points of view that stands out from the interviewee. It can be a one-on-one interview as well. 

• Higher response rate.
• When the interviewees and respondents are face-to-face, there is a way to adapt the questions if this is not understood.
• More complete answers can be obtained if there is doubt on both sides or a remarkable piece of information is detected.
• The researcher has an opportunity to detect and analyze the interviewee’s body language at the time of asking the questions and taking notes about it.

Disadvantages:

• They are time-consuming and extremely expensive.
• They can generate distrust on the part of the interviewee since they may be self-conscious and not answer truthfully.
• Contacting the interviewees can be a real headache, either scheduling an appointment in workplaces or going from house to house and not finding anyone.
• Therefore, many interviews are conducted in public places like shopping centers or parks. Even consumer studies take advantage of these sites to conduct interviews or surveys and give incentives, gifts, and coupons. In short, There are great opportunities for online research in shopping centers.
• Among the advantages of conducting such types of interviews is that the respondents will have more fresh information if the interview is conducted in the context and with the appropriate stimuli so that researchers can have data from their experience at the scene of the events immediately and first hand. The interviewer can use an online survey through a mobile device that will undoubtedly facilitate the entire process.

Telephonic Type of Interviews:

Phonic interviews are widely used and easily combined with online surveys to conduct research effectively.

Advantages:

• To find the interviewees, it is enough to have their phone numbers on hand.
• They are usually lower cost.
• The information is collected quickly.
• Having a personal contact can also clarify doubts or give more details of the questions.
• Many times researchers observe that people do not answer phone calls because it is an unknown number for the respondent or simply already changed their place of residence and they cannot locate it, which causes a bias in the interview.
• Researchers also face that they simply do not want to answer and resort to pretexts such as they are busy to answer, they are sick, they do not have the authority to answer the questions asked, they have no interest in answering, or they are afraid of putting their security at risk.
• One of the aspects that should be taken care of in these types of interviews is the kindness with which the interviewers address the respondents in order to get them to cooperate more easily with their answers. Good communication is vital for the generation of better answers.

Learn More: Data Collection Methods: Types & Examples

Email or Web Page Types of Interviews:

Online research is growing more and more because consumers are migrating to a more virtual world, and it is best for each researcher to adapt to this change.

The increase in people with Internet access has made it popular that interviews via email or web page stand out among the types of interviews most used today. For this nothing better than an online survey.

More and more consumers are turning to online shopping, which is why they are a great niche to be able to carry out an interview that will generate information for the correct decision-making.

Advantages of email surveys:

• Speed in obtaining data
• The respondents respond according to their time, when they want, and where they decide.
• Online surveys can be mixed with other research methods or using some of the previous interview models. They are tools that can perfectly complement and pay for the project.
• A researcher can use a variety of questions and logic to create graphs and reports immediately.

Disadvantages of email survey:

• Low response rates
• Limited access to certain populations
• Potential for spam filters
• Lack of personal touch

What to Avoid in Different Types of Interviews

Try not to do any of the following things when you’re in an interview:

• Don’t blame your previous managers, coworkers, or companies. This will make a bad impression on the interviewer and show that you are not accountable.
• Do not go to the interview without knowing anything about the company you are interviewing for. Interviewers will think you don’t care about learning about the company if you don’t know anything.
• Don’t fidget with things because that shows you lack self-confidence and focus.
• Stop checking the time because it shows that you have something more important to do and that you don’t give the interview much importance.

Related Questions of Interviews

After the interview is over, you might also get a chance to ask some questions. You should make the most of this chance to learn useful things from the interviewer. Based on what you’ve learned, you can then decide if the company and the job are a good fit for you. You can ask the interviewer questions about the company or about the job role.

Here are some common but important questions to ask in an interview:

• What do you anticipate from team members in this role?
• What does a typical day look like for an employee in this role?
• What qualities are essential for success in this position?
• How is success measured for this position?
• How does this job profile relate to the organization’s overarching objectives?
• What are your company’s guiding principles?
• Which departments will I work closely with throughout my time in this profile?

Learn more: Quantitative Research

To summarize the discussion, an effective interview will be one that provides researchers with the necessary data to know the object of study and that this information is applicable to the decisions researchers make.

Undoubtedly, the objective of the research will set the pattern of what types of interviews are best for data collection. Based on the research design , a researcher can plan and test the questions, for instance, if the questions are correct and if the survey flows in the best way.

LEARN ABOUT: Best Data Collection Tools

In addition, other types of research can be used under specific circumstances.

For example, there are no connections or adverse situations to carry out surveyors. In these types of occasions, it is necessary to conduct field research, which can not be considered an interview if not rather a completely different methodology.

QuestionPro is a flexible online survey platform that can help researchers do different kinds of interviews, like structured, semi-structured, unstructured, phone interview, group interview, etc. It gives researchers a flexible platform that can be changed to fit their needs and the needs of their research project.

QuestionPro can help researchers get detailed and useful information from participants using features like skip logic, piping, and live chat. Also, the platform is easy to use and get to, making it a useful tool for researchers to use in their work.

LEARN ABOUT: Candidate Experience Survey

Overall, QuestionPro can be helpful for researchers who want to do good interviews and collect good project data.

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The 3 main types of interviews are 1. Structured interviews 2. Semi-structured interviews 3. Unstructured interviews

There are different ways to conduct an interview, and each one can add depth and substance to the information the interviewer gathers by asking questions. We discuss four interview methods: situational, professional behavior profiling, stress, and behavioral.

Face-to-face means in-person interviews are the most common type of interview. It’s about getting a good sense of the candidate by focusing on them directly. But it also allows the person interviewed to talk freely and ask questions.

Personal interviews, phone interviews, email or web page interviews, and a combination of these methods are the four types of research interviews.

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Interviews can be defined as a qualitative research technique which involves “conducting intensive individual interviews with a small number of respondents to explore their perspectives on a particular idea, program or situation.” [1]

There are three different formats of interviews: structured, semi-structured and unstructured.

Structured interviews consist of a series of pre-determined questions that all interviewees answer in the same order. Data analysis usually tends to be more straightforward because researcher can compare and contrast different answers given to the same questions.

