This week’s interviewing assignment was insightful for many reasons. For one, interviewing appears easier than it is. Secondly, my research project centers on oral history research and the readings that I have gathered so far agree on one thing: oral history is more than an interview. To this end, I hoped to see if I could perceive what the differences are, based on my rudimentary experience. Unfortunately, I didn’t fully embrace the ïnterviewer” mode, which was a disservice. Before I describe my experience, I should mention that my research question was ¨How do American adults seek vacation travel information?” I asked the subjects: ¨Think of the last time that you went on a vacation. How did you locate information?¨
I began with the structured, critical incident interview. For all intents and purposes, this was to be the most formal of the interviews. I scheduled it first because I anticipated that it would be taxing. On the contrary, I accomplished very little and personal conversation took over (which Suchman and Jordan advise against). We ¨lost the plot” by praising Ethiopian food as well as discussing Ethiopian restaurants in Atlanta and Columbus, Ohio. We were enjoying a pretty neat exchange on Jacksonville’s Ethiopian restaurants (and lamented the fact that there aren’t any in Tallahassee) when someone reminded me that I was to be keeping time and five minutes had passed. This is all to say that I learned the following: don’t inject too much of your own experience, even if it is plenteous; it is better to make a note and return to ¨juicy convo¨ after the interview has ended; the researcher should tame their enthusiasm, especially if the research is their ¨baby,¨; one must balance the pleasantries of conversation with hard fact-finding. In my opinion, the critical incident technique is best suited for investigating non-personal, non-individualistic phenomena–that is, work-related, domain-related or skill-related processes. Maybe Flanagan mentioned this; I can’t recall at this moment.
The second, semi-structured interview was also very laid-back. It reminded me of the reference interview. I asked one or two questions but, for the most part, the interviewee was self-directed. I was a bit more focused yet the interview still leaned on the side of a conversation. I talk too much! I learned that researchers should foster dialogue but not conversation, which is hard to do without being cold. I agree with Suchman and Jordan, who noted that ¨standardization¨can make the interview process awkward.
The last interview, the unstructured, was the most successful. I introduced myself, stated the purpose of the interview and discussed the goals. I listened more than I spoke, but this had to do with the fact that I was restricted in terms of the number of questions that I could ask. Though it was unstructured, the interview was more professional because the interviewee was briefed. She understood the mission and the data I was after and answered accordingly.
A final note: the interviews collectively taught me that ramblings and digressions are pretty inevitable. The researcher would do well to anticipate distractions. These blurbs might be handy:
¨I’m glad you mentioned that because it leads perfectly into my next question: ¨
¨Ah, that’s extremely important and, along those lines, I was wondering…¨
¨So if I understand you correctly youŕe saying _______. Let me ask you, how do you feel about…¨