Understanding Research (30 page)

Getting people to agree to be interviewed, if not in person then to respond to an email question list, can be harder than you think; people in businesses, NGOs and governments, and media professionals are often very busy. A refusal can be outright (here, ‘no’ usually means ‘no’) or conveyed by silence. If the latter, there is no reason not to try one more, if not two more times. An initial silence can simply indicate oversight. But consecutive silences should settle it for you, so move on.

Remember that these people are granting you their time and knowledge; if no answer comes straightaway this need not mean a refusal; ask again as above. The main thing to note is to keep the initial request short and to the point; make quite clear what your topic is (in accessible language – no Big Thinker name-dropping!) and your aims for the interview.

Once a person agrees in principle you need to then gain informed consent; a signed form (adapted to your needs) or as a clear acceptance in an email if this suffices (see Appendix 1). People need to be fully informed of the intent and purpose of an interview; unlike some experimental situations, deception is not an option.

Once again, draft and redraft (if you have to) the questions. It is also customary to offer to send the questions to the interviewee beforehand. Keep the list short (6–10 questions maximum, of which some are basic information and where the key questions are clear and distinct from one another). Too many questions overwhelm your respondent and often indicate a lack of concerted thinking on your part, i.e. avoid sending your first brainstorm list to anyone agreeing to speak with you and, under advisement, before they have accepted or not.

If you only get one or two positive responses, take these on and readjust the interview’s role in the overall design if you need to. For BA and MA level projects, be content – and work with what you get. The main rule of thumb at all levels is to
note that interviews require time and preparation. They can flow easily and they can be difficult. People can be all too ready to tell you anything they want you to know but others can be evasive and hostile. Sometimes this is for reasons beyond your control.

Berg has an overview of ways to troubleshoot if things start to go off-course during an interview (Berg 2009: 117–21). As noted above, interviews can start well and end less happily, and vice versa. Points to note, however obvious, include:

How you start an interview, and how you bring it to an end also requires care, a sense of timing and an awareness of fatigue (on your interviewee’s part) and the other person’s time restrictions. What was the arrangement? Check with the other person what their timeframe is and do not take too long to get things off the ground.

As noted above, all interviews (and focus-group situations – see below) need to warm up. This is where the information-type questions play a role. It helps both of you settle down. Do a sound check if the interview is being recorded (and check that the interviewee is happy with this – not all people are).

The biggest pitfall is letting an interview go on too long, past the point the other party wants, or can sustain. Set your watch, or ascertain which questions you really want to cover before the end, prior to starting (see Berg 2009: 141–3). You can always approach them for a follow-up or ask supplementary questions by email or phone if need be.

Do your homework well; if this interview is with a government official or someone with management responsibility, be clear as to their area of expertise and portfolio. If you find yourself interviewing someone about an area in which they are not qualified, or permitted to comment upon, both of you will be frustrated.

Here attitudes, including underlying assumptions or perceptions from both parties, can lead to tensions as well as open doors. For instance, some activists and communities where research does not have a good ‘street credibility’ can be guarded in their responses. Probing questions are important (as journalists know), however, your job is to encourage responses, not to grill the interviewee as would an investigative news journalist.

When interviewing people from other cultures, backgrounds, or language groups, your ability to negotiate the linguistic and cultural mores underpinning good exchanges is paramount. In some cases you may need to do interviews by proxy. Male researchers interviewing women in some parts of the world may not be welcome, unmarried female researchers may have restricted access, homeless people may not feel comfortable with a stranger, and so on (see inter alia Berg 2009: 136–43.

At the end of the interview do not forget to thank your interviewee for their time, no matter what you may think of the usefulness of the material at that point. More importantly, be sure to send a follow-up thank you, again no matter how well things went or not. If you have arranged for the interview subject to consult the transcripts or eventual use of their material (whether they are named or not, depending on the terms of the consent they grant) be sure to fulfil this obligation.

Final point
: sometimes we can exit an interview convinced that it has been no use at all. Given that working with human subjects and the sorts of inquiries conducive to this sort of data-gathering, often our first impressions can be incorrect. An interview can feel like a great success – flowing, affable, lots of material. But on looking more closely we may notice that there is less substance than we imagined. And the converse is true, so note how emotions and interpersonal dynamics, contingencies like hold-ups, the time of the day, or interruptions, can affect our initial judgment. All the more reason for taking time to absorb and analyse the interviews at a later date, and more than once if this material is important to your investigation.
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This sort of data-gathering works for research projects that regard the material generated in a group, by way of people talking together, how interpersonal interactions generate more material, as the primary data. By implication this means that a variety of open-ended responses, including the psycho-emotional dimensions that govern any sort of group discussion, are relevant to the research question (Berg 2009: 158–9, Gunter 2000: 42).