Unstructured interviews are usually the least reliable from research viewpoint, because no questions are prepared prior to the interview and data collection is conducted in an informal manner. Unstructured interviews can be associated with a high level of bias and comparison of answers given by different respondents tends to be difficult due to the differences in formulation of questions.

Semi-structured interviews contain the components of both, structured and unstructured interviews. In semi-structured interviews, interviewer prepares a set of same questions to be answered by all interviewees. At the same time, additional questions might be asked during interviews to clarify and/or further expand certain issues.

Advantages of interviews include possibilities of collecting detailed information about research questions.  Moreover, in in this type of primary data collection researcher has direct control over the flow of process and she has a chance to clarify certain issues during the process if needed. Disadvantages, on the other hand, include longer time requirements and difficulties associated with arranging an appropriate time with perspective sample group members to conduct interviews.

When conducting interviews you should have an open mind and refrain from displaying disagreements in any forms when viewpoints expressed by interviewees contradict your own ideas. Moreover, timing and environment for interviews need to be scheduled effectively. Specifically, interviews need to be conducted in a relaxed environment, free of any forms of pressure for interviewees whatsoever.

Respected scholars warn that “in conducting an interview the interviewer should attempt to create a friendly, non-threatening atmosphere. Much as one does with a cover letter, the interviewer should give a brief, casual introduction to the study; stress the importance of the person’s participation; and assure anonymity, or at least confidentiality, when possible.” [2]

There is a risk of interviewee bias during the primary data collection process and this would seriously compromise the validity of the project findings. Some interviewer bias can be avoided by ensuring that the interviewer does not overreact to responses of the interviewee. Other steps that can be taken to help avoid or reduce interviewer bias include having the interviewer dress inconspicuously and appropriately for the environment and holding the interview in a private setting.  [3]

My e-book, The Ultimate Guide to Writing a Dissertation in Business Studies: a step by step assistance offers practical assistance to complete a dissertation with minimum or no stress. The e-book covers all stages of writing a dissertation starting from the selection to the research area to submitting the completed version of the work within the deadline.John Dudovskiy

[1] Boyce, C. & Neale, P. (2006) “Conducting in-depth Interviews: A Guide for Designing and Conducting In-Depth Interviews”, Pathfinder International Tool Series

[2] Connaway, L.S.& Powell, R.P.(2010) “Basic Research Methods for Librarians” ABC-CLIO

[3] Connaway, L.S.& Powell, R.P.(2010) “Basic Research Methods for Librarians” ABC-CLIO

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Qualitative research method-interviewing and observation

Shazia jamshed.

Department of Pharmacy Practice, Kulliyyah of Pharmacy, International Islamic University Malaysia, Kuantan Campus, Pahang, Malaysia

Buckley and Chiang define research methodology as “a strategy or architectural design by which the researcher maps out an approach to problem-finding or problem-solving.”[ 1 ] According to Crotty, research methodology is a comprehensive strategy ‘that silhouettes our choice and use of specific methods relating them to the anticipated outcomes,[ 2 ] but the choice of research methodology is based upon the type and features of the research problem.[ 3 ] According to Johnson et al . mixed method research is “a class of research where the researcher mixes or combines quantitative and qualitative research techniques, methods, approaches, theories and or language into a single study.[ 4 ] In order to have diverse opinions and views, qualitative findings need to be supplemented with quantitative results.[ 5 ] Therefore, these research methodologies are considered to be complementary to each other rather than incompatible to each other.[ 6 ]

Qualitative research methodology is considered to be suitable when the researcher or the investigator either investigates new field of study or intends to ascertain and theorize prominent issues.[ 6 , 7 ] There are many qualitative methods which are developed to have an in depth and extensive understanding of the issues by means of their textual interpretation and the most common types are interviewing and observation.[ 7 ]

Interviewing

This is the most common format of data collection in qualitative research. According to Oakley, qualitative interview is a type of framework in which the practices and standards be not only recorded, but also achieved, challenged and as well as reinforced.[ 8 ] As no research interview lacks structure[ 9 ] most of the qualitative research interviews are either semi-structured, lightly structured or in-depth.[ 9 ] Unstructured interviews are generally suggested in conducting long-term field work and allow respondents to let them express in their own ways and pace, with minimal hold on respondents’ responses.[ 10 ]

Pioneers of ethnography developed the use of unstructured interviews with local key informants that is., by collecting the data through observation and record field notes as well as to involve themselves with study participants. To be precise, unstructured interview resembles a conversation more than an interview and is always thought to be a “controlled conversation,” which is skewed towards the interests of the interviewer.[ 11 ] Non-directive interviews, form of unstructured interviews are aimed to gather in-depth information and usually do not have pre-planned set of questions.[ 11 ] Another type of the unstructured interview is the focused interview in which the interviewer is well aware of the respondent and in times of deviating away from the main issue the interviewer generally refocuses the respondent towards key subject.[ 11 ] Another type of the unstructured interview is an informal, conversational interview, based on unplanned set of questions that are generated instantaneously during the interview.[ 11 ]

In contrast, semi-structured interviews are those in-depth interviews where the respondents have to answer preset open-ended questions and thus are widely employed by different healthcare professionals in their research. Semi-structured, in-depth interviews are utilized extensively as interviewing format possibly with an individual or sometimes even with a group.[ 6 ] These types of interviews are conducted once only, with an individual or with a group and generally cover the duration of 30 min to more than an hour.[ 12 ] Semi-structured interviews are based on semi-structured interview guide, which is a schematic presentation of questions or topics and need to be explored by the interviewer.[ 12 ] To achieve optimum use of interview time, interview guides serve the useful purpose of exploring many respondents more systematically and comprehensively as well as to keep the interview focused on the desired line of action.[ 12 ] The questions in the interview guide comprise of the core question and many associated questions related to the central question, which in turn, improve further through pilot testing of the interview guide.[ 7 ] In order to have the interview data captured more effectively, recording of the interviews is considered an appropriate choice but sometimes a matter of controversy among the researcher and the respondent. Hand written notes during the interview are relatively unreliable, and the researcher might miss some key points. The recording of the interview makes it easier for the researcher to focus on the interview content and the verbal prompts and thus enables the transcriptionist to generate “verbatim transcript” of the interview.

