Interviews

Mark Twain once wrote about interviews, interviewing and being interviewed. This will eventually become available on http://www.marktwainproject.org. (My source: BBC Radio 4 today). There are lessons for the unwary researcher, and for those interviewed. Twain condemns the interview as an intrusion into personal life which can do damage, psychologically and socially. The interviewer has his/her own agenda, explicit or implicit, in which the welfare of the interviewee has no secure place. The interviewee is faced with a range of questions, most of which are hard to grapple with simply. The interviewer wants a soundbite answer that can be easily quoted.  The interviewer moves from question to question, and before thoughts can be marshaled, has moved on to the next topic. The interview therefore ends up being unsatisfactory in human terms and unreliable in research terms. The interviewer at last finds an area of interest that the interviewee can get his/her teeth into. It is relevant, appropriate, authentic... Sorry, the interviewer says, its not on my schedule, can we move on?
There are lessons here for the qualitative researcher. Interviews are not the magic answer to data collection. The interviewee might be open and honest, and might not be. The interviewee might have a grip of the questions, and might not. The real insight offered by the interviewee might be missed by the questions asked. I have been interviewed by researchers. Once, I was misquoted (the words were on the tape but quoted without the contextual meaning). Once, the questions allowed no reflection and required soundbite answers. Interviews are only as good as the skills of the interviewer.

Interviews need to be flexible and semi-structured. A first interview may be necessary to identify areas of particular relevance that a second interview can then focus on. Informal contacts, even emails, could help to determine what an interviewee is and is not interested in. An interviewee may not tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. I would not, for this requires a depth of trust that will be hard to achieve. The interview would emphasise how the interviewee would like history to be written. The interviewer needs not to be a passive receiver of information, but an interrogator of it. "Yes, but, why did you do that? Is that ethical? is it fair?". A line of questioning that would inhibit the interviewer to open up. The interview is therefore a problematic data collection method. That is not to say it should be avoided - it may be an only way of eliciting information - but that it should be used with caution.