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INSTRUCTOR’S RESOURCE GUIDE
for
Interviewing: Speaking, Listening, and Learning for
Professional Life
Second Edition
Rob Anderson, Saint Louis University
and
G. Michael Killenberg, University of South Florida St. Petersburg
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CONTENTS
I. Preface
II. Why Teach Interviewing?
III. Who Are the Authors?
Brief Biographies
IV. A Vision for the Book
V. Key Features of Interviewing
VI. Guiding Principles for Experiential Interviewing Classes
Classroom Atmosphere
Assignments and Grades
VII. Sample Syllabus
VIII. Using the Book, Chapter by Chapter
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I: Preface
An interviewing course is one of the most interesting and fulfilling opportunities
available to communication instructors. In it, students make connections they’ve never
considered before and grow in ways they’d never anticipated. At the same time, an
interviewing course helps us stretch as instructors in important ways:
• Teachers who specialize in interpersonal communication research will find their
interests relevant to teaching interviewing, but they also must become familiar
with media practices and the range of professions communication students enter.
• Teachers who prepare students for media careers in such courses as reporting,
broadcast management, public relations, and advertising will find their
professional experience directly relevant to interviewing. But many of them will
want to read more about the dynamics of face-to-face talk and benefit from
broader exposure to communication theory.
• Teachers who stress skills and speech performance can continue to do so
effectively in an interviewing course, but they also will want to be able to explain
how fundamental concepts of communication research contribute to interviewing
success.
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• Teachers who stress goal setting, persuasion, and rhetorical success will find
themselves well prepared to teach interviewing, but they also may want to learn
more about the ethics, intercultural sensitivities, and philosophical principles
underlying the complex choices of interviewers and interviewees in professional
life.
In other words, an interviewing course is a nexus for many courses in an undergraduate
communication curriculum. If you have the opportunity to teach interviewing, you’re
likely to become a generalist in the best and most practical sense.
We developed this resource guide for instructors who want to augment their
courses with extra materials, readings, and activities for their students, or who simply
want to deepen their own knowledge and familiarity with various contexts of
interviewing.
Despite the need to become a generalist, most instructors, we believe, teach
interviewing from a “home base” determined by their own experience, skills, or research
specialization. For some, that home base might be organizational interviewing. Others
start from their interest in interpersonal conversation or from interviews conducted in
their own scholarly research. But it’s a rare instructor who has direct professional or
research experience in the full range of topics, methods, and approaches covered in the
typical general interviewing course. Committed teachers supplement their own experience
with a wide range of additional resources representing the direct experience of others.
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We appreciate your interest in our ideas about interviewing and teaching, and we
welcome comments and suggestions from you and your students about the book and,
particularly, how we might improve subsequent editions.
Please reach us through e-mail at andersonr@accessus.net and
killenbe@stpt.usf.edu.
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II: Why Teach Interviewing?
A carefully prepared and rigorous interviewing class provides many benefits for
students and teachers:
• Interviewing is one of the most practical skill clusters a communication student can
learn. Effective interviewers and interviewees can expect to obtain jobs more readily and
advance in careers more steadily. Most, if not all, communication professions require
interviewing or interview-type skills: Public relations and advertising professionals
interview clients to discover their needs and goals; journalists seek politicians’ opinions,
which then make news; teachers and trainers question their students to determine what
learning goals to stress; sales professionals conduct persuasive interviews daily;
personnel managers select and evaluate employees; and so forth.
• Interviewing gives students confidence in their ability to interact with different kinds of
people — those from different cultures, those with more (or less) power or prestige, those
suffering through interpersonal or organizational crises. An education in interviewing is
an education in flexibility, sensitivity, and acceptance as well as an avenue to new kinds
of personal power. Students in interviewing classes learn that differences of style,
content, and culture energize learning. They learn to welcome differences as fertile
opportunities.
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• Interviewing provides students with exceptional opportunities to receive and provide
feedback. Many students report that they learn as much or more about themselves in an
interviewing class as they do anywhere in the curriculum. They glimpse themselves in
action when video recorded. They see and hear how others react to them. They get the
benefit of others’ coaching. They learn how to make their personality characteristics —
even shyness — work for them rather than against them.
• Interviewing is, in a sense, a crossing point or permeable boundary between different
segments of the discipline of communication, including interpersonal communication and
mass communication. Interviewing is what professionals in organizational
communication, rhetoric, public relations, advertising, journalism, and other subfields
and research specializations have in common. In an interviewing class, students discover
how the overall discipline of communication draws upon a common core of ideas.
• Interviewing helps students become better learners in other classes. Studying
interviewing has direct transfer value; students learn new ways, for example, to ask a
philosophy professor for clarification about Kant or Heidegger. They develop new skills
for asking classroom questions in ways that articulate other students’ confusions, and
without putting teachers on the defensive. They may develop new creativity, perhaps
discovering a term paper topic for urban sociology by wondering if neighborhood police
would be available for interviews about changing perceptions of adolescent crime.
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• Interviewing is one of the foundations of news and public dialogue in a free society.
Serious students of interviewing tend to read and watch the news regularly — and
critically. If a teacher helps them track carefully how interviews propel presidential
debates, shape congressional investigations, and influence foreign policy, they will
develop analytical and critical habits that will stay with them for a lifetime. In addition,
effective interviewers and interviewees add their own voices to the public dialogue at
school board sessions, public hearings, neighborhood association meetings, town hall
debates, and local elections.
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III: Who Are the Authors?
We met more than 35 years ago as young assistant professors at a Midwest
university, where we worked in a large room of open faculty offices, subdivided by
bookcases and filing cabinets. We taught in different departments — Rob in speech
communication and Mike in mass communication — but we couldn’t, even if we had
wanted to, avoid meeting one another and overhearing each other talking to students and
colleagues. As we got to know each other better, we came to realize that together we
had something to say about interviewing beyond our own academic disciplines and
practical experience.
We began to write in collaboration to encourage others to see the benefits of
merging practical experience with theoretical concepts and research in human behavior.
Some practitioners become antagonistic to theories of any stripe and dismissive of any
discussion that is even faintly abstract. On the other hand, some social science researchers
dismiss practitioners’ experience as either idiosyncratic or based on unreflective bad
habits. Most of us fall in a middle ground, but it’s sometimes hard to get people in
separate camps to talk with each other and come to recognize both the valuable
practicality of theory-based research and the theoretical potential of vigorous concrete
experience. We hope Interviewing helps to bridge gaps between theorists and
practitioners.
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Brief biographies:
Rob Anderson has applied his research in the theory of dialogue to practical
problems of interviewing, conflict management, listening, and everyday
communication ethics. In addition, he has facilitated numerous workshops in
interpersonal communication for student and professional audiences. His current
interests include exploring how complex institutions like the university and
contemporary journalism can enhance public dialogue more effectively. Now
professor of communication at Saint Louis University, Rob has received major
teaching awards at two universities, and he is the author or coauthor of 11 books
and numerous articles in journals in communication, journalism, English, and
psychology.
G. Michael Killenberg acquired professional interviewing experience as a
reporter and editor for daily newspapers, in addition to teaching journalism and
mass communication at several colleges and universities. His current research
focuses on newspaper-community relations, media law and ethics, and diversity
within professional journalism. He was founding director of the Department of
Journalism and Media Studies at the University of South Florida St. Petersburg,
where he still teaches undergraduate and graduate students. His publications
include numerous articles in professional and popular periodicals. His latest book
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on public affairs reporting was published in 2008. Besides collaborating on the
original and second editions of Interviewing, he and Rob Anderson coauthored
Before the Story: Interviewing and Communication Skills for Journalists and The
Conversation of Journalism: Communication, Community, and News.
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IV: A Vision for the Book
We wrote Interviewing for instructors and students who want to concentrate on
the skills of interviewing through a course both professionally grounded and intellectually
challenging. Interviewing will help students develop skills while they think systematically
about the process; such an approach will help them decide how (and whether) those skills
can be applied. We envision a general interviewing course both as a performance
opportunity — a laboratory for skill development — and as an opportunity for students to
reflect on the complex processes and ethical challenges of interpersonal communication.
Therefore, our textbook describes the practical skills of interviewing in the
context of other concepts and courses students encounter as communication majors. We
believe that many textbooks tend to present interviewing skills relatively prescriptively
and tend to consider the interviewing course as somewhat isolated from the wider
curriculum. We want to teach students how to interview and, beyond that, motivate them
to become interested in interviewing by, for example, reading more about interviewing,
participating more often in interviews in daily life, and applying interviewing skills in
other courses.
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To help instructors meet both objectives in their courses, we adopt what we term a
“skills-plus” approach, in which students will understand how skills are related to basic
appreciations of interpersonal communication, ethics, and research.
Each substantive chapter is divided into two parts — a “Basics” section in which
skills are introduced and clearly discussed, and a “Beyond the Basics” section in which
interviewing is related to wider issues in communication and everyday life. Although the
“Beyond the Basics” discussions also might be considered essential reading by many
instructors, other teachers might choose to assign only “The Basics” for certain chapters.
V: Key Features of Interviewing
• “Skills-plus” orientation — We describe essential skills thoroughly and go on to place
them in conceptual context. With an effective blend of skills, appreciations, and
knowledge, interviewing is therefore linked to other courses in the major, such as
communication theory, research methods, interpersonal communication, listening, mass
communication, organizational communication, and intercultural communication.
Although the book helps students understand the concepts supporting behavioral advice,
we’ve been selective in citing research; long footnotes detailing multiple research studies
do not help students taking an interviewing course.
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• Helpful and flexible organization within chapters — Each chapter is divided into “The
Basics” and “Beyond the Basics” sections, allowing instructors more choice in making
assignments and adapting the text to their courses.
• Helpful and flexible overall organization of chapters — The chapters of Part One
develop basic skills and appreciations. The chapters of Part Two describe specific
interview contexts and strategies. The final chapters in Part Three place interviewing in a
wider analytical and cultural context.
• Clear division of basic interviewing skills into three interrelated types — listening,
questioning, and framing. Listening is emphasized as the skill that enables interviewbased learning in the first place; questioning is emphasized as the skill that focuses
learning; and framing is emphasized as the skill that interprets and places learning in
appropriate context. We believe no other text emphasizes listening skills as much as this
one does, and no other text offers an extended treatment of the practical applications of
the skill of framing.
• Student-friendly writing — We use a narrative style in which stories and examples,
often about everyday college life, help students relate to the terms, concepts, and practices
we introduce. Through examples and stories, students can see interviewing as an
opportunity to learn more about their campuses, about their families and friends, and
about themselves.
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• Emphasis on how interviewing contributes to the quality of public dialogue —
Throughout the book, we reinforce how interviewing can support democratic action.
Perhaps more than any other textbook, Interviewing stresses how an awareness of
communication ethics makes better citizens — citizens whose talk will be more civil,
sensitive, and attuned to other voices in the political process.
• Integrated approach to both interviewer and interviewee roles — Interviewing, unlike
some other textbooks, prepares students to be responsive and effective when conducting
interviews. It also shows them how the roles of interviewer and interviewee are fully
interdependent.
• Integrated ethics approach — Ethics, we stress, is not a separate concern for interview
communicators; it is involved in all message choices. We offer examples of ethical issues
in each chapter.
• Integrated cultural approach — Recognizing the expanding diversity of our world, we
offer straightforward discussion and analysis of multicultural issues within each skill or
context.
• Integrated treatment of interviewer and interviewee issues in employment interviewing
in the same chapter — We present the goals and problems of interviewer and interviewee
as interrelated instead of separate activities. Some other textbooks divide them into
different chapters.
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• Innovative boxed supplements — “Interviewers/Interviewees in Action” boxes provide
first-person accounts of interviewing successes and failures. “Reminders” boxes help
students organize and remember what they’ve learned and extend important ideas.
“Trying Out Your Skills” boxes give students practical ways to test their learning, often
by analyzing brief interview excerpts. End-of-chapter “Making Your Decision” boxes
present hypothetical situations, often oriented toward ethics, that encourage students to
apply their knowledge creatively. In addition, each chapter includes “The Interview
Bookshelf,” an annotated section recommending books that students will find helpful for
further reading or future interviewing-related assignments in other classes.
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VI: Guiding Principles for Experiential Interviewing Classes
Every experienced teacher personalizes classes to fit his or her pedagogical style,
personality, students’ interests, and so on. No stranger should tell another professional
how to teach. However, teachers commonly discuss and share principles and techniques,
and we’re pleased to have the opportunity to do that here. However tentatively, we offer
the following guidelines.
Classroom atmosphere:
• Personalize and informalize the classroom environment as much as possible. For
example, a circular arrangement in a class of 20–30 students will probably be appropriate
for most class activities. Relatively informal atmospheres allow students to be involved
and recognized as persons. And it is as persons that students ask us to react to their goals
and needs.
• Keep students talking with each other. A class that is learner-centered and relatively
conversational is most consistent with the goals of an interviewing course. Hints:
You might have questions you’d like the class to answer, but don’t rely merely on
asking questions, and don’t assume that all class commentary must either be said
by you or addressed to you.
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Facilitating class discussion is not very different from the role of an interviewer
who is engaged in active listening. After particularly effective or controversial
student comments, ensure you’ve heard the speakers accurately by paraphrasing
and relating the comments to other relevant points.
Stay out of some conversations if possible, encouraging students to direct their
comments to each other and to each other’s points.
If you feel you must redirect the conversation, do so with a brief summary that
does justice to the issues and those who have spoken about them to that point.
If you want to ask a specific question, make sure you wait long enough to let the
group process it and think through its implications. Sometimes teachers worry that
class members are disinterested if they’re silent for a few seconds after a question
is asked, but the opposite may be true — they may be so intrigued by a new
insight that they have to rethink what they want to say about it. In advising
interviewers, we refer to this problem as one of allowing for sufficient “wait
time,” and we as teachers need to remind ourselves of this, too.
One especially valuable approach for encouraging student talk in an interviewing
class is to work often either with freewriting or with dyads, or both, when opening
a discussion of a new idea. For example, you might introduce a discussion of
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employment interviewing by giving individuals five minutes or so to write out
everything they remember from either their best job interviewing experience or
their worst job interviewing experience. Then, create dyads in which students each
ask the other about his or her experiences, compare them with their own, and
discuss which text concepts are best illustrated in these experiences. A 10-minute
dyad fuels a more vigorous, more pointed, and perhaps even (with a teacher’s
nudging) a more conceptual class discussion by preloading specific experiences
that will illustrate (or perhaps contradict) text ideas. Of course, teachers must be
wary of the tendency to let such conversations simply become griping or boasting
sessions, or just a listing of different and undifferentiated happenings.
• Share your own experiences and interests, but avoid using them to prescribe right ways
and wrong ways for students to behave.
• Vary in-class experiences: discussion, lectures, guest speakers, analysis of video and
audio examples, hands-on activities.
• Plan experiential activities and communication experiments to demonstrate the power of
interviewing; don’t just advocate or talk about a strategy or skill, but work to show it. At
the same time, remember:
— Link classroom experiences to previous learning and previous activities.
One way to do this is to say something like:
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“For the past several weeks, we’ve looked at three basic interview skills —
listening, questioning, and framing. Now it’s time to see how those skills
can work together in a specific context. Many of you are about to graduate,
so your courses have helped you listen carefully, speak clearly, and
interpret what’s going on below the surface of communication. Well, after
graduation a job hunt will consume your time, if it hasn’t started to do that
already. Most of you look pretty confident about the job search . . . am I
wrong?
“Today, I want to show you a video recording of a practice interview
involving Leslie Jackson, a counselor from the Career Center, and Serena
Joelle, one of last year’s outstanding seniors. Both of them have given
permission to let you analyze their best efforts to communicate in this kind
of tense situation. Watch this 10-minute segment and pay particular
attention to how each person’s listening style affects the other, how the
phrasing of questions might affect the answers, and any clues to how each
participant is framing the situation. I suggest we divide into three groups,
each watching for clues to these different things. . . .”
— Introduce activities clearly, and make sure all participants know the ground
rules. Many valuable activities are not highly instrumented and are relatively
uncomplicated for teachers to use in class. But be sure you don’t introduce them
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in such an offhanded way that it leaves students confused about what you want
them to do. The night before, you might practice a one- or two-sentence
extemporaneous introduction of the activity, just as you would rehearse a brief but
important speech. Ask yourself: How could my instructions be misinterpreted?
With more complex activities, including ones that require handouts, rating sheets,
and checklists, the need for clear instructions increases. Answering and reanswering questions about instructions that could have been clear in the first place
wastes the scarce resource of class time.
— Allow sufficient time. Don’t try to shoehorn an activity into a time period that
won’t allow learning to develop naturally. You don’t want to be in the position of
saying, “Well, we have to break this off for today because it’s already 3:25. If
we’d had enough time to finish it, you would have found that. . . .” It’s usually
better to let class out early than to try to rush through a 30-minute activity in 12–
15 minutes.
— Process and debrief activities realistically. One persistent challenge of
teaching interviewing is how contingent and variable some commonly
accepted principles seem to be when they are actually tested by experience.
Classroom exercises may not turn out the way you hope. There are many
exceptions to the “rules,” and many highly visible and successful interviewers
and interviewees exhibit behavior that violates textbooks’ well-considered
advice. Be careful of “never do this” statements, and persistently invite
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students to dissect why one interviewer might be successful using a
“technique” that falls flat for another interviewer.
— Link the discoveries from classroom activities to subsequent work. If possible,
include in your summarizing comments a preview of upcoming skills, concepts,
and lessons that students can carry with them as they prepare for classes and
assignments. Then be sure you actually use the activity’s insights later, referring
back to them when appropriate. Students tend to remember what they learn by
doing, and you will often be able to make sensible connections with them over a
period of many weeks. In this book, for example, instruction about the helping
interview is one of the later topics, as it is in most interviewing courses. However,
students readily remember late in the course the empathy and active listening
exercises with which the skills of listening were introduced, in the second, third,
or fourth week.
Assignments and grades:
Few tasks in education are more touchy than talking with other teachers about
assignments and grading policies. Each experienced teacher has his or her own pet
assignments — and pet peeves about syllabi, papers, examinations, grading, and study
skills. In fact, we encourage you to consult other prominent interviewing texts to discover
their approaches to some of these same problems; we especially like Stewart and Cash’s
Interviewing: Principles and Practices (McGraw-Hill), Barone and Switzer’s
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Interviewing Art and Skill (Allyn & Bacon), Wilson and Goodall’s Interviewing in
Context (McGraw-Hill), and Stewart’s Interviewing Principles and Practices:
Applications and Exercises (Kendall/Hunt). We don’t presume to tell others precisely
how to evaluate students. Instead, we offer suggestions that we have used effectively in
our courses:
• Don’t make students memorize lists. Contemporary conventions of writing textbooks,
and to some extent student expectations as well, encourage authors to create bullet-point
lists of important points and issues. Please remember that as authors we’ve created lists to
supplement more complex discussions of ideas, and to allow readers to look up answers
to questions readily. However, the lists, and order of items within them, have no inherent
educational value beyond those goals. We believe it’s counterproductive to ask students
to memorize things like the “six advantages of tape recording an interview.” (Other
writers could easily divide the same ideas into five or seven or even eight points.) In
general, we should instead ask that student responses apply knowledge both accurately
and creatively, and put ideas into practice.
• Create “examinations” for students, not simply “tests.” These words aren’t synonyms.
Even though the distinction may seem trivial to some people, the connotations of
“examination” invite teachers to raise with students such issues as: exams as feedback to
the teacher, exams as opportunities for students to gauge their own progress, exams as
opportunities for students to see what teachers consider important, and exams as goalsetting opportunities. We believe that considering these things merely as “tests”
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encourages students simply to take a grade and file it away in their notebooks, hoping to
“do better next time.”
Generally, teachers want to examine, and want students to examine, two things in written
exams. First, they want to know if students have a specific grasp of concepts,
terminology, and research; this will allow the learner to progress further into a subject on
his or her own. Without this kind of knowledge, students founder even if they are
interested in a topic. Traditionally, teachers have written multiple-choice questions to
probe this kind of knowledge, although matching, identification, and true-false items also
are used. Second, teachers want to know if students have a sophisticated grasp of how the
concepts and terms fit together, and how they can be applied in practical situations. This
pragmatic pattern-knowledge allows learners to transfer what they know from one
situation to another, and separates the mere memorizers from the students who are truly
learning. Traditionally, essay exams probe this kind of learning. The problem, of course,
is that so-called objective items like multiple-choice and so-called subjective questions
like essay opportunities yield different kinds of information for teachers.
• Stress true-false/explain (t-f/e) items in examinations. We recommend a hybrid
approach of exams composed largely of true-false/explain questions, perhaps
supplemented by brief identification items and short-answer essays. A true-false/explain
question can probe specific knowledge while allowing the learner to explain or justify a
response briefly and succinctly. Each item is a declaration or assertion of some sort, and
an exam can be a teacher’s creative mix of straightforward and sophisticated items. For
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example, a t-f/e “question” can ask the student to make a value judgment that is based on
knowing several important terms in the statement: “An ethnographer must never proceed
with an interview without obtaining full and written ‘informed consent’ from
interviewees. T___ F___ Why?” (Leave several lines for student to answer.)
Suggestions for writing and administering t-f/e exams:
1. Write your own items, or use suggested ones from this resource guide. If you
choose only sentences from the text, reproducing them or inserting a tricky “not”
here or there, students may develop the impression that you want them to
memorize the text or merely adopt the company line.
2. Make sure your items are drawn from all sections of the chapter(s) you are
examining.
3. Tell students beforehand that you believe each statement is basically true or
false, but that an individual answer that differs from yours may in fact convince
you that the writer has grasped the concept(s) and can apply them well. Although
students still may disagree at times with your interpretations, they will generally
appreciate the ability to explain themselves rather than have to outguess the
intentions and semantics of your items.
4. Explanations for statements the student believes to be true should provide
examples or further information to illuminate the statement, while explanations
for statements the student believes to be false should describe clearly what makes
the statement untrue. (At times, students will say: “If it’s false, I know what to
write, but if it’s true, it’s just . . . well . . . true! I don’t know what more to say.”
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However, once they understand your expectations, they will see readily that an
accurate or reasonable statement can be related to a particular kind of
interviewing, to the approach of a particular researcher, or perhaps has an
important reservation. The important thing is to get students thinking beyond the
questions themselves.)
5. This type of exam does not reward guessing. It does, however, partially reward
students who have some grasp of the material but may still make some mistakes
(don’t we all?). Tell students that simply marking T, if an item is true, or F, if it’s
false, will earn no points. It’s the combination of (a) taking a position, and (b) for
a clear reason that earns points.
6. Place a limit on the responses, perhaps instructing: “Respond to each item with
two or three complete sentences; no sentence fragments, please.”
7. We suggest a three-point scale for responding to each question:
0 points: student does not answer; marks only T or F with no explanation;
or is clearly not knowledgeable about the statement’s concepts or terms.
1 point: student has some understanding of the idea but mixes things up in
such a way as to demonstrate that he or she doesn’t understand the context,
or the full implications of the idea.
2 points: student is essentially correct, but misses an important point, or
may misstate or misattribute a concept.
3 points: student has an accurate grasp of the idea and its implications, and
has explained it well in the space allotted. (At times this form of exam
encourages instructors to give points, perhaps full credit, for responses in
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which students disagree with teachers or the text. This is an advantage, not
a disadvantage, if we as teachers take the opportunity to write responses to
students on the exams, and use these items as springboards for further
discussion.)
• Ensure that students meet and have the opportunity to question professional
interviewers, either in or out of class. Teachers (we speak from firsthand experience here)
often overestimate the value and relevance of our own experience; we may think at times
that we can be our students’ only conduit for interviewing insights. Note: There appears
to be a tacit assumption on most campuses that student interviewing research done
outside class but within the parameters of specific class assignments — and not intended
for publication or other public dissemination — need not be approved on a case-by-case
basis by college research review boards. Students and faculty in a reporting class, for
example, are not required to gain prior approval for the many interviews the students
must conduct in order to write their weekly stories. However, teachers should check with
their own campus research review boards to determine any specific rules that might apply
to their students’ interviews. Some schools are quite diligent about protecting the rights of
people interviewed or tested as part of a research study.
• Structure autonomous interviewing experiences from which students learn in systematic
ways. Depending on your teaching style and goals, this may mean you will want to
develop your own checklists and feedback forms for out-of-class assignments like videorecorded practice and critique.
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• Video record student interviews, with feedback. Emphasize that students should take
student/student interview assignments seriously; students who fail to complete required
out-of-class video-recording and feedback assignments should not receive a passing grade
for the course, whatever their grades in other written course assignments. We set up and
facilitate feedback with team video recording (see sample syllabus) by using: (1) a
“personal interest inventory” filled out by each student early in the term, to which
everyone in class will have access; (2) a “video-recorded interview observation sheet,”
with which student teammates give each other feedback immediately after each out-ofclass recording session; and (3) in-class “workshopping” sessions in which each student
who volunteers will be coached by the entire class. Let’s examine each of these in turn.
PERSONAL INTEREST INVENTORY
(Note: Teachers can fill these out, too, so students can get more perspective on
your approach to the class. Stress that if students believe any question to be too
personal, they can skip it.)
Full name (nickname?):
Address for this term:
Phone:
E-mail address that you check daily:
Major, minor:
Extracurricular activities:
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Age:
Jobs held in past:
Current job and anticipated career path:
Personal entertainment preferences:
Social or political commitments:
“I’m in school because . . .”:
“In my spare time, I . . .”:
“I can put together a pretty good . . .”:
“Ten years from now, I’ll probably . . .”:
“My most common roles among family and friends are . . .”:
“Before you start communicating with me, you probably should know . . .”
RECORDED INTERVIEW OBSERVATION SHEET
(Note: Some teachers may want to revise this form to a checklist format. We’ve
found it effective to ask student observer/critics to take notes while watching the
interview and then afterward write comments for interviewer and interviewee.)
Observers: Thoroughly familiarize yourselves with this sheet before the interview.
This frees you considerably to notice behaviors and comment. Be as specific as
possible in noting what you see and hear, not simply your conclusions like “nice”
or “uncomfortable.” Share this feedback with both interviewer (ER) and
interviewee (EE) after the interview, keep the original, and photocopy the sheet
for the other participant.
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How would you characterize:
The general tone of the interview?
The effectiveness of the ER’s opening and closing styles?
The ability of the ER to phrase primary questions?
The ability of the ER to follow up with suitable probe questions?
The listening habits of the ER?
The feedback provided by the ER?
The degree of directiveness exhibited by the ER?
The responsiveness of the EE?
The defensiveness level of the EE?
The congruence between verbal and nonverbal messages of ER and EE?
The effects of observation and recording on ER and EE?
Other comments or suggestions?
INSTRUCTIONS FOR WORKSHOPPING AND COACHING:
IN-CLASS SESSIONS WITH STUDENT VOLUNTEERS’ VIDEO
RECORDINGS
— Each student volunteer will preselect and cue up a five-minute segment to
show the class;
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— Each volunteer will introduce his or her excerpt briefly by placing it in context
of the overall interview;
— Each volunteer will ask the group two or three questions about their reactions
to his or her communication behaviors;
— After viewing the segment, the class will (1) respond to the student’s
questions; (2) highlight the strengths of the volunteer’s interviewing; (3) suggest
improvements, especially focusing on the areas the volunteer is curious about.
Different parts of the segment may need to be replayed to reinforce points made in
the feedback.
• Be clear and specific with students at the outset of the course about your expectations
for participation; this is not a course in which someone can opt out of assignments or
most exercises simply because he or she is uncomfortable. Students’ discomfort with
interpersonal situations may be the very reason why a course in interviewing is important
for them to take. A useful analogy may be the case of swimming lessons. People who take
swimming lessons may indeed be afraid of the water, but no one who signs up for
instructions expects to be able to avoid this fear by practicing strokes and breathing out of
the water, or by grasping only the theory of swimming. Rather, they learn to swim by
swimming . . . or they decide they don’t really want to take swimming lessons. Just as
there are no swimming lessons without swimming, there is no interviewing class without
some of the interpersonal discomfort (for certain students, at least) of interviewing
33
strangers, being asked about one’s beliefs, and volunteering for feedback in class through
role-playing scenarios and similar activities.
• Create a blend of assignments that make it clear that students who earn an A (for
example) will be able to perform well in the graded interviews and understand the ideas
and concepts that will allow them to transfer learning easily from one situation to another.
In other words, the assignments of the course should reflect the fact that competence in
interviewing involves skill, knowledge, and the ethical sensitivity to decide if what can be
done should be done.
• Discuss your assignment sequence openly with students early in the term. Many
instructors find that the graded assignments in an interviewing course will be somewhat
backloaded; that is, most major recorded grades or points are earned in the second half of
the course. This can be justified because it’s at least somewhat unfair to grade students
heavily on performance behaviors before they’ve developed the skills and background
that will enable them to do well — and many interviewing classes have far too many
students and too little class time for teachers to be able to grade individual and
incremental performance work early in the term (as in a public speaking course, for
example). If your course is backloaded in this way, you should remind students early and
forcefully about the assignment sequence, so they can plan their assignment workloads
accordingly. (See the sample syllabus in this guide for an example of a somewhat
backloaded schedule of assignments.) In our experience, most students do well with this
organization, but some experience anxiety about how they’re doing when the first major
34
grade comes just before midterm. Instructors who are concerned about this structure and
who would rather plug in more graded assignments early can do so easily: Substitute
several shorter quizzes for a midterm exam, insert a minor out-of-class performance
expectation or two in the first several weeks, or do both.
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VII: Sample Syllabus
Note to instructors about syllabus preparation:
The following syllabus is based upon a number of assumptions: a one-semester
course; within a communication major; at a four-year institution; at the junior level; with
a campus facility available for student video recording. With minor variations, it can be
adapted to the quarter system; to professional business programs; to the community
college experience; and for students who don’t have ready access to institutional
assistance in recording.
The sample syllabus includes a lengthy introduction some instructors will find
dispensable, but we’ve found that it helps students orient to the expectations of an
experiential course. We ask students to assume significant responsibility for out-of-class
scheduling with video-recording partners, field-assignment partners, and interaction with
community professionals and other interviewees. In our experience, once this expectation
is clarified and the reasons for it explained, virtually all students cooperate
enthusiastically. It’s wise, however, to have a straightforward discussion of ground rules
and trust early in the term.
For example, we recommend that instructors overtly discuss with their classes the
implications of representation, because each student represents the class, the department,
36
and the institution as he or she interacts with professionals and community
representatives. While the beginning student may feel relatively unqualified, and may see
assignments as practice interviews, they are decidedly not “practice” for an elderly
politician, for example, who is asked to relive a career’s worth of memories over several
days by a student interviewer. They are real events, and are usually taken very seriously
by these cooperative external interviewees. Issues of consent, as well, can be previewed
early in the term in addition to the more detailed discussions in later text chapters. All
interviewing teachers and students should work hard to avoid a situation in which outside
interviewees could feel used or manipulated in any way. Again, review any campus
stipulations on behavioral and human-subject research that might apply to out-of-class
assignments, and comply with these regulations.
Video work presents special dilemmas, since not every campus has the facilities
or equipment to handle student requests readily. Some facilities will train your students in
how to use their resources, while others will prefer to have their own personnel in charge.
Some will accommodate drop-ins, while others will insist on a rigorously followed
schedule of reservations. Bear in mind that many students will have access to their own
video cameras. The best advice is to check out the available facilities and policies before
finalizing your syllabus.
Think of a syllabus as a coordinating device and as a fairness check, rather than as
an ironclad contract that must be followed legalistically. It is a contract of sorts, of course,
but mainly it’s a direct way to communicate with each student. Avoid adjusting the
37
syllabus expectations for one student without adjusting it (or offering to do so) for all.
One useful guideline for making syllabus exceptions: Do you believe you would feel
comfortable explaining the exception to the whole class, and are you reasonably sure that
these other students, knowing what you’d know, would consider it a fair exception for the
person(s) involved?
Finally, instructors should emphasize their willingness to spend time outside class
with students, especially on topics such as employment interviewing, research
interviewing, and, with student reporters, journalistic interviewing. Class time is at a
premium, and many students will find the topics of their own special interest passed by
too rapidly. Use office hours to give specific students extra attention on assignments.
Even though most campuses have career centers that help with mock interviews and
resume preparation, students appreciate their instructors’ assistance with these matters,
too.
We assume that instructors will use the online teaching and communication
resources available to them and their students through university-operated systems such
as Blackboard, for example, which can be used for blogging and posting of assignments,
among other features.
SYLLABUS:
INTERVIEWING
38
COMMUNICATION XXX
Spring 2009
Teacher
office:
phone:
e-mail:
office hours:
INTRODUCTION:
Many people regard the interview either as a chore to be accomplished as
mechanically and systematically as possible, or as an unpleasant interrogation with
participants often feeling distrustful, fearful, and competitive. Occasionally, interviewers
assume they need to show off and impress the interviewee; too often, they assume that an
extended monologue is desirable. If things go badly, interviewees can feel “on the spot”
and defensive . . . or they can end the interview abruptly, leaving the interviewer in the
lurch.
I tend to consider the interviewing situation, though, as simply a concentrated
attempt to understand another person (or his or her information) through direct and
immediate communication. This communication skill is practical for virtually every
communication professional, including journalists, managers, trainers, teachers,
advertising executives, and public relations consultants. Usually, interviews are face-to-
39
face meetings, and they usually involve questions to generate information about a
specified topic or topics. In an interview, the need for dialogue, acceptance, sensitivity,
and empathic response is as great as in any communication relationship. This doesn't
mean, of course, that an interviewer has to agree with — or become emotionally involved
with — interviewees; it does mean that he or she must be an effective listener and
clarifier. In many ways, in fact, it's impossible to separate "interviewing" from the
listening skills that enable it.
Our course will invite you to become familiar with relevant research in listening,
questioning, framing, analyzing interview goals, and other interaction factors. But beyond
this, and more important, it provides a vehicle for you to apply your learning (and other
insights about communication) again and again in practical everyday settings. You should
notice real improvement in your ability to interact readily and effectively, both verbally
and nonverbally, with a variety of people.
TEXT: Rob Anderson and G. Michael Killenberg, Interviewing: Speaking, Listening,
and Learning for Professional Life, 2nd ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009).
EXPECTATIONS: I expect you to attend and participate actively in class activities. This
is especially important because this is an experiential (experience-based) class, not
40
primarily a lecture-based course. If you aren’t here or choose not to participate much, you
aren’t likely to get much out of the experience.
TENTATIVE TOPIC SCHEDULE:
Jan. 13: Introduction to the course
Jan. 15: Interviewing and introducing each other
Jan. 20: What are interviews? (Read Chapter 1)
Jan. 22: Are skills enough? (Read Chapter 2)
Jan. 27: Interview partners as listeners (Read Chapter 3)
Jan. 29: Your listening style
Feb. 3: The question of questioning (Read Chapter 4)
Feb. 5: Practicing questioning styles
Feb. 10: Framing skills (Read Chapter 5)
Feb. 12: Examples and framing activities
Feb. 17: Journalistic interviewing (Read Chapter 6)
Feb. 19: The daily life of a reporter (Guest lecturer)
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Feb. 24: Informal reports: Field experience interviews (paper due)
Feb. 26: Research interviewing (Read Chapter 7)
March 3: Research interviewing, cont.
March 5: Exam 1
March 10, 12: No class (Spring Break)
March 17: Discussion of Exam 1; preview of remaining topics
March 19: Selection interviewing and the interviewee (Read Chapter 8)
March 24: Selection interviewing and the interviewer (Guest lecturer)
March 26: Organizational interviewing for performance appraisal (Read Chapter
9)
March 31: Other organizational interviews
April 2: Persuasive interviewing (Read Chapter 10)
April 7: Persuasive interviewing, cont.
April 9: Helping and diagnostic interviewing (Read Chapter 11)
April 14: Analyzing broadcast interviews (Read Chapter 12)
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April 16: Exam 2
April 21: Workshop: Bring video recordings
April 23: Informal reports: Dyadic dialogue interviews (paper due)
April 28: Workshop: Bring video recordings
April 30: Workshop, wrap-up, and course evaluation (Read Chapter 13)
(videotape, log, and analysis due)
ASSIGNMENTS:
1. TWO EXAMS (Each 20 percent of grade). Exams will cover text readings, lectures,
handouts, and in-class discussion materials. They are designed to let you demonstrate
how principles of dyadic communication can be applied. Prepare for true-false/explain,
short-answer essay, and identification items. When appropriate, some questions may ask
you for illustrations from your out-of-class assignments. Late exams will be scheduled
only for genuine emergencies, and may be in a form different from the regularly
scheduled exam. Exams missed for reasons other than emergencies may also be made up,
but the grade will be reduced by one letter.
2. FIELD EXPERIENCE (20 percent of grade). Interview (face-to-face) two nonfaculty
professionals who specialize in dyadic communication (journalists, social workers,
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personnel managers, counselors or therapists, etc.). Choose people who are not family
members or close friends of you or your family. Use the interviews to discover their
styles of interviewing and the advice they'd give you, based on their experience. In a fiveto eight-page paper, typed and double-spaced, summarize what they tell you, relate their
ideas to concepts and skills of this course, note any disagreements or inconsistencies, and
discuss your own position. (Suggestion: These people can be professionals doing jobs you
are considering for your own career.) Due _____.
3. EXTENDED DYADIC DIALOGUE (20 percent of grade). Schedule at least three
face-to-face visits with someone in the community who has agreed to cooperate with you
(not an immediate family member), and from whom you'd like to learn something. Older
citizens are often enthusiastic interviewees who have much to share, and who especially
appreciate being asked about their experiences. You might want to focus on the
interviewee's memories, crafts, skills, knowledge, or social involvement. I'd suggest you
start early in the term exploring the idea with potential interviewees and arranging for the
meetings; in addition to the suggestions on oral history in the textbook, I’ll have more
handouts that will help you plan and conduct this sort of interview.
While interviewing, keep notes, recordings (if OK with interviewee), and also log entries
of your conversations in a continuing journal. This will aid you in writing a five- to eightpage paper, typed and double-spaced, due _____. This paper should describe the
communication choices you made, the nature of your experience, relevant features of the
relationship, and most important, why you believe the interviews progressed as they did.
44
Be specific in relating your experience to the course readings. Each of you will be giving
an informal report to the class on what you learned in your interviews.
4. VIDEO-RECORDING WORK (20 percent of grade; but see “Reminder” that follows).
Each student will be responsible for scheduling the following activities during out-ofclass time:
— Two (or more) 15-minute segments as interviewer, with
others in class acting as interviewees;
— Two (or more) 15-minute segments as interviewee, with
others in the class acting as interviewers;
— Two (or more) 15-minute observations of interviews
conducted by others in the class.
Early in the semester, I’ll help the class create “practice groups” of three or four students.
Each group should schedule its times for recording with the Instructional Media Center
(IMC), which has a special multipurpose “mini-studio” especially designed for this kind
of activity. Contact the circulation/scheduling desk at the IMC for more information. All
members of the three-person groups should be present at each recording, but the groups
with four members can record with only three present; in other words, don’t record
without an observer. Note: If someone in the group has personal access to equivalent
equipment and can produce high-quality videos with clear sound, you don’t need to use
the IMC facilities.
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To complete this assignment, you should:
1. Obtain your own videotape or digital recording medium (drive, disk, etc.) at the
beginning of the semester, and label it with your name. Record your work as an
interviewer (two or more 15-minute interviews). Note: It is not necessary for you
to keep rerecording interviews until you’re completely satisfied with your
“performance.” Not many people are ever completely satisfied, and more than a
few are typically surprised and upset at what they see. This is natural. Think of it
this way: a video recording with some problem areas may give you more to
analyze later!
2. Keep an accurate log of dates, times, and places for all group recording
sessions. That is, your log should describe clearly which occasions you were
interviewer, which occasions you were interviewee, and which occasions you
were the observer/critic. In planning and scheduling times, remember that it’s best
for the observer to provide feedback to interviewer and interviewee as soon after
the session as possible. The IMC has individual carrels with computers and
equipment for reviewing the recordings immediately.
3. On the last day of class, submit a large envelope with (a) your video recording,
(b) your log, (c) the observer feedback sheets for your interviews, and (d) a fiveto eight-page typed analysis of your video recording. In the analysis, note your
46
areas of strength and relative weakness as an interview partner — as shown in the
recordings — and describe what you intend to do to improve your interviewing
skills. Be sure to link your analysis to the course concepts, relevant research, and
skills in listening and questioning we’ve discussed during the semester.
Reminder: This is a requirement for completing the course. Without evidence
from the log that you have fulfilled this assignment fully, I won't assign a passing
grade for your participation in the class, regardless of your other grades.
Remember in the recording sessions:
— You aren't limited to two of each activity. This is an excellent opportunity to
practice your interviewing skills and be critiqued.
— Schedule times with your partners and with any assisting university personnel
as commitments, not as "I think I can make it then . . . " possibilities. Schedule
times as groups of three or four (EE, ER, one or two observers) to allow for a
review of the video and discussion of strengths and weaknesses.
— Observers are responsible for completing an observation sheet for the
participants, critiquing them orally, and giving the sheet for each session to the
interviewer.
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— Later in the term, we'll schedule class time during which our entire group will
be able to respond to your efforts. Remember: Don't delete or erase your
recordings! We'll discuss practical interviewing problems, alternatives, and
applications to other interviewing situations.
— A file of personal-interest inventories of class members will be kept in my
office for your reference prior to interviews. This research is important for
interviewers’ preparation of a reasonable schedule of questions and topics.
— Interviews may focus on a single aspect of the interviewee's experience,
attitudes, values, and so on; or on a general profile of the person; or on what a
"typical day" for them is like; or on talents they have; or . . . use your imagination.
EEs and ERs should not meet to preplan their interview. Give the direction at first
to the ER, and see what develops.
— You aren't role playing in these interviews. You should be responding to each
other personally, right there, right then . . . but maintain a reasonably professional
style you could transfer to other interviews you'll conduct in your careers.
Certainly, any attempts to pose, to perform, to "help each other out" artificially, or
to plant in-jokes, are likely to be embarrassingly obvious.
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— Although I'm not directly involved in this process, please stay in contact with
me as your practice sessions develop. Let's talk informally about the interviewing
problems and successes you discover.
CRITERIA FOR COURSE PAPERS:
1. Does the paper reflect informed reading, accurate understanding, and serious
consideration of interpersonal concepts?
2. Is the paper clearly written and well organized?
3. Does the paper demonstrate the clear voice and creativity of the author?
4. Is the paper in compliance with rules of style, and does it properly cite and attribute
sources?
5. Does the paper satisfy the assignment?
6. Is the paper on time? (I will accept late papers without penalty only if you experience
genuine emergencies. Out of fairness to other class members, other kinds of late papers
will be lowered one letter grade.)
ACADEMIC HONESTY:
49
(Many institutions request or require instructors to include a statement in syllabi that
details the institution’s policy on plagiarism and other forms of academic dishonesty.)
50
VIII: Using the Book, Chapter by Chapter
CHAPTER 1: Beyond the Q&A Presumption: Interviewing with a
Listening/Learning Perspective
• The nitty-gritty
Chapter 1 is an overview of the book’s guiding principles and major assumptions.
It justifies why we supplement the traditional interviewing emphasis on questions and
questioning with strong emphases on listening and framing, and justifies the practicality
of these skills. Without reading this chapter closely, students may regard listening as
relatively automatic and as too simplistic, and may dismiss framing as mere academic
jargon. After a preview of the different types of professional interviews the book will
cover later, Chapter 1 presents students with an introductory exercise in informational
interviewing. The chapter concludes by presenting interviewing in an ethical context, and
in terms of its contributions to a democratic public dialogue — both topics that will come
up again and again throughout the book.
• Suggestions for “Trying Out Your Skills” and “Making Your Decision” boxes
— Consider using the “Trying Out Your Skills” (TOYS) box as an exercise that helps
students introduce each other to the class. You can either regard this as a highly informal
51
process, or adapt it to link with public speaking skills students may have developed. After
each introduction, let the rest of the class ask additional questions of the introducing
speaker, who must respond without the help of the student being introduced (“What kind
of books does she read? I don’t know; we didn’t get into that. I’d guess she wouldn’t like
romance novels much, though”); this will allow gaps of information to be filled in, and
will provide an opening for you to talk about the nature of inference in interviewing. Then
the person introduced can correct any misunderstandings before you move on to the next
introduction. This exercise may take two class periods or more, but we’ve found it pays
off in setting a vigorous climate of interchange. By the way, many teachers like to
participate fully in these opening exercises.
— The “Making Your Decision” (MYD) boxes in the book were designed primarily for
private reflection of readers, as a reminder of how intricate decision making in
interviewing situations can be. However, these situations are readily adaptable for
classroom discussion. For example, some teachers may want to make a standing
assignment that asks students to come to class on the first day of each chapter’s
discussion with a tentative personal position on each MYD situation. Other teachers may
choose to adapt these situations to a journaling assignment; students could consider each
and write a paragraph or two discussing their opinions in light of the concepts discussed
in the chapter. (Journals should not be the mere ventilation of opinions, but the
elaboration of tentative insights developed through reading and careful consideration.)
• Additional activities and discussion questions
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Almost every icebreaker activity appropriate for an interpersonal communication course
is also appropriate for an interviewing course.
Try a name circle. Arrange the class in a circle, and ask the first person to state his or her
name and a hobby or interest that distinguishes that person. Then the next person states
the previous name and hobby, adding his or her own, and the process continues around
the circle until the last person has heard names and hobbies repeated so often that he or
she can introduce the whole circle. (Teachers should participate, too.) No one should take
notes; one of the unique values of this activity is that it generates lots of mistakes in a
short period of time, but in a climate that’s nonthreatening. Another advantage is that it
gets many people noticed, and associated with their names. It’s good to supplement this
activity with a brief warning about the dangers of frozen stereotypes (when someone
chooses the label of “Patricia the poet,” she might be a pro wrestling fan, too), along with
a discussion of how the group has already begun to work together.
• Additional resources
In this and subsequent chapters, we will suggest resources (often articles and broadcast
interviews) that you might want to use somehow in your course. We’ve concentrated on
materials and suggestions not already mentioned prominently in the book, so that you
might use them in extra assignments of your own choosing or for your own background
reading. Bear in mind that this is a highly selective list; thousands of books, articles, and
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research studies are relevant to interviewing, and almost all specialized professional tasks
have their own literature in interviewing. In addition, virtually all news and fact-based
entertainment broadcasting feature direct or indirect interviewing.
Print
DeVito, J. (2008). The interviewing guidebook. Boston: Pearson/Allyn & Bacon.
Nelson, D. (1995, July/August). It’s time to retire the classic confrontation interview —
Most of the time, there are better alternatives. IRE Journal, 5–7.
Pawson, R. (1996). Theorizing the interview. British Journal of Sociology, 47, 295–314.
Rubin, R. B., Rubin, A. M., & Piele, L. J. (2005). Communication research: Strategies
and sources. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.
Scott, R. L. (1993). Dialectical tensions of speaking and silence. Quarterly Journal of
Speech, 79, 1–18.
Weaver, R. B. III, & Kirtley, M. D. (1995). Listening styles and empathy. Southern
Journal of Communication, 60, 131–140.
Wood, T. (1993, March). Getting tough interviews. Writer’s Digest, 28–29, 31.
54
Nonprint
The film My Dinner with Andre is an extended two-person conversation. How are its
characteristics consistent or inconsistent with interviewing? What can we learn about
successful interviewing from successful conversation, even if it’s as stylized as this one?
A 2007 film titled Interview starred offbeat actor Steve Buscemi, and explored the
seamier side of celebrity interviews.
A cassette or audio CD selection of Studs Terkel’s radio interviews, Voices of Our Times:
Five Decades of Studs Terkel Interviews (St. Paul, MN: Highbridge, 1999), is an
excellent resource for interviewers who want to expand their styles beyond what we call
the Q&A presumption. Notice, too, how his interviewees embellish their responses with
stories, anecdotes, and provocative ideas.
• Sample exam questions: multiple choice, true-false/explain, identification
(Note: [1] The following are literally samples or examples, not a “bank” of questions for
instructors to ask students in ready-made exams. We strongly urge all instructors to write
their own exams, personalizing the evaluation process for their own students, their own
expectations, their own writing styles, and even their own sense of humor. This is
especially true in writing essay questions. [2] We suggest that teachers describe in class
55
their specific ground rules and guidelines for student answers to exam questions [and
other assignments also, of course]. Rather than repeat ourselves for each chapter’s sample
questions, however, our suggested ground rules appear only once here.)
Multiple Choice
The following questions ask you to choose the best response from five options; consider
these choices in the context of interviewing skills, appreciations, and research.
1. The most important person in an interview is:
A. the interviewer
B. the interviewee
C. the person who sets up the interview
D. the more prestigious person
E. none of the above (*)
2. For the context of interviewing, communication is best defined as:
A. a transfer of meaning from one person to another
B. the development of shared meaning between persons in a relationship (*)
C. an emotional state in which two or more people are fully sympathetic to each other
D. when two or more people agree on a given interpretation or course of action
E. a relational state in which people like each other
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3. While hearing is a physiological process, listening is a:
A. biological process
B. group-centered process
C. rational and careful process
D. sociological process
E. holistic and largely psychological process (*)
4. Punctuation is important to interviewers and interviewees because:
A. it describes how they interpret starts and stops, causes and effects (*)
B. it will help readers understand the interview better when it’s published
C. it refers to the ways interviewers maintain eye contact with interviewees
D. it is the study of punctuality in communication, especially the importance of arriving
on time for an interview
E. punctuation is not particularly important to interview participants, but is crucial for
authors
5. Empathic communicators:
A. sympathize with others
B. are able to identify exactly with what others are experiencing
C. both A and B
D. fully identify with others
E. without leaving their own experience, sense other people’s worlds as the others do (*)
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True-False/Explain
The following sentences make assertions about the nature of interviewing, or about the
advisability of certain styles or strategies. For each, decide whether the statement is
basically true or basically false — and mark the appropriate blank. Then, if it is true,
provide more information or an example for why it is true in about two sentences. If it is
false, describe what makes it wrong or inaccurate, and what change of wording could
make it into a true statement. Please use full sentences.
6. Interviewing is like conversation, because it usually involves “just talking to people in
a spontaneous social way.” T___ F___ Why?
7. A good interviewer is born, not made. T___ F___ Why?
8. Framing should be avoided in interviewing, because it verges on mind reading. T___
F___ Why?
9. Understanding “transaction” means that interviewers and interviewees should consider
the ways they influence each other while they’re speaking. T___ F___ Why?
10. Dawn thinks her interview with a prominent civil rights lawyer will help many people
when it’s published, but she has to tell a small lie to get the interview before the lawyer
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leaves for New York. If she considers the ethics of doing this but proceeds anyway, she is
likely operating from a teleological ethical system in this case. T___ F___ Why?
Identification
The following concepts are important in defining areas of understanding and skill
improvement in interview situations. For each, write a full sentence or two describing its
importance in the context of interviewing (not just what the word might mean in general
conversation).
11. Egoism
12. Persuasive interview
13. Deontology
14. Selection interview
15. The significance of the word “inter-view”
Essay
59
Respond to each of these questions in two paragraphs or so. Provide relevant examples
where appropriate. You can include your own opinions, of course (even to disagree with
the text, readings, or me), but make sure you’ve included enough description of class
materials to demonstrate that you understand and can apply the appropriate ideas or
concepts. (Reminder to teachers: Some teachers like to give students a choice of essay
questions — perhaps having them write on two out of three or three out of five questions.
Another approach often used is to give students a list of five to 10 essay questions several
days before the exam, and guaranteeing that one or more will be on the exam.)
16. Discuss the advantages and the potential disadvantages of considering an interview as
a “partnership.” Use concrete and specific examples wherever possible.
17. Explore the concept of framing by (a) defining it as clearly as possible in your own
words, and (b) illustrating it either with a real-life incident from your own experience or
with a hypothetical situation. Make sure you explain how framing can be important for
both interviewer and interviewee.
18. Identify two prominent interviewers you admire from public life (television, radio,
local politics, campus). Discuss how they reflect — or fail to reflect — the four qualities
of interviewing discussed in this chapter (empathy, honesty, respect, validation).