Similarly, in focus groups, invited groups of people are interviewed in a discussion setting in the presence of the session moderator and generally these discussions last for 90 min.[ 7 ] Like every research technique having its own merits and demerits, group discussions have some intrinsic worth of expressing the opinions openly by the participants. On the contrary in these types of discussion settings, limited issues can be focused, and this may lead to the generation of fewer initiatives and suggestions about research topic.

Observation

Observation is a type of qualitative research method which not only included participant's observation, but also covered ethnography and research work in the field. In the observational research design, multiple study sites are involved. Observational data can be integrated as auxiliary or confirmatory research.[ 11 ]

Research can be visualized and perceived as painstaking methodical efforts to examine, investigate as well as restructure the realities, theories and applications. Research methods reflect the approach to tackling the research problem. Depending upon the need, research method could be either an amalgam of both qualitative and quantitative or qualitative or quantitative independently. By adopting qualitative methodology, a prospective researcher is going to fine-tune the pre-conceived notions as well as extrapolate the thought process, analyzing and estimating the issues from an in-depth perspective. This could be carried out by one-to-one interviews or as issue-directed discussions. Observational methods are, sometimes, supplemental means for corroborating research findings.

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The Ultimate Guide to Transcribing Qualitative Research Interviews

Learn how to transcribe interviews in qualitative research with ease. This guide covers the process of transcribing interviews for qualitative research, best practices, benefits, and challenges. We will also discuss some of the best tools for transcribing interviews in qualitative research.

Imagine capturing lightning in a bottle. That's what transcribing interviews in qualitative research is like. It's the art of turning fleeting conversations into lasting, analyzable data.

But why do researchers spend hours typing up talks? It's more than just record-keeping. Transcription captures the essence of conversations - words, tone, pauses, and unspoken cues. This process is key to uncover deep insights and drawing meaningful conclusions.

If you’re wondering “how to transcribe data in qualitative research”, you’ve landed at the right place. This guide will walk you through the transcription process, offering tips and helping you sidestep common pitfalls. Whether you're a seasoned pro or just starting, you'll find practical ways to sharpen your skills.

What is qualitative research?

Qualitative research is a method used to explore and understand human behavior, experiences, and social phenomena. Unlike quantitative research, which deals with numbers and statistics, qualitative research focuses on words, stories, and observations.

In qualitative studies, researchers often use interviews to gather data. These interviews help uncover the 'why' and 'how' behind people's actions and thoughts. The goal is to gain deep insights into complex issues that can't be easily measured with numbers alone.

Key features of qualitative research include:

• Open-ended questions: Researchers ask questions that allow participants to express their thoughts freely.
• Flexibility: The research design can change as new information emerges.
• Rich, descriptive data: Results are often presented as detailed narratives rather than charts or graphs.
• Small sample sizes: Qualitative studies often focus on fewer participants but explore their experiences in depth.
• Subjectivity: Researchers acknowledge their biases and how they might affect the study.

What is qualitative data transcription?

Qualitative data transcription specifically refers to converting spoken words from research events such as interviews or focus groups into written text. It often employs verbatim transcription, which involves writing down every word exactly as spoken, including pauses and non-verbal sounds.

What type of transcription is used in qualitative research?

In qualitative research, the most common types are verbatim and intelligent transcription. Verbatim captures everything exactly as spoken, while intelligent transcription focuses on content by omitting unnecessary filler words or correcting grammar.

Types of transcription

There are three main types of transcription:

• Verbatim: Captures everything, including filler words and pauses.
• Intelligent Verbatim: Keeps the essence but removes fillers and false starts.
• Edited Transcription: Cleans up the text further, correcting grammar and reorganizing for clarity.

Techniques for transcription

Transcription can be done through various methods. The basic approach is to listen and type, playing the audio and typing what is heard. Transcription software can make the process faster and easier, offering features like automatic timestamps or AI-assisted transcription. Some researchers use a foot pedal method, which allows control of audio playback without taking hands off the keyboard.

Applications of transcription in qualitative research

Transcription is crucial in various qualitative research contexts. In interview analysis, it allows researchers to examine individual responses in detail. For focus group discussions, transcripts help capture multiple viewpoints and group dynamics. In observational research, transcribing audio notes helps create detailed field notes. Transcripts form a key part of case study data and are valuable in ethnographic research for preserving field conversations.

What are the benefits of transcribing interviews for qualitative research?

Transcribing interviews offers numerous benefits:

• Easy data review: Written transcripts can be quickly skimmed and searched
• Pattern identification: Researchers can more easily identify patterns and themes in text form
• Precise quoting: Accurate transcripts enable precise quoting of participants
• Facilitates sharing: Transcripts make it easier to share findings with other researchers
• Permanent record: Transcripts create a permanent, easily storable record of research data

Challenges of transcribing interviews for qualitative research

Transcription presents several challenges:

• Time-consuming: Often takes 4-6 hours for every hour of audio
• Audio quality issues: Poor audio can hinder accurate transcription
• Non-verbal cue capture: Difficult to represent in text form, potentially leading to loss of context
• Consistency maintenance: Tricky to maintain, especially with multiple transcribers
• Sensitive content handling: Requires extra care and can be mentally draining

Regulatory and privacy considerations

When transcribing for research, protecting participant confidentiality and complying with data protection laws are essential. This involves removing identifying details, using pseudonyms, and securely storing data. Researchers must obtain explicit consent, inform participants about data use, and ensure participants' rights to access or delete their data. Secure storage, limited access, and ethical handling of sensitive information are crucial aspects of the transcription process.

What is the best way to transcribe interviews?

Transcribing interviews for qualitative research is a key step in qualitative research. The best way to transcribe depends on your project needs and resources. Here are some tips:

• Choose the right tools 

Using the right tools can significantly impact the transcription process. Invest in good-quality headphones to hear every word and nuance in the recording. Transcription software with playback controls, such as adjustable speeds and foot pedal compatibility, can speed up your work. Popular tools like Express Scribe or Otter.ai help streamline this process, especially when handling long interviews.

• Decide on verbatim or intelligent transcription 

The choice between verbatim and intelligent transcription depends on your research focus. Verbatim transcription captures every sound, including fillers and non-verbal cues, ideal for analyzing speech patterns or emotions while intelligent transcription focuses on content, omitting fillers for cleaner, more readable text. 

