Title: Introduction to interviewing
Course: EDPS0009: Researching Education and Society: Qualitative Methods 2020/2021 > Section: 3. Interviews

Take a moment to reflect.

When you think about interviews, what comes to mind?

In general terms, interviews are conversations between two people, where one will ask questions and the other one will provide answers. This is the case with news interviews on the media as well as with job interviews or research interviews.

However, matters are not as simple as that.

We all have watched interviews, where the conversation is less smooth, and where the questions and answers do not quite match up. Of course, in political interviews or in job interview situations, this may well be intentional, but the issue of differences between questions and answers is something to be considered within the research interview, too.

Have a look at the following activity that highlights some of the characteristics a good interviewer needs...

Having read through these characteristics, reflect on your experience with conversations, which of these character traits you may bring already, and which ones you may still need to develop.

How would you open an interview?

What would you do if your conversation started to move off-topic?