On Planning and Carrying Out Interviews (Experience of ANU-CBE International Students)

For this interviewing exercise, Luke and I interviewed a total of six international students - each of us conducted two interviews individually and two individuals jointly. On listening to the recordings while transcribing the verbatim, I noticed some differences in interviewing styles between Luke's and my interview style. In addition, I realised that I have a tendency to interrupt and make assumptions during interviews, which greatly compromises on their quality. This indicates that I have to improve my interviewing technique.

Upon further reflection on the exercise, I broke down the interviewing process into three main phases:

(1) Prior to the interview

Before coming up with the interview questions, Luke and I discussed about the theory with regards to the topic that was assigned to us - the experience of CBE international students studying at ANU. Our theory was based on semiotics, which is defined as the study of the structure and meaning of language. We proposed that a person's semiotic background, not just his or her command of English, will play an important role in influencing his or her experience in the ANU. We took some time to develop the interview questions, because we both felt that it was important to first formulate a theory.

Coming from a quantitative background, I also noticed that the way in which we went about theorising and forming interview questions is slightly different for both types of research. For example, Luke (coming for a qualitative background), was sharing with me how certain words (such as describe, can you tell me more about ..., experiences, influences, attitudes, etc.) were preferred in qualitative research when formulating the interview questions.

When constructing the interview questions, we tried to make them as broad and neutral as possible so as to reduce potential interviewer and social desirability bias. The following five questions were part of our interview: 

1. How do you feel as an individual in ANU with regards to your identity?
2. How do you associate with others at ANU?
3. How does your experience at ANU differ from your experience of Australia/home
   country?
4. How satisfied are you with your conduct at ANU and ANU’s conduct of you?
5. Overall, do you find your experience at ANU enjoyable?

All five questions leave open the possibility for interviewees to mention any issues which they consider to be relevant to their experience in ANU-CBE. 

(2) During the interview

Many international students did not fully understand our interview questions, and were only able to respond only after we have clarified the meaning of certain words in the interview questions. This was an oversight on Luke's and my part, because we had assumed that firstly, all ANU-CBE international students will have the same command of English as us, and secondly, they they will understand the meaning of the words "identity", "associate", and "conduct" in the context of semiotics. It is important that interviewees understand and do not misinterpret the questions, otherwise the responses may not help in collecting relevant data. However, the questions that interviewees asked also shed light on certain issues that were new to us, and gave us a better understanding of their cultural backgrounds and customs.

On the whole, I found that having a scribe and an interviewer made it much easier to conduct an interview. The quality of the interview was also maximised. When we conducted the interviews jointly, one of us was in charge of ensuring that the recorder was functioning and taking down observational notes, and the other was in charge of asking the questions and interacting with the interviewee. Having conducted interviews individually most of the time, I found myself less stressed and hectic in the joint interviews.

In terms of interviewing technique and style, I felt that while I could connect with most of the interviewees who came from Asia (Filipinos, Malaysians, and Chinese), I struggled when I had to prompt interviewees for further elaboration of the claims they made. Sometimes, in prompting interviewees to explain in detail, I felt that I have interrupted the conversation and their train of thought, and even imposed my views on their responses. Luke assured me that such incidents usually point to a lack of experience rather than a lack of interviewing skills. I must admit that I'm so used to structured interviews, that semi-structured and unstructured interviews seem a little overwhelming to me at first. Fortunately, after conducting a few more interviews, I slowly got the hang of it and conducted the semi-structured interviews more confidently.

(3) After the interview

Transcribing the interviews verbatim took some time, but having a systematic approach facilitated our subsequent data analysis. Based on our theory, we used coding to analyse the transcribed data. After the entire interviewing process was over, I referred back to the observational notes I took during some of the interviews. Together with the transcripts, I thought that the fieldnotes contributed to the entire data analysis process, especially when we proceeded to code and make sense of the wealth of data that we had collected.

Having gone through this exercise, I would like to thank my groupmate, Luke, for being so wonderful and patient to me. Given that I am still learning the ropes of carrying out qualitative research, I must say that I have learnt a lot from you! I thoroughly enjoyed this exercise.

Fieldwork Methods & Issues - Interviews

Kerry went through a few qualitative data collection techniques today, focusing mainly on interviews, and touching briefly on focus groups, field notes, and participant observation. I found this session to be particularly useful because I will be conducting structured interviews for my research project. While my interview is made up of pre-determined questions and will be replicated for each interviewee, most of them are open-ended, which may lead to unnecessary/additional information since the interviewee is free to respond. Hence, it is necessary that I follow proper interview procedures and keep the conversation centred around the topic of interest.

Interviews

There are three fundamental types of research interviews: (1) structured, (2) semi-structured, and (3) unstructured. As mentioned earlier, for the purpose of my qualitative research project, I'll be adopting the structured interview approach. I chose interviews as the data collection method because face-to-face interviews are particularly apt when the depth of meaning is of importance and the current research is primarily focused on gaining insights and achieving a better understanding (Gillham, 2000; Ritchie & Lewis, 2003). Additionally, given the limited time and resources for this course, structured interviews will facilitate the data collection and analysis process. This is because: (1) regulation and standardisation: all respondents are asked the same questions in the same manner, making it easy to replicate the discussion; and (2) since I will be using NVivo 10 to code the collected data, the process of creating a coding structure to subsequently code the data will also be easier.

In the field of self-efficacy beliefs, conducting one-to-one interviews is probably the best way to elicit detailed responses of the interviewee's successes, failures, and experiences which contribute to and sustain his/her self-efficacy beliefs. Researchers in the area of self-efficacy have agreed that studies have mostly been quantitative, hence the need for more qualitative inquiries to provide richer descriptions via narrative (Zeldin, Britner, & Pajares, 2008).

In class, we had a short role-play in which Kerry was the interviewer and I the interviewee. On hindsight, I was very lucky to have been part of the role-play as I got to experience how it felt to be interviewed, which made me aware of the potential issues that an interviewer might overlook. One important aspect which I have never encountered was the fact that as the interviewer/researcher, I am actually the learner and not the expert. In other words, I am interested in the interviewee's opinions, experience, and feelings, so even if they differ from mine, I am not in any position to judge, criticise, or disagree. Kerry first portrayed the role of a "bad" interviewer by interrupting me (the interviewee) as I spoke and then disagreeing with one of my opinions. In both cases, I either stumbled or became very cautious of my subsequent responses - to which Kerry pointed out that because of his insensitivity, the interview has become a tense affair. Consequently, the quality of the data collected  may be comprised, since the interviewee's responses will be affected.

Kerry subsequently went through how we could become "good" interviewers who facilitated interviews and enhanced the quality of the responses, instead of quelling the interviewee's responses and potentially diminishing the quality of discussion. He provided a few tips on how interviewers could go about doing so:

• Don’t speak too much - the interviewer should not be dominating the conversation. He/she should be a listener, since the interviewee's responses are most important.
• Reflective listening - a communication technique involving two steps: (1) seek to understand the interviewee's idea, and (2) offer idea back to interviewee. Both steps help ensure that the response/opinion/idea of the interviewee has been understood.
• Rephrasing - "So you are saying that..." can help to clarify any vague ideas or responses from the interviewee. 

I have carried out two pilot interviews and three actual interviews thus far, but I struggled in one instance when the cafe was too noisy. For a number of questions, I could not hear and understand my interviewee's responses. Additionally, the quality of the recording was muffled. I do not intend to include that interview, and will instead be interviewing an additional person just to compensate for this interview.

References

Opdenakker, R. (2006), "Advantages and disadvantages of four interview techniques in qualitative research", Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung/Forum: Qualitative Social Research, Vol. 7, No. 4, pp. 11.

Zeldin, A. L., Britner, S. L., & Pajares, F. (2008), "A comparative study of the self‐efficacy beliefs of successful men and women in mathematics, science, and technology careers", Journal of Research in Science Teaching, Vol. 45, No. 9, pp. 1036—1058.

Other helpful links/references:

For Interviews

Open- versus close-ended questions (http://polaris.gseis.ucla.edu/jrichardson/dis220/openclosed.htm)

5 types of interviews: structured, semi-structured, unstructured, informal, and focus groups (http://www.qualres.org/HomeInte-3595.html)

Strengths and weaknesses of semi-structured interviews (http://www.academia.edu/1561689/The_use_of_semi-structured_interviews_in_qualitative_research_strengths_and_weaknesses)

Gillman, B. (2000), The Research Interview, Continuum, London.

Kvale, S. (1996), InterViews: An Introduction to Qualitative Research Interviewing, Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks, CA.

Ritchie, J., & Lewis, J. (2003), Qualitative Research Practice: A Guide for Social Science Students and Researchers, Sage Publications, London.

Rubin, H. J., & Rubin, I. S. (2004), Qualitative Interviewing: The Art of Hearing Data, 2nd Edition, Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks, CA.

NVivo Tutorials - Data Analysis for Interviews and Thematic Coding

As I'll be making use of the content analysis approach to analyse the data I've collected from the interviews, I thought I'd start learning how to use NVivo 10 that is available in the school computers. NVivo 10 is a qualitative data analysis software that handles virtually any types of data, allows the user to work through his/her gathered information, highlights key points, performs qualitative data analysis, and uncovers subtle trends from the data. As one of the data analysis techniques that I'll be using is coding (descriptive/analytical), NVivo 10 is an appropriate software to use since it allows for both coding and auto-coding.

The first tutorial shows us how to use NVivo 10 to work with interviews, articles, and other documents.

The second tutorial shows us how to use NVivo 10 to organise materials into themes for coding.

The data analysis method might be subjected to changes upon subsequent consultations with Kerry. Nevertheless, I have been told by my peers and Kerry that NVivo is a rather useful software in managing and organising large volumes of data. Should I have the time, I will definitely explore NVivo in greater detail.

Analysing Data: Alan Bryman's Four Stages of Qualitative Analysis

   

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7X7VuQxPfpk

My Digital Voice Recorder (DVR) has finally arrived - time to conduct some interviews!

Finding the best voice recorder for research interviews can be tricky, since the market is saturated with a wide range of models with comparable features, and the only difference differentiating each model is almost always the price (and quality).

If the digital voice recorder is meant for conducting interviews, these are two features you might want to look out for in a voice recorder:

(1) An important issue is the file format, since it will determine what you can do with the recordings once they have been generated. For instance, if you need to edit the recording, then you need to be recording in a more generic format, say .mp3 or .wav. Additionally, for the purpose of my qualitative research project, I will most probably be using coding to analyse the data collected, hence ensuring that the file format is compatible with the analytical software (in my case, NVivo 10).  

(2) The quality of the recorded audio is another issue that is very important when carrying out interviews. In addition to buying a voice recorder that is of a good quality (especially in terms of the sound quality of its recordings), the interviewer can:

• Reduce the amount of background noise by being in a quiet place; and
• Having two voice recorders. 

 I have tested my digital voice recorder and it works pretty well - can't wait to proceed to carry out interviews with my peers!

Collecting Data by Interviewing - Questioning Techniques

 

Ask clear questions

Use words that make sense to the interviewees, and which are sensitive to the respondent’s context and world view. Questions should be easy to understand, straight-to-the-point, and devoid of jargon.

Ask single questions

Researchers should ask one thing at a time, as this will eliminate any unnecessary burden of interpretation on the part of the interviewees.

Ask truly open-ended questions

Such questions do not pre-determine the answers and allow room for the interviewees to respond in their own terms or language. For example, "What do you think about your English?" as opposed to "Do you think your level of English is high, medium, or low?".

Ask experience/behaviour questions before opinion/feeling questions

It is useful to ask questions about the interviewee's experience or behaviour before asking questions about his/her opinions or feelings as this helps establish a context for the interviewees to express the latter. For example, the interviewer could ask "What happened?" before "How do you feel about this issue?".

Sequence the questions in an appropriate manner

This refers to the use of a special kind of questioning technique called ‘funnelling’, which means asking from general (big picture) to the specific details, from broad to narrow. 

Probe and follow-up questions

The purpose of probing is to deepen the response to a question, to increase the richness of the data being obtained, and to give cues to the interviewee about the level of response that is desired. This can be done through direct questioning of what the interviewee just said - for example, "Could you elaborate more on that?" and "Can you give a more detailed description of what happened?".