• Create a consistent format 

Consistency in format is key for a smooth analysis later on. Use a standard layout for all transcripts, including speaker labels, timestamps, and clear paragraphing. For instance, label each speaker as "Interviewer" and "Participant" or by name if needed. This helps when you’re coding data later, allowing you to trace back comments to specific moments in the interview.

• Take breaks 

Transcription is a mentally intensive task, especially for longer interviews. Listening to recordings repeatedly while typing out every detail can be exhausting. Taking regular breaks helps maintain focus and accuracy. A good rule of thumb is to take a 10-minute break after 30–45 minutes of transcribing. This prevents errors from creeping in due to fatigue.

• Review and edit 

Once the transcript is done, it’s crucial to review it for any mistakes or missed content. Playback the recording while reading along with your transcript to ensure nothing important is omitted. Checking for proper punctuation, correct speaker identification, and clarity helps improve the transcript’s overall quality. This step ensures that your transcript is an accurate reflection of the original interview.

How to transcribe interviews in qualitative research?

In this section, we will discuss everything related to how to transcribe data in qualitative research. 

• How to transcribe an interview qualitative research sample? 

Transcribing a qualitative interview involves listening to the audio and writing down the conversation verbatim. Begin by ensuring a quiet space and breaking the audio into manageable sections. Focus on capturing the participants’ words, including pauses, filler words, and emotions. You may use transcription software for assistance, but review the text manually for accuracy.

• How do you transcribe a qualitative interview?

To transcribe a qualitative interview, play the audio in small sections, pausing frequently to capture the exact words of the interviewee and interviewer. Include verbal nuances, hesitations, and filler words, as they may offer insights. Proofread the transcription to ensure completeness and accuracy, reflecting the natural flow of conversation.

• How to transcribe an interview in qualitative research?

Transcribing an interview in qualitative research requires converting spoken language from audio into written form. Start by playing the interview audio and carefully transcribing it verbatim, including pauses, repeated phrases, and non-verbal sounds. Researchers may also choose to omit filler words or irrelevant speech depending on the research purpose.

• How to transcribe audio to text for qualitative research?

To transcribe audio to text for qualitative research, first, play the audio and transcribe it word-for-word using either manual typing or transcription software. Make sure to capture every detail, including intonations and non-verbal cues like laughter. Once done, review the text for accuracy and format it according to your research needs.

• How to transcribe manually? 

Manual transcription involves listening to an audio recording and typing out the conversation or speech by hand. Use a word processor, and pause the audio frequently to ensure accuracy. It's a time-consuming but precise process, especially useful when you need to capture subtle details, emotions, or context in qualitative research.

Tools for creating automatic transcriptions

Now that you understand how to transcribe data in qualitative research, let's move on to some tools that can make this process easier. These tools save time and improve accuracy and consistency in the transcription process. 

1. Streamlining qualitative research with Looppanel

Looppanel is a state-of-the-art tool designed for transcribing interviews for qualitative research. The platform comes with a user-friendly interface and simplifies the qualitative research process. It offers a range of features that can significantly streamline your workflow, from interview scheduling to automatic transcription and analysis.

Pricing: Free, with paid plans starting at $30 Per month.

• Create your workspace

Open Looppanel and signup using your credentials. Create your workspace and add your team members (if any). 

• Conduct interviews

With Looppanel, you can conduct interviews directly through the platform. Just enter your meeting link on the top right corner of your workspace and hit “Start recording.”

The platform supports video calls and screen sharing, making it ideal for remote qualitative research. The platform also allows for real-time note-taking during the interview.

• Automatic transcription

Once your interview is complete, Looppanel's AI-powered transcription service goes to work. It quickly generates accurate transcripts of your interviews, saving you the time and effort of manual transcription.

• Transcript review and editing

After the automatic transcription is complete, you can review and edit the transcript directly in Looppanel. This allows you to correct any errors and add any additional context or notes.

• Collaboration and analysis

You can also highlight key quotes, add tags, and create clips from your interviews. These features make it easy to identify themes and patterns across multiple interviews.

• Exporting and sharing

Once you've completed your analysis, you can easily export your findings or share them with team members directly through Looppanel.

Looppanel's intuitive interface and comprehensive feature set make it a powerful tool for qualitative researchers looking to streamline their process from start to finish.

2. Dovetail

Dovetail is another robust platform that offers a suite of tools for qualitative researchers. It stands out for its focus on collaborative analysis and rich data visualization capabilities.

Pricing: $29 Per Month

• Import audio and video files with automatic, accurate transcription.
• Multiple team members can code and analyze transcripts collaboratively in real time.
• Organize data using hierarchical tags for detailed analysis.
• Automatically generate charts and graphs to spot patterns and trends.
• Export data in various formats or create interactive presentations directly from the platform.

3. Atlas.ti

Atlas.ti is a well-established name in qualitative data analysis software, known for its comprehensive feature set and robust analytical capabilities.

Pricing: License starting from $48 per 6 months.

Here's what Atlas.ti offers:

• Handles various data types, including text, audio, video, and social media.
• Supports transcription directly within the software, syncing with the original media.
• Offers advanced coding with codes, subcodes, and in-vivo coding for detailed analysis.
• Visualize relationships between codes, quotes, and memos using the network view.
• Use the query tool to combine codes and uncover deeper insights.
• Identify patterns with the co-occurrence explorer to find connections in your data.

How do you present qualitative data in a manuscript?

Presenting qualitative data effectively is key to a strong manuscript. Let's dive deeper into some strategies:

• Use clear headings

Organize your findings under clear, descriptive headings. This helps readers navigate your results easily. For example, use headings like "Participant Experiences" or "Emerging Themes" to guide your readers.

• Balance narrative and quotes

Blend your analysis with direct quotes from participants. A good rule of thumb is to use one or two quotes per main point. This brings your data to life and supports your interpretations.

• Provide context

Give enough background for readers to understand the significance of your data. This might include brief descriptions of participants or settings. For instance: "Sarah, a 45-year-old teacher with 20 years of experience, noted that..."

• Use tables and figures

Visual representations can help summarize complex information. A table showing themes and subthemes, or a diagram illustrating relationships between concepts, can be very effective.