PART ONE: KEY APPRECIATIONS AND SKILLS OF DIALOGUE
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CHAPTER 2: Before Skills: Appreciations and Habits of Dialogue
• The nitty-gritty
Chapter 2 explicitly introduces what we term a “skills-plus” approach to
interviewing. In it, we would like students to understand that interviewing is an artistic
and creative activity that depends as much on what interviewers and interviewees assume
and appreciate as on what they are trained to do. Many, if not most, crucial interview
decisions are made on the spot; they need to be improvised to fit an unanticipated context,
an unexpected emotional reaction from a partner, or a fresh topic that arose
serendipitously. We’ve found that students more readily build skills and practice helpful
interviewing behaviors if they first realize how successful interviewing is built upon
helpful attitudes and a genuine desire to understand another person. Thus, this chapter
introduces the appreciations of curiosity, knowledge, diversity, flexibility, and empathy;
in “Beyond the Basics,” these factors are integrated with some basic research findings in
rules theory and the cooperative principle in conversation. You can make two especially
helpful links for students here, relative to their other classes. First, because of its
emphasis on diversity, empathy, and pluralistic worldviews, this chapter could be taught
almost entirely as a lesson in intercultural understanding (see resource suggestions at the
end of this section) should an instructor choose that orientation and supply additional
examples. We’ve chosen to integrate cultural issues throughout the book, but teachers
who prefer a specific chapter on this topic will find this one readily adaptable. Second,
you may want to draw on your students’ experiences in interpersonal or communication
61
theory courses, in which the dynamics of rules, coordinated management of meaning, and
conversational discourse are discussed in more depth. This chapter invites ready
application from such coursework.
• Suggestions for “Trying Out Your Skills” and “Making Your Decision” boxes
— The TOYS box provides a sample interview for analysis. Its purpose is not to ask
students whether they identify with one or the other characters, or agree or disagree with
them, but to stimulate discussion about the characteristics of dialogue. See if you can
encourage students not to discuss this case globally through generalizations; ask them to
link their opinions to actual comments and interchanges between Delores Wilson and
Michael Van Allen.
— The MYD box helps students think about and discuss their own perceptions of a
multicultural organization, and how they might be able to understand its dynamics more
effectively through interviewing. If you discuss this case in class, you may want to
preview the later chapter on research interviewing for students.
• Additional activities and discussion questions
Here’s a simple 20–30 minute exercise that can illustrate dialogue-oriented interviewing
between two people who have different perspectives on a topic that concerns them both:
62
— Tell the class you’d like to be interviewed, press conference style, about your
attitudes and practices concerning grading.
— Ask for two or three volunteer interviewers; they’ll be seated in the middle of
the room with you and one additional empty chair. Other students sit in a
semicircle or circle around you and the interviewers.
— The empty chair (similar to fishbowl exercises in small-group communication)
is for anyone else in class who has a question for you. The person should come to
the center, sit until he or she asks the question, and then retire to a seat in the outer
circle so that someone else can ask another question.
— Most questions will come from your volunteers. Try to answer them
enthusiastically and expansively, discussing your preferences, likes and dislikes,
optimism for the class, and pet peeves.
— Lead the class in a discussion of how well the volunteers and other students
kept the focus on your grading attitudes and practices, while still expressing
aspects of the volunteers’ personalities and attitudes. For example, did you hear
yourself saying things you hadn’t thought of before in those words, things that
might be especially helpful for the later cooperation of the class? Finish by
complimenting volunteers on their willingness to encounter a difficult topic
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honestly, and discuss whichever qualities of dialogic communication you found in
the interaction.
• Additional resources
Print
This chapter is a particularly appropriate place to have a focused discussion of diversity,
the cross-cultural assumptions and challenges of professional interviewing, and other
issues of a multicultural society. Consider the following sources:
Arendell, T. (1997). Reflections on the researcher-researched relationship: A woman
interviewing men. Qualitative Sociology, 20, 341–368.
Auletta, K. (1998, April 20). In the company of women. The New Yorker, 72–78. (This
interesting article describes Ken Auletta’s interviews with corporate women executives in
the communication industry; they discuss recent patterns of male-female talk and power
relationships.)
Birbeck, D., & Drummond, M. (2005). Interviewing, and listening to the voices of, very
young children on body image and perception of self. Early Child Development & Care,
175, 579–596.
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Denzin, N. K. (2001). The reflexive interview and a performative social science.
Qualitative Research, 1, 23–46.
Isaacs, W. N. (1993). Taking flight: Dialogue, collective thinking, and organizational
learning. Organizational Dynamics, 22, 24–39.
Kadushin, A. (1997). The social work interview: A guide for human service professionals
(4th ed.). New York: Columbia University Press. (See Chapter 12 for an especially good
chapter on cross-cultural interviewing, including sections on interviews involving race
and class differences, sexual preference issues, “aged” clients, and children.)
Kaufmann, B. J. (1992). Feminist facts: Interview strategies and political subjects in
ethnography. Communication Theory, 2, 187–206.
Langellier, K. M., & Hall, D. L. (1989). Interviewing women: A phenomenological
approach to feminist communication research. In K. Carter & C. Spitzack (Eds.), Doing
research on women’s communication: Perspectives on theory and method (pp. 193–220).
Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
Rhodes, P. J. (1994). Race-of-interviewer effects: A brief comment. Sociology, 28, 547–
558.
65
Schuman, H., & Converse, J. (1971). The effects of black and white interviewers on black
responses in 1968. Public Opinion Quarterly, 35, 48–68.
Nonprint
The ABC-TV daytime talk and interview show The View — cohosted by five women,
including the famed interviewer Barbara Walters — contains numerous discussions of
intercultural issues and their effects on politics, the news, and the arts. Many guests are
themselves famous interviewers and newsmakers.
• Sample exam questions: multiple choice, true-false/explain, identification, essay
Multiple Choice
1. A definition of communication competence must include:
A. knowledge, skill, and motivation (*)
B. being nice, being warm, and being human
C. respect, genuineness, and empathy
D. analysis, critical thinking, and rational judgment
E. diversity, flexibility, and compromise
2. Dialogue, as studied in interviewing, is:
66
A. a state that is equally valuable at all times, no matter what the relationship
B. a state that is fine for everyday friendships, but impractical in the career setting
C. a mutually interactive relationship involving “strangeness” that is changing continually
(*)
D. a mutually responsible nexus of interlocking demands people make on each other
E. another word for two people talking with each other
3. Credibility helps you determine someone’s potential persuasiveness by analyzing:
A. listener’s estimates of that person’s expertise and trustworthiness (*)
B. the speaker’s personality traits of aggressiveness and intelligence
C. a speaker’s intelligence quotient
D. the plan a speaker develops to influence other people
E. his or her willingness to engage in dialogue
4. A communication rule is usually followed; if it is not, the following usually happens:
A. someone tries to teach the person how to follow the communication rule better
B. the person who dictated the rule in the first place will get angry
C. someone reminds the rule breaker to change his or her behavior to conform to the
clearly codified expectations
D. nothing overt: communication rules develop through subtle social processes and they
are broken often (*)
E. some sort of clear-cut penalty for the offender
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5. Multiculturalism reminds us that:
A. cultures cannot be multiplied in a given context without making communication much
more ineffective
B. other people’s cultural habits and expectations appear to them to be as normal as yours
appear to you (*)
C. interviewers are not able to communicate effectively across multiple cultural
differences
D. we must constantly be on the lookout for how other people’s cultural assumptions are
wrong
E. pluralistic worldviews are impossible in today’s postmodern media environment
True-False/Explain
6. Dialogue is mainly a set of techniques we can use to improve organizations. T___ F___
Why?
7. Monologue or monologic speaking is especially important to interviewers, because it
demonstrates leadership. T___ F___ Why?
8. In most formal interviews, interviewees tend to control the “resource factors.” T___
F___ Why?
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9. Flexibility in interviewing involves memorizing a wide range of possible behaviors in
order to be ready for them in your partner’s communication. T___ F___ Why?
10. You ask someone in an interview a brief factual question; the answer given is a fiveminute elaboration of how the underlying problem came into existence. The respondent
has probably violated the conversational maxim of “manner.” T___ F___ Why?
Identification
11. High-flex communicator
12. Empathy
13. Cooperative principle
14. Skills-plus interviewing
15. Pluralistic worldview
Essay
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16. Define the contributions made by curiosity and empathy to effective interviewing.
Discuss the relationship between these two “appreciations” for a hypothetical interviewer
in an interviewing situation of your own choosing.
17. What is the difference between content knowledge and process knowledge? Describe
this distinction in terms of a personal hobby or interest of your own.
18. Define/describe communication reticence, and list three to four ways it could
negatively affect an interviewer and three to four ways it could negatively affect an
interviewee in an extended information gathering interview.
CHAPTER 3: Skillful Listening
• The nitty-gritty
Listening is the skill at the core of interviewing, the one crucial process that bonds
both interviewers and interviewees and is used equally by them both. Listening is the
conversational skill that will keep others talking and ensure them that they’re being well
understood; further, without effective listening by interviewees, the most skillfully
phrased questions miss their mark. Chapter 3 defines listening as an active process with
five complementary functions. The material helps students practice a form of listening
that not only allows them to understand speakers better, but also demonstrates that
70
understanding more visibly. In “Beyond the Basics,” three more advanced topics of
interpersonal theory are related to listening: immediacy influences in face-to-face talk,
interpersonal confirmation, and the philosophical implications of listening. If you choose
to assign this somewhat difficult material, try to emphasize its important links to other
courses in the communication program; by doing so you will stimulate interest in other
faculty members’ courses and encourage students to see that theoretical and practical
matters are not divorced in the study of communication.
• Suggestions for “Trying Out Your Skills” and “Making Your Decision” boxes
— The first TOYS box asks students to examine a doctor-patient interaction, looking for
what we term recognition skills (attentiveness to meaning cues) and regulation skills
(attentiveness to how a conversation is managed; turn-taking cues, etc.). Is it helpful for
the doctor to assume out loud that not seeing the patient for a long time means that he or
she has been healthy? Does the doctor do well in specifying meaning when discussing the
swelling of the leg? How does the doctor know when to ask this patient for information?
— The second TOYS box describes a variant of “listening triads,” and is selfexplanatory. It’s probably a good idea to make a special effort to remind people not to
choose stories that are potentially too emotionally involving for them. Even after this
caveat, you can expect that a few students who tell stories before the class will become
much more emotional than expected and will start to cry. While crying is not a negative
occurrence in the classroom, it could be embarrassing for some speakers.
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— The MYD box presents two situations in which interviewers must be sensitive to
nuance and ethics. The first (student interviewing a college president) asks students to
think about how they’d check out a potential contradiction in a touchy interview situation
— one in which the potential to offend is fairly high. The second (interviewing a KKK
member) uses an actual interview to ask students how much, and how, an interviewer’s
“real” feelings should be expressed when interviewing someone he or she disagrees with.
Is this primarily an ethical issue of honesty or sincerity, or primarily an informational
issue of effective interview behavior? Note: It would be possible to role-play either or
both of these situations in class, prior to a discussion.
• Additional activities and discussion questions
A common listening/interviewing exercise challenges students to listen for what is not
said in an interview and to use what they do know to infer what they don’t know. It can
be used in a variety of ways; it works well to introduce students to names and preferences
early in the term (taking one or two entire class periods of 50–75 minutes), and it can also
be used as a demonstration performed by several teams of two (less than one class
period).
• Have a brief discussion with the entire class about what clues in someone’s life
situations or behavior give the best insights into their personalities; in other words, in the
group’s opinion, which details about a life give you the best clues to knowing who the
72
person is? (Opinions don’t need to be justified.) Then, each person has about three
minutes to decide which clues he or she thinks are best, and shape them into notes — a
brief interview schedule.
• Students break into teams of two, with about five to 10 minutes allotted for each to
interview the other about his or her likes and dislikes.
• After the interviews, each student has two minutes to introduce the other, while standing
behind the interviewee. Any erroneous information can be identified as such by the
nonverbal behavior of the interviewee, whose face is seen by the group but can’t be seen
by the introducer/interviewer. Then, the rest of the class asks questions of the introducer
about the interviewee’s likes and dislikes — things that weren’t covered in the
introduction. The introducer has to infer the answers using what he or she knows to be
true. This exercise provides good examples of listening beyond the actual details, and apt
examples perhaps of overgeneralization and stereotyping, too. Yet it happens in a
nonthreatening environment when these things can be discussed more readily.
• One variation is to have the introducer speak in the imagined first person when
introducing the partner (if Larry introduces Ronette, he says something like, “Hi, my
name is Ronette and I come to Loyola from Cincinnati, Ohio. My family was . . .”). This
breaks class tension, generates some good-natured smiles, and allows you to make some
points about decentering, identification, and empathy, too.
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• Additional resources
Print
Beatty, M., & Payne, S. (1984). Listening comprehension as a function of cognitive
complexity: A research note. Communication Monographs, 51, 85–89.
Haidet, P. (2007). Jazz and the “art” of medicine: Improvisation in the medical encounter.
Family Medicine, 5, 164–169.
Journal of the International Listening Association contains many relevant articles,
oriented toward both research perspectives and practical applications. Check recent issues
for trends in the field.
Ostermeier, T. H. (1993). Perception of nonverbal cues in dialogic listening in an
intercultural interview. Journal of the International Listening Association, 64–75.
Taylor, L., et al. (1988). Better interviews: The effects of supervisor training on listening
and collaborative skills. Journal of Education Research, 82, 89–95.
Wolvin, A. D., & Coakley, C. G. (1991). A survey of the status of listening training in
some Fortune 500 corporations. Communication Education, 40, 152–164.
74
Zimmerman, J., & Coyle, V. (1991, March/April). Council: Reviving the art of listening.
Utne Reader, 79–85.
Nonprint
Local television stations often schedule interviews in which celebrities visiting a town for
a show or lecture are questioned by anchors or news reporters who are only minimally
familiar with a given celebrity’s best-seller, new CD, play, or scientific research. (Few
have the time for the full-fledged research that supports national interviewers like Charlie
Rose, whose show is carried by more than 200 PBS stations.) These local interviews,
often as brief as three to five minutes, tend to appear in early morning or noontime news
broadcasts. They are good places to look for examples of sloppy listening or particularly
focused listening from local TV personalities. Warning: Make sure you avoid snide or
derisive comments about these professionals, who are asked to perform under a great deal
of pressure. It might be wise to try to find both positive and negative examples from the
same interviewer(s). Remember too that communication students often intern at these
stations and later may interact with television personalities personally.
• Sample exam questions: multiple choice, true-false/explain, identification, essay
Multiple Choice
1. The kind of listening that journalists are most likely to use in writing their stories is:
75
A. appreciative
B. therapeutic
C. salutary
D. comprehensive (*)
E. conceptual
2. The best statement about the relationship between immediacy and confirmation is that:
A. there is no difference; these are synonyms for the same process
B. immediacy, verbal and nonverbal closeness, can lead to feelings of confirmation (*)
C. confirmation is the process by which communicators know they have been understood
accurately, and this rarely happens immediately
D. immediacy is only nonverbal, while confirmation is only verbal
E. confirmation is only nonverbal, while immediacy is only verbal
3. Listening can be defined as:
A. the physiological process of communicators hearing sounds and noting them
B. the active process through which communicators process stimuli, interpret them as
messages, and use them to construct meanings (*)
C. the active process by which communicators remember what they are told
D. the interpretive process by which meanings are transferred accurately from person to
person in conversational situations
E. sensitive and humane involvement in another person’s troubles, in which the listener is
identifying with the other person emotionally
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4. Sometimes, messages that aren’t wanted or necessary interfere with your ability to
listen to what you want to focus on. These unwanted and distracting messages are known
as:
A. communication debris
B. communication noise (*)
C. communication disconfirmations
D. allogenic dysfunctions
E. bad metamessages
5. The skill of critical listening known as “clarification” is most similar to:
A. paraphrasing
B. active listening
C. I-messages
D. clearing
E. both A and B (*)
True-False/Explain
6. We don’t just listen to other people’s speaking; we also speak to their listening. T___
F___ Why?
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7. Discriminative listening should be avoided because discrimination against others (for
instance, for their cultural differences) ought to be eliminated in a pluralistic society.
T___ F___ Why?
8. Of the five major listening types, appreciative listening is least likely to be practical for
interviewers. T___ F___ Why?
9. Although some people think of listening solely as a cognitive process, the concept of
listening also involves behaviors that can be seen by others. T___ F___ Why?
10. Because they are collecting more experiences, most adults become better listeners as
they get older. T___ F___ Why?
Identification
11. Disqualifying response
12. Surplus of seeing
13. The relationship between I-messages and you-messages
14. Self-fulfilling prophecy
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15. Ad hominem fallacy
Essay
16. Write a brief description of what you’d teach if you were in charge of a one-day
workshop for teachers (or managers) called “Improving Immediacy Behaviors in
Interviewing.”
17. Why — and how — does listening create a “space” for dialogue? What is the nature
of this space?
18. How do you know when a listener is engaged in what this chapter calls “active
listening?” Define the term as you understand it, and draft a five- to 10-item checklist for
observing active listening statements and behaviors that you could use to analyze a
videotaped interview.
CHAPTER 4: Skillful Questioning
• The nitty-gritty
With Chapters 2 and 3 setting the stage, students should be prepared to apply what
they’ve learned so far to the art of questioning. Obviously, questioning is at the heart of
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interviewing, but the requisite, complementary skills of listening and framing should be
reinforced as Chapter 4 unfolds. The mechanics of constructing and asking questions
receive thorough treatment here. These are the tools of interviewing, and knowledge of
their uses and usefulness is essential. The chapter, however, also covers the limits of
questions; they don’t always work as anticipated. It’s important, then, to stress flexibility
in the unpredictable give-and-take of questioning. Another important feature of the
chapter is its discussion of the reasons people feel inclined to answer questions — and the
reasons why they feel disinclined.
