Practical Issues in Conducting Interviews, Focus Groups, and Observation

PRACTICAL ISSUES IN CONDUCTING INTERVIEWS, FOCUS GROUPS, PARTICIPATION OBSERVATION  Distinguish practical considerations 1 relatinng to participant observation LEARNING 2 Anticipate and handle practical OUTCOMES issu...

PRACTICAL ISSUES IN CONDUCTING INTERVIEWS, FOCUS GROUPS, PARTICIPATION OBSERVATION  Distinguish practical considerations 1 relatinng to participant observation LEARNING 2 Anticipate and handle practical OUTCOMES issues relating to intervies Distinguish and prepare for practical 3 issues relating to focus groups PRACTICAL CONSIDERATIONS RELATING TO PARTICIPANT OBSERVATION Ethnography or participant observation Ethnographic research has a more social anthropological feel and may focus more on business “tribes“ and organizational setting. The focus will be on the community describes and its symbols, culture, interactions, rituals, language etc. PRACTICAL CONSIDERATIONS RELATING TO PARTICIPANT OBSERVATION Access A time commitment to the research will be the first hurdle in some cases. Think about how you might gain ACCESS to an organization for this kind of study; Letters? Emails? Contracts? How do you convince them of your credibility and trustworthiness? PRACTICAL CONSIDERATIONS RELATING TO PARTICIPANT OBSERVATION Covert or Overt Research? If the research is undertaken covertly, without authority, then problems of ACCESS and of reactivity disappear. If the research is covert, there is a strong chance the study will have to be abandoned before the completion. This can damage the research and researcher PRACTICAL CONSIDERATIONS RELATING TO PARTICIPANT OBSERVATION Covert or Overt Research? Is it possible to have a senior manager authority but not divulge your intentions to colleagues? What kind of difficulties might this cause? or Could the broad purpose of research be discussed openly, but the specific focus and question be kept? PRACTICAL CONSIDERATIONS RELATING TO PARTICIPANT OBSERVATION Covert or Overt Research? Whichever conclusion you reach, your research report will have to show clear details of the overt or covert nature of your research, and there would need to be very good reasons for a covert approach PRACTICAL CONSIDERATIONS RELATING TO PARTICIPANT OBSERVATION Relationship-Building Whatever the researcher will use to participant observation, the researcher will need to develop skills of relationship-building 1. To allay colleagues‘ suspicions about being a representative or spy from the top management PRACTICAL CONSIDERATIONS RELATING TO PARTICIPANT OBSERVATION Relationship-Building 2. To maintain a degree of objectivity while in the organization 3. To develop key informants who can be used to provide broad organizational background and check out stories you are told, or help you find appropriate people to get to know PRACTICAL CONSIDERATIONS RELATING TO PARTICIPANT OBSERVATION Roles for Participant Observers Bryman and Bell discuss research by Gold in 1958 setting out four roles for participant observers Complete participant (Covert Observer) Participant-as-observer (complete participant but overt research tool) PRACTICAL CONSIDERATIONS RELATING TO PARTICIPANT OBSERVATION Roles for Participant Observers 3. Observer-as-participant (primary roles is researcher but can participate in work) 4. Complete observer (no participation in work and little communication with those observed PRACTICAL CONSIDERATIONS RELATING TO PARTICIPANT OBSERVATION Structures, Semi-Structured, Unstructured If an interview is fully structured in format, does this mean quantitative research? To some extent yes. The more fact that the interviewer and interviewee are face-to-face brings another dimension to the research method. Where they can see the interviewees and introduce the concept of non verbal communication and also helps the interviewers gain more insights on certain areas, or explain further items. PRACTICAL CONSIDERATIONS RELATING TO PARTICIPANT OBSERVATION Structures, Semi-Structured, Unstructured Unstructured or in-depth interviews can go right off the point and that may be the point to discover much more about the interviewee by what they say and think, than how they answer specific questions. PRACTICAL CONSIDERATIONS RELATING TO PARTICIPANT OBSERVATION Structures, Semi-Structured, Unstructured Many of the issues they raised around the design of the questionnaires in an earlier session apply here to questions used in interviews (no leading questions or double questions). Where some are prepared in advance, it is advisable to give a copy to the interviewee in advance is possible. Some structured questions in an interview can help to provide consistency where multiple cases are studied PRACTICAL CONSIDERATIONS RELATING TO PARTICIPANT OBSERVATION The issue of time When setting up an interview, time booked will take on great importance to the organisation and the individual, who will be trying to fit this interview in around other duties of the day. however, it is normally the case that, once the interview has started, the interview will find difficulty in stopping the interview, PRACTICAL CONSIDERATIONS RELATING TO PARTICIPANT OBSERVATION The issue of time As with any work interview, including a selection interview, it is vital that the visitor to the organisation turns up on time and in time to begin at the agreed start time. after getting to the right place and setting