• Maintain anonymity

Use pseudonyms or participant codes to protect identities. Be consistent throughout your manuscript. For example, you might use "P1, P2, P3" or choose fictional names.

Remember, your goal is to present a clear, compelling story about your findings that are grounded in your data.

How should data be represented?

To represent data effectively in qualitative research, use a combination of vivid descriptions, participant quotes, and organized visuals. Start by crafting detailed narratives that capture the context and emotions behind the data, making the findings relatable and engaging. Incorporate relevant quotes to bring participants’ voices into the analysis—using short quotes in-line and longer quotes as block text for emphasis. To enhance clarity, organize key findings into thematic tables or diagrams, helping readers quickly understand patterns and relationships across the data. This approach balances depth, participant authenticity, and structured insights.

How to analyze interview transcripts in qualitative research?

Analyzing interview transcripts is a crucial and often complex process. To analyze interview transcripts in qualitative research, start by reading through all transcripts to get a broad understanding of the data. Develop a coding scheme based on your research questions, using descriptive and interpretive codes. Apply these codes consistently across the data, then identify broader themes that connect different codes. Refine your codes and themes as needed, looking for patterns, relationships, and key insights. Lastly, interpret the data in the context of your research questions and existing theories, considering that qualitative analysis is an iterative process that may require revisiting earlier steps.

Summing up 

Transcribing interviews is a crucial step in qualitative research. It turns spoken words into written text, allowing for in-depth analysis. Good transcription captures not just what was said, but how it was said. This process involves listening carefully, typing accurately, and noting important non-verbal cues. Whether you're using manual methods or automatic tools, the goal is the same: to create a faithful record of the interview that serves your research needs.

• How do you write a verbatim in qualitative research?

A verbatim transcript in qualitative research captures every word, filler, and sound as spoken, without correcting grammar. Include non-verbal cues (e.g., laughter), phonetic spelling for unclear words, false starts, and time stamps. The goal is to preserve both content and delivery for accurate analysis.

• How do you format a research interview transcript?

For formatting, use a consistent structure with a header (date, participant code), line numbering, labeled speakers, and time stamps. Note non-verbal cues in brackets and use uniform fonts and spacing for easy readability.

• What contextual detail is necessary to interpret data?

When interpreting data, include participant details, interview setting, non-verbal cues, cultural factors, and the broader research context. This ensures a fuller, more accurate analysis.

• What is data transcription?

Data transcription is the process of converting audio or video recordings into written text. Qualitative research typically involves writing out interviews word-for-word. A good transcript captures not just the spoken words but also pauses, hesitations, tone of voice, and non-verbal sounds like laughter or sighs.

• Who should do the transcribing?

The choice of the transcriber depends on the project's needs, timeline, and resources. Researchers may choose to transcribe themselves for a nuanced understanding, though it's time-consuming. Research assistants can help save time, while professional services offer speed and precision but at a higher cost. Automated tools provide a budget-friendly option but often require additional editing.

• Why is accurate transcription crucial for qualitative research?

Accurate transcription is fundamental to qualitative research integrity. It ensures data stays true to the source, enabling reliable analysis and credible research findings. Good transcripts allow researchers to revisit and reanalyze data, providing a solid foundation for evolving research questions or methods.

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3.2.3. Research and Interview Tools and Techniques

Primary research tools.

This chart lists the four primary research tools including a brief description and the advantages and disadvantages of each tool.

Read a summary of the advantages and disadvantages of four primary research tools (interviews, focus groups, surveys and observation). Other useful resources on techniques for data collection include the following:  

• The SEEP Network's Technical Note, "An Inventory of BDS Market Assessment Methods for Programs Targeting Microenterprises" [2]
• The SEEP Network's "Building a Team for BDS Market Assessment and Key Issues to Consider When Starting BDS Market Assessment" [3]
• The ILO's "Guide to Market Assessment for BDS Program Design" [4]

Interviews should be conducted according to a well planned travel schedule. The number of interviews should be in the range of 3-4 stakeholders from each functional level (i.e., input supplier, producer, trader, processor, wholesaler, retailer, exporter and importer) in addition to 2-3 individuals from key informants, agencies and supporting market participants. Busy firm managers may be hesitant to take part in a survey, particularly if they have participated in numerous surveys in the past. It is important to state at the outset the approximate time the interview will take and to respect that timeframe. Below are additional guiding principles that interviewers should assess prior to initiating the interviews. Most guidelines are common sense items. It is the responsibility of team leaders to review these even with seasoned interviewers:

• Honesty: Be totally honest about who you are, who you work for and the purpose of the interview. Start each interview with a clear explanation of the research purpose, using terms that are understandable and meaningful to the informant.
• Deliberateness: Be deliberate about the way you speak to the informant. Never interrupt the informant. Speak clearly and establish a comfortable pace (which often means slowing down the way you would normally speak). Allow a space after the informant stops talking, in case he or she wants to elaborate. Never ask leading questions.
• Launching point: Begin each interview by establishing a common frame of reference between you and the informant so that the informant understands what kinds of information interest you. A value chain map can be very helpful for this because it immediately communicates that you are interested in learning about the value chain. It also allows the informant to understand where you think he or she fits in, and to correct you if you are wrong.
• Strategic ignorance: Make it very clear that you consider the informant to be the expert and that you consider yourself the learner. Conduct yourself as if you were the student of the informant, freely asking for clarification and examples.
• Triangulation: Do not accept one informant’s opinion at face value. Gather the same type of information from other informants—who may have a different experience or interpretation—before reaching any firm conclusions. As a general rule of thumb, you should hear something similar from at least three distinct sources before you accept it as more or less accurate.
• Privacy: Try to interview the informant where others can not listen in. Never share information about an informant’s business with other firm owners. Avoid bringing observers to an interview.
• Expand the net: At the end of the interview, ask if the informant can recommend others to be interviewed, but do not force the issue if the interviewee shows hesitancy.

