Conducting Interviews

1. Conducting Interviews Nicole Richardson

2. Why is Interviewing important? • Interviewing is an important strategy that is overlooked in elementary and high school. • The first interview that I conducted was during my graduate work and it proved to be a learning experience. • I had interviewed a principal about their literacy program. He had no idea how to respond to my questions and I in turn had no idea what he was talking about. This was not a good example of interviewing. • One classmate had this to say about interviews, “I had been developing interview questions all wrong! Developing interview questions is not a simple one time process.”

3. Be Creative! • In the article, “Making Words Fly,” Glense explained that research questions need to focus on, “creativity and insight, rather than a mechanical translation of the research questions into an interview guide.” • Our research questions should not lead participants to respond in a certain way. • The first time that I interviewed, there was a lot of silence instead of talking. Therefore, I abandoned important questions for the sake of the awkwardness and didn’t benefit from the experience. • Research questions should not be written as a yes or no question but rather be phrased more open ended to avoid future debacles like my first experience.

4. How to be successful • Interview questions need to evolve over the course of an interview. • Glense states, “…you should think of questions tentatively, so you are disposed to modify, abandon them, or replace them with others…” • By modifying questions an interview will resemble an informal conversation between the participant and interviewer. • These tips would have been helpful when I conducted my first interview and are important to teach students so they can be successful at this skill from their very first interview. I never took the time to get to know my respondent and didn’t allow for it in my questioning.

5. Practice Makes Perfect • It is beneficial to draft questions and practice them with peers. • By debriefing, the interviewer can make changes before the formal interview. • We practice for a job interview so why not do the same for our research!

6. Power Of Interviewing • Glense states, "The opportunity to learn about what you cannot see and to explore alternative explanations of what you do see is the special strength of interviewing in qualitative inquiry.” • Interviewing is way of triangulating data and supporting the literature associated to your topic. • Interviewing provides research with the viewpoints of professionals that may not have otherwise been accounted for in scholarly articles.

7. Making the Most of an Interview • Set up an interview at a time that is convenient for the participant and yourself. • I have found that interviewing over video chat is convenient and can be easily saved to the computer for future reference. • You can provide research questions prior to the interview so the respondent can prepare to answer them. • If permitted, use video or audio tapes to record responses. • Glense recommends to keep an account for every interviewee that focuses on old questions, observations, and contact information for the future.

8. Interviews in the classroom • Have students in elementary school practice interviewing their peers at the beginning of the year as a community building activity. • In “Making Words Fly,” it is suggested to interview in groups so there are multiple responses to questions. This is a great technique for early interviewers to get their feet wet with interviewing! • Students can also practice writing questions when guest speakers visit the school or the students go on a field trip. • Scaffold question writing! It takes time to perfect questions.