Establishing Rapport

• The interviewer should project the positive image of a good person engaged in a harmless but important task.
• good person: the respondent should enjoy talking to the interviewer
• harmless: the interviewer will not harm the interviewee in any way
• important: the interviewer will ask questions that will help to achieve an important goal
• A good interviewer should
• develop trust and mutual respect
• speak and act in ways that are non-threatening
• cultivate a relatively neutral role but be compassionate and sympathetic towards the interviewee (even if you don’t like him or her)
• Techniques for establishing and maintaining trust:
• always be honest
• prove your motivation by interviewing respondents when it is best for them and not necessarily most convenient for you
• always keep your word and don’t promise anything that you cannot keep
• Techniques for establishing and maintaining respect and acceptance:
• always remain neutral
• be aware that the informants are observing and questioning you too

Diary of Field Observations

• chronicle of observations, divided into days and perhaps into separate scenes
• Description of scene:
• time, date, and place of the observation
• detailed description of place
• list and description of people present
• observation: chronicle of events and interesting observations in chronological order

1. write down everything you observed and heard
2. everything is data
3. do not summarize; be explicit
4. try to quote verbatim
5. use code names for people, do not use their real names

• Do not take notes or jot down only crucial notes while in the field; listen instead.
• Note taking can be intrusive and make people nervous by continually emphasizing that they are being observed and preserved.
• You learn to listen; you scribble notes and you learn to remember.
• Write the field notes as soon as you return home from the field.
• At the beginning, it is crucial to collect all kinds of data; don’t be too selective.
• What is important or trivial is usually not evident until much later.
• Field notes should include both empirical observations as well as interpretations, although the observations and interpretations should be kept distinct.
• By keeping both hard and soft data "together but separate," you can at a future time combine them in analysis without their being either tainted or lost.
• Write down your emotions, preconceptions, expectations, and prejudices so that they can be teased out from the final product.
• notes on notes: ideas, hypothesis, assumptions, impressions, etc.
• Always make several copies of your field notes and keep them at different safe places.

Guiding the Interview

• A questionnaire written to guide interviews is called an interview schedule or interview guide.
• Field researchers typically employ unstructured or semi-structured interviews to ask questions.
• This conversational approach yields flexibility in that an answer to one question may influence the next question the researcher wishes to ask.
• Asking questions:

• What is interesting from the respondent’s point of view?
• What is interesting from the researcher’s point of view?

• Don’t ask sociological questions.

• "Why" questions should be translated into "how" questions.

• "Why" questions often result in justifications.
• "How" questions tell you something about the process.

• Examples:

• "How did you happen to come here/be this?"
• "How did you feel at this time about this point?"
• "How did you talk to ...?"
• "What do you think about ...?"
• "What did you do then?"
• "What did you like the most/the least?"

• Don’t’ ask leading questions. Don’t put the answer into the respondent’s mouth.

• "Don’t you think ..."
• "Don’t you agree ..."

• Probes: elaboration on a specific subject

• sit and wait
• take the last statement and turn it into a question
• make a non-committal response (simply nod your head, etc.)
• ask for examples
• "Was ... this what you expected?"
• "How so/how not?"
• "How did you feel about this?"
• "Could you elaborate on this?"
• "You talked previously about ..., can you tell me more about that?"

• If something is left out at the end of the interview, mention it and find out why it is left out.
• At the end of the interview ask:

• Use a high quality tape recorder to record the interview.
• Don’t use the cheapest tapes available.
• Use external microphones that can be positioned comfortably where they will catch the speaker’s words.
• Write down new questions that pop into your mind.

Individual Life Histories

• an essay, based on interviews often supplemented with data from other sources, that describes and analyzes an individual’s development, conditions, and behavior over time
• A good start is the Life History Chart:

• a chronology of major events in the person’s life and major themes that deserve special attention
• The chronological outline notes where the person lived in each year, schools attended, jobs held, major recreational activities, major family events (births, deaths, marriages), public roles the person played (in political, religious, and social organizations), and other events and statuses that seem to mark the course of the individual’s life.
• A list of themes can be developed at the same time, and often there is at least some sense of major themes even before the interviews begin.

• Use internal consistency to improve the validity of the data:

• check whether data obtained at different times are consistent with each other

Sample Questions for the Life History Interview

Robert Atkinson (1998): The Life Story Interview

Childhood and Adolescence

• How would you describe your parents when you were growing up?

• What were some of the best and worst things about them?
• What do you think you inherited from them?

• What is your earliest memory?
• What was growing up in your house or neighborhood like?
• What do you remember most about growing up with, or without brothers and sisters?
• What were some of your struggles as a child?

• What was the saddest time for you?

• How was discipline handled in your family?
• What would you say was the most significant event in your life up to age 12?
• What pressures did you feel as a teenager and where did they come from?
• What did you do for fun and entertainment?
• What was the most trouble you were ever in as a teenager?
• What was the most significant event of your teenage years?
• What was being a teenager like? The best part? The worst part?
• What was your first experience of leaving home like?
• Were you in the military?

• What was this experience like?