Informant interviews II
Learning Objectives
describe the characteristics of a good informant, how
to locate and select such
recount the behavioral stages of an interview and
pitfall in the process
list various ways of recording and managing
information from interviews
conduct an interview in class
Exercise #2: Direct Observation
Student experiences?
Open ended interviewing
Most critical aspect of qualitative research in learning
about a domain/culture/perceptions
hard to do especially for clinical people who are used
to structured interviews
hard for most public health people since they are used
to material they can quantify
prepare a fieldguide, with 5-6 questions, some probes,
one page MAX
Length at most 10 questions (to take about an hour to complete the interview)
- Descriptive questions:
- typical day
- can you tell me what happens to you in a typical day for you as a student?
- examples
- can you give me an example of ______
- language questions
- can you tell me what _____ means
- experience
- “Tell me about this activity?”
- You've probably had some interesting experiences with your research
doing
- "images of early hominids in popular cinema" MA thesis
- coding female circumscision in Senegal and The Gambia
- hormonal syncronization in pair bonded couples
- teaching biological anthropology
- Structural questions
- what are all the different experiences anthropology graduate students have
at UW
- Contrast questions (what is difference between ____ and ___ _ )
- Iteration:
- tell me about ___
- probing
- what else
- repetition
- Last Question:
- is there anything else you would like to tell me?
- is there anything else I should have asked you?
Disclosure statement
Telephone interview
people often more comfortable talking on the phone
can record this if ask permission
Behavioral stages of an interview
physical set up is critical, try not to directly face the
informant, but sit to the side & below
– quiet place with no distractions
Greetings
explanations, project confidentiality statement
Consider a different term than interview:
– having a conversation, talk, …
RAPPORT PROCESS
Apprehension: get informant talking
Exploration
– make repeated explanations (your purpose is, to learn
about their ideas)
– restate what informants say (in their words, don’t
reinterpret)
Affinity Respect Trust ART
Rapport
Don’t ask for meaning, ask for use,
Cooperation: how to deal with someone who drags on
and on in an interview?
Encourage by telling what they say is appreciated
psychoneurolinguistics
native language
speak as you would naturally
– "cool"
During interview
Express cultural ignorance
– “I’m like a small child, I need to be told everything”
Express interest
– “gee, that’s interesting”
Try to use local expressions
– (if don't use them correctly, will be less effective,
possibly laughed at)
Closing comments, desire to meet
again, thank you
is there anything else you would like to share with
me?
CLASS EXERCISE
one+ question each group plans to ask
in their interview.
put questions up on the boards
comment as a group on how to make
the question more broad, less leading.
Working in another language
Fieldworker using a non-native language may miss what is
said
Difficulty capturing verbatim flow of dialogue even when
understood
Work with local assistant to help you understand what
people are saying
Usually write field notes in your own language
– include key non-English words to preserve local meanings
BIASING EFFECTS
not a term used by anthropologist
in epidemiology, bias is a deviation of results or
inferences from the truth
Response effect (variation among informants)
Inter-interviewer variability effect
– tall / short or obese / slim or male / female
– tone of voice
Experience effect
If you think you are experienced in the culture, you
tend to not to ask basic questions
I'm like a child, I need to be told everything
–
–
–
–
–
University Police
Alternative Medicine
Blood Donors
Big Time Studiers
Elevator Riders
Thomas Pynchon
Deference effect
They tell you what they think you want to know
– in some cultures won't say NO
Informant deliberately try to mislead
researcher/interviewer (sucker bias)
Expectancy effect: interpret things
consistent with your pre-conceived
concepts of social patterns
Big Time Brewery Study Hall
Progress in Developing Countries
Determinants of Health
University Police
Colonics
Blood Donors
Elevator Riders
Trader Joe's shoppers
Madison Market shoppers
Distortion effect
You'll see what you want to see even when it's not
there
– Newar women pierce noses
Make notes on what you were doing before the
interview/observation
– might effect what you observe or hear or way you
interact if you just got a speeding ticket, or had a fight
with your partner, or visit with the boss
Recall
You forget, especially what you don’t write down
Writing Up Field Notes
Context
Describe setting (environment)
Describe informant(s)
Technique of data collection
Describing informant
Vague and over generalized note:
– The informant was uneasy.