Interpret questions

Throughout the interview, the interviewer should clarify and extend the meanings of the interviewee’s statements to avoid misinterpretations on their part. For example, the interviewer may use questions like ‘Is it correct that you feel that……?" and "Does the expression….. cover what you have just expressed?".

Avoid sensitive questions

Avoid deep questions which may irritate the interviewees, possibly resulting in an interruption of the interview.

Encourage a free rein but maintain control

Proficient interviewers should always be in control of a conversation which they guide and bend towards their research interest(s).

Establish rapport

Interviewers should respect the interviewee’s opinions, support his/her feelings, or recognise his/her responses

Reference

Berry, R. S. Y (1999), "Collecting data by in-depth interviewing", paper presented at the British Educational Research Association Annual Conference, 2-5 September, University of Sussex at Brighton, available at: http://www.leeds.ac.uk/educol/documents/000001172.htm (accessed 31 March 2013).

Reflections on Week 3 In-class Assigned Task - Present and discuss one theory for your area of research (what do you expect and why?)

Having conducted a few pilot interviews for my research project and attended a series of consultations with Kerry, I have managed to step out of my comfort zone and tread in "unsafe" waters - all in the name of good research. Taking some risks, experiencing uncertainties, and pushing the boundaries have helped me greatly in the process of theorisation. As I was looking through the "theory" (" " because I wouldn't really considered it a theory on hindsight) which I proposed in the maiden draft of my proposal, I decided to revisit it to compare and contrast the progress I have made thus far.

Week 3

Theoretical Framework:

The overarching idea is that mastery experiences, vicarious experiences, verbal persuasion, and psychological state collectively shape an individual's self-efficacy beliefs, which subsequently lead the individual to perceive a range of career options that are suitable for him/her, the influence of which is affected by the indivdual's gender and cultural background. 

Hypothesised Theoretical Process:

Essentially, what I proposed was that an individual's gender and cultural background will influence his/her level of self-efficacy beliefs (high/low level) as well as the range of career options he/she deems suitable and within his/her capabilities (wide/narrow range).

Clearly, in the above example, I have yet to propose a theory which explains how self-efficacy beliefs effect perceived career options. I have merely described the antecedents and outcomes of self-efficacy beliefs, as well as the possible mediators/moderators of the relationship. Kerry remarked that such a theoretical framework is overly quantitative, and neglects the theoretical nuances which account for how self-efficacy beliefs form an individual's perceived career options.

Week 4

After gathering feedback from my peers and Kerry, I made some adjustments to the theoretical model which I have proposed in the previous week, with the primary aim of explaining how self-efficacy beliefs shape an individual's perceived career options.

Theoretical Framework:

Hypothesised Theoretical Process:

Based on the four tenets of self-efficacy beliefs, we know that self-efficacy is developed from external experiences and self-perception, which are influential in determining the outcomes of many events – and among the outcomes, perceived career options. I propose two pathways, based on the two pillars – self-perception and external experiences, that link self-efficacy beliefs to perceived career options:

(1) Self-expansion: The idea of self-perception is that individuals tend to incorporate certain successful attributes relevant to another individual’s behaviour into their own self-concepts, leading participants to then modify their own behaviours. One way through which students may actually expand their range of career options is that they actually include another person’s attributes or choices, and include them as their own career choices.

(2) Boundary-setting: Another way that people form their career choices is based on external experiences which they have encountered or witnessed, and having been scarred by a previous bad experience, they scale back their career options, or set limits to what they believe they can achieve.

Both pathways will be investigated, taking into consideration the interplay of class, gender, and race/ethnicity, as shown here:

The interplay of gender, class, and race/ethnicity yields the following 18 interview cases:

Kerry explained that while I have managed to propose a theory linking self-efficacy beliefs to perceived career options, I have not identified the overarching issue - to which he referred to as the "social-psychological paradox". Both Ann and Kerry pointed out that self-perception is a psychological construct, while external experiences are social constructs. As I had not viewed the research issue from this perspective previously, I decided to read up more about the aforementioned paradox.


