Managing interviews

Whichever type of interview is used, the interviewer is always in control. However unstructured the conversation may be, the interviewer has the research question(s) and knows what they want to find out. The interviewer needs to ensure that the conversation is productive. Robson (2002) has four points of advice to interviewers, which can be summarised as:

• Listen more than you talk
• Ensure that questions are clear and unambiguous
• Don't ask leading questions which pre-suppose an answer
• Look as though you are interested in the responses

(see Robson, p275, Box 9.2 for 'Questions to avoid at interviews')

and, if researching in higher education and interviewing students, it is probably wise to avoid questions which might appear to 'test knowledge', for example, 'tell me what you can remember about (a topic from a course)'. This will probably not give valid or reliable data. A tutor-researcher will always need to be aware of the difficulties of interviewing students they have taught and in gaining reliable data from them.

Robson, C. (2002) Real World Research. London: Routledge. 2nd Edition