Informant interviews II

1. Informant interviews II

2. Learning Objectives • describe the characteristics of a good informant, how to locate and select such • recount the behavioral stages of an interview and pitfall in the process • list various ways of recording and managing information from interviews • conduct an interview in class

3. Exercise #2: Direct Observation Student experiences?

4. Open ended interviewing • Most critical aspect of qualitative research in learning about a domain/culture/perceptions • hard to do especially for clinical people who are used to structured interviews • hard for most public health people since they are used to material they can quantify • prepare a fieldguide, with 5-6 questions, some probes, one page MAX

6. Disclosure statement

7. Telephone interview • people often more comfortable talking on the phone • can record this if ask permission

8. Behavioral stages of an interview • physical set up is critical, try not to directly face the informant, but sit to the side & below • quiet place with no distractions • Greetings • explanations, project confidentiality statement • Consider a different term than interview: • having a conversation, talk, …

9. RAPPORT PROCESS • Apprehension: get informant talking • Exploration • make repeated explanations (your purpose is, to learn about their ideas) • restate what informants say (in their words, don’t reinterpret) • Affinity Respect Trust ART

10. Rapport • Don’t ask for meaning, ask for use, • Cooperation: how to deal with someone who drags on and on in an interview? • Encourage by telling what they say is appreciated

11. psychoneurolinguistics

12. native language • speak as you would naturally • "cool"

13. During interview • Express cultural ignorance • “I’m like a small child, I need to be told everything” • Express interest • “gee, that’s interesting” • Try to use local expressions • (if don't use them correctly, will be less effective, possibly laughed at)

14. Closing comments, desire to meet again, thank you • is there anything else you would like to share with me?

15. one+ question each group plans to ask in their interview. put questions up on the boards comment as a group on how to make the question more broad, less leading. CLASS EXERCISE

16. Working in another language • Fieldworker using a non-native language may miss what is said • Difficulty capturing verbatim flow of dialogue even when understood • Work with local assistant to help you understand what people are saying • Usually write field notes in your own language • include key non-English words to preserve local meanings

17. BIASING EFFECTS • not a term used by anthropologist • in epidemiology, bias is a deviation of results or inferences from the truth • Response effect (variation among informants) • Inter-interviewer variability effect • tall / short or obese / slim or male / female • tone of voice

18. Experience effect • If you think you are experienced in the culture, you tend to not to ask basic questions • I'm like a child, I need to be told everything • University Police • Alternative Medicine • Blood Donors • Big Time Studiers • Elevator Riders • Thomas Pynchon

19. Deference effect • They tell you what they think you want to know • in some cultures won't say NO • Informant deliberately try to mislead researcher/interviewer (sucker bias)

20. Expectancy effect: interpret things consistent with your pre-conceived concepts of social patterns Big Time Brewery Study Hall Progress in Developing Countries Determinants of Health University Police Colonics Blood Donors Elevator Riders Trader Joe's shoppers Madison Market shoppers

21. Distortion effect • You'll see what you want to see even when it's not there • Newar women pierce noses • Make notes on what you were doing before the interview/observation • might effect what you observe or hear or way you interact if you just got a speeding ticket, or had a fight with your partner, or visit with the boss

22. Recall • You forget, especially what you don’t write down

23. Writing Up Field Notes

24. Context • Describe setting (environment) • Describe informant(s) • Technique of data collection

25. Describing informant • Vague and over generalized note: • The informant was uneasy. • Detailed: At first the lady sat very stiffly on the chair next to my desk. She picked up a magazine and let the pages flutter through her fingers very quickly without really looking at any of the pages. She set the magazine down, looked at her watch, pulled her skirt down, and picked up the magazine again. Her eyes turned from me to the magazine to the other people in the room. She avoided eye contact.