• Suggestions for “Trying Out Your Skills” and “Making Your Decision” boxes
— The first TOYS box suggests an analysis of an interview between a reporter and a
scientist. This is clearly an interview opportunity gone awry primarily because of an illprepared reporter, but many such interviews can be salvaged by carefully phrased and
more specific questions. Which of your students has the best suggestions for rescuing
both parties from this embarrassing situation? While it’s tempting to single out the
hapless reporter for criticism, what could the doctor do to help sharpen the questions?
Which positive directions could the interview take from this point on?
— The second TOYS box asks students to identify and analyze a published or taped
interview for the types, order, and perceived effectiveness of its questions. You may want
to provide the class with a handout of periodicals that often run interviews. Among
popular magazines, the most famous interview feature involving celebrities is
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undoubtedly found in Playboy every month. A journal in communication, Text &
Performance Quarterly, has published a number of remarkable interviews with
storytellers and other artist/communicators. Rolling Stone, Atlantic Monthly, Parade, and
Reader’s Digest publish interviews occasionally. In addition, many trade publications and
newsletters such as Leadership Excellence feature interviews with successful
practitioners.
— The two MYD situations involve campus-interviewing dilemmas. The first
hypothetical situation asks respondents to consider what needs to be researched in order
to frame a sequence of initial ticklish questions . . . which keep open both the possibility
of guilt and the possibility of innocence. The second situation would be a good discussion
starter for how to respond to ticklish, illegal, awkward, or unwanted questions.
• Additional activities and discussion questions
It’s easier for students to glimpse the structure of questioning through analyzing a
written document or transcript of an interview. Published interviews, if students
understand that they have usually been edited extensively and may not closely resemble
what was actually said, will suffice. In some cases, the interviewer starts with a broadbased approach illustrating a funnel sequence. Typically, probe questions are easily
identified and explained, and the interviewer might shift a couple of times to readily
identifiable primary questions that introduce new general topics. You should be able to
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find published interviews that illustrate interests you know will engage your students or
that will illustrate selected concepts or skills.
• Additional resources
Print
Jones, J. H. (1997, August 25 & September 1). Dr. yes. The New Yorker, 98–113. (This
article investigates the personal life and professional contributions of controversial sex
researcher Alfred Kinsey. In one section [106–107] Jones discusses Kinsey’s interviewing
style, which involved an extensive use of direct, common vernacular and — unusual for
attitude and surveys — leading questions.)
Roter, D., & Hall, J. A. (2006). Doctors talking with patients/patients talking with
doctors: Improving communication in medical visits. (2nd ed.). Westport, CT: Praeger.
(See especially p. 174, “A Patient’s Guide to Asking Questions.”)
Smith, R. C., & Hoppe, R. B. (1991). The patient’s story: Integrating the patient- and
physician-centered approaches to interviewing. Annals of Internal Medicine, 115, 470–
477. (Smith & Hoppe are particularly interested in the effects of questions.)
Sudman, S., & Bradburn, N. M. (1983). Asking questions. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
82
Nonprint
Press conferences on radio or television are excellent sources for studying the wording of
questions, especially how the questioner’s assumptions might lie buried in the language
of a question. They are examples of broadcast interviews that do not fit the usual
interview modes and protocols discussed in Chapter 12, in that they tend to be more
spontaneous and contentious. The questioners often have idiosyncratic or politicized
stances, and interviewees often have a public stance on an issue to explain or defend.
Transcripts and video recordings of press conferences, particularly those involving
officials in federal agencies and departments, can be accessed online at office government
Web sites, such as www.state.gov (U.S. Department of State) for the daily press briefing.
• Sample exam questions: multiple choice, true-false/explain, identification, essay
Multiple Choice
1. Supportive questions:
A. direct and advance an interview by bolstering, setting up, or following up primary
questions (*)
B. help break the ice at the earliest stages of an interview
C. require interviewers to provide interviewees with special support in terms of
explanation and background to the question asked
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D. provide a “crutch” of support so interviewees will be more likely to speak openly
E. help interviewers gain the support of an interviewee before asking particularly difficult
questions
2. A behaviorally based question:
A. reflects the behavior of the questioner
B. asks the respondent to describe or relate a behavior (*)
C. seeks to determine the difference between appropriate and inappropriate behavior
D. gauges the respondent’s emotional stability
E. both C and D
3. Which of the following is NOT an advantage of open-ended questions?
A. help reveal the importance of the question to a respondent
B. encourage someone to talk through a problem
C. allow people to determine the content and depth of answers
D. reduce the pressure of answering (*)
E. encourage a conversational flow to interviews
4. A loaded question is one that is potentially:
A. overly wordy and complicated
B. loaded with judgmental, potentially offensive language
C. accusatory in its tone and content
D. both B and C (*)
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E. heavy or “loaded” because of its esoteric nature
5. Confirmative probes help an interviewer to:
A. confirm suspicions
B. determine deception in an interviewee
C. test the accuracy or completeness of information (*)
D. set a time, place, and conditions for an interview
E. confirm whether there’s been a breakdown in communication
True-False/Explain
6. Direct questions should be avoided in interviewing. T___ F___ Why?
7. It’s difficult to explore motives and attitudes with closed-ended questions. T___ F___
Why?
8. There is a difference between toughness and courage in asking questions. T___ F___
Why?
9. Ambiguous words are usually clearly apparent in communication. T___ F___ Why?
10. “Informed consent” is like a Miranda warning for interviewees. T___ F___ Why?
85
Identification
11. Wait time
12. Wrap-up question
13. Euphemism
14. Inflection
15. Double-barreled question
Essay
16. When might you ask a hypothetical question? Discuss the advantages and
disadvantages of such questions.
17. Why is empathy important in terms of asking questions?
18. What is the role of an interviewer’s communication values in the asking of questions?
CHAPTER 5: Skillful Framing
86
• The nitty-gritty
Framing is the skill that helps people use what they learn as interviewers and
interviewees. Effective listeners and speakers generate for each other a wide range of
insights and information — all of which should be understood in context. The skill of
framing helps provide, and illumine, this context. Many interview misunderstandings
develop as a result of interviewer and interviewee bringing different frames to the
interaction, and not being able to imagine alternative interpretations; indeed, they may not
believe they are framing at all, but simply reacting to “reality.” Unfortunately, framing is
rarely taught directly as an interview skill, although many problems of communication are
attributable directly to ineffective framing.
• Suggestions for “Trying Out Your Skills” and “Making Your Decision” boxes
— The first TOYS box presents an interview excerpt designed to help students analyze
framing and reframing opportunities. How do counselors and clients, for example, bring
different expectations to their conversations? Preview Chapter 11 for students, in which
helping interviews are discussed in more depth.
— The second TOYS box asks students to record a celebrity profile interview and later
practice delayed note taking. This activity will involve students’ memories, as well as
their abilities to note important details in clear form. One useful variant is to ask students
87
to do the activity in dyads, with each partner seeing the same recording, and then noting
crucial details, emotional tone, follow-up topics, and quotes separately. They then can
compare notes in order to learn a valuable lesson about how persons frame differently.
Another variant is to play only one recording for the class and have all class members
practice delayed note taking at the same time; then the class as a whole can discuss the
different perceptions of what was important, or do so in breakout groups.
— The MYD box challenges students to reconsider three important issues in the chapter
from the standpoint of their personal opinions: (1) At what point should someone
metacommunicate in order to clarify the interaction? (2) Which recording policy is most
fair for a reporter interested in getting the news for his or her readers? (Try to keep
students focused on comparing these three specific newspaper policies, rather than letting
them discuss ethics in general or complain about news bias or other peripheral issues.) (3)
How can interviewers and interviewees become more self-aware about their tendencies
toward multiculturalist language assumptions or linguistic conservatism? If you discuss
this issue in class, you might want to stress that the question about interviewing in
Catholic churches involves far more than attitudes about Catholicism; students should
consider how much they believe they should be able to adapt to the different language
assumptions of those they interview.
• Additional activities and discussion questions
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Show the class a video recording or provide a transcript of the famous George Bush–Dan
Rather interview during the presidential campaign of 1988. In this interview broadcast on
the CBS Evening News, Bush insisted on being interviewed live, so he could counter what
he assumed to be Rather’s strategy of asking about Bush’s alleged role in the Iran-Contra
controversy. As both men exchanged accusations, what had started ostensibly as an
“interview” about the campaign turned into something else. Ask students what they
believe it became, and why the communication developed as it did. Of course, part of
what transpired was impression management deluxe: Bush argued that Rather never
intended to interview him fairly, but instead plotted an “ambush”; in an alternative frame,
Rather and CBS later asserted that Bush and his advisors plotted to use the live nature of
television to pick a fight, demonstrating how Bush is really tough and combative in
contrast to his supposed previous image of “wimp.” Ask students how the concept of
differential framing helps us understand the interview in a helpful way . . . and whether
any interview could be understood more thoroughly by adopting a framing perspective.
Try to mention during this discussion that the role of the journalist, discussed in detail in
Chapter 6, sometimes requires that interviews not be polite or pleasant.
• Additional resources
Print
89
Burgoon, J. K., Buller, D. B., Floyd, K., & Grandpre, J. (1996). Deceptive realities: Send
receiver, and observer perspectives in deceptive conversations. Communication Research,
23(6), 724–748.
deShazer, S., & Lipchik, E. (1984). Frames and reframing. Family Therapy Collections,
11, 88–97.
Dougherty, T. W., Turban, D. B., & Callender, J. C. (1994). Confirming first impressions
in the employment interview: A field study of interviewer behavior. Journal of Applied
Psychology, 79, 659–665.
Ensink, T. (2003). The frame analysis of research interviews: Social categorization and
footing in interview discourse. In H. Van den Berg, M. Wetherell, & H. HoutkoopStreenstra (Eds.), Analyzing race talk: Multidisciplinary approaches to the interview (pp.
156–177). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Goffman, E. (1974). Frame analysis: An essay on the organization of experience. New
York: Harper Colophon.
Graham, E. E., Barbato, C. A., & Perse, E. M. (1993). The interpersonal communication
motives model. Communication Quarterly, 41, 172–186.
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Holstein, J. A., & Gubrium, J. F. (1995). The active interview. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
(See especially Chapters 3 and 4 for discussions relevant to framing.)
Nonprint
Few demonstrations of framing are as effective as the old Abbott and Costello comedy
routine, “Who’s on First?” This conversation, which is probably among the most famous
comedy bits of our century, is available on many collections of vintage radio, and there
are even some versions that were filmed and are now available on video. Students track
well on an audio recording excerpt of about three to five minutes.
• Sample exam questions: multiple choice, true-false/explain, identification, essay
Multiple Choice
1. Framing is an important skill because:
A. communication is nonverbal and interesting
B. communication is patterned but interpretable in different ways (*)
C. communication is a rational process of inquiry
D. communication is an internal process of discerning correct meanings
E. communication can make or break a business deal
2. In an interview with a clear frame:
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A. participants are confused about how to interpret things
B. participants are fully sympathetic with others’ views
C. participants have about the same definition of the situation (*)
D. participants know exactly what they want
E. participants are all concerned with impression management
3. Armin is constantly ordered around by his rude roommate, but because he values a
peaceful home, he says nothing. His behavior represents:
A. a pathological condition
B. assertiveness
C. poor framing
D. appropriate framing
E. acquiescence (*)
4. The concept of acceptance-oriented language means that:
A. you choose terms with sensitivity to the framing habits of different cultural groups (*)
B. you show you like the person you interview by the language you choose
C. you try to be neutral at all times when you interview others
D. as interviewee, you try not to say anything that could be interpreted as political by
others
E. you don’t have to consider multicultural issues, because all people are equal
5. In framing, an “account”:
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A. is an aggressive statement from an interviewee, in response to an aggressive question
B. offers an explicit explanation of your own frame, to avoid misunderstanding (*)
C. cognitively compares the costs and benefits of the proposed answer with other possible
answers
D. reframes the question
E. none of the above
True-False/Explain
6. Interview frames and picture frames have nothing in common. T___ F___ Why?
7. Breaking the frame means that you refuse to participate any more in the current
communication relationship. T___ F___ Why?
8. Theorizing abstractly about framing problems while you’re engaged in an interview is
usually an ineffective way to communicate. T___ F___ Why?
9. A metamessage is a message that tells listeners how to interpret other messages. T___
F___ Why?
Identification
11. Contextualizing
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12. Essence quotes
13. Archiving
14. Probe notes
15. Political correctness
Essay
16. You have secured an interview with LeBron James, who has agreed to set aside an
hour to talk with you. You hope to write a feature based on this interview for a regional
magazine. You do your research into James’s basketball and advertising career, but as the
time draws nearer, you get nervous about how you’ll take notes. Write a brief essay
describing your potential choices for note taking, and why each would be appropriate or
inappropriate for this situation.
17. Accurate note taking can ensure interviewers get the interviewee’s statements
correctly recorded, but it can be valuable for many more reasons, too. Explain at least
three additional positive or helpful results of note taking for interviewers.
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18. What do you believe is the strongest argument in favor of the position this chapter
terms “linguistic conservatism,” in the context of interviewing? What is the strongest
argument against it? Discuss this as a framing issue, demonstrating you are aware of the
range of issues in this controversy; feel free to take a position, but your answer will be
evaluated by the depth of your understanding of the controversy itself, not what you think
about it.
PART TWO; PRACTICAL CONTEXTS OF INTERVIEWING
CHAPTER 6: Interviews in Journalism
• The nitty-gritty
The journalistic interview stresses the ability to acquire information accurately
and completely and then be able to communicate its essence to a wider audience.
Journalists depend on interviews as a principal method of both defining and collecting
news; the public, in turn, relies on news interviews to know what is going on and,
ultimately, to decide what is worth knowing and acting upon. Different orientations
influence the way journalists interview, but the stereotype is the abrasive, intrusive
character often depicted in television shows and films. The chapter discusses interviewing
in the special context of journalism, but the material and issues covered also apply to
anyone who must engage in information gathering and dissemination as part of his or her
assignments; that point should be emphasized at the beginning and end of the chapter.
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• Suggestions for “Trying Out Your Skills” and “Making Your Decision” boxes
— The TOYS box covers two activities. One has students critiquing stories for missing
details or unanswered questions that readers would naturally need or want to know. You
might want to go through this exercise yourself to help students if they have trouble
finding the “readers’ questions.” The second activity is an exploration of accurate recall
and note taking. One insight that can emerge from this activity (beyond its obvious skillbuilding contributions) is an appreciation of the complexity of the journalist’s task even
among those who will not be reporters or editors.
— The MYD box — especially in its first two scenarios — opens up important areas of
journalistic ethics that are subtler than some students associate with the term “ethics.”
Although many assume ethical matters are limited to questions of purposeful deceit or
distortion, the “Sherry Johnson” story asks students to take the role of a reporter in
choosing who to interview and what to ask when emotions are high and privacy issues are
involved. The “Mayor Dooley” story places in question the very definition of what a
“quote” is, and how much control a powerful person should exercise over news stories
affecting them. In a related question, how deferential should a reporter be when
questioning a celebrity like Pete Rose? Although it’s interesting to critique someone
else’s performance, this kind of question challenges students to decide what they would
do differently and why.
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• Additional activities and discussion questions
— Go to www.whitehouse.gov for transcripts of the latest presidential press conference.
Analyze the questions asked by reporters for such factors as conciseness, clarity, and
effectiveness. If it’s a typical presidential press conference, the questions will display
flaws in their wording and content. You might want to point out that press conferences
usually are considered pseudo news events “managed” by the White House to shield the
president from tough questioning. Nonetheless, the presidential press conference yields
news and reflects the difficulties of interviewing a well-prepared world leader in a
controlled communication environment.
— Have students discuss the following quotation from newspaper reporter and columnist
Molly Ivins’s 1991 best-seller, Molly Ivins Can’t Say That, Can She? (New York:
Random House):
Reporters tend to be people people. It helps if you’re an extrovert, but it’s not
necessary. I have frequently been amazed, when taking a colleague along to a
meeting of radicals or blacks, to find my colleague actually afraid of such people.
I find it absurd and wrong when reporters are ill at ease with people, just plain
people, who happen not to be like them. There are reporters who simply can’t deal
with anyone who’s not white, college-educated, middle-class. I’m not sure
whether that’s sad or funny, but I know it doesn’t make for good journalism. I
don’t know how you learn to relate to people — listen to them, I suppose. Spend
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enough time around very different kinds of people so that they don’t strike you as
odd. (p. 238)
• Additional resources
Print
Anderson, R., & Killenberg, G. M. (1997). Listening in journalism: All the news (we’ve
heard about) that’s fit to print. In M. Purdy & D. Borisoff (Eds.), Listening in everyday
life: A personal and professional approach (2nd ed., pp. 311–332). Lanham, MD:
University Press of America.
Arico, S. L. (1986). Breaking the ice: An in-depth look at Oriana Fallaci’s interview
techniques. Journalism Quarterly, 587–593.
Borden, S. L. (1993). Empathic listening: The interviewer’s betrayal. Journal of Mass
Media Ethics, 8, 219–226.
Fredin, E. S. (1984). Assessing sources: Interviewing, self-monitoring, and attribution
theory. Journalism Quarterly, 61, 866–883.
McGlone, M. (2005). Quoted out of context: contextomy and its consequences. Journal
of Communication, 55, 330–346.