Detailed: At first the lady sat very stiffly on the chair next to
my desk. She picked up a magazine and let the pages flutter
through her fingers very quickly without really looking at
any of the pages. She set the magazine down, looked at her
watch, pulled her skirt down, and picked up the magazine
again. Her eyes turned from me to the magazine to the
other people in the room. She avoided eye contact.
Encounter
What happened, what was said
Details of behavior
Evaluate encounter
Emerging ideas about how culture is organized
Possible biasing effects and other threats to validity
Assess method used and lessons learned
Quotes with / without audio recording
If you don’t record, how close is close enough to the
verbatim to be a quote?
SUGGEST write quotation marks around the exact
words said, and then otherwise indicate the content
of the missed material (say use brackets, also …)
"nice being there, hard being back… but it gets old…
keep myself busy, sit around…grew up in Los
Angeles, used to it, eventually I have hunger for the
speed of a big city, getting things done"
Indirect quotation
Speech not written down word for word at the time could
be presented as 'indirect quotation" which more closely
approximates dialogue
‘hypothesis I want to test is the foundation for a longer study
but this is less costly and will allow me to test the material’
'pair bonded couples, married, male/female, reproductive
hormone levels coordinating, a new idea'
'at a party, wife was in bedroom feeding Elsa, a friend walked
in and was freaked out seeing his wife's breasts…don't
understand what the big deal is, my wife is from Sweden,
it's the norm public breast feeding is normal'
Speech can be paraphrased
translates speech into the interviewer’s terms and
tends to summarize, obscuring the flavor of the
dialogue
Elsa Margaret is four months old, our first child, a
new experience for us, really neat to see her
develop, feisty, she knows what she wants, she will
be an interesting teenager
Be very conservative in editing direct
quotations,
also makes you more alert to presenting
informant’s views, and not your own
Managing Field Notes
Emerson helpful here
NOTEBOOKS
dairies, composition notebooks, logs
CARDS
audio recorder, not a substitute
Transcribe everything
(audio recording)
include false starts, umm, aah, pauses, repetitions
(disfluencies) for this conveys speaker’s emotional
state or mood, which may be important to the
subject
at same time, need to make the material readable
need for balance
Number paragraphs in write up
Legal numbering system useful
– 2.4.6.23
•
•
•
•
Means 2nd interviewer,
4th informant (subject),
6th interview,
23rd paragraph
My sister in the area, doesn’t have problems with her kids either. She is
more of mother’s sort of softside, and let things go side. (Sister in Lynnwood).
Erica’s mom. Her kids are doing fine. My younger sister’s got 5 kids now.
Doing fine. My sister in Portland had 5. Seem to be all doing fine. My brother
John had a son things are great with, a daughter he had real problems with.
Kind of an issue where she got to be an adolescent made me think of
“reviving Ophelia ” She got to be an adolescent and he had broken up with his
wife, and she lived with her mother. She couldn’t get along with her mother,
and moved in with him. And he just couldn’t deal with her. He was Dad. There
was no mom to intervene. He has basically disowned her.
2.4.6.23 .
Dialogue includes information on
verbal and nonverbal expression
Can't be done from an audio tape and in a video tape
depends on cameraperson
record meanings inferred from body expression, tone of
voice
–
–
–
–
–
turns towards me crosses legs, arms crossed in front of him
face less smiley, eyes closed
eyes opens, closes eyes (victim of political violence)
eyes opened, face softens
looked up at ceiling
in group settings they talk together
Pitfalls in interviewing
Interruptions
– especially telephone and cellular phone
Distractions
Time scheduled right afterwards by interviewer or
informant
Stage fright
Being judgmental
Dealing with someone
who drags on
look them directly in the eye
look at your watch?
