The Mini-Report : Structured Interview
Part 4, 5 & 6 of 6
Interpretive Note
To make ease for the reader to understand when reading this transcription, I noted that the phrases in parentheses are used to clarify the additional meaning to the word in front of it.
Phrases and words not in quotes are my words; those in quotation marks are the interviewee’s words, long passages are simply quote marked, but anything placed between slash marks are my words in the actual interview; mainly they are questions.
Part 5:
Interview Transcription
[1-50] Talks about his family situation, his motivation toward Master degree program, and his current occupation. He also describes problems or challenges he faced during taking the Master programs and shared his strategies to handle those problems.
[4-7]Talks about his personal satisfaction over motