What's Your Interview Style?
Hello Qualitative Mind,
Last month I taught qualitative methods to a nutrition undergraduate course at the University of Alberta. I’ve been teaching this lecture around October for a few years, and one of the things I like about it is that students often follow up with super interesting questions after the class.
In one of the emails I got this year, the student was asking for advice on a few aspects of their project, and in the back and forth of emails I had a chance to encourage them to step into the role of facilitator for the first time. We always start somewhere and being a beginner means the learning curve is steep but not impossible to conquer. [Side note: Mentoring is one of my favourite things for many reasons, and encouraging people to step outside their comfort zone is one of them.]
Being a novice interviewer or focus group facilitator means findings one’s own interview pace and style. The book InterViews: Learning the Craft of Qualitative Research Interviewing by Brinkmann and Kvale is one of the key readings I cite and recommend inside Qualitative Research Blueprint. For today’s blog post I will use Brinkmann and Kvale’s interview typologies – the miner and the traveler – to discuss the different ways we, as researchers, can approach and view our participants.
I want to say upfront that I fully align with this quote by Brinkmann & Kvale (2015. p.4): “An interview is literally an inter-view, an inter-change of views between two persons conversing about a topic of mutual interest.” As such, I don’t believe interviewers can be 100% objective and removed, and you’ve likely noticed that in how I present myself here.
“An interview is literally an inter-view, an inter-change of views between two persons conversing about a topic of mutual interest.”
Brinkmann & Kvale discuss the two interviewer types in the context of the epistemology of interviewing. The miner seeks to “unearth the valuable metal” without polluting or changing its original form. From this perspective, the knowledge that lies with our research participants is waiting to be uncovered and, as interviewers, we do our absolute best to bring it to the surface objectively. We are hyper aware of leading questions or afraid of contaminating our participants knowledge with ours.
On the other hand, the traveler wanders in the new land ready to learn. As traveler interviewers, we want to go back home and be able to tell stories from the journey. We listen and learn knowing we might affect and be affected by the journey.
I commonly see “miners” among researchers who are conducting qualitative research for the first time or doing it as a part of mixed methods research or a randomized controlled trial. The traveler, in contrast, tends to be more comfortable and aligned with constructivist and transformative paradigms.
Why does this matter? Whether you are a novice or an experienced interviewer, it’s important to understand your interview style and how it aligns (or not) with your approach to interviewing considering your epistemology, paradigm and methodology. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, naming your approaches, epistemologies, paradigms and methodologies will help you build confidence as a qualitative researcher…and that’s incredibly valuable!
So, are you a miner or a traveler?
Talk soon,
Maira