I have come to think of the interview as a primary means of gathering qualitative data. That said, I have not done nearly enough in taking advantage of everything interviews offer - recording my observations during and after conducting them in person, and tracking non-verbals both in in-person and telephone interviews. So, I was struck by the discussion in Kathryn Roulston's book "Reflective interviewing: A guide to theory and practice" (Sage) offering research examples which question use of interviews. What I took away from Roulston's discussion was that observational methods are sometimes considered better sources by these researchers. I located one of her references from this section (Porter & Hepburn, 2005, from issue 4, volume 2 of "Qualitative Research in Psychology," as well as a commentary article from the same issue) although I have not yet the chance to review it in detail (look for my thoughts in a later post).
One area where I see the interview as critical is in phenomenological exploration because what I observe and report as the researcher, will be based on my perceptions/interpretations so may totally miss the mark of what the participant or co-researcher perceives as the essence of his/her lived experience. I also used interviews as the sole data collection method in retrospective research and, again, there were no viable alternatives I could come up with. I understand the concerns about data from semi- or unstructured interviews - some of which are probably the same concerns as data from survey research or structured interviews such as: people lying, people trying to tell you what they think you want to hear, people answering thoughtlessly, people concerned about the social desirability of their responses. There is also the chance that interviewers will misinterpret or misunderstand, and may ask inappropriate follow up questions. These errors, I believe, are exacerbated when interviewers do not do their own transcribing. Interviewer transcription, for all of its many difficulties, is increasingly becoming something I see as a critical part of the interview process. Most people who I've spoken to about transcription mention how much time it takes. Frankly, I have heard the barrier 'no time' applied to so many things that I am starting to wonder what we are doing with the massive amounts of time we save by not doing the many things we have 'no time' to do! So, can phenomenological research be conducted without interviews? All I can think of is having the fortunate circumstance of observing someone talking about the experiences you are interested in although you are still going to be limited in not being able to probe. What other examples are there?
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AuthorI am Sheryl L. Chatfield, Ph.D, C.T.R.S. I am a member of the faculty in the College of Public Health at Kent State University. I also Co-coordinate the Graduate Certificate in Qualitative Research and I am a member of the Design Innovation Team at Kent State. Archives
February 2024
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