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Vicki Abusidualghoul
Vicki
Abusidualghoul
John Goodwin
John
Goodwin
Nalita James
Nalita
James
Al Rainnie
Al
Rainnie
Katherine Venter
Katherine
Venter
Melissa White
Melissa
White
Sitting on a wall in Northumberland crying: Semi-structured interviews
University of Leicester
2015
IR content
2015-01-30 16:59:24
Chapter
https://figshare.le.ac.uk/articles/chapter/Sitting_on_a_wall_in_Northumberland_crying_Semi-structured_interviews/10168532
[From Introduction] Alan Bryman in the 2nd edition of Social Research Methods (2004) has an extensive
Chapter devoted to ‘Interviewing in Qualitative Research’ as well as sections on
Ethnography and Focus groups. The Chapters provide an excellent introduction to issues
such as the difference between semi and unstructured interviews, preparing the interview
guide, kinds of question, recording and transcription etc.
What the chapter does not do is tell you how to deal with the personal trauma of finding
out that your tape deck has not worked on one of your very first interviews as a PhD
student (sit on a wall outside the factory and cry). Nor does it tell you how to react over 20
years later when a superbly high tech mini cassette proves not to have recorded a single
word of a two and a half hour brilliant interview with an old trade unionist (sit in the car
outside and weep).
In this Chapter we explore the lived realities of qualitative research, particularly the
interview itself. We look at issues that arise in trying to gain access (abusive employers, mind numbing negotiations), the terror of technology (see above), the location of the
interview (homes, cupboards, pubs), interviewing in another language (does TQM really
translate into Polish as Total Management Control?), transcription (the agency cant
understand a word Geordie shop stewards are saying), as well as electronic and internet
facilitated research.