26. Encounter • What happened, what was said • Details of behavior

27. Evaluate encounter • Emerging ideas about how culture is organized • Possible biasing effects and other threats to validity • Assess method used and lessons learned

28. Quotes with / without audio recording • If you don’t record, how close is close enough to the verbatim to be a quote? • SUGGEST write quotation marks around the exact words said, and then otherwise indicate the content of the missed material (say use brackets, also …) • "nice being there, hard being back… but it gets old… keep myself busy, sit around…grew up in Los Angeles, used to it, eventually I have hunger for the speed of a big city, getting things done"

29. Indirect quotation • Speech not written down word for word at the time could be presented as 'indirect quotation" which more closely approximates dialogue • ‘hypothesis I want to test is the foundation for a longer study but this is less costly and will allow me to test the material’ • 'pair bonded couples, married, male/female, reproductive hormone levels coordinating, a new idea' • 'at a party, wife was in bedroom feeding Elsa, a friend walked in and was freaked out seeing his wife's breasts…don't understand what the big deal is, my wife is from Sweden, it's the norm public breast feeding is normal'

30. Speech can be paraphrased • translates speech into the interviewer’s terms and tends to summarize, obscuring the flavor of the dialogue • Elsa Margaret is four months old, our first child, a new experience for us, really neat to see her develop, feisty, she knows what she wants, she will be an interesting teenager

31. Be very conservative in editing direct quotations, • also makes you more alert to presenting informant’s views, and not your own

32. Managing Field Notes • Emerson helpful here

33. NOTEBOOKS • dairies, composition notebooks, logs • CARDS • audio recorder, not a substitute

34. Transcribe everything (audio recording) • include false starts, umm, aah, pauses, repetitions (disfluencies) for this conveys speaker’s emotional state or mood, which may be important to the subject • at same time, need to make the material readable • need for balance

35. Number paragraphs in write up • Legal numbering system useful • 2.4.6.23 • Means 2nd interviewer, • 4th informant (subject), • 6th interview, • 23rd paragraph

37. Dialogue includes information on verbal and nonverbal expression • Can't be done from an audio tape and in a video tape depends on cameraperson • record meanings inferred from body expression, tone of voice • turns towards me crosses legs, arms crossed in front of him • face less smiley, eyes closed • eyes opens, closes eyes (victim of political violence) • eyes opened, face softens • looked up at ceiling • in group settings they talk together

38. Pitfalls in interviewing • Interruptions • especially telephone and cellular phone

39. Distractions • Time scheduled right afterwards by interviewer or informant

40. Stage fright

41. Being judgmental

42. Dealing with someone who drags on • look them directly in the eye • look at your watch?

43. Reflect back to them what you have heard, regarding the area of interest, with their quotes

44. Sensitive questions • asking if married, instead ask who is in the household • my experience in ER is everyone has a fiancé • asking about salary, savings, resources, economics • poor people may be less sensitive about this than those more well off • ask how well off they perceive they are • ask about quantitative ranges may be easier

45. Counseling • avoid giving advice, or stating your own feelings on a topic, be neutral

46. Shallowness • often because interviewer moves participant along too quickly

47. Secret information • don’t violate confidentiality, nor use information an informant asked you not to

48. Audio recorder • takes 6-7 times the amount of time of interview, cf 3 times the amount of time of interview if use notes, • hand-held, battery-operated, often comes with built in microphone, but get kind with external microphone jack • buy one now, and get used to using it

49. Audio recording • Optimal: combine the two, • take notes & use recorder for items missed • small cassette tape recorder, with external mic jack is cheapest (<$50), a back up unit is wise • check operation before you begin • Digitial recorders to media (no tape): • Olympus VN 480 PC • Marantz PMD 660 (Compact Flash Card) • business dictation machine, some models put a tone on the tape to allow quick access during rewind or fast forward, (indexing)

50. Helpful hints • have spare batteries around, use fresh ones, try to avoid units that only run on rechargeable batteries if you will be in remote non-electrified places • carry a spare battery pack • NiMH AA rechargeable batteries quite reliable now • use long enough tapes so you don’t have to change them half-way • most advise against C 120 tapes, but I use them • clean the recording head before use