This format for getting a range of nuanced information from more than one person at a time can work well on its own or together with other techniques such as surveys or one-to-one interviews; the respective importance of the focus group data will require a comparable degree of justification and working through in the research plan. The key point here is that it is a group-based response, interactively produced ideas and opinions about the topics on hand that matter. In this respect focus groups can provide an extra dimension to face-to-face interviews and more depth than anonymous surveys.
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• In market research focus groups are effective ways for ascertaining impressions of a product or service, isolating problems in communicating the latter to general publics or target audiences, or teasing out inchoate opinions and attitudes. In market research they are also a convenient way to target future markets as well as introduce or refine products and services (Berg 2009: 158–9).
  
• For academic research purposes focus groups come into their own when the researcher is interested in attaining breadth and diversity of responses as part of a ‘live’ interaction between discussants.
  
• However, focus groups are not anything-goes, a free-for-all, or a scenario in which the researcher becomes a co-participant.
  
• The size of each group as well as their composition and how many in total are enlisted all, once again, depend on the research topic and specific question. Just as one or two interviews are not enough on their own to support a whole research project at postgraduate level, neither is one focus group on its own.
  

Like a tutor – even a media anchor person or talk show host, albeit with a clear scholarly outcome in mind – the moderator can make or break a focus group. No matter how fascinating the discussion may be or how strongly you (if you are wearing the researcher/moderator hats at once) feel engaged with the topics and opinions raised, you are not a fully participating member. As Berg notes, professional ‘moderators tend to get professional results’ (Berg 2009: 163).

The moderator’s role is a distinctive element in well-run focus groups; it is not the same as the interviewer’s role in that a moderator consciously guides and redirects the conversation. Their rapport with the group is at once more simple – more distant,
and more complex – group dynamics work between moderators and participants as well as between the latter. Your participants also need to have a clear idea about the purpose of the group, of how their input will be treated and what the research project is about.

One thing that focus groups and interviews have in common, however, is the way in which the moderator/interviewer needs to use their intuition, if not experience, in deciding when to leave one topic and move onto another.

For focus groups in which participants are asked for their ideas about an item – product or TV programme for instance – a checklist of specific questions may be substituted by a single general topic. If the group is assembled to consider a range of issues arising from a more general topic – the effects of gaming or social networking sites in people’s everyday life for instance – then a list of questions does need to be devised; more is less in this respect, hence the formulating of clear questions that also inspire discussion takes time, and trying out.

Below we encapsulate these practicalities in terms of some do’s and don’ts; these points can also be adapted for interviews, face-to-face or computer-mediated. As a rule:

• Don’t set up focus groups as a substitute for one-to-one interviewing, as a quick way to conduct surveys, or as a shortcut form of observation. In all three cases, time spent designing the techniques each of these approaches need on their own terms will offer better data respectively.
  
• Before committing to this sort of data-gathering do ask yourself whether this approach is best suited to your project; is it sufficient on its own or accompanying other avenues?
  
• Don’t make groups too big; 6–8 participants is more than enough; what the composition of the group/s will be again depends on the research question: age-dependent, socio-economic categories, preferences, gender-specific, or mixed.
  
• How many groups again depends on the level and ambitions of the project. If you conduct only one focus group then your conclusions, and any generalizations, need to reflect this.
  
• Don’t have sessions go on too long; the usual limit is 30–60 minutes. If you are showing an item (programme, film) then consider the effect this has on the timing.
  
• Don’t assume that everyone taking part has the same motivations or level of interest in your project.
  
• Do make people as comfortable as possible: do consider your financial resources and venue requirements.
  
• Do be prepared to have to spend a lot of time transcribing the sessions; for each hour of talk calculate at least 4 hours of transcribing verbatim, as well as including other cues such as hesitations, silences, irritation. If video is used you need permission.
  
• Do think about whether you are qualified and/or experienced enough to moderate the group/s. If you carry out this role do be prepared to intervene when things go off-topic but also be prepared to let the discussion run.
  
• Don’t intervene substantively, unless you have devised a project/question and corollary focus group that justifies this.
  
• Do provide clear structure and directions before, during, and after the session.
  
• Do obtain signed, informed consent from your participants. Confidentiality and respect for the time and input of your participants are high priorities in academic research with/on human subjects.
  
• Do have a Plan B if a group, or groups do not work though no-shows or lack of viable material; one is beyond your control and the other is up to your level of preparation.
  
• Do try out your questions, rationale, and ideas on others first; your supervisor as well as classmates are good starts.