Interview Question Guides

Semi-structured interview question guides are important as they help the analysis team to remain focused on the objectives of the analysis and to use the interview time efficiently, while allowing interviewees the opportunity to address unforeseen issues. Question guides are designed to reveal information about buyers and sellers, how they interact with each other, how they find and learn from each other, the trust levels that exist among them, who determines the qualifications of the product, conditions that facilitate transactions, the provision and use of embedded services and the linkages that exist between firms from the same functional levels. Question guides can also integrate questions related to gender roles and dynamics in value chains, such as how behaviors related to upgrading are different among men and women. Question guides need to help obtain chain participants’ perception of power dynamics and opportunities within the chain. The questions should be open-ended, allowing the informant to answer at their own pace, and preferably focused more on the positive aspects of the chain than on the problems. There are different methods to orient questions towards a positive tone rather than focusing on constraints, problems and why “things” do not work. One of these methods is referred to as appreciative inquiry. Nevertheless, questions developed must allow the informant to discuss chain-level constraints, bottlenecks or lack of incentives that prevent upgrading.

• ↑ Guide to Focus Group Discussions
• ↑ SEEP Network's Technical Note on market assessment methods
• ↑ http://www.seepnetwork.org/content/library/detail/553
• ↑   http://www.bdsknowledge.org/dyn/bds/docs/377/Guide%20to%20BDS%20MA%20for%20Program%20Design%20Miehlbradt.pdf

Related Resources

• Global Food Security Response: West Africa Rice Field Work Protocol
• Tanzania Country Study Interview Guidelines and Questionnaires

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Improving climate change and development programming

Fostering resilient democratic societies

Creating successful and effective education programs

Promoting gender equality and integration

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Methodology

Research Methods | Definitions, Types, Examples

Research methods are specific procedures for collecting and analyzing data. Developing your research methods is an integral part of your research design . When planning your methods, there are two key decisions you will make.

First, decide how you will collect data . Your methods depend on what type of data you need to answer your research question :

• Qualitative vs. quantitative : Will your data take the form of words or numbers?
• Primary vs. secondary : Will you collect original data yourself, or will you use data that has already been collected by someone else?
• Descriptive vs. experimental : Will you take measurements of something as it is, or will you perform an experiment?

Second, decide how you will analyze the data .

• For quantitative data, you can use statistical analysis methods to test relationships between variables.
• For qualitative data, you can use methods such as thematic analysis to interpret patterns and meanings in the data.

Table of contents

Methods for collecting data, examples of data collection methods, methods for analyzing data, examples of data analysis methods, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about research methods.

Data is the information that you collect for the purposes of answering your research question . The type of data you need depends on the aims of your research.

Qualitative vs. quantitative data

Your choice of qualitative or quantitative data collection depends on the type of knowledge you want to develop.

For questions about ideas, experiences and meanings, or to study something that can’t be described numerically, collect qualitative data .

If you want to develop a more mechanistic understanding of a topic, or your research involves hypothesis testing , collect quantitative data .

You can also take a mixed methods approach , where you use both qualitative and quantitative research methods.

Primary vs. secondary research

Primary research is any original data that you collect yourself for the purposes of answering your research question (e.g. through surveys , observations and experiments ). Secondary research is data that has already been collected by other researchers (e.g. in a government census or previous scientific studies).

If you are exploring a novel research question, you’ll probably need to collect primary data . But if you want to synthesize existing knowledge, analyze historical trends, or identify patterns on a large scale, secondary data might be a better choice.

Descriptive vs. experimental data

In descriptive research , you collect data about your study subject without intervening. The validity of your research will depend on your sampling method .

In experimental research , you systematically intervene in a process and measure the outcome. The validity of your research will depend on your experimental design .

To conduct an experiment, you need to be able to vary your independent variable , precisely measure your dependent variable, and control for confounding variables . If it’s practically and ethically possible, this method is the best choice for answering questions about cause and effect.

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Your data analysis methods will depend on the type of data you collect and how you prepare it for analysis.

Data can often be analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively. For example, survey responses could be analyzed qualitatively by studying the meanings of responses or quantitatively by studying the frequencies of responses.

Qualitative analysis methods

Qualitative analysis is used to understand words, ideas, and experiences. You can use it to interpret data that was collected:

• From open-ended surveys and interviews , literature reviews , case studies , ethnographies , and other sources that use text rather than numbers.
• Using non-probability sampling methods .

Qualitative analysis tends to be quite flexible and relies on the researcher’s judgement, so you have to reflect carefully on your choices and assumptions and be careful to avoid research bias .

Quantitative analysis methods

Quantitative analysis uses numbers and statistics to understand frequencies, averages and correlations (in descriptive studies) or cause-and-effect relationships (in experiments).

You can use quantitative analysis to interpret data that was collected either:

• During an experiment .
• Using probability sampling methods .

Because the data is collected and analyzed in a statistically valid way, the results of quantitative analysis can be easily standardized and shared among researchers.

If you want to know more about statistics , methodology , or research bias , make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples.

• Chi square test of independence
• Statistical power
• Descriptive statistics
• Degrees of freedom
• Pearson correlation
• Null hypothesis
• Double-blind study
• Case-control study
• Research ethics
• Data collection
• Hypothesis testing
• Structured interviews

Research bias

• Hawthorne effect
• Unconscious bias
• Recall bias
• Halo effect
• Self-serving bias
• Information bias

Quantitative research deals with numbers and statistics, while qualitative research deals with words and meanings.

Quantitative methods allow you to systematically measure variables and test hypotheses . Qualitative methods allow you to explore concepts and experiences in more detail.

In mixed methods research , you use both qualitative and quantitative data collection and analysis methods to answer your research question .

A sample is a subset of individuals from a larger population . Sampling means selecting the group that you will actually collect data from in your research. For example, if you are researching the opinions of students in your university, you could survey a sample of 100 students.

In statistics, sampling allows you to test a hypothesis about the characteristics of a population.

The research methods you use depend on the type of data you need to answer your research question .

• If you want to measure something or test a hypothesis , use quantitative methods . If you want to explore ideas, thoughts and meanings, use qualitative methods .
• If you want to analyze a large amount of readily-available data, use secondary data. If you want data specific to your purposes with control over how it is generated, collect primary data.
• If you want to establish cause-and-effect relationships between variables , use experimental methods. If you want to understand the characteristics of a research subject, use descriptive methods.

