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Tips For Conducting Interviews: Planning For The Interview

The document provides tips for conducting effective interviews, including planning the interview, developing questions, recruiting interviewees, conducting the interview, and following up after the interview. The tips address determining the interview format, developing open-ended questions, explaining the purpose and format to interviewees, probing for complete responses, and analyzing the interview information.

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54 views4 pages

Tips For Conducting Interviews: Planning For The Interview

The document provides tips for conducting effective interviews, including planning the interview, developing questions, recruiting interviewees, conducting the interview, and following up after the interview. The tips address determining the interview format, developing open-ended questions, explaining the purpose and format to interviewees, probing for complete responses, and analyzing the interview information.

Uploaded by

hazemtarek
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Module

Tips for Conducting Interviews

Interviews are a means to gather in-depth information around a topic. They are
particularly useful for obtaining multiple points of view, interpretations of events, and
the story behind participants’ experiences. The questions you ask shape the depth and
breadth of the responses. The responses given become the basis for detailed descriptions
of a situation, event, system, or process.

Planning for the Interview

The planning you do prior to interviewing strongly influences how useful the interviews
will be in answering your inquiry questions. The items listed below address the purpose
and format of the interview, as well as logistical issues.
1. Clearly articulate the purpose of the interview and what inquiry issue/question is to
be addressed from the information gathered.
2. Determine the interview format. Interviews can range from informal interviews to
very structured interviews.
• Informal, conversational interview – This form of interview often
occurs within the context of the event under discussion. The interviewer and
interviewee are responding to the context so no predetermined questions are
asked. The intent is to remain as open and adaptable as possible to the
interviewee’s priorities. During the interview, the interviewer “goes with the
flow.”
• General interview guide approach – Using an interview guide ensures
that the same general areas of information are collected from each interviewee
but the same questions might not be asked of each interviewee. This approach
is more focused than the conversational approach, but still allows a degree of
freedom and adaptability in getting information from the interviewee.
• Standardized, open-ended interview – The same open-ended questions
are asked of all interviewees. Respondents are free to choose how to answer
the questions, (i.e. they don’t select “yes” or “no” or provide a numeric rating,
etc.). This approach facilitates faster interviews that can be more easily
analyzed and compared than the less structured interview approaches.
• Closed, fixed-response interview – All interviewees are asked the same
questions and asked to choose answers from among the same set of
alternatives. This format does not allow for the depth of information being

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sought in qualitative interviews. Consider whether responses to these types of
questions can be obtained more easily in a questionnaire.
3. Develop the interview questions. The types of questions you ask are related to the
purpose of your inquiry. Depending upon your purpose you might ask questions
related to what the interviewee has done or is doing in a situation, what he/she
knows, thinks, and/or feels about a topic, and what he/she has observed and heard.
Include background questions such as age, gender, education, length of time
teaching, etc. as appropriate to your inquiry. Develop questions that are:
• Open-ended. Open-ended questions allow interviewees to choose how to
respond and to use their own terms to describe situations.
• Neutral. Use neutral terms and avoid wording that might influence
responses (e.g., evocative or judgmental wording).
• Clear. Word your question clearly and succinctly. Be clear on terms that are
particular to a program or situation.
• Individual. Do not combine multiple issues into one question. Develop a
question to address each issue.
Order your questions in a way that engages the interviewee quickly. Begin with
some fact-based questions before including questions about matters that might be
controversial. Do not include a long list of fact-based questions. Include questions
about the present before asking about the past or future, as it usually it is easier for
people to respond to questions about the present. Include a final question that
allows respondents to provide any other information they prefer to add and their
impressions of the interview.
Ask others, possibly other CLIP members, to review the questions to ensure that the
questions are clear and will obtain the information needed to answer the inquiry
question.
4. Choose an interview location that is convenient and comfortable for the
interviewees and that has few distractions.
5. Acquire and test out your audio recording equipment, including extra batteries and
tapes. If recording is not possible, consider having another person with you to take
detailed notes.

Recruiting Interviewees

Send a written invitation by letter or email with an RSVP. Personalize the invitations
and explain the purpose of the interview and why you want his/her opinions. Specify the
place, date and time, including the length of the interview. Attempt to limit the
interview to no more than one hour.

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Make follow-up phone calls to confirm the time and location and inquire about special
needs (e.g., handicap access) Consider sending a reminder email the day before the
interview.

Conducting the Interview

1. Ensure that the interviewee is comfortable.


2. Explain the purpose of the interview.
3. Explain that participation in the interview is voluntary and that the interviewee’s
privacy will be protected.
4. Explain the format of the interview and how long you expect it to take.
5. Ask if the interviewee has any questions before beginning the interview.
6. Ask for permission to record the interview. Periodically verify that the tape recorder
is working.
7. Begin asking your interview questions, one question at a time. Although you are
following a list of interview questions, you should probe and inquire further when
responses are not clear or sufficiently complete. Indicate that you want detailed
responses. You might ask, “Can you walk me through it?” or “What happened next?”
“Could you give me an example?” or simply, “Please tell me more.” If the
interviewee reacts non-verbally to some question, ask about this so that you are
clear on what he/she is attempting to communicate.
8. Encourage responses with occasional nods of the head, “uh-huh’s, etc. but remain as
neutral as possible. Don’t show strong emotional reactions to their responses.
9. Be careful when you are taking notes. If you jump to take a note, it may appear as if
you’re surprised or very pleased about an answer, which may influence answers to
future questions.
10. Provide transition between major topics, for example, “we’ve been talking about
(some topic) and now I’d like to move on to (another topic).”
11. Redirect the interviewee if he/she begins to stray to another topic, provides too
lengthy a response, or begins asking you questions.
12. At the conclusion of the interview, thank the interviewee and tell them how they can
get in touch with you later if they want to.

Following the Interview

1. Verify that the tape recorder worked throughout the interview,

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2. Write down any observations about the interviewee or interview. For example,
where did the interview occur and when, was the respondent particularly animated
at any time? Were there any surprises during the interview? Did the tape recorder
break?
3. Clarify your written notes to make sense of any illegible notes and fill out any
comments that are not clear.
4. Arrange to have your interview tape transcribed.

Analyzing Information from the Interview


See documents entitled “Tips for Analyzing Qualitative Data” and “Activity Illustrating
Analysis and Interpretation of Interview Data” in Module 5 for information on how to
analyze the information from your interviews.

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