up and testing the recording equipment. So arriving at least 10 minutes early is usually helpful. PRACTICAL CONSIDERATIONS RELATING TO PARTICIPANT OBSERVATION The Interview Guide Preparing key questions in advance is very important if you aim to both achieve your research outcomes and be consistent and professional in your approach to interviewing. However, being overdependent on the pre- prepared interview questions can be dangerous. A professional interviewer is genuinely interested in the interviewer’s perspective and so will flex the questions to follow new directions suggested by the interviewee. PRACTICAL CONSIDERATIONS RELATING TO PARTICIPANT OBSERVATION The Interview Guide Flexibility will make each interview more enjoyable to conduct, rather than feeling slavishly controlled by the pre-set guide. Finally, there is a common tendency for an interviewee to anticipate later questions, often without any prompts from the interviewer.. PRACTICAL CONSIDERATIONS RELATING TO PARTICIPANT OBSERVATION The Interview Guide However, if later questions are covered early on, don’t worry about running out of questions. Confident interviewers, by demonstrating empathy and genuine regard for the interviewee, can always facilitate further discussionby simple prompts such as “can you tell me more about…” “that’s an interesting point, I hadn’t thought of that, so what exactly do you mean by…”, PRACTICAL CONSIDERATIONS RELATING TO PARTICIPANT OBSERVATION Interviewer Behaviour Interview Behaviour Research cited in Bryman and Bell (p350)by Kvale suggests that an interviewer should be: *Knowledgeable *Open *Structuring *Steering *Clear *Critical *Gentle *Remembering *Sensitive *Interpreting PRACTICAL CONSIDERATIONS RELATING TO PARTICIPANT OBSERVATION Interviewer Behaviour They also add the adjectives: balanced and ethically sensitive to the list. To this list, we can add interview competencies suggested by Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill (2007): *Opening the interview *Using appropriate language *Ouestioning *Listening *Testing and summarising understanding *Recognising and dealing with difficult participants *Recording data PRACTICAL CONSIDERATIONS RELATING TO PARTICIPANT OBSERVATION After the interview *Urgent action is needed to make about what happened. There are contextual notes, which will later shed much light on the event. You might note down personal impressions of how it went, where it happened, specific comments on the outcomes, the setting in which it took place, the state of mind of the interviewee from your current perspective etc. PRACTICAL CONSIDERATIONS RELATING TO PARTICIPANT OBSERVATION After the interview It will also be necessary to arrange to transcribe the interview from the recording as quickly as possible. Within a day or so, it is easy to remember what an interviewee was trying to express, even if recording is not good. Later on, this will become very difficult. PRACTICAL CONSIDERATIONS RELATING TO PARTICIPANT OBSERVATION Practical issues relating to focus group A focus group method is a focussed group interview. There will be several participants, the researcher as facilitator and a method of recording what is said, preferably video recording, as audio can be difficult to follow when several people are speaking. Video recording will also give much richer contextual evidence about how people interact. PRACTICAL CONSIDERATIONS RELATING TO PARTICIPANT OBSERVATION Practical issues relating to focus group. Another key difference with a focus group is that there is usually specific topic on which discussion is to be held, rather than a whole series of questions.The point of interviewing in this way is to explore the joint construction of meaning around a topic and to see how group dynamics and interaction work in this process. PRACTICAL CONSIDERATIONS RELATING TO PARTICIPANT OBSERVATION Practical issues relating to focus group They are not easy to run, although get easier with practice. Focus groups can be creative places, but can also be full of challenge and conflict -this needs a light touch of management from the researcher, only to ensure good standards of communication and respect are encouraged, not to stop conflict since this can be a productive source of creativity and meaning development. PRACTICAL CONSIDERATIONS RELATING TO PARTICIPANT OBSERVATION Practical issues relating to focus group In order to decide how many focus groups to hold and who should attend, some of the sampling issues discussed earlier should be discussed, such as random and snowball sampling.Broadly however, focus groups can continue to be held until the ideas and themes raised become familiar and can be anticipated by the researcher (saturation of categories). To some extent, feasibility and cost/time issues will also dictate number of groups held.Size of groups will depend on practical factors, including size of available rooms, but ideally six to eight will be the easiest number to manage. QUESTIONS FOR SELF REVIEW Practical issues relating to focus group 1. What are the (small) differences between participant observation and ethnography? 2. How could adapt a semi-structured interview process to be conducted by email? 3. What do you think would be your biggest challenge in conducting research interviews? What could you do about this? 4. Why do you think focus groups are so widely used to test new products and new policy ideas? THANK YOU>>