Methodology refers to the overarching strategy and rationale of your research project . It involves studying the methods used in your field and the theories or principles behind them, in order to develop an approach that matches your objectives.

Methods are the specific tools and procedures you use to collect and analyze data (for example, experiments, surveys , and statistical tests ).

In shorter scientific papers, where the aim is to report the findings of a specific study, you might simply describe what you did in a methods section .

In a longer or more complex research project, such as a thesis or dissertation , you will probably include a methodology section , where you explain your approach to answering the research questions and cite relevant sources to support your choice of methods.

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‘The challenges facing nurse education must be tackled’

STEVE FORD, EDITOR

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Online tools for qualitative research during the Covid-19 pandemic

30 May, 2022

The benefits and challenges of using a digital platform for qualitative research to explore the experiences of respiratory nurses during the Covid-19 pandemic

Covid-19 restrictions required qualitative researchers to interview participants online rather than in person. This approach was used to research the experiences of specialist respiratory nurses during the pandemic. The researcher explored the benefits and challenges of the online approach through a journal and participant feedback. The results suggest there is a continuing role for online data collection as part of qualitative research as a possible alternative to in-person interviews.

Citation: Murray B (2022) Online tools for qualitative research during the Covid-19 pandemic. Nursing Times [online]; 118: 6.

Author: Bridget Murray is programme director and nurse tutor, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, University of Medicine and Health Sciences, Dublin.

• This article has been double-blind peer reviewed
• Scroll down to read the article or download a print-friendly PDF here (if the PDF fails to fully download please try again using a different browser)

Introduction

Advances in communication technology offer new ways of carrying out qualitative research. Online interviews have come to the fore because of the Covid-19 pandemic, but literature on the use of video conferencing technology to collect online qualitative data is limited (Weller, 2015). To harness experiences of using online platforms for qualitative research during the pandemic, and support their future use, there is a need to appraise the ease of use of these technologies and any differences in the resultant communication style (Iacono et al, 2016).

To reflect on my personal experience of conducting qualitative interviews online for a research project on the experiences of specialist respiratory nurses during the pandemic, I kept a reflective journal. The entries gave me the opportunity to explore the complexity of using digital platforms, the benefits and challenges, and the significance of conducting online interviews.

Using a reflective journal gives qualitative researchers an opportunity to focus on the voice of participants, along with their thoughts and experiences of using a digital platform, while also recording the researcher’s own thoughts. A reflective journal is not only an important means of collecting data on participants in qualitative research, but also enables researchers to learn about themselves (Phelps, 2005).

Braun et al (2017) believed that online methods can add to, complement and even improve on traditional research, including in-person interviews. Researchers must acknowledge the potential of digital platforms to improve geographical reach and recruitment, but the rapid pace of development can make it hard to stay up to date with the latest digital research tools. As my study was conducted during the pandemic, use of a digital platform gave specialist respiratory nurses the opportunity to participate in the study when researchers’ in-person access to the clinical environment was not possible.

In total, 15 specialist respiratory nurses participated; one-to-one, semi-structured interviews were conducted online. Zoom, a digital communication platform, was chosen for the interviews, as it is widely used, including by hospitals, and allowed participants to join the interview session via an email link without creating an account.

Advantages of the digital platform, as well as limiting the risk of spreading Covid-19, were that it eliminated travel time and allowed me to interview nurses from my home office in their home or work environment at a time that was convenient to them. Some interviews were in the early morning or late evening, which would not have been possible if they had been conducted in person.

Participants found the digital platform user friendly and expressed how easy the log-in process was, despite some nurses experiencing technological glitches. I aimed to address any concerns at the start of each interview by familiarising participants with the platform. Problems, when they occurred, were mostly due to poor internet coverage, particularly in rural areas. Other challenges included participants becoming emotional because of the sensitivity of the topic; this was overcome by taking breaks and giving additional time to participants during the interview.

I did not directly seek participants’ views on using the online digital platform, but I did collect their unsolicited perspectives. An entry in my reflective journal outlined some of the experiences (Box 1).

Box 1. Researcher’s journal: participants’ experiences of using the digital platform

“ I noted that a number of participants find it very easy and relaxing using [the] digital platform from the comfort of their homes and commented on how user friendly it was. However, I did have two participants where I had to ask them to phone me, and I had to instruct them step by step on how to log on to the digital platform, which took up time and I had to be aware of my manner and tone. I also did a trial run with one participant as she was anxious and did not want issues on the schedule [d] day of the interview. ”

Technology considerations

When deciding which online platform to use, I explored the following:

• What are the easiest technologies to use?
• Will they result in differences in, or require different ways of, communicating?
• Will they replicate the features of in-person interviews?
• Do they allow the researcher and participants to transmit and respond to verbal and non-verbal cues?

Iacono et al (2016) acknowledged that researchers can experience fears and concern when using Skype as a tool for qualitative research interviews.

When conducting online interviews, researchers have to learn new ways to build trust and motivate participants to contribute (Salmons, 2014). I recognised that some participants would have preferred being interviewed in person because they lacked interest and confidence in using digital technologies. I accommodated these participants by conducting a trial run with the technology; as this was a lesson in how to use the equipment, the research was not discussed. This was time-consuming for me, but it increased participant confidence and helped build rapport so, when it came to the actual interview, participants were relaxed and comfortable enough to take part.

Online interviews, while providing some advantages over in-person interviews, also presented challenges, about which I pondered as a researcher.

Box 2 shows my first impressions of using an online platform to interview a study participant.

Box 2. Researcher’s journal: first impressions of online interviews

“ It went well, the technology platform worked! The respiratory nurse specialist participant seemed relaxed (we were both laughing saying goodbye), I think taking those 10 minutes before the interview to have a chat about the weather really helped to build rapport with participant [...] especially if there was a technology problem. To have a glass of water and tissues near you also helped. I remember her comment: ‘Now you’re not going to make me cry.’ I did notice that, once I started recording, the body language slightly changed but, as the interview continued, the participant became more relaxed. It’s interesting [what] the use of a name [can do] . I felt when the respiratory nurse specialist participant used my name in the interview, discussion became more powerful between us. ”

Building rapport

Whether a face-to-face interview is in person or online, participants may start off being conscious that it is being recorded. However, as the interview progresses, they often begin to relax and engage more until they almost forget that it is being recorded. The objective of the qualitative researcher is to access participants’ thoughts, feelings and experiences; when participants begin to refer to the researcher by name, it means a familiarity is starting to be established and part of that objective is being achieved. Facilitating engagement and building trust is important to promote a natural and relaxed conversation.