Week 8

Fast forward to this week, I now have a better understanding of what constitutes a theory, and what it means to propose a theory within the realm of qualitative research. I have always been more familiar with quantitative research, because my Honours thesis will be adopting quantitative research methods. What I found out later as I delved deeper into qualitative research is that both types are quite similar in their own ways. As with quantitative research, qualitative research relies heavily on theories (usually drawn from the social sciences and humanities) to guide their research process and illuminate their findings (Reeves, 2008).

Literature on self-efficacy suggests that the self-efficacy beliefs–perceived career options relationship is impacted more strongly by socio-economic status (SES) than by gender differences (contrary to many previous studies), and occasionally affected by race/ethnicity if the individual is from a country or background that discriminates against or grants privileges to a certain race/ethnicity (for example, the Malays are the privileged race in Malaysia). In particular, I propose that:

Self-efficacy beliefs: influence how people feel, think, motivate themselves, and
behave (Bandura, 1993)

Sources of self-efficacy:

• Mastery Experiences
• Vicarious Experiences
• Social Persuasion
• Physiological Factors

lead to

Career self-efficacy: the belief that an individual can accomplish his/her career goals

leads to

Perceived career options

based on a person's socio-economic background. Essentially, an individual's parents' educational background will set a minimum benchmark which the individual hopes to achieve, and his/her parents' income will help determine if the chances of him/her obtaining tertiary education will be higher or lower, which ultimately detemines whether the individual's range of career options is wide, narrow, specific, high-paying, mid-paying, and so on.

While Kerry remarked that I have attempted to explain how self-efficacy beliefs effect perceived career options, it was still not considered a theory mainly because what I have theorised is based purely on my assumptions, without reference to literature and theory backing the social-psychological paradox as well as the theoretical process. Hence, Kerry recommended Bordieu's work on classes and classifications, and suggested that I consider social capital as opposed to socio-economic status.

Bourdieu and Wacquant (1992) defined social capital as:

... the sum of the resources, actual or virtual, that accrue to an individual or a group by virtue of possessing a durable network of more or less institutionalised relationships of mutual acquaintance and recognition.

Based on the above definition, Bourdieu explained the realities of social inequality. He suggested that "it's not what you know, but who you know" that matters. He pointed out that the top jobs tend to go to well-connected and wealthy people, who could afford to attend elite schools. This is ascertained by numerous research on social mobility. Additionally, Bourdieu proposed that the volume of social capital possessed by an individual depends on the size of the network of connections he/she can effectively mobilise and the volume of capital (economic, cultural, or symbolic) possessed by each of those to whom he/she is connected to. There is an emphasis on access to connections, which are considered as resources. The unequal distribution of social capital is the principal source of class struggle/conflict. When applied to educational attainment, Bourdieu explained that the economic or social yield of educational qualifications depends on social capital, which can be inherited and used to support the attainment of educational goals.

Based on the three pilot interviews which I have carried out thus far, the idea that connections play an important role in shaping self-efficacy beliefs and subsequently influencing the individual's perceived career options does not seem like a robust explanation. Two of my interviewees mentioned that they were able to attend university because their parents could afford tuition fees, and their intention to pursue a range of or a few careers after graduation (they have not graduated) has nothing to do with their parents' wishes, although the fact that their parents spent quite a bit of money to send them to college would mean that they would prefer to pursue "decent" careers with mid- to high-salaries. The last interviewee attributed her narrow range of career options (she limited her career options to the insurance industry) to her love for mathematics and numbers, none of her immediate or extended family members were actuaries and both her parents were in Academia.

Despite the weak connection linking social capital to self-efficacy beliefs and perceived career options, a deeper exploration of the demographic differences has allowed me to gain a well-rounded and detailed understanding of the complexities linking both constructs. I am quite confident of formulating a good theory within the next two weeks.

References

Bandura, A. (1993), "Perceived self-efficacy in cognitive development and functioning",
Educational Psychologist, Vol. 28, No. 2: pp. 117—148.

Bourdieu, P., & Wacquant, L. J. D. (1992), An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL.

Reeves, S., Albert, M., Kuper, A., & Hodges, B. D. (2008), "Qualitative research: Why use theories in qualitative research?", BMJ: British Medical Journal, Vol. 337, No. 7670: pp. 631—634.