Interview

An interview provides individual’s opinions about research issues . Interviews explore the system of knowledge, opinion and beliefs of an interviewee. To compile this system the interviewer uses the "hermeneutic method", which details how every statement relates to the main purpose of what the interviewee is trying to say.

There are two kinds of interviews:
The structured interview is a set of questions. The interviewer can not help or influence the interviewee.

The unstructured interview is more like a conversation. The interviewer can use personal ideas to encourage the interviewee’s response. This method is more interesting, but the interviewer needs more skills.

The interviewer needs to analyse the content and process the information. The easier part is analysing content, but the processing of information may confirm, enrich or contradict the content. Analysing an interview involves observing the interviewee’s behaviour and reading between the lines.

Every person is different and every person reacts differently to the same questions. These differences are important for the interviewer because they connect with the processing of the information. Interviewer’s impression about the person is important as well.

Chit-chat is a good way to start an interview. The interviewer has to tell the interviewee about himself and his project. The interviewer should have a written consent form from the person. For detailed information the interviewer can encourage a person to pursue a line of thought, use ones own ideas to help him say more, and summarize his ideas. At the end of an interview the interviewer should thank the interviewee for his help and leave contact information for himself or his employer.

The last step is to compile the information from the interview into an article. An interviewer’s article should not be brief. He has to integrate the information from the interview. Using quotes is very good, because the quotes are interesting for the reader. Some quotes can be boring, so the interviewer has to choose unique ones.

Interviewees are identified by name, age, profession, marital status and why are they selected for the project. If an interviewee does not want to publish ones own name the interviewer can identified him by age, profession and marital status.