Qualitative Interview Method
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Qualitative interviewing:
“The term qualitative interview is often used to capture the different types of interview that are used in qualitative research. Such interviews tend to be far less structured than the kind of interview associated with survey research.” (Alan Bryman & Emma Bell, 2007, p 472)
“The individual interview is a valuable method of gaining insight into peoples perceptions, understandings and experiences of a given phenomenon and can contribute to in-depth data collection.” (Ryan & Coughlan & Cronin, 2009, p309)
There are two types in qualitative interviewing: Semi-structured interview and unstructured interview.
Semi-structured interview:
This interview refers to a context that an interviewer has a list of prepared questions which contains both closed and open questions in general. The interviewee is able to answers by his or her own thoughts and ideas. Also, during the answers, it is possible for the interviewer to ask further for gaining deeper needed information (Alan Bryman &Emma Bell, 2007).
Characteristics of a semi-structured interview:
In general, all questions will be asked with a similar wording from interviewee to interviewee.
The order of questions being asked might be different from the schedule.
The interviewer has a possibility to ask new questions which are not included on the list for getting further information or picking up what has been said from the interviewee (Alan Bryman & Emma Bell, 2007).
Unstructured “one on one” interviews
This is a style of interview being conducted with one single question and the interviewee is freely to answer and express themselves through their own thoughts, ideas and emotions. During the interview, some more questions will be asked coincidently by the interviewer to support or discuss more about the worthy points from the interviewee answers (Alan Bryman & Emma Bell, 2007).
Qualitative interviewing techniques:
Laddering
Laddering includes a line of questions that starts with product characteristics and moves forward to user characteristics. This technique is used to find the uncovered or hidden psychological reasons that influence the consumer decisions.
Hidden issue questioning
A type of depth interviews which focus on personal concerns rather than socially shared ones. The respondents may be asked about personal fantasies and what kind of things that makes them excited. These answers will then identify individual hidden values.
(Naresh K. Malhotra, 2010)
Steps to conduct an interview:
Place to conduct the interview:
To find a suitable place to conduct the interview could be one of the most difficult tasks for the researcher. It is said to have a significant impact on the interview. The atmosphere must make the participant relaxed, comfortable and in a good mood to answer the question. The space should be quiet and private. All kinds of background noise such as the sounds of heater or traffic which might be interrupted the interviewee concentration or tape recording process must be avoided.
The interview guide:
Interviewer also plays an important role for conducting a successful interview. Due to qualitative interview, the interviewer is expected to be skilful and flexible in order to follow, catch up and broaden interviewee answers by picking up more new questions. In addition, the interviewer has to collect the personal information of the interviewee to make sure that he or she could interpret fully the interviewees ideas and make them more understandable.
Tape and recording:
In order to make sure that all information collected from the interview would be correct and trust worthy, a good equipment for tape recording should be used. It is also helpful in making transcribing step easier later. With this step, all information collected tend to be more reliable.
Types of questions:
According to William Foddy, before constructing questions for the interview it is essential for the researcher to interpret and define clearly three main key concepts: The main topic (T) of the interview, the applicability (A) of the question to each interviewee (How to make it understandable and straightforward) and lastly specify the perspective (P) for the interviewee to answer the question. It is