Building rapport with an interviewee is important and, to help with this, I told participants there would be time to chat before and after the interview. Researchers need to be able to respond to non-verbal cues, such as facial expressions and gestures; Archibald et al (2019) suggested that online face-to-face interviews could yield rich data in this respect.

In-person interviews allow you to stay close to participants’ data and events experienced by them by picking up non-verbal cues and signs of emotion, and recognising the value of silence. As you seek to build rapport, you need to be prepared to talk less and listen more, handle difficult emotions, consider cultural and power dimensions and forge critical relationships with participants (Sandelowski, 2000). My experience is that this is the same when interviewing online. I was able to monitor and respond to participants’ facial and body signals, such as furrowing their brow when unsure and using hand movements when explaining a point.

Understanding the notion of researcher identity is a crucial aspect of transitioning from an established professional role to that of researcher. Interpretations of researcher identity relate to a set of underlying conceptual dimensions and theoretical stances, including transitioning among identities, balancing identity continuity and change, and personal identity development through time (Castelló et al, 2021). To form an identity as a nurse researcher you still need to recognise yourself as being a nurse. As a nurse interviewing other nurses, I have some understanding of the participant’s experience as a nurse and can relate to it. Introducing myself as a nurse researcher, and revealing my true self and environment, helped me to develop a rapport with participants (Box 3).

Box 3. Researcher’s journal: creating rapport

“ When building rapport with the respiratory nurse specialist participants, and from reading the literature, I knew I had to set the scene, make sure that they felt comfortable, and inform them they could take a break anytime as technology can be draining. I was conscious of my tone and facial expression.

“To my surprise, building rapport was letting the participants see the researcher and see the researcher in her environment (no false background on the screen) so, there was not a sense of ‘evilness’/power (the researcher is not in her ivory tower). What do I mean by this? I think one of my participants summed it up at the end of the interview when she commented on my background [on the screen] and that it was not a false background, it was where I was working from. She commented on the toy tractor and asked if this was my home, and thanked me for conducting the interview from my home. On another occasion, I only realised how many times one respiratory nurse specialist participant used my name in the middle of the interview while I was transcribing. I feel this also help participants build rapport and familiarity. ”

Potential challenges

The benefits of interviewing participants online outweighed any technological challenges, not least by making the study possible in the pandemic. However, there are some points that can be considered to help put participants at ease with the process:

• Check equipment is working before the interview;
• Have a back-up plan to deal with any technological issues;
• Schedule online interviews at a time convenient for the participant;
• Conduct a trial run, especially if participants are unfamiliar with the digital platform;
• Remember, it is OK to have pauses and silences during the interview that are not attributable to technical issues;
• Consider making time to chat before and after the interview.

Box 4 shows my reflections on the issues that arose and were connected to carrying out interviews online.

Box 4. Researcher's journal: internet issues

“ There is such a difference in internet connection quality between urban and rural areas, and I certainly didn’t think about that too much until I started conducting interviews. For example, one participant agreed to be part of the study but emailed me to see if we could schedule the interview early morning or late at night when [their] internet [connection] is better. Another participant moved to a different room due to poor internet [connection] and was in her place of work. This makes me think, if the interviews were face-to-face, in person, would we have to move room? On reflection, this could be seen as a challenge of interviews online, where [the] flow of conversation could have been disturbed.

“I don’t feel that the internet platform excluded respiratory nurse specialist participation, but it may have been something on their mind that I hadn’t considered before .”

Difficulty keeping up with rapid developments in digital platforms means their potential utility as research tools may go underrecognised and underutilised. The main advantage is, however, the flexibility they can offer for participants.

Reflective journal

As a reflective practitioner, keeping a reflective journal throughout the process was not unusual or undesired. I did this not only at structured times – such as, after each interview – but also when ideas, questions or thoughts about the research process crossed my mind, usually after a walk or during self-care time. Keeping a reflective journal can be challenging, but it allowed me to commit to paper unstructured thinking and delve more deeply into areas of interest or concern, as well as noting interview experiences that would not have happened in person (Box 5).

Box 5. Researcher’s journal: online-only experiences

“ One participant had a clock chiming in the background every 15 minutes, and it was kind of distracting for me, but the participant didn’t seem to notice. A participant emailed me prior to the interview letting me know she was wearing her uniform to look as professional as possible on the digital platform. Another participant had a dog in the room with her and she apologised for the dog barking, telling me before we started the interview that she would use a headset when the interview was being recorded and that she may need to let the dog out during the interview. The dog was so good and didn’t make a sound when the interview was happening. My thoughts at the time were: ‘This would only happen on a digital platform; if you were conducting the interviews in person, there definitely wouldn’t be a dog in the room’. On the plus side, it helps build rapport with that participant before the interview. ”

Given the remote locations of some participants, and differences between rural and urban internet capabilities, the digital platform worked well. Taking time to address participants’ concerns, and to help them feel relaxed and at ease with the process, undoubtedly helped. The reflective journal revealed to me the importance of:

• Building in time to chat before and after the interview;
• Preparing (but not influencing) participants with a trial run, if needed, IT help and general preparation;
• Recognising that pauses and breaks are a normal part of online interviews.

Using a digital platform allowed me to carry out qualitative research into specialist respiratory nurses’ experiences during the Covid-19 pandemic. Having reflected on the benefits and challenges of the approach, researchers should consider rethinking their interview approach and embrace digital, alongside in-person, data collection.

• Digital platforms were crucial in enabling qualitative research into nurses’ experiences during the Covid-19 pandemic
• The researcher’s reflective diary gave insights into the benefits and challenges of online interviews
• Methods of building trust and motivating people online, rather than in person, may differ, but a strong rapport can still be established between the researcher and participant
• The online format used had the advantage of being more convenient for participants, although some people experienced technical issues
• Qualitative nurse researchers should consider embracing digital data collection alongside in-person approaches in future projects

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