The Interview Transcript

Let's pretend that another researcher is going to run some interviews. This researcher is an accomplished qualitative researcher who's been running interviews for the last twenty years and educating qualitative research students for the last ten. Safe to say, this researcher is very good at interviewing.

Now, imagine yourself turning invisible and sitting in on a number of this researcher's upcoming interviews. Setting aside ethics, what do you think this interviewer sounds like? How do they carry themselves? When do they talk and why? How often?

If you had a transcript of this fictional interview, it might look something like this:

Lots of responses from the participant, with irregular, brief questions, and responses from the researcher.  The interviewer isn’t being rude, inattentive, or shy; they’re being selective about when and why to respond to a participant.

It’s not how much you talk in an interview but why you chose to say something that matters.

It’s not how much you talk in an interview but why you chose to say something that matters. If you heard the audio from this fictional interview, you could realize when and why this researcher chose to speak.

Let’s review some qualities to help you become a great interviewer.

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Patient

When you have a 60-minute interview scheduled, you might want to fill in every moment with dozens of questions. Don't fill the space! Think of an interview as a shared space between you and a participant. The last thing you want to do is "balloon" up and take the space meant for your participant. If you look at the transcript again, there's a lot of interview "space" filled by the participant.

Think of an interview as a shared space between you and a participant.

Be selective about what questions you choose to ask and why. Ask yourself before you speak if your words will keep the conversation gently going or if they’re related to study goals? If not, then you're probably better off being patient before asking your next question or responding.

When you approach interviews like this, you collect more rich, meaningful qualitative data. A quick glance at the fake transcript above can get a great interviewer excited because there's tons of data to be analyzed and important themes to be recognized.

Set the expectation with every participant that you might be uncomfortably silent. Explain that your job is to give the participants things to talk about and then listen and understand their answers. Other strategies for being patient include things like the “blame the machine”, “the five-second rule”, and “last-to-start”, mentioned at in the next Topic.

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Neutral

If you read the transcript of a great interviewer, you might not notice when they're practicing neutrality. You don't often bring your personal experiences and stories into an interview because you're not the person of interest.

However, even if unheard, great interviewers remain neutral and aware of their personal beliefs during an interview. You don't want to bias a participant's responses or, worse, make them feel judged or attacked for what they believe, do, or feel.

Even if you hear something that challenges ideas, beliefs, or opinions, your responsibility as a researcher is to acknowledge your emotions and let them fade away. This can be challenging to do but without a conscious effort to practice neutrality, you might introduce unnecessary bias into every interview.

You need to practice reflexive thinking or thinking about your influence and emotions on the study and work to remain neutral whenever you can (jump to this Topic for more on reflexivity).

Some possible neutral responses are listed below. Use them to keep the conversation going without influencing a participant too much.

Neutral Interviewer Responses

• “Okay”
• “Sure”
• “Alright”
• “Go on” / “please keep going”/ “please continue”
• “Tell me more” / “tell me about that”
• “I see”

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Conversational

Great interviewers make every interview feel like a two-way conversation without saying a lot. This is where interviews become a blend of art and science. It's very unlikely that your participants have been in a formal interview session, being paid for their involvement while their responses are written down and analyzed. But everyone has been in a conversation with someone else.

The closer your interview feels like a conversation, the more relaxed your participants will become.

And the more relaxed they are, the greater the odds you collect important and rich qualitative data.

Note that you want to make your interview feel like a conversation, not become one. Participants can pick up on your subtle social cues and start to alter their behavior because you're paying attention.

Even how you let participants know you've heard them can affect the data you get. If you can, avoid overly emotional responses like "that's incredible!", "I'd hate it if that happened to me" or "Wow, that's an amazing suggestion!", while using neutral responses shown above.

You can also be conversational by adopting people's language during the interview. For example, if your participants refer to "smartphones" as "mobiles," then you'd make sure to use the term "mobile" instead for the rest of the interview.

It's hard to maintain the conversational side of interviews if additional people are involved. If being in a formal interview session is strange, then it's even stranger for multiple people to be listening, watching, and note-taking while two people talk.

Whenever you can, keep your interviews one-on-one. If you have to include others, make sure to introduce those attending at the start of an interview. It might be awkward but addressing this early and explaining why these additional people are attending can help keep the interview slightly more conversational.

Being conversational without unnecessary influence is harder said than done.

One of the best things you can do to improve your interviewing skills is to record and listen to yourself after an interview.

Be critical and be honest about what you are and aren’t doing. As you’re reviewing a recording, ask yourself some of the following questions:

Questions to Reflect on Your Interviews

• Are you too talkative?
• Are you leading the participant?
• Are you building rapport?
• Do you paraphrase regularly?
• Does it feel like a conversation?

Listening to yourself isn't always pleasant when first learning how to interview. But when you're not actively interviewing, hearing your interview weaknesses can be painfully obvious. But have respect for yourself and recognize that listening and reviewing your interviews is the single most effective thing you do to grow your confidence and comfort as an interviewer.

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Flexible-ish

Great interviewers recognize that they can't expect to learn a ton just by sticking to their interview guide. They know that this is where interviews get fun and meaningful. Leaving the script is a good sign that they hear unexpected, non-obvious responses. Digging into these responses can uncover the insights and patterns which could be valuable for you and your stakeholders.

In an interview, your job is to be a navigator.

Being open and ready to leave the interview guide and venturing into uncharted, conversation territory is a must for great interviews. No matter how good your interview guide is, a participant will never respond in a way that matches your interview guide perfectly. And it's impossible to assume that every participant will provide answers in the same order as your questions. Participants don't know about the order of your interview topics or questions but they do know how they think, feel, and act.

In an interview, think of yourself as a captain on a ship. It's up to you to navigate the participant from topic to topic. You nudge or guide a participant using questions and clarifying responses to lead them along. If a participant starts rambling or going off-topic, then it's up to you to nudge the participant back on track. If a participant goes down a tangent but it’s relevant, you let them continue.

This flexibility also applies to your written questions. You can also reword fundamental questions, jump over topics, and review answers to earlier questions. You have the power and flexibility to mold the conversation to fit each participant and not the other way around.

Note that the title of this section is flexible-ish. Flexibility comes with a cost. You only have so much time with each participant, so leaving the script has consequences. You might choose to ask additional, unplanned questions but find that you don't have the time for important questions at the end of your interview guide.

You might also follow a tangent and find it wasn’t very informative. Stay focused on your study goals whenever you can, but permit yourself the chance to leave your interview guide. Not every unplanned question will lead to meaningful responses, but it does open the opportunity to hear things you or your stakeholders never considered.

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Clarifying & Probing

Great interviewers regularly clarify or paraphrase what they've heard so far so the participant can correct it as needed. Be in the habit of regularly checking in with participants so what you think you've heard (and written down) matches what they intended. A simple "I think I'm hearing you say… Is that correct?" is more than enough to see if you and your participant are understanding each other.

Like clarifying, great interviewers probe or dig into confusing or interesting responses to see what else they can learn. Be selective in what you choose to look into or ignore. Don't be afraid to probe into inconsistencies or contradictions in a participant's responses. If someone said they've never used this feature at the start and then later say they use it often, probe and clarify what happened.

There are a ton of qualities in this subsection that you can take and use in your interviews. One idea mentioned here is that interviews never go as planned. Interviews – like research – can be a messy, even scary method to use.