Interviews

 

"Susan listened carefully to my thoughts and goals for the data to be gathered, did a first-rate job of coordinating and working with others to ensure that high quality data were collected, and handled the raw data in such a way as to ensure that the information developed was valid and reliable. The work we did together was extremely informative. The information confirmed some of my hypotheses while raising other important questions and lines of inquiry."  --David Nowels, MD, MPH, University of Colorado at Denver and the Health Sciences Center

The Interview

The major advantage of the interview is the opportunity it affords to make meaning of a person's responses. Not only can responses be documented, but associated explanations, reactions, feelings, and insights can also be evoked through the open-ended interview process. 

On their own, interviews offer a valid, versatile method for collecting in-depth, meaningful information. But interviews can also be used to augment surveys when survey results beg for explanation. Interviews are generally conducted in multiples for qualitative studies depending on the variability of anticipated responses and the number of topics to be covered.

 

Deep Listening 

The goal of the interview is to produce findings that are genuine, complex, vivid and insightful. That usually doesn't happen by itself.

I meet interviewees in a location convenient for them and work to establish a comfortable interview relationship upfront. Before beginning, I clarify the purpose of the interview, let the interviewee know they do not have to answer questions beyond their comfort zone, guarantee confidentiality to the extent I can, tell them how many others I plan to interview, explain how I will disguise a comment that would reveal their identity, and broadly explain what the findings will be used for. I also give them my contact information and encourage to contact me if they have anything to add later.

My approach is to allow thoughts and ideas to emerge naturally from the interview. Rather than coaxing a respondent to answer questions from a presumed list of answers floating around in my head, I encourage them to share their personal situations and examples, often uncovering information and reflections I could not anticipate. To allow interviewees such latitude, I listen intently and continually sift responses for places I can probe further or gently redirect. 

The richness of any interview comes from descriptive detailed responses.  To delve more deeply with a respondent I follow up a response with, "Tell me more about that," "Can you give me an example?" or "Take me through that step by step." I ask for lots of details and explanations, constantly on the look out for what might be unique about an individual's situation and equally alert for areas of commonality or continuity with others in similar circumstances.

 

An Example 

Here is an example of a study I conducted using in-depth interviews. See more examples of interview work I've done.

Specialized Day Care for Children Born with Disabilities, A Study Conducted for Children's Hospital in Denver

• Study Participants: Parents of children born with disabilities

• Use: Measure outcomes of a transitional day program for severely disabled children

KidStreet is a community-based day center associated with Children's Hospital in Denver that was designed to transition children born with complex medical needs from the hospital setting into the home and community.  Because these children are commonly dependent on medical technology that requires specialized nursing, therapies, and rehabilitative care, a multidisciplinary team of nurses, occupational therapists, physical therapists and speech therapists work together to maximize each child’s potential while at the same time equipping family members with the confidence and knowledge to care for their child at home. As part of a comprehensive evaluation, I conducted interviews with 25 parents of KidStreet children to help KidStreet measure their effectiveness from the parents point of view.