Reflect back to them what you have
heard, regarding the area of interest,
with their quotes
Sensitive questions
asking if married, instead ask who is in the household
my experience in ER is everyone has a fiancé
asking about salary, savings, resources, economics
poor people may be less sensitive about this than those
more well off
ask how well off they perceive they are
ask about quantitative ranges may be easier
Counseling
avoid giving advice, or stating your own feelings on a
topic, be neutral
Shallowness
often because interviewer moves participant along too
quickly
Secret information
don’t violate confidentiality, nor use information an
informant asked you not to
Audio recorder
takes 6-7 times the amount of time of interview, cf 3
times the amount of time of interview if use notes,
hand-held, battery-operated, often comes with built in
microphone, but get kind with external microphone
jack
– buy one now, and get used to using it
Audio recording
Optimal: combine the two,
– take notes & use recorder for items missed
small cassette tape recorder, with external mic jack is
cheapest (<$50), a back up unit is wise
– check operation before you begin
Digitial recorders to media (no tape):
– Olympus VN 480 PC
– Marantz PMD 660 (Compact Flash Card)
business dictation machine, some models put a tone
on the tape to allow quick access during rewind or
fast forward, (indexing)
Helpful hints
have spare batteries around, use fresh ones, try to
avoid units that only run on rechargeable
batteries if you will be in remote non-electrified
places
– carry a spare battery pack
– NiMH AA rechargeable batteries quite reliable now
– use long enough tapes so you don’t have to change
them half-way
– most advise against C 120 tapes, but I use them
– clean the recording head before use
Microphone
lapel microphone less obtrusive, capture all the sound
details ($30), two are ideal with a Y jack, if you
only have one, and the informant is not shy about
wearing it, that would be preferable
Binaural microphone worn on glasses is very
unobtrusive
Pressure Zone Microphone ideal as well
wireless microphones, mixers, good for focus groups
Other recording details
make sure the audio recorder is ON, not paused
And that TAPE IS MOVING and recording function is
on (not playing back only)
speak the date, time, place, persons on the tape at
beginning and end (digital ones often record that)
label the media, prevent re-recording on the tape,
make a back up for crucial material
Audio recording details
speak clearly and not too fast, and informant is more
likely to do the same
could play back a segment for the respondent, to see if
conversation is being picked up, provided you don’t
think this will cause stage fright
don’t rustle papers, etc. near the mike (or at all), or
play with microphone cord
Transcription
very time consuming
use a commercial machine with a foot pedal to move
tape back and forth
consider inputting the audio onto a computer and
having rapid start stop capabilities
MICROCOMPUTER for notes
has become the standard, since much more readable,
can search easily
BACK UP EVERYTHING
Budgeting
if writing a grant proposal, suggest use 6-8 hours of
staff time for each hour of interview time to
transcribe, read, analyze
Class Exercise:
a student interviews another student, emphasizing
techniques from this & previous lecture
Three-up: one informant, one interviewer and one
to observe
Interviewer chooses topic
focus of interview:
what do you do in a typical day regarding your
health?
memorable aspects of growing up, events that affected
you, as an insight to your culture
if new here: finding a place to live in Seattle,
or if established here, a typical day
INTERVIEW EXERCISE
What do you in a typical day if new here: finding a place
to live in Seattle
regarding your health
– What do you do about your
health in a typical day?
memorable aspects of
growing up, events that
affected you, as an insight to
your culture
– I’d like to hear from you
about what it was like
growing up, and what
insights you had about your
culture? Can you talk about
that?
– I understand you have only
been in Seattle a short time,
and I’m interested in learning
what it is like to come here
and find a place to live and
get to know the area. Can
you talk about that?
if established here, a typical
day
– I’m interested in know what
you do in a typical day. Can
you talk about that?
Format
take 3 minutes to develop an brief field guide
take 10 minutes, and then present to the group for
2 minutes
Discuss your reactions, what you
learned
THURSDAY:
Insider-Outsider Issues
Hoang thi Dieu-Hien
CHARACTERISTICS OF
DESIRABLE INFORMANTS
Knowledgeable
Social network
Select so as to provide access to all parts of social
system
Both formal and informal position in community
Immersed in culture
Desirable informants
Articulate, observant and able to give precise
information -- good storytellers but not
analytic
Accessible -- willingness yes but beware of
the "too friendly" = marginalized
Cultural consensus and cultural competence
(shared knowledge; how well fit consensus
in community)
Desirable informants
Understands method of investigation
Able to act as intermediaries or "guides"
Investment by both parties ---> trust
Somehow representative of a community