Making Interviews Successful

Interviews always involve some degree of unpredictability. Individuals often express knowledge and beliefs which you do not expect, or do it in a style or manner which may be a bit surprising. Most of the interviews for The Construction Zone are relatively brief and unstructured. The projects in The Construction Zone also assume participants with whom you are already somewhat acquainted and with whom you already have some rapport (that is, you are both relatively comfortable talking to each other). These assumptions make the interviews much more likely to prove productive-to provide information that you will find truly helpful for your project.

Nonetheless, there are several techniques that you can use that will help insure your brief, unstructured interviews turn out well. There are also many useful print-based guides to interviewing, as well as Web-based guides to interviewing. Here are some of the points made in these sources:

1. Describe your purposes concisely. Make sure your interviewee knows the topic or purpose of the interview, and why you selected him or her as an interviewee. Doing this will produce answers that are more relevant, and often a bit longer or "richer" in information as well.
2. Clarify comments when necessary. This goes for both you and your interviewee. Say things like, "What I mean is X" or "Can you tell me more about X?" (Where X is something that you or the interviewee said earlier.)
3. Reflect the interviewee's comments back if they seem important. If a comment seems important and you want your interviewee to say more about it, try saying things like, "So you believe that student initiative improves learning," or "Then you disagree with Mr. Jones."
4. Encourage the interviewee explicitly. It helps to smile at your interviewee and to look like you're listening, but it helps even more if you also state your encouragement. E.g. "That's fascinating! Can you tell me more?" or "I find that interesting. Can you say more about it?"
5. Use occasional opinions of your own. Be careful not to overdo your own opinions (after all, your purpose is to learn about the interviewee, not about yourself), but occasionally expressing opinions of your own can stimulate an interviewee to say more about his or her own viewpoint. E.g. You say, "I always thought that..." or "I had been in your place, I would have ..."
6. Use mild occasional challenges or "spurs." Again, used in moderation and in a friendly spirit, these can stimulate an interviewee to justify or explain their ideas more fully. E.g "Do you really believe that X is true?" or "Some people would describe that as X, instead of the way you described it."
7. Summarize the interviewee's comments periodically. In a short (15-minute) interview, this may only have to be done once, at the end of the interview. But make sure you do, because it will reduce the chance of misunderstandings as well as the chance that you failed to inquire about some point important to the interviewee.
8. Make sure to end the interview on time. If you promised that the interview would take only 15 minutes, then make sure to stop at the end of that time. If the interviewee seems like he or she is able to talk longer, and if both of you want to do so, then by all means carry on; but make sure-explicitly-that continuing is acceptable to the interviewee. On the other hand, if an interview ends faster than you expected, do not prolong it artificially! Just end it.