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McManus, K. (1992, November). If you absolutely, positively have to talk to real people
— Here are some tips on coaxing out good “person in the street” interviews. ASNE
Bulletin, 18–19.
Stark, K. (2001). What’s right/wrong with journalism ethics research? Journalism
Studies, 2, 133–152.
Starobin, P. (1995, March/April). A generation of vipers: Journalists and the new
cynicism. Columbia Journalism Review, 33, 25–32.
Stocking, S. H., & Gross, P. H. (1989). How do journalists think? A proposal for the
study of cognitive bias in newsmaking. Bloomington, IN: ERIC Clearinghouse on
Reading and Communication Skills. (A particularly interesting source that describes how
journalists develop implicit cognitive “theories” — in effect, persistent frames — that
they use in deciding what is newsworthy.)
Ziemann, S. L. (1998, June 19). He shows cops the media aren’t the enemy. Chicago
Tribune, pp. 2–2, 2–10. (A feature article describing how a former television reporter and
anchor, Rick Rosenthal, trains police officers how to answer journalists’ questions more
effectively. The title suggests the theme of the workshops Rosenthal conducts.)
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Nonprint
Bill Moyers’s “World of Ideas” series is a treasure trove of interviews with an array of
noted philosophers, scientists, writers, historians, and artists. You can find a complete or
partial set in the audio-video collections at many university libraries. Another option is
the archived interviews of Charlie Rose, available through Google video or
www.charlierose.com.
• Sample exam questions: multiple choice, true-false/explain, identification, essay
Multiple Choice
1. In their professional preparation and education, journalists primarily learn
interviewing:
A. on the job, through trial and error (*)
B. through extensive in-house workshops and seminars
C. by classroom study of the research and theory of interviewing
D. from mentors
E. from editors and coaches in the newsroom
2. A reporter would typically use a background interview to:
A. dig up dirt on, or investigate a political or public figure
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B. conduct a “background” check on newsmakers
C. acquire a basic understanding of a subject as an aid in reporting on an unfamiliar topic
(*)
D. decide whether a prospective interviewee would perform effectively when questioned
on live television or radio
E. gather details for a personality profile
3. According to the textbook definition, “off the record” means the:
A. interviewee won’t be identified by name in the story
B. interviewer won’t record or take notes of the conversation
C. interviewee’s comments won’t be published or broadcast in any form (*)
D. interviewee will discuss only unofficial details
E. interviewer will not directly quote the interviewee, but may attribute a thought or
attitude indirectly to him or her
4. Janet Malcolm helped the journalism profession focus on its interviewing behavior
when she:
A. suggested in an article that many reporters take advantage of the people they interview
(*)
B. blamed television and Hollywood for stereotyping reporters as rude and insensitive
C. accused politicians and public figures of creating an adversarial relationship in dealing
with reporters
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D. asked a presidential candidate what he would do if someone raped and murdered his
wife
E. published a popular book in which celebrity interviewees attacked the methods of
reporters
5. A movement in American journalism that has helped stress the importance of
communication between reporters and the people they cover is called:
A. immersion reporting
B. in-depth reporting
C. people-to-people journalism
D. public journalism (*)
E. compassionate journalism
True-False/Explain
6. An interviewer’s use of hidden recorders is ethical practice in journalism. T___ F___
Why?
7. Reporters and those they interview cannot escape an adversarial relationship. T___
F___ Why?
8. Reporters ought to give interviewees an opportunity to prepare by revealing some key
questions they intend to ask. T___ F___ Why?
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9. A news story belongs to the interviewer, not to the interviewee. T___ F___ Why?
10. Reviewing a story with interviewees prior to publication or broadcast is forbidden by
current ethical standards in journalism. T___ F___ Why?
Identification
11. Sound bite
12. Not for attribution
13. Janet Malcolm
14. Delayed note taking
15. Personality profile
Essay
16. What do you think James Fallows means when he says journalists should allow
“themselves to be surprised by new evidence”?
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17. Take a position on this observation: “Journalism is largely a by-product of
communication by and between people.”
18. From an interviewee’s perspective, discuss what you think constitutes ethical
interview behavior on a reporter’s part.
CHAPTER 7: Interviews in Social Science and Humanistic Research
• The nitty-gritty
Chapter 7 highlights the learning function of interviewing in a very specific way.
Social science and humanistic researchers want to know more about the human condition
so they can better adapt political solutions to social problems and better enable people to
understand their own living conditions. With this understanding, we all become better
equipped as decision makers. Research, no matter how specific or unrelated to a given
student’s (or a given teacher’s!) interests, adds to our store of cultural knowledge and
helps us act more responsibly with each other. This chapter surveys basic issues in
quantitative and qualitative research and considers four basic types of interview research
— surveys, focus groups, oral histories, and ethnographies. We suggest that you use this
opportunity to encourage students to:
— understand that research is not something done only by ivory tower
intellectuals or elitists;
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— understand that as responsible organizational specialists, they will be expected
to advise others on communication research; and
— understand that no matter how trivial a single study might appear when taken
out of context, it can make a valuable contribution to social awareness when
combined with other studies.
• Suggestions for “Trying Out Your Skills” and “Making Your Decision” boxes
— The first TOYS box is a simple exercise probing students’ ability to phrase a focused,
specific, and clear question. Without this ability, survey respondents will answer a
researcher’s questions with widely varying referents in mind. Remind students that
researchers can never control respondents’ reactions directly (some imprecision is built
into language itself), but they can attempt to minimize misinterpretation through careful
language choices. Recognizing possible ambiguity, and how it invites divergent
responses, is a crucial questioning skill first introduced in Chapter 4.
— The second TOYS box presents a hypothetical excerpt from a student’s oral history
interview. Probe students’ abilities to discern how it is different from, and similar to, how
journalists interview. At the very least, they should be able to see that, while there are
many similarities (such as thoroughness, preparation, and probe questioning), the oral
history interviewer grants and encourages far wider latitude of memory and narrative to
the interviewee. Audrey helps Leon to open or close topics, so that his story emerges
relatively slowly over time, and ideally without external pressures or demands.
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— The third TOYS box is an actual experience in oral history. You may want to
incorporate this activity as a formal assignment in your syllabus.
— The MYD box illustrates the pragmatics and ethics of communicating with those
whose attitudes and behaviors are researched. The first case expands upon an example
mentioned earlier in the chapter, and it asks students to test their understandings of the
ethics of informed and implied consent. The next two cases simply allow students to
personalize research topics to their own interests and career goals, helping them sharpen
their understanding of the chapter. Finally, we present another scenario in which a student
can interview an interviewer — one in which a strong opinion is asserted and the reader
must determine how or whether to respond.
• Additional activities and discussion questions
— Survey research. Have teams of two students each decide on a topic about which
they’re curious (for example: class attitudes about a proposed tuition hike; evaluation of
this year’s football or basketball team; or any current campus controversy). Then, each
team should review Gallup’s quintamensional question sequence for surveys, and write
their own schedule in which they adapt the quintamensional sequence into precisely
worded questions. This could be a graded written activity, or it could simply be designed
to set up a class discussion about the rigors of survey research. Another alternative would
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be to have the team follow through on five to 10 actual interviews based upon the
schedule they construct.
— Focus group research. Have students interview marketing or advertising professors
who have done focus group research; these specialists could be asked about the
advantages and disadvantages of such studies, as well as the potential abuses and
misunderstandings associated with focus group research. An alternative would be to have
students or teams of students read and evaluate critically one or more focus group studies;
for example, what procedures guided the ways moderators asked questions, generated
new topics, created transitions between topics, probed for more specific responses, and so
forth.
— Oral history research. See the sample syllabus for a description of one such
assignment, involving a sequence of student interviews with a single person from the
community (not a campus faculty, staff, or administration representative).
— Ethnographic research. Because these studies typically involve intense participation if
not immersion in a different cultural setting, it is difficult to structure ethnography
directly into a limited class activity or assignment. Teachers have several options: Guest
speakers can stimulate excellent discussions about the methodological choices of
ethnographers; students can interview a campus’s famous anthropologist or sociologist
who specializes in this research; the teacher can lead the class in a hypothetical planning
session in which a design for an ethnographic study is devised. (One example: “None of
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us is familiar with the culture of a Florida retirement community. If our class were given
a grant of $50,000 to study the communication patterns of one such residential complex,
how would we go about it? What decisions would have to be made about the researchers’
role[s] in the study? What pitfalls should we be sure to avoid? What kinds of interviews
should we be doing?”)
• Additional resources
Print
Arendell, T. (1997). Reflections on the researcher-researched relationship: A woman
interviewing men. Qualitative Sociology, 20, 341–368.
Burgess, B. (1988). Conversations with a purpose: The ethnographic interview in
educational research. Studies in Qualitative Methodology, 1, 137–155.
Conrad, F. G., & Schober, M. F. (Eds.). (2008). Envisioning the survey interview of the
future. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
Conrad, M. F., & Coiner, T. (2007). Bringing features of human dialogue to web surveys.
Applied Cognitive Psychology, 21, 165–188.
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Devault, M. (1990). Talking and listening from women’s standpoint: Feminist strategies
for interviewing and analysis. Social Problems, 37(1), 96–116.
Hansen, A. A. (1994). A riot of voices: Racial and ethnic variables in interactive oral
history interviewing. In E. M. McMahan & K. L. Rogers (Eds.), Interactive oral history
interviewing (pp. 107–137). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Krysan, M., & Couper, M. P. (2003). Race in the live and virtual interview: Racial
deference, social desirability, and activation effects in attitude surveys. Social Psychology
Quarterly, 66, 364–383.
Lederman, L. C. (1990). Assessing educational effectiveness: The focus group interview
as a technique for data collection. Communication Education, 39, 117–127.
Varallo, S. M., Ray, E. B., & Ellis, B. H. (1998). Speaking of incest: The research
interview as social justice. Journal of Applied Communication Research, 26, 254–271.
Williams, A. (1997). Young people’s beliefs about intergenerational communication: An
initial cross-cultural comparison. Communication Research, 24, 370–393.
Yow, V. R. (1994). Recording oral history: A practical guide for social scientists.
Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
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Nonprint
Oral History Society, www.ohs.org.uk. This Web site features a Q&A about oral history
and provides ethical guidelines for those doing oral histories, among other resource
materials.
• Sample exam questions: multiple choice, true-false/explain, identification, essay
Multiple Choice
1. A sampling of all members of a given population is called a:
A. universe
B. stratified random sample
C. convenience (or available) sample
D. census (*)
E. probability sample
2. Qualitative research focuses on:
A. observable, measurable data
B. quality-based information rather than information of questionable value
C. human experiences that characterize and affect social action (*)
D. surveys of political and social attitudes
E. studies that have predictive value
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3. A focus group is best described as a:
A. team responsible for developing a research questionnaire
B. collection of individuals used by researchers to determine preferences or attitudes (*)
C. survey sample drawn from a select group of respondents, through a “focusing
procedure”
D. unit within a research institution that is assigned a particular task
E. collection of politically active people used to engage in a discussion with candidates
4. The quintamensional sequence of surveying helps researchers:
A. determine how much respondents know or have thought about a subject (*)
B. measure multiple attitudes on a given subject
C. collect demographic information
D. introduce respondents to particularly sensitive subjects
E. zero in on deception
5. Ethnography can be defined as:
A. encountering strange or alien cultural worlds and making sense of them (*)
B. participating in autobiographical interviewing
C. collection and interpretation of oral history interview findings
D. gathering data systematically through ethical quantitative research
E. studying and interviewing people in geographic settings
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True-False/Explain
6. Self-administered surveys generally don’t work as well as telephone surveys. T___
F___ Why?
7. In research projects, validity is valued more than reliability. T___ F___ Why?
8. Implied consent in research doesn’t require a signed agreement from respondents. T___
F___ Why?
9. Postmodernists tend to see knowledge as “social construction.” T___ F___ Why?
10. A member check is a way of ensuring accuracy in ethnography. T___ F___ Why?
Identification
11. Literature review
12. Studs Terkel
13. Local knowledge
14. Over-rapport
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15. Note set
Essay
16. Explain how both vertical and horizontal dimensions apply to oral history interviews.
17. Elliot Mishler writes about the need to “empower respondents.” What does he mean?
How does it relate to the tasks of a research interviewer? Discuss a hypothetical research
situation in which respondents are empowered as Mishler would suggest.
18. What principles should apply in wording questions for surveys? (Note: You do not
have to recall the exact terms in order from the textbook list, but should be able to discuss
the basic ideas underlying them.)
CHAPTER 8: Interviews for Employee Selection
• The nitty-gritty
Of all the chapters, students will find Chapter 8 the most familiar and, perhaps,
the most relevant in the short term. Nearly everyone in your class will have firsthand
experience with a selection interview of some sort; many eventually will move into jobs
that include responsibilities for selecting employees or applicants. You should anticipate
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that students will approach the chapter with preconceived attitudes based on limited,
casual exposure. This is why we open with — and reinforce — the point that you can’t
“just be yourself,” relying on common sense, in selection interviews. The practical advice
offered to counteract this tendency is to “get out of yourself.” Ample time should be
devoted to exploring this concept. Chapter 8 also integrates the complementary roles and
perspectives of both interviewer and interviewee, which other texts address in separate
chapters. This makes it a somewhat longer reading assignment than other chapters, but
not unmanageably so; if you want to break down the discussion over several days, we’d
still recommend that you ask the class to read the entire chapter before the first class
discussion — and then, perhaps, reassign smaller sections for specific class periods.
Special note on conflicting advice students often hear: Teaching this course unit is
probably not the place to assert with certainty that a student’s Uncle Will and Aunt
Marsha are “wrong” in their advice (unless it is truly bizarre). Neither is it the place to
assert with certainty that there is only one best way to interview or be interviewed.
Instead, a skills-plus approach would suggest you help students clarify choices for
themselves while still providing guidelines that reflect contemporary research.
• Suggestions for “Trying Out Your Skills” and “Making Your Decision” boxes
— The first TOYS box places students in the role of critic. Instead of presenting an ideal
case, it asks them to examine a real employment interview schedule in terms of its inner
workings, as well as how it could be adapted or improved. They should ideally react by
comparing the schedule to chapter concepts, rather than by simply saying what they like
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or don’t like about it. In a follow-up exercise, students will be following explicit
guidelines in order to write their own interview schedule.
— The second TOYS box invites students to draft a resume and use it in role-play
situations. Among the interesting points that often emerge will be the ethically ambiguous
dilemmas where applicants are tempted to beef up an image with fancy labels or with
truth-stretching. Concerning the logistical decisions of preparing a resume (one page or
two? what color paper? which typeface is best?), teachers might want to check with their
campus’s career centers to determine the resume-related advice seniors are receiving
there. If possible, coordinate your advice with the center’s guidelines. If you cannot do so
in good conscience, at least prepare clear reasons why you disagree and acknowledge that
the center’s staff has reasonable explanations for their differing advice. Otherwise, the
result is student confusion.
— The third TOYS box describes an activity similar to one of the graded assignments
from the sample syllabus. This could be an individual or a small-group exercise.
— The MYD box first asks students to consider the ethics and pragmatic implications of
asking applicants about other interviewing they might be doing — and then turns the
exercise around to inquire about a helpful answer to such an inquiry. Here and elsewhere,
use such situations as double-edged problem-solving opportunities, not places to
prescribe answers for students. In another situation, students consider the dynamics of
stress interviewing. Finally, a case situation of cross-cultural interviewing lets students
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discuss possible solutions together. Student reactions to this case will probably open the
door for you to discuss the relationship between legal and ethical responsibilities of
interviewers, as well as how interviewees could react verbally to awkward intercultural
interviewing situations.
• Additional activities and discussion questions
This chapter warns against the simplistic advice to “be yourself.” However, are there
ways applicants ought to concentrate on “being themselves”? What are those ways?
— Have students role-play a situation in which they decline a job offer tactfully (perhaps
because it involves travel; because its job description is so broad; because the salary is
disappointing). Variant: Students could write a letter requesting an additional week to
consider an offer. Variant: Students could write a letter thanking the interviewer for an
informative and interesting interview. See John D. Shingleton’s Successful Interviewing
for College Seniors (Lincolnwood, IL: VGM Career Horizons, 1996).
— Help students in various subdisciplines of communication (e.g., organizational
communication, communication technology, rhetoric, public relations, advertising,
journalism) develop comprehensive lists of skills they’ve developed through their
coursework, internships, student activities, and volunteer work.
• Additional resources
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Print
Anderson, N. R. (1991). Decision making in the graduate selection interview: An
experimental investigation. Human Relations, 44, 403–417.
Ayres, J., Keereetaweep, T., Chen, P-E., & Edwards, P. A. (1998). Communication
apprehension and employment interviews. Communication Education, 47, 1–17.
Dipboye, R. L. (1992). Selection interviews: Process perspectives. Cincinnati, OH:
South-Western.
Duhe, S. F., & Zukowski, L. A. (1997). Radio-TV journalism curriculum: First jobs and
career preparation. Journalism & Mass Communication Educator, 52, 4–15.
Engler-Parish, P. G., & Millar, F. E. (1989). An exploratory relational control analysis of
the employment-screening interview. Western Journal of Speech Communication, 53, 30–
51.
Halvorson, S. (1997). Interviewing: Role playing to help understand the Americans with
Disabilities Act (ADA). Speech Communication Teacher, 11, 1–3.
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Jones, D. B., & Pinkney, J. W. (1989). An exploratory assessment of the sources of jobinterviewing anxiety in college students. Journal of College Student Development, 30,
553–560.
Joyce, A. (2005, January 16). Job hunting in a family way. Washington Post, p. F1.
Kirkwood, W. G., & Ralston, S. M. (1996). Ethics and teaching employment
interviewing. Communication Education, 45, 167–179.
