The Development of Interview Techniques in Language Studies: Facilitating the Researchers’ Views on Interactive Encounters
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English Language Teaching; Vol. 8, No. 7; 2015 ISSN 1916-4742 E-ISSN 1916-4750 Published by Canadian Center of Science and Education The Development of Interview Techniques in Language Studies: Facilitating the Researchers’ Views on Interactive Encounters Young Ok Jong1 & Chae Kwan Jung2 1 Global Edu Reserach Institute, Global Edu Foundation, Incheon, South Korea 2 Division of Curriculum, Korea Institute for Curriculum and Evaluation (KICE), Seoul, South Korea Correspondence: Chae Kwan Jung, Division of Curriculum, Korea Institute for Curriculum and Evaluation, 21-15 (Jeongdong), Jeongdong-gil, Jung-su, Seoul, 100-784, South Korea. Tel: 82-2-3704-5992. E-mail: [email protected] Received: April 7, 2015 Accepted: May 10, 2015 Online Published: June 29, 2015 doi:10.5539/elt.v8n7p30 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.5539/elt.v8n7p30 Abstract In a more complex and dynamic world, it is important to have knowledge of research methods in order to understand our internal and external environments. This paper aims to outline different ways of approaching research into language studies and mainly provides an introduction to one of them, the interview. As interviewing is one of the main data collection methods in qualitative research as well as one of the most powerful ways to understand other people, we explore its salient features and some issues surrounding its application. This paper begins by sketching out different research approaches and then describing the nature of the interview, its typology and types in terms of the degree of structure. Subsequent parts consider ethical and practical considerations in interpersonal interviews. The final section includes our reflections on actual interviews and touches on two additional interests. Keywords: research methods, qualitative research, interview techniques in language studies 1. Introduction Research is a process of obtaining information and understanding issues (Hitchcock & Hughes, 1995). There are many different approaches to conducting research projects in language studies and each methodological approach is probably situated within a quantitative or qualitative research approach. Surveys, tests, structured interviews, laboratory experiments, and non-participant observations are usually employed in quantitative methods and participant observation, unstructured interviews or life histories in qualitative methods (Bryman, 1988; Scalon, 2000). According to Oppenheim (1992), as there is no single approach to be necessarily superior, choosing a research method depends on the purpose and the type of question of research. Although the two approaches are categorized as different research methods, there is no reason to see quantitative and qualitative methods as mutually exclusive in terms of triangulation. In practice, a particular study may employ a combination of approaches depending on the research purposes and context. For example, it would be possible to combine interviews and a questionnaire in one research instrument thus benefiting from the advantages of both methods. Another possibility could be observation with a questionnaire, because an observation usually takes a great deal of patience and time sitting and waiting for data to be generated, whereas a questionnaire survey can give immediate rewards. 2. The Nature of the Interview 2.1 Interview as a Speech Event An interview has been defined as a conversation between interviewer and interviewee with a purpose (Dexter, 1970; Moser & Kalton, 1971) or as “a guided conversation” (Lofland & Lofland, 1984, p. 2). In describing a “speech event” (Hitchcock & Hughes, 1995, p. 69) or “conversational encounters” (ibid., p. 153), there is a basic concern with asking questions and receiving answers. It is not a normal conversation, however. There is much more to it in a qualitative research context (Dunne et al., 2005). What makes the interview different from a conversation is that it is designed for a specific purpose (Keats, 2000). For example, Cohen (1976) points out that an interview requires careful preparation, much patience, and considerable practice as it constitutes a type of fishing to enter the interviewee’s world or understand their construction of reality, which cannot be observed 30 www.ccsenet.org/elt English Language Teaching Vol. 8, No. 7; 2015 directly. There is a wide range of approaches to the interview, but there is no single way of interviewing that is appropriate for all situations and probably no single way of wording questions that will always work. Although acknowledging that there is no recipe for effective interviewing and no rigid interview guide, Patton (1987) offers useful interview guidelines and Bell (1999) provides an interview checklist including issues of access, location, timing, communication, recording, and exit. 2.2 Interview Typology There is a range of different interview typologies, which are frequently categorized in relation to their structures (Pole & Lampard, 2002). In Dunne et al.’s study (2005), the interview is categorized as possessing five continua: formal/informal; structured/unstructured; individual/group; one-off/sequential; public/private along the context, conditions, and approaches to the interview. In light of degree of formality, there are three basic approaches to the interview (see Cohen et al., 2000; Fontana & Frey, 1994; Nunan, 1992; Patton, 1980, 1987) or two headings: structured and unstructured interviews (Burgess, 1984; Hitchcock & Hughes, 1995). Whichever typology is used, however, the main dimensions of this variation are dependent upon the degree of structure in the interview and how deep the interview tries to go (Punch, 2005). Whether a researcher decides to take a highly structured or, a loosely structured approach to interviewing will depend on a number of technical factors e.g., research purposes, questions (see Pole & Lampard, 2002), and this will influence the practical aspects of the interview and how she or he manages the process. There is a continuum between the two extremes, ‘structured’ and ‘unstructured’, but many researchers deploy a combination of the two approaches during the same interview. In a sense, the extent to which a semi-structured interview is structured varies from case to case. 2.3 Two Types of Interview In practice, interviews have a certain degree of structure (Gillham, 2000; Hammersley & Atkinson, 1995), so the two most common interview types are to be overviewed in terms of their structure in this section. 2.3.1 Structured Interview The structured interview is the most formal type and it is characterized by its high degree of control over the interview situation. The agenda is totally predetermined by the researcher with a list of set questions in a predetermined order. In this respect, the structured interview is close to the questionnaire in both form and the assumptions underlying its use. As Clarke (1999) points out, the primary purpose in selecting a research method is to gather data that will help to provide answers to the evaluation questions, so the structured interview may be of most value to the researcher when basic straightforward data is needed quickly for purposes of evaluation (Hitchcock & Hughes, 1995). It is also used to form a basis of generalization, that is, statements about a large number of cases. It is true to say that a large sample is likely to be more reliable than a small one, and Hitchcock and Hughes (1995) emphasize that a structured interview can greatly reduce the possibility of interviewer effect or bias. Consequently, the effort to sustain an objective approach to data collection is deemed valid and reliable. Because of its completely formalized approach, however, the interviewer is likely to behave to a large extent as ‘an asking machine’ and also it may be impractical to use large numbers because of constraints of time, energy, and cost. 2.3.2 Semi-Structured Interview A semi-structured interview is a key technique as a much more flexible version of the structured interview in real-world research (Gillham, 2000). It is a short, preliminary, investigative study to explore in more depth by means of a variety of techniques, such as probing, establishing rapport, and so on. In a semi-structured interview, interviewers have a general idea of where the interview should go and what should come out of it, however interviewees are encouraged to set the agenda of the interview and given a degree of power over the course of the interview (Nunan, 1992), so the interview progress is determined largely by the individual interviewee. In this respect, the semi-structured interview approach allows depth to be achieved by providing the opportunity on the part of the interviewer to expand on the interviewee’s responses. Researchers, in particular, who work within an interpretive research tradition are in favor of the semi-structured interview because of its flexibility (Nunan, 1992). The interactive nature of the interview is not only highly flexible but also somewhat unpredictable (Byrne, 2004), so semi-structured interviews could be a “high-preparation, high-risk, high-gain, and high-analysis operation” (Wengraf, 2001, p. 5). 2.4 Characteristics of Interview Participants The interview represents an interaction among three elements: the interviewer, the interviewee, and the context 31 www.ccsenet.org/elt English Language Teaching Vol. 8, No. 7; 2015 of the interview (Verma & Mallick, 1999). In this section, characteristics of interview participants (both the interviewer and the interviewee) will be described briefly. 2.4.1