Chapter 9: Person to Person Information Exchange §

Developing an Unstructured Guide §

Lofland and Lofland: Unstructured Interviews must be carefully thought out also.

Step 1: puzzlement phase articulate all the things about the research topic that are puzzling.

• Ask others what they find puzzling about the topic
• Consult books or articles about the topic

Step 2: assemble a general outline as a sequence of questions

• Place probes: questions for respondent to think more critically provide more details from the last question

Weiss: questions should be developed during the interview

Step 1: Keep respondents focused on concrete observations

Step 2: Ask about recent events

Step 3: Keep checking and asking for details

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Create a warm and supportive ‘talk’ environment by

• Being an active listener
• Handle respondent silences well

Active Listening in Research Data Collection §

• Active listening is for these reasons:
  • Show interviewer are indeed listening to everything
  • Give respondent chance to correct misunderstandings
    • Respondents and researchers can have historical, cultural, political, and philosophical differences
  • Can also be used to clarify respondent’s answers
  • Can be used to keep respondents focused
• Active listening is done by supplying:
  • verbal mirror: To repeat the respondent’s long answer into a concise statement confirming their meaning.
  • Probing: ask for further elaboration.

Silences §

You should never interrupt a respondent’s silence

Moments of silence in an interview should be appreciated as instances of thoughtful punctuation

Researchers should note down $\left\{\genfrac{}{}{0ex}{}{\text{reason}}{\text{length}}\right\}$ of silences

• Can be used to reference or better navigate sensitive matters
• Can be used as data to be analyzed

Interrupting silence could lose important information respondents might have said

• Respondents might feel its unimportant to say
• Respondents might have provided more details or moved to a new topic