Ralston, S. M., & Kirkwood, W. G. (1995). Overcoming managerial bias in employment
interviewing. Journal of Applied Communication Research, 23, 75–92.
Ralston, S. M., Kirkwood, W. G., & Burant, P. (2003). Helping interviewees tell their
stories. Business Communication Quarterly, 66, 8–22.
Robinson, M. D., Johnson, J. T., & Shields, S. A. (1995). On the advantages of modesty:
The benefits of a balanced self-presentation. Communication Research, 22, 575–591.
Nonprint
The Black Collegian Online: The career site for students of color, www.blackcollegian.com. (Tips, advice, and resources from the perspective of minority job seekers.)
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Many recent textbooks and training manuals in business communication are accompanied
by video recordings demonstrating helpful and unhelpful approaches to the employmentselection interview. In addition, many campus career centers have video collections of
exemplary employment interviews from the standpoint of applicants, and your library or
media center might have other training videos that will be helpful in demonstrating
personnel interviewer behavior. If you choose to use one of these in class, be sure to
preview these interviews carefully to ensure they demonstrate the same points you want
to stress in class.
You want the video demonstration interview to stimulate conversation, but try to avoid
senseless quibbles about so-called proper interview behaviors (“My uncle was a
personnel director, and he told me to do something different than you are advising!”; “My
roommate got a great job last year and she didn’t do any of this stuff”; “I just hated the
way he combed his hair!”). Clearly, applicants take many routes to success, and
interviewers may prefer different tactics. However, we believe that teachers should stress
that while specific advice will vary, there is little controversy about the general guidelines
for effectiveness in preparing for and interacting in selection interviews.
• Sample exam questions: multiple choice, true-false/explain, identification, essay
Multiple Choice
1. The advice to an interview participant to “get out of yourself” refers to:
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A. expanding your focus to include the needs and goals of the other person (*)
B. suppressing, for the moment, your own personality
C. assuming a role or character other than your own
D. suppressing your ego
E. seeing yourself as others see you
2. A key concern of an employment interview conducted as a “rhetorical encounter” is:
A. overreliance on rhetorical questions
B. an inevitable clash of goals
C. the relative effectiveness of persuasive proofs (*)
D. the predominance of argumentation over logic
E. the likely emphasis on the “encounter” rather than communication
3. Which of these best describes attribution theory?
A. how people try to attribute questionable statements to specific sources of information
B. how people attempt to explain the behavior of others (*)
C. how people read too much into the motives of others
D. how people translate behavior to related theories of communication
E. how people make errors in assessing motives and behavior
4. Building rapport in interviews through small talk that humanizes communication is
called:
A. empathy
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B. pathos
C. validation
D. phatic communion (*)
E. relayed feedback
5. The employment interview is best described as a:
A. test of confidence
B. trial that measures the ability to perform under pressure
C. communication exchange with mutual implications (*)
D. formalized ritual
E. interpersonal competition
True-False/Explain
6. The employment interview is notoriously weak as a predictor of job success. T___
F___ Why?
7. “Attending behaviors” signal careful listening. T___ F___ Why?
8. Job applicants ought to use the interview as an opportunity to “comparison shop.”
T___ F___ Why?
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9. It is legally permissible to question a prospective employee about marital status. T___
F___ Why?
10. A single-version resume is preferred in today’s job market. T___ F___ Why?
Identification
11. Behavioral interview
12. Decentering
13. Elite selection
14. Needs assessment
15. Functional resume
Essay
16. How does Sissela Bok’s “test of publicity” apply to an employment or a selection
interview?
17. Describe and discuss the DPFP sequence of developing a resume.
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18. What can organizations do to create an environment of fairness in employment
interviews and hiring?
CHAPTER 9: Interviews in Organizations
• The nitty-gritty
Chapter 9 focuses on the importance and versatility of the interview as a means of
effective communication and goal accomplishment in organizations. Most often
organizations use interviews as part of a process of performance evaluation, so a good
part of the chapter is devoted to appraisal interviews. Methods and motives vary among
organizations; the chapter provides an overview of common appraisal processes and
systems, including explanation and discussion of ratings, rankings, and surveys, for
example, that provide a contextual foundation for effective appraisal interviews.
Following the appraisal section, the chapter explains how interviews serve the interests of
organizations by addressing and resolving personnel problems that require intervention,
such as anger and disruptive workplace behavior. The subject matter ought to be highly
relevant to students who intend to assume positions of authority within complex
organizations (virtually all communication students aspire to this level of responsibility,
whether their organizations will be Microsoft, ABC News, or Wal-Mart). You probably
should remind students that other chapters also apply to organizational settings; for
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example, basic information-gathering interviewing (see Chapters 1 and 6) is a common
expectation for any organizational communicator charged with preparing a report.
• Suggestions for “Trying Out Your Skills” and “Making Your Decision” boxes
— The first TOYS box asks students to write a global essay appraisal. It should be based
upon an actual evaluation experience the student call recall, but there’s no reason why the
name of the evaluated person should ever be disclosed in any way. Look for ways to: (1)
help students supplement conclusions or generalizations with specific job-related
examples, (2) help students clarify for themselves the criteria that underlie their
evaluations, and (3) help students examine their work for any potentially unfair or
unnecessarily offensive statements that may leak into the essays through careless
semantic choices. Students can also use their essays to help construct an appraisal
interview schedule.
— In the second TOYS box, students analyze an excerpt from a hypothetical intervention
interview by examining an interviewer’s conflict management skills and an interviewee’s
assertiveness. We’ve made the interviewer’s approach somewhat demanding (some
would say “unfair”) and the interviewee responds with requests for clarification. Use this
exercise to focus not only on how the manager could have intervened differently (with
more explanation of company dilemmas, less anger, and more empathy, for example), but
also on realistic ways employees can be assertive when confronted with such evaluations.
Did Mardra respond appropriately in this instance? If so, why? If not, why not?
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— The MYD situations have students trying to “translate” their learning, making it more
practical through considering common situations that occur in organizations. The first, a
lesson in feedback in the context of an exit interview, will let you see how thoughtful
students are about giving and receiving feedback. The second, taking the role of an
interviewee who doesn’t receive enough feedback, but desires more, is quite common in
organizations; such employees often need to interview interviewers. The third, involving
the delicate handling of a sexual harassment complaint, might be a good topic for general
class discussion.
• Additional activities and discussion questions
John Kao, a management consultant at Stanford who has founded a number of
companies himself, wrote a book called Jamming: The Art and Discipline of Business
Creativity (New York: HarperBusiness, 1996). His central metaphor, jamming, comes
from the music world, of course; jazz players must learn on-the-spot and at-the-moment
creativity — but not at the expense of discipline and preparation. Ask students to make
connections to organizational interviewing from the following quotation from page 35:
Today’s global marketplace — turbulent, “spacey,” and endlessly demanding of
the new, the experimental, the faster, the better, and the cheaper — is not a
concert-hall environment. There’s no time for business managers to look for
solutions in the archives of corporate sheet music. Today’s highly competitive
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business world puts a premium on the skill of improvisation. All the world’s a
jazz club. This is an era, in short, that calls for the inspiration of art.
And discipline. The (creative) role of the manager is to work the central paradox,
or tension, of the jam session: to locate the ever-mobile sweet spot somewhere
between systems and analysis on the one hand and the free-flowing creativity of
the individual on the other.
How can Kao’s comment help organizational interviewers? Is it at all inconsistent with
other interviewers’ advice to set clear goals for employee behavior? How can goal setting
and jamming (improvisation) be made more compatible?
• Additional resources
Print
Cheney, G. (1995). Democracy in the workplace: Theory and practice from the
perspective of communication. Journal of Applied Communication Research, 23, 167–
200.
Cleveland, J. N., Murphy, K. R., & Williams, R. E. (1989). Multiple uses of performance
appraisal: Prevalence and correlates. Journal of Applied Psychology, 130–135.
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Communication Briefings. (This newsletter is popular with many trainers and teachers.
Each of the 12 annual issues collects dozens of brief tips, ideas, suggestions, and
vignettes that have worked in someone’s organizational or business setting. Many ideas
described are directly or indirectly relevant to interviewing. They can be valuable, but
remind students that the occasionally prescriptive tone can mask the difficulties and
ambiguities of communication dilemmas. You can contact the publisher at
www.briefings.com for subscriptions.)
Giacalone, R. A., & Duhon, D. (1991). Assessing intended employee behavior in exit
interviews. Journal of Psychology, 125, 83–90.
Goodall, H. L., Jr., Wilson, G. L., & Waagen, C. (1986). The performance appraisal
interview: An interpretive assessment. Quarterly Journal of Speech, 72, 74–87.
Krayer, K. J. (1987). Simulation method for teaching the performance appraisal
interview. Communication Education, 36, 276–283.
Lobdell, C. L., Sonoda, K. T., & Arnold, W. E. (1993). The influence of perceived
supervisor listening behavior on employee commitment. Journal of the International
Listening Association, 7, 92–110.
Monroe, C., Borzi, M. G., & DiSalvo, V. S. (1993). Managerial strategies for dealing
with difficult subordinates. Southern Communication Journal, 58, 247–254.
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Ray, E. B. (1993). When the links become chains: Considering dysfunctions of
supportive communication in the workplace. Communication Monographs, 60, 106–111.
Nonprint
Organizational interviews, including performance appraisals and exit or termination
interviews, tend to be relatively private occasions in practice. However, their relative
privacy makes them dramatic events that can be portrayed interestingly in sitcoms and
films. You may want to watch for vivid examples in such contemporary spoofs on
organizational life as TV sitcoms The Office, starring Steve Carell, or Ugly Betty, starring
America Ferrera, and the film Office Space. These comedic portrayals can then be
compared to your recommendations for more realistic and effective behaviors.
Combining print with nonprint representations, the “Dilbert” cartoons by Scott Adams in
newspapers, books, calendars, animations, and online (www.dilbert.com) give teachers of
organizational communication much to work with in class. Adams’s work lampoons
organizational life and often focuses on performance evaluations between superiors and
subordinates.
• Sample exam questions: multiple choice, true-false/explain, identification, essay
Multiple Choice
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1. The research of goal-setting theory suggests that:
A. goals set by managers achieve a higher level of success
B. goals should be easy to accomplish rather than challenging
C. goals set jointly by employees and employers are more likely to be met (*)
D. goals without rewards usually don’t succeed
E. goals with stated consequences for failure generally succeed
2. A narrative evaluation as a form of appraisal:
A. ensures a focused, detailed, and frank assessment
B. depends, in part, on the writer’s ability to describe an employee’s strengths and
weaknesses (*)
C. encourages employees to talk about their lives through stories
D. ranks employees by their ability to communicate effectively
E. succeeds in encouraging supervisors and employees to work together
3. Appraisal interviewers should focus on which type of question?
A. closed-ended
B. exploratory (*)
C. hypothetical
D. leading
E. indicative
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4. Psychological contracts are:
A. the mental games played in appraisal interviews
B. unstated expectations between organizations and workers (*)
C. binding work agreements involving fair treatment of employees
D. intervention sessions for uncooperative or angry workers
E. remedial steps difficult employees are required to take to keep their jobs
5. A 360-degree appraisal system:
A. asks employees to undergo a total change in work behavior
B. scrutinizes an employee in terms of behavior, attitude, and character
C. puts supervisors in the position of being evaluated by workers
D. encourages supervisors and employees to exchange perspectives
E. collects feedback from everyone affected by the performance of the employee in
question (*)
True-False/Explain
6. “I-messages” aren’t effective in addressing performance problems. T___ F___ Why?
7. Theory X management assumes that employees work best when carefully monitored
and forced to perform. T___ F___ Why?
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8. In an appraisal interview, the focus should remain exclusively on the interviewee. T___
F___ Why?
9. Some organizations use coaches as part of their appraisal systems. T___ F___ Why?
10. An exit interview is another term for “termination interview.” T___ F___ Why?
Identification
11. Quality of Work Life
12. Critical incident report
13. BARS system
14. Graphic rating scale
15. Employee assistance programs
Essay
16. Describe the logic behind the steps for dealing with anger in the workplace.
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17. Compare and contrast defensive and supportive climates of communication. Use at
least two relevant examples of each, but you do not have to reproduce the precise lists of
defensive and supportive behaviors.
18. What role does a company philosophy play in an appraisal process?
CHAPTER 10: Interviews in Persuasive Situations
• The nitty-gritty
Chapter 10 encourages students to see many forms of persuasive encounters,
including sales, as interviewing situations. It attempts to counter the assumption that
persuasion in selling is a kind of unethical manipulation, and move persuasion more into
the realms of listening, learning, and information. Persuasion is not an unsavory goal for
communicators. At the same time, those who become familiar with the potential abuses
of persuasive interviews become better consumers as well. In addition, this is an
opportunity for you to help demystify and clarify similar forms of persuasion, such as
negotiation and interrogation/advocacy interviewing.
• Suggestions for “Trying Out Your Skills” and “Making Your Decision” boxes
— The first TOYS box, a job-based exercise, allows students to explore the concept of
persuasion as a helping relationship. It asks them to consider actual job conditions
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they’ve experienced in the past (few students will never have worked at a job, but this
exercise also fits anyone who’s cooperated with others in any organization); the key is to
help them see how organizations are changed in the directions we want primarily when
others discern how they are helped by the changes, too.
— The second TOYS box, in which the reader imagines being a student ambassador,
explores both how a persuader adapts his or her own personality to the task and how
questions are answered ethically. We’ve found this to be a good situation for in-class role
playing; students directly confront the persuasive cross-pressures as they want — at the
same time — to be good spokespersons and honest respondents to potential students and
their parents.
— The MYD box includes three tasks. The first is an ethics-related issue concerning this
chapter’s position that promoting free and fully informed choices among persuadees is
realistic. Be straightforward in encouraging students to argue with this position, but
remind opponents of the practical benefits mentioned in the chapter, as well as the ethical
responsibilities. (It is not incumbent upon teachers, we believe, to take the position that
ethical persuasion always “works as well” as unethical, especially in the short run.
Everyone has examples of cheaters winning. It’s helpful and perhaps rare, however, for
students to hear a strong and persuasive version of the counterargument from a credible
source . . . which, as teachers, we hope we are.) The second task asks students to relate
negotiation to their own lives. This is an excellent opportunity to ask them to review the
concepts of communication competencies and to relate this task to other courses in
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interpersonal communication. The third task explores the nature of questioning in
persuasive interviews relative to a dictum about questions many students have heard
about in a different context. You may want to review aspects of Chapter 4 if you choose
to bring this up in class.
• Additional activities and discussion questions
After a discussion of negotiation, highlight a prominent local campus controversy,
and use a 10-minute discussion to explore the issues of various “sides.” Identify two or
three primary constituencies involved in the controversy, and appoint representatives
responsible for speaking for those positions. Then, do a demonstration negotiation
interview, with either yourself or a student volunteer working in a fishbowl format in the
center of the room. The purpose here is not to “settle” or resolve the problem, but rather
to ensure that all sides understand the information and frames of other positions as fully
as possible. The negotiator must therefore elicit information and acknowledgments of
where information is lacking. Discuss with the class the effectiveness of the negotiation
interviewing strategies. Variant: Give volunteer participants a 10-minute break to gather
their thoughts about the task; during that 10 minutes, train observers (the rest of the class,
perhaps) to look for certain things like defensiveness, the negotiation interviewer’s
unintentionally loaded language, unfair summaries of positions, and the like. Later,
observers can lead the discussion/analysis.
• Additional resources
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Print
Delia, J. (1976). A constructivist analysis of the concept of credibility. Quarterly Journal
of Speech, 62, 36–75.
Goodman, G. S., & Bottoms, B. L. (1993). Child victims, child witnesses: Understanding
and improving testimony. New York: Guilford.
King, N. (1987). The first five minutes: The successful opening moves in business, sales,
and interviews. New York: Prentice-Hall.
Rollnick, S., Miller, W., & Butler, C. C. (2008). Motivational interviewing in health
care: Helping patients change behavior. New York: Guilford.
Shepherd, G. J. (1992). Communication as influence: Definitional exclusion.
Communication Studies, 43, 203–219.
Smith, D. H., & Pettegrew, L. S. (1986). Mutual persuasion as a model for doctor-patient
communication. Theoretical Medicine, 7, 127–146.
Wilson, R. B., Jr. (1996). Effectively interviewing the sales manager candidate. Trusts &
Estates, 135, 44–47.
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Nonprint
TruTV (formerly Court TV), a cable/satellite network, telecasts live courtroom
interaction. It is an excellent source for students who want to study how lawyers question
witnesses. In addition, C-SPAN, another network, often televises congressional hearings
in which witnesses are questioned by committees. See the online resources for more
information: www.trutv.com and www.c-span.org.
Theater, television, and film productions abound with stereotypes of certain occupations
associated with persuasive interviewing: the used car salesperson, the insurance
salesperson, and the lawyer. It wouldn’t be difficult to make a brief videotape collage of
different styles that are facets of such stereotypes. The 1987 movie Tin Men, starring
Richard Dreyfuss and Danny DeVito, would be a good starting point.
• Sample exam questions: multiple choice, true-false/explain, identification, essay
Multiple Choice
1. Defining persuasion as a “helping relationship” means:
A. when you persuade someone, that’s helpful for you
B. you have to be helped a lot to learn how to persuade others
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C. meeting your own persuasive goals should also help those people you persuade (*)
D. helping professions like counseling, health care, and social work are the best places to
study persuasion
E. nothing; persuasion is a relationship of influence, not of help
2. Sometimes persuasive interviewers will benefit from the “passant phenomenon.” This
means that:
A. they will accidentally run across people who want to buy things
B. people will spend more than they plan to
C. rumors will create a negative image for competing products or services
D. sometimes people will disclose personal information to a seemingly credible stranger
(*)
E. certain kinds of people tend to disclose the vulnerabilities in their defenses without
interviewers even having to ask a question
3. The process of social influence (in Kelman’s system) in which people change their
behaviors because they want to stimulate a favorable reaction in a specified other person
or persons is:
A. compliance (*)
B. internalization
C. immediacy
D. identification
E. empathy
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4. The main difference between negotiation and mediation is that:
A. mediation is a when a third-party interviewer helps parties in conflict to resolve a
disagreement appropriately (*)
B. negotiation is a more specific term for mediation
C. in negotiation, both parties make the decision together, but in mediation the mediator
decides what they should do
D. in mediation, both parties voluntarily give up control over their definitions of the
situation
E. there is no real difference; the terms are roughly synonymous
5. Which of the following characteristics most accurately describe an interrogation
interview?
A. interrogation interviews are characterized by animosity between participants
B. interrogation interviews are conducted by those who already know the answers to the
questions they ask
C. interrogation interviews presume that interviewees are hiding something
D. interrogation interviews are occasions for judging others as persons
E. interviewees ideally disclose relevant information whether they have something to hide
or not (*)
True-False/Explain
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6. Brown and Keller’s interpersonal ethic means essentially that communication messages
should bolster other people’s self-images. T___ F___ Why?
7. Persuasion is the ability to make people do what you want, even if they don’t want to
do it. T___ F___ Why?
8. Journalistic interviews have very few elements of persuasion in them. T___ F___
Why?
9. Prior research on the interviewee and the topic/product is relatively important for the
master salesperson, because this type of person can sell anything to anyone. T___ F___
Why?
10. “Holding your fire” is an important concept for negotiators because it means you
should not say anything that will irritate the other party or parties. T___ F___ Why?
Identification
11. Interrogation
12. Rapport
13. Interviewing by comment
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14. Assumptive close
15. Fundamental attribution error
Essay
16. Imagine that you are placed in charge of a one-day training session for new student
ambassadors at your campus. You want them to be sure to understand several basic
principles of persuasive interviewing when they start their jobs. In your own words,
describe four or five principles that would guide how you present your workshop; then,
describe why each of these ideas is important for this task.
17. How do you know in a persuasive interview whether the interviewer is behaving
ethically? The text focuses on one overriding criterion. What is it? Describe that principle
and whether you agree. Then, describe a specific hypothetical persuasive interview that
illustrates how this approach can be applied.
18. Describe the developmental sequence of a typical persuasive interview. You do not
have to have memorized names of stages from the textbook, but generally speaking, what
are the main goals that should guide the early parts of the interview? The middle? The
latter parts? Why?
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CHAPTER 11: Interviews in Helping Professions
• The nitty-gritty
Chapter 11 provides an overview of helping in a variety of contexts, including
diagnostic, therapeutic, and counseling interviews. The chapter cannot begin to prepare
readers to become licensed, professional helpers, but a basic understanding of the helping
interview has practical, everyday value for all of us — on the job and in our personal
relationships. That point is important, because subtle signals for help can crop up
unexpectedly, and if we’re uninformed or unprepared, we can miss them. Emphasis on
helping should be tempered with concern that helpers can sometimes become too
involved and lose perspective. The chapter also stresses empathy, listening, and probing
feelings and perceptions — offering another opportunity to reinforce the skills-plus
orientation. Moreover, people in need often aren’t at their communicative best, which
further tests the ability of those who want to help them.
• Suggestions for “Trying Out Your Skills” and “Making Your Decision” boxes
— The first TOYS box asks the reader to write interview dialogue that can show
realistically the successes and dilemmas of diagnostic interviewing. The focus here
should be on whether the student can point to places where criteria (such as Rogers’s
facilitative conditions) are met by the doctor’s listening style. If class members take the
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time to act out one or more of these “scripts,” they may hear even more ways to improve
this ticklish communication relationship.
— The second TOYS box is a classroom exercise that involves students’ real
experiences. The stipulation that no details should be mentioned that could “even
remotely be able to be associated with the real identities of [people]” gives you yet
another opportunity to stress the ethical dimensions of interviewing.
— The MYD box sets up a situation in which any student could find himself or herself. It
allows the reader to consider elements of diagnostic, therapeutic, and counseling
communication. If you discuss this situation directly with students, you may want to
remind them that what a potential helper presumes will be helpful may not actually be
experienced that way by the disclosing person. Thus, a listener may be tempted to get
angry, or reinforce a tendency to blame, or claim, “I know exactly what you should do,”
or say “Leave it all up to me!” Help students recognize that none of these approaches will
necessarily be helpful unless the disclosing person feels understood and “listened to.”
• Additional activities and discussion questions
— Consult Andrew Wolvin and Carolyn Gwynn Coakley’s text, Listening, 5th ed. (New
York: McGraw-Hill, 1996). On pp. 284–289, they discuss a series of inappropriate and
unhelpful listening responses that cut off people’s own self-exploration when they are
disclosing themselves to a listener. Each example is matched effectively with a brief
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discussion of the problem it creates. For example, “Forget it. It’s water over the dam
now” (p. 285) is analyzed as a discounting response that indicates the disclosing person
somehow isn’t entitled to experience whatever frustration he or she feels. “You probably
haven’t demonstrated enough initiative on the job,” an evaluative response, similarly
stifles someone’s attempt to be understood. A useful classroom exercise might be to have
groups look over a list of Wolvin and Coakley’s 10 inappropriate response statement
examples, and then either: (1) discuss their relative frequency on campus, (2) discuss how
typical they are of group members’ own behavior, or (3) create a dramatic scene to
present to the class that illustrates one or two of the principles.
— In addition, David W. Johnson’s Reaching Out: Interpersonal Effectiveness and SelfActualization, 9th ed. (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 2006), contains dozens of
exercises that are easily adaptable to helping interviews.
• Additional resources
Print
Baldwin, M. (1987). Interview with Carl Rogers on the use of the self in therapy. In M.
Baldwin & V. Satir (Eds.), The use of self in therapy (pp. 45–52). New York: Haworth
Press.
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Barrier, P. A., Li, J. T.-C., & Jensen, N. M. (2003). Two words to improve physicianpatient communication: What else? Mayo Clinic Proceedings, 78, 211–214. Available at:
www.mayoclinicproceedings.com/pdf%2F7802%2F7802crc.pdf
Cichon, E. J., & Masterson, J. T. (1993). Physician-patient communication: Mutual role
expectations. Communication Quarterly, 41, 477–489.
DiSalvo, V. S., Larsen, J. K., & Backus, D. K. (1986). The health care communicator: An
identification of skills and problems. Communication Education, 35, 231–242.
Geist, P., & Dreyer, J. (1993). The demise of dialogue: A critique of medical encounter
ideology. Western Journal of Communication, 57, 233–246.
Jackson, S. W. (1992). The listening healer in the history of psychological healing.
American Journal of Psychiatry, 149, 1623–1632.
Keranen, L. (2007). “‘Cause someday we all die”: Rhetoric, agency, and the case of the
‘patient’ preferences worksheet. Quarterly Journal of Speech, 93, 179–210.
Kron, T., & Friedman, M. (1994). Problems of confirmation in psychotherapy. Journal of
Humanistic Psychology, 34, 66–83.
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Lipchik, E. (1992). A “reflecting interview.” Journal of Strategic & Systemic Therapies,
11(4), 59–74.
Platt, F. W. (1992). Conversation failure: Case studies in doctor-patient communication.
Tacoma, WA: Life Sciences Press.
Schneider, D. E., & Beaubien, R. A. (1996). A naturalistic investigation of compliancegaining strategies employed by doctors in medical interviews. Southern Communication
Journal, 61, 332–341.
• Sample exam questions: multiple choice, true-false/explain, identification, essay
Multiple Choice
1. In medicine, a patient-centered approach involves:
A. controlling the emotions of patients
B. studying the physical roots of illness from the patient’s perspective
C. exploring both the disease and the illness “experience” (*)
D. letting the helper take charge of the patient’s treatment
E. keeping the patient fully informed of decisions
2. In therapy, the client can actually end up playing this role:
A. therapist
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B. teacher (*)
C. facilitator
D. supplicant
E. parent figure
3. Codependency refers to:
A. two or more addictions or dependencies exhibited by one client
B. patients who depend on their helpers
C. a helper who suffers emotional harm as a result of dealing with clients
D. the therapist-client relationship generally
E. manipulation or control by the client (or patient) of others (*)
4. A study found that the interviewing type of the typical physician most often fits this
model:
A. “Find it — Tell What to Do” (*)
B. “Listen, Learn, and Act”
C. “Partnership”
D. “How Can I Help?”
E. “Ask, Don’t Tell”
5. Which of the following best fits a balanced approach for helpers in a variety of
contexts?
A. stay focused on doing everything to serve the person being helped
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B. respect the other person’s role in helping himself or herself (*)
C. keep others fully informed at early stages
D. give the person being helped ample opportunity to engage in dialogue, then act
according to your assessment of his or her best interests
E. exhibit a combination of empathy and sympathy
True-False/Explain
6. Leading questions can be a serious problem in diagnostic interviews. T___ F___ Why?
7. People use narratives to define and redefine themselves. T___ F___ Why?
8. Nonscheduled interviews are rare in therapy. T___ F___ Why?
9. “Facilitative conditions” refers to the ways some helpers manipulate the feelings of
their clients. T___ F___ Why?
10. An inverted funnel sequence of questions is not recommended in diagnostic
interviews. T___ F___ Why?
Identification
11. Closure
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12. Precipitating event
13. Case worker
14. Holding
15. Cognitive therapy
Essay
16. Discuss the roles of both content-oriented and feeling-oriented listening in a specific
helping context of your own choice (such as a doctor-patient diagnostic interview or an
advisor-student counseling interview on campus).
17. Outline the arguments for and against full disclosure of information to medical
patients.
18. What are the possible implications and consequences of helping strategies that are
basically “directive”?
PART THREE: INTERVIEWING IN A WIDER CONTEXT
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CHAPTER 12: Understanding and Analyzing Interviews in Popular Media Culture
• The nitty-gritty
Chapter 12 is intended to help students analyze broadcast interviews, and clarify
for themselves why broadcast interviewing behaviors often do not match the demands of
other face-to-face interview situations. Some instructors may want to assign this chapter
early in the term to establish that broadcast interviewers are not always good models for
student learning in the various other interview contexts in which professionals will find
themselves. For other instructors, the chapter fits best in a part of the course that applies
interviewing to a wider public stage. In a sense, this chapter encourages a kind of media
literacy, and it gives students the tools to analyze media interviews. After stressing how
broadcast interviews can’t be compared directly to most other types, don’t forget to stress
the ways in which students can learn from famous interviewers.
• Suggestions for “Trying Out Your Skills” and “Making Your Decision” boxes
— The first TOYS box involves a structured opportunity to practice broadcast
interviewing skills. Some communication students will find this directly relevant to their
careers, but for others it will be primarily an exercise in realizing how difficult broadcast
communication can be. This also may be adapted as a major class assignment — video
recorded and analyzed outside of class time — if you have a high percentage of broadcast
journalism or media communication majors in class. You should, in that case, prepare
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specific criteria for interviewers and interviewees to use when evaluating their own
performances and for you to use in providing feedback to each student.
— The second TOYS box asks students to try to observe this chapter’s concepts at work
in a sample video-recorded broadcast interview. Of course, this activity is readily
adaptable for classroom use; you could show a typical or exemplary broadcast interview
in class, then have individuals, teams, or groups analyze it in terms of conversational
“collusion,” for example. (It is also possible to structure an experiential exam for students
in which the questions all derive from, and must be referred to, a video record students
watch in the first 10 minutes or so of class.)
— The MYD box offers four opportunities for students to practice critical thinking skills
as applied to the content and format of actual interview programs and a classic film on
broadcast news. Most students should be familiar with programs and possibly the movie,
but here they get to step into the role of critic after considerable but limited experience as
“viewers.”
• Additional activities and discussion questions
— What can be done by news media sources to change what Claflin calls “the rules”?
What the public can do? What about politicians and other public figures?
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— How is this chapter related to discussions in earlier chapters of public dialogue and
public journalism?
— In any given controversy, how often do broadcast interviewers “ask the
reader’s/viewer’s questions,” which was suggested in the chapter on journalistic
interviews? Are broadcast interviewers journalists in the same sense that newspaper
reporters are, or does the need to entertain and dramatize change their role in some
fundamental way?
• Additional resources
Print
Clayton, S., & Heritage, J. (2002). The news interview: Journalists and public figures on
the air. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
DiBella, S. M., Ferri, A. J., & Padderud, A. B. (1991). Scientists’ reasons for mass media
interviews. Journalism Quarterly, 68, 741–749.
McLaughlin, P. (1986). Asking questions: The art of the media interview. Vancouver,
BC: International Self-Counsel Press.
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McLoughlin, B. (1992). Encountering the media: Pocket tips booklet. Washington, DC:
Barry McLoughlin Associates.
Montgomery, M. (2008). The discourse of the broadcast news interview. Journalism
Studies, 9, 260–277.
Rubin, A. M., & Step, M. M. (1997). Viewing television talk shows. Communication
Research Reports, 14, 106–115.
Stavitsky, A. G. (1995). Independence and integrity: A guidebook for public radio
journalism. Washington, DC: National Public Radio.
Nonprint
Web sites of the major networks, along with CNN, PBS, and NPR. Assign students to
monitor a specific Web site for broadcast interviews that offer examples of nonverbal
codes or other points of analysis.)
• Sample exam questions: multiple choice, true-false/explain, identification, essay
Multiple Choice
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1. Goffman develops the notion of the audience as a “ratified participant.” This means
that in broadcasts, the audience is:
A. sometimes polled ahead of time to determine its attitudes
B. taken into account as if it were participating directly, even if it doesn’t do so (*)
C. given special privileges
D. thought to be essentially rational in its contribution to public dialogue
E. thought to be essentially emotional in its contribution to public dialogue
2. Sound bites are important because they are primarily designed to:
A. sell soap and other products in advertisements
B. manipulate people into buying what they don’t want
C. empathize with the broadcast interviewee
D. capture complex thoughts in a few words (*)
E. influence public opinion researchers
3. ESPN reporters like to interview sports stars like Derek Jeter, Lorena Ochoa, or Tim
Duncan on the field, course, or court before or after a game. This is a good example of a:
A. situational code (*)
B. verbal code
C. formational code
D. communication rule
E. empathic social role
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4. A tight shot refers to:
A. finding the right thing to say the first time around
B. a television set that is too small for the number of people the camera has to show
C. especially nervous interviewees
D. a particular kind of verbal code
E. an extremely close camera view of a person (*)
5. Broadcast interviews are:
A. essentially like most journalistic interviews
B. different from most journalistic interviews in crucial ways (*)
C. occasions in which the interviewer is there to learn something new from the
interviewee
D. occasions in which the interviewee is usually unaware of what the interviewer wants
E. usually rehearsed over and over before they are recorded or aired live
True-False/Explain
6. Although broadcasts have to appeal to audiences, audiences play a relatively small role
in determining how broadcast interviews are conducted. T___ F___ Why?
7. In broadcasts, interviewers and interviewees often are expected to collude (cooperate
covertly) to produce an interesting show. T___ F___ Why?
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8. An identity code is a way to hide your own identity if you need to do so in an
interview. T___ F___ Why?
9. An establishing shot in broadcasts is one in which the camera shows all participants, as
well as the context in which they will talk. T___ F___ Why?
10. Broadcast interviews must provide content that is transitory. T___ F___ Why?
Identification
11. The “literature” of an academic field
12. Demographics
13. Filmic procedures
14. Ratified participant
15. Artifacts
Essay
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16. Imagine you have a friend who watches a great deal of television (including many talk
shows and news programs), but who tends not to read magazines or newspapers. You
want to explain why the interviewers she or he sees on television are not necessarily good
models for the range of interviewing skills you’ve learned in this course, no matter how
glib or charismatic they seem. How would you describe to your friend the major
differences between the goals of broadcast interviewers and the goals of research
interviewers (or selection interviewers)?
17. You’re going to be interviewed by a local radio personality about “what it’s like to be
a successful college student.” Unfortunately, you don’t have a clue about how the
interviewer will define these terms, and efforts to reach him are fruitless. You must begin
to prepare for the interview. Using the ideas of this chapter, write a brief essay in which
you describe how you’d prepare systematically for such an experience — what content
you’d anticipate, how you want to phrase responses, and so forth.
18. In your opinion, which other type(s) of interviews would be most improved by the
skills and insights of broadcast interviewers and interviewees? Explain your position with
specific examples and applications.
CHAPTER 13: Wrapping It All Up: Professional Interviewing
• The nitty-gritty
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We’ve written Chapter 13 so you can assign it prior to the final substantive class
meeting, the one during which many teachers like to summarize the class and preview
students’ future interests and involvements with interviewing skills. Although you can
come up with exam items from it if you’d like, and may want to include Chapter 13 ideas
in assignments prior to a final exam, it adds little content to the rest of the book. Instead,
it simply puts basic ideas in both retrospective and prospective context, and gives
students ideas for continuing their learning after the course ends.
Teachers may want to use this opportunity to reinforce their own personal
reflections on the practicality of interviewing classes for students, at both the skills level
and the skills-plus level. We often find that students are eager, too, to talk about their own
futures at the close of an interviewing class. See if you can make a space for this impulse
during your busy end-of-term scheduling.