The methods of maintaining and generating conversations and the interpretations which social researchers make of the resultant data constitute the fundamentals of interviews and interviewing. Interviews yield rich insights into people’s biographies, experiences, opinions, values, aspirations, attitudes and feelings. We shall examine four types of interview, moving from a highly controlled situation to one where the respondent is encouraged to answer a question in their own terms. Then we shall discuss issues relating to the conduct of and the analysis of interviews.

The use of structured interviews is associated with survey research, relying upon the use of a questionnaire as a method of data collection.

The theory behind this method is that each person is asked the same question in the same way so that any differences between answers are held to be real ones, and not the result of the interview situation itself. Validity may then be checked by asking the respondent about the same issue, but employing a different form of question wording and then comparing the answers. The neutrality of the interviewer’s role is emphasised. The rules for conducting such interviews are, therefore, standardisation of explanations, leaving little room for deviation from the schedule, eliciting only the responses of the respondent; not prompting or providing a personal view; not interpreting meanings and simply repeating the questions; and finally not improvising.

This method is said to permit comparability between responses. It relies upon a uniform structure, while a calculated number of people are interviewed so that they are held to be a statistically representative sample of the population for the purposes of generalisation. Resultant data are then aggregated and examined for patterns of responses via statistical analysis.

However, even with the most carefully designed and tested questions, this mode of interviewing is too imprecise to allow exactly uniform communications. In instances where language and culture (local, regional and national) are diverse, so that there is little commonality in terms of values so inhibiting talking to strangers, this mode of interviewing may not be applicable.

This method of interviewing is increasingly popular in telephone interviews for marketing purposes - as witnessed in the mushrooming of ‘call centres’. In such call centres, work supervisors monitor the researchers, ensuring strict adherence to the interview schedule and high level of performance. Here, the issues of politics of research relate not only to the researcher-respondent relationship, but also to the economic organisation of the data production, in terms of employment conditions of researchers.

Questions are normally specified, but the interviewer is freer to probe, flexible in asking additional and follow-up questions as and when unexpected and interesting information is revealed during the course of the interview. The interviewer seeks clarification and elaboration on the answers given. This enables the interviewer to have greater discretion to probe beyond the answers and thus enter into a dialogue with the interviewee, offering invitations for expansion on issues raised.

This type of interviewing allows respondents to answer more on their own terms than the standardised interview permits, but still provides a greater structure for comparability over informal interviews.

The central difference of this form of interviewing from both the structured and semi-structured interview is its open-ended character. In the interview, the respondent is freer to talk about the topic, and the researcher aims to discover the meaning. This provides this mode of interviewing with the ability to challenge the preconceptions of the researcher, as well as to enable the interviewee to answer questions within their own frame of reference. This can be seen as a licence for the interviewees simply to talk about an issue in any way they choose. Nevertheless, this apparent disadvantage is turned into an advantage because there is a concern for the perspective of the person being interviewed.

In contrast to quantitative methods with their pre-determined boxes and categories, informal interviews enable respondents to draw upon their own ideas and meanings in talking about a subject, thereby providing a greater understanding of the respondent’s point of view. This method includes techniques such as life history, oral history, and biographical interviews. The distinct advantage of this approach is that it can challenge the ‘truths’ of official ways of seeing and revealing unspoken, private, unofficial perspectives. For instance, feminists employ such an approach to raise the profile of women’s experiences, to break the silence of women’s voices, and to bring the women’s personal experiences into the public domain.

This allows the researchers to explore group norms and dynamics around issues and topics that they wish to investigate. The extent of control of the group discussion will determine the nature of the data produced. The participants are encouraged to talk to each other on a topic under consideration. The size of the group depends on the need to balance between too intimate and too impersonal.

It is possible to gain different results from using group and individual interviews – especially when discussing issues involving collective interests such as workers’ rights, gender discrimination and racism. However, it does not mean that one of them should be regarded as ‘false’ or ‘true’, rather they both produce different perspectives on the same issues. Group interviews can provide a valuable insight into both social relations in general, and the examination of processes and social dynamics in particular. At the same time, caution should be exercised in attributing the opinions of such a group to the whole population – as with other types of interviews, issues of selectivity, representation, validity and reliability do not disappear.

We shall discuss some points to note when adopting a particular type of interview.

An epistemic tension exists between subjectivity and objectivity in the interviewing process. Qualitative interviewing provides us with a means for exploring the points of view of our research subjects, while granting these points of view the culturally honoured status of reality. For this purpose, the interviewer and interviewee need to establish an intersubjective understanding. At the same time, the pursuit of objectivity requires a ‘distance’ in order to socially situate the responses. In practice, a balance is required between full engagement and detached analysis.

Another epistemic tension is the affect that interviewer has on the interviewee, and hence on the type of material data collected. Is the interviewer’s role during the interview one of impartial scientist or friend, and how does this affect the interview? Related to this are discussions on the characteristics (e.g., age, gender, class, ethnicity, accent, sexuality, and disability) of the interviewer and their affect on the nature of information elicited. For example, black interviewees are more likely too reveal themselves on issues of racism to black interviewers than white ones. So before conducting interviews, it is important to consider a match of characteristics, so that the interviewer ‘blends-in’. Nevertheless, this observation should be tempered by the reference to the purpose, expectations, content and context of the research process itself.

There are three necessary conditions for a successful completion of interviews:

• accessibility: this refers to whether or not the interviewee has access to information which the interviewer seeks. A lack of information can occur for several reasons such as forgetting and failing to remember, unwillingness to reveal information due to emotional stress, and harmful personal, political and ethical repercussions in discussing the matter. In such situations, another line of questioning is required, or a discontinuation of the interview.
• cognition: this refers to ensuring that the interviewees know what is required and expected of them. A clarification of what is expected from is essential for practical and theoretical reasons.
• motivation: refers to making the interviewees interested and involved in the research project, seeking their co-operation and participation is fundamental to the conduct of the research. By employing open (or ‘non-directive’) questions and varying the speech tone and language during the interview, the interviewer can ensure that the interviewee’s motivation and attention.

It is likely that in discussing a sensitive issue, the interviewee will be hostile or embarrassed by the line of questioning. In order to minimise this, asking generalised questions is recommended, as well as probing.

An ability to probe is reduced as the interview becomes more structured, for any variations in probing can reduce comparability. However, a change in the emphasis of a question, or a similar question posed in a different way not only can provoke further thought on the subject, but also offers a catalyst enabling the interviewee to make links to other answers already given.

Practically speaking, if people feel valued then their participation is likely to be enhanced. In order to assist this assist this process, attention is given to the issue of rapport. This refers to the development of a mutual trust that allows for the free flow of information.

The establishment of rapport in semi-structured and informal interviews is paramount given that they are designed to elicit understanding of the interviewee’s perspectives. If researchers wish to move beyond official and public representation, to find out how things actually are, then they will have to seek the trust of the individuals being interviewed.

There are four stages to the process of rapport:

• to overcome the initial apprehension of the interview, both the interviewer and interviewee must begin to talk to each other by using descriptive questions; e.g., ‘grand tour’ questions such as asking the interviewee an account of an average day; or ‘mini-tour’ questions by asking interviewee its role at work or at home.
• both the researcher and respondent begin to explore and discover what each other is like, and how the interview will proceed and for what reasons.
• again, by asking descriptive questions both the researcher and researched begin to cooperate, and come to know what is expected from each other.
• participation involves considerable trust, and it enables the interviewee to identify and accept the role of teaching the interviewer. When this happens there is a heightened sense of cooperation and full participation in the research. The informant begins to take a more assertive role; it brings new information to the attention of the researcher, and helps in discovering structures and relations and patterns in its culture.

As with all research, interviews do not simply begin when the first question is asked. Rather, several features are central to the interview practice:

• preparation by reading (i.e., library research and literature review);
• initial exploratory work (e.g., pilot study);
• understanding the situation into which the researcher are going;
• clarifying any ambiguities which the respondents might have of the research and eliciting their cooperation;
• being sensitive to ethical, political and theoretical considerations.

In cases where the interviewees (such as prostitutes and drug users) are not amenable to direct interview approaches, or are difficult to trace, the technique of snowball sampling may be employed. Here, the first group of respondents is asked to nominate their friends, acquaintances and colleagues, who are then interviewed by the researcher. This process continues until the researcher is satisfied that the data is sufficient for the research purposes, or time, resources and/or interviewees have run out. However, researchers have to be aware of collecting data that only reflects a particular perspective, and thereby omits the voices and opinions of others who are not part of a network of friends, acquaintances and colleagues.

Another method of assisting in the process of rapport and recall is called sequential interviewing. It involves interviewing people about events (such as changing jobs, moving houses, starting and maintaining a family, and the evolution of the firm) in the way they might, or have, unfolded. By using this chronological format, it enables people to reflect on, or project, their experiences in terms of the event(s) which are of interest. By focusing on the person’s career, biography, and/or life course, the researcher can explore issues such as of identity class and changes in the community.

Feminists reject the one-way process of gaining answers from people, and suggest that researchers ought to be engaged; e.g., answering questions which their respondents may have, providing them with useful information, campaigning with them on political matters, and transporting and feeding them as and when necessary. In many circumstances (such as political and economic women refugees, giving birth, rape and incest and death and child bereavement) remaining disengaged and detached in the interview process is an unrealistic possibility, and is only constructed as being so after the interview and event.

Feminists argue that there are three reasons why disengagement cannot work. First, faced with calls for help and assistance, feminists cannot refuse women’s requests. Second, feminists aim to counter the public-private divide by giving a voice to women’s issues and experiences. Third, giving assistance is conducive to establishing rapport. Indeed, disengagement is seen to reflect a ‘masculine paradigm’ of research, with its idea of ‘controlling’ the social distance or familiarity between interviewer and interviewee, or controlling for the dangers of ‘over-rapport’.

Other important considerations in the feminist-based interviewing are the interactions between men and women, and the ways in which everyday conversations are structured. The exchange between the two sexes are not without social power, operating in such a way as to bias the communication in the male’s favour (e.g., men tend to dominate the conversation and topics discussed, and have less need to interrupt and are successful when they do; whereas women tend to be passive and removed, and are more likely to interrupt and usually fail when they try). In other words, if we take for granted the ‘normal’ manner of conversation as the basis of our interview, we are likely to inhibit women from equal participation – this is especially significant for group interviews.

As already noted, the gender of the interviewer may be significant for discovering and understanding sensitive issues of the women’s experiences and practices. Though, the way in which a male interviewer considers gender relations serve also to structure its interaction with its female interviewees.

The interview analysis can be a long process in which perseverance, theoretical acumen and an eye for detail are paramount. The hard work starts when the data is collected and the analysis begins.

There are several points concerning the analysis of interviews. The first point is the use of tape-recorder or notes on the interviews. At an interactional level, some people may find the tape recorder inhibiting and do not wish their conversations to be recorded. Transcription itself is also a long process. Nevertheless, tape recording can assist interpretation as it allows the interviewer to concentrate on the conversation and record the non-verbal gestures. Further, editing and transcribing the tapes assist in becoming familiar with the data, and aid coding it. Furthermore, tape recording guards against interviewers substituting their own words for those of the person being interviewed. However, in many circumstances, tape recording may not be possible, so that the researcher has to take down notes during the interview, and write it up after the interview.

Coding of the data enables comparison to be made between the interviewees. Coding conceptualises data, and it includes categories and their relations. The ways in which researchers begin to categorise data will depend upon the aims of their research and theoretical interests. Coding is a laborious task, and one that depends on the quality of the data obtained and extensive prior reading of the theoretical literature.

Talk is situated, so that the analysis of talk requires more than linguistic analysis. What is required is the positioning of the interviewees in terms, for example, of their class, ethnicity, gender, occupational position, martial status, sexuality, and so on. This positioning enables the researcher to understand the reasons why the interviewees are performing the various actions within particular situations which they find themselves.

Importantly, accounts interviewees give of their actions are either justifications or excuses. These may be viewed as indicative of how people identify themselves and routinely negotiate their social identities, and covering up and avoiding embarrassments. An account given during an interview is the presentation not only of reasons, but also of oneself.

While positivists and realists consider interviews as a resource for understanding how individuals make sense of their social world, and act within it, ethnomethodologists regard them as topics in their own right. For the latter, the link between a person’s account of an action and the action itself cannot be made; it tells the researcher little about a reality that is ‘external’ to the interview. Instead, an interview is a social encounter like any other. For this reason, interviews are a topic of social research, not a resource for social research. The focus now moves to the methods that people employ in constructing the interview, not the interview data themselves – the use of language as performance. Here, the stress is on what people do in performing utterances, emphasising how accounts serve as justifications, accusations, and so on. This field of studies is known as conversation analysis.

Finally, in so far as the interviews represent something beyond the interview situation, several possibilities arise from this:

• the interview accounts can be false and inaccurate (sometimes deliberately so);
• the accounts can be genuine but the interviewees may be unaware of significant events surrounding the topic under investigation;
• a fuller understanding can only be achieved by witnessing and understanding the context of the event and circumstances to which the interviewees refer. Here the researcher is required to supplement his research methods by undertaking other forms of data collection such as participant observation and documentary research.