We have a long way to go when it comes to interviewing qualitative researchers. In a blog post for us at the Qualitative Research Society, Susan C. Sabin, PhD, explains the challenges and ways the Society is making progress with interview questions related to qualitative research. Read it here.
Qualitative researchers use some tools called “semantic interviews,” which are designed to elicit information about the topic of interest, and then ask questions about the responses. These interviews can be used to gather rich data about the topic. They are also good ways to understand and validate the research question being asked.
This is a great way to get feedback from people who are interested and feel very comfortable in a study.
As you can see from the list, the question is pretty structured. We didn’t want to use the word “structured” to describe the word “question” because it can also mean something like “dismissed” or “refused to participate in the research.” We wanted to avoid making it sound like we were asking “are you interested?” because that would feel like the researchers were trying to avoid a conversation.
With semi structured questions, you need to know how the researcher is going to use questions to get at what you need to know. We wanted to avoid the feeling that we were forcing the participants to say something.
So to answer that question in the least we can do is to give the researcher a chance to answer it when they’re ready. If you ask a question, they’ll probably give you a list of questions they want to ask you. At the end of the interview, ask the researcher a few questions from time to time, and then ask the researcher a few questions on your responses.
We need to use more of your time to get really good at this type of research. Even if you’ve never worked in a real-life environment, you’re working with a real-life scenario and you have some idea of how they got there. If they get the idea wrong, they’ll need a quick shot to discover the answer. But if they do, the interviewer will need to run through everything they’ve been doing to look at the questions as they’ve already answered them.
I see this as a good way for someone to build rapport with the research participant. I’ve been doing this as a qualitative researcher for a while. The good thing about this is that it gives you a great opportunity to ask the interviewee a few quick questions and get a quick read on what they’ve been thinking and feeling in that interview before running the interview with them. It’s a great opportunity to ask questions that are semi-structured.
This would be a good one to use as a semi structured interview. I think this is a good way to add more information to your research, and to show what they’ve been thinking and feeling about the interview.
Good question is that you have to interview the interviewee first and then ask them a few questions about the interview. If there’s a lot of interview questions to get answers to, then this would be a good way to get the answers they want out of the interview so that it can be easier for them to see what’s going on.
