Interpretting interviews – Mats Alvesson
Main theme: how we can work with theoretical ideas in order to better understand interviews and interpret the materials coming out of them.
Types of interviews:
- Structure: highly structured, semi-structures and unstructured
- Size – single vs group of people to be interviewed.
- Communication – face-to-face, telephone or electronic interview
Major Positions Taken to Interviewing: Neo-Positivism, Romanticism and Localism
Neo-Positivivsm – to establish a context-free truth about what is really ‘out there’ by following a research protocol and gathering responses relevant to it, minimizing researcher influence and other sources of ‘bias’.
- to gain non-distorted data
- carefully planned and tightly structured
- Being as consistent as possible so the results can easily be compared
Guidelines for a good interview often involve issues such as:
- Not becoming involved in explanations of the study, being brief and using a standardized presentation.
- Not deviating from the structure of the interview.
- Being neutral and avoiding getting personal.
It is seen as vital that the researcher can clearly describe what has been done and how and that the reader should then be able to assess the work. This calls for a minimization of variation and complexity in interview work.
Revised Neo-Positivism: Interactive Rationalism
- problems of trust and limited control over interviewee responses
- Linguistic challenges – words used can be unclear leading to follow-up questions and therefore creating additional ambiguity
Interview statements are, on the whole, seen as valid data, or at least they are presented as if this were the case.
Interactive rationalism – recognizes social complexity and embraces ‘soft’ and flexible technical measures in dealing with the problem of how to maximize reliable responses.
assumption that interview responses at the end of the day accurately reflect the experiences and/or observations of interviewees.
Romanticism
the nearer we come to the respondent, the closer we are to apprehending the real self.
‘emotionalism’ – data should be about authentic subjective experiences which are revealed through unstructured, open-ended interviews.
advocating a more ‘genuine’ human interaction, believes in establishing a rapport, trust and commitment between interviewer and interviewee, thus turning the interview into a ‘warm’ situation.
typical ambition of interview-studies is to accomplish ‘deeper, fuller conceptualisations of those aspects of our subjects’ lives we are most interested in understanding’. Researchers will rely on interviewees’ narrations about their lives as a way to understand them, as ‘story-telling stays closer to actual life-events than methods that elicit explanations’
An emphasis on empathy and the development of trust, treats the respondent as an equal, allows him or her to express personal feelings, and therefore presents a more ‘realistic’ picture that can be uncovered using traditional interview methods.
Interviewer and interviewee thus collaborate in the ‘co-construction of knowledge’. The positions of the two then become less distinct and the value of the terms may in some cases be questionable.
the idea that closeness, empathy and expressed understanding will create conditions for the good interview – OPPOSING IDEA = Schwalbe and Wolkomir (2003), who in discussing interviewing men believe that their inclination, in a patriarchical society, to protect a certain sense of self and image will mean that they are reluctant to open up.
The Tricky Relationship between ‘Knowing’ and ‘Telling’
difficulties of expressing knowledge in words – People can be more clever than their ability to use words would indicate. They may know something but cannot express it very well
Interviewees may use words correctly and credibly, but this may not reflect anything outside competent language use.
people may be smarter at using words than showing who they really are or how they really act. This may be an effect of an interview society
Class matters – Upper-class people, with a higher education and jobs in which language use and symbolism are central, are often more skilled with words than people with less education and manual jobs. The latter will sometimes perform badly in interviews
Bibliography
Alvesson, M. (2012) “Interpreting Interviews ,” in Views on Interviews: A Skeptical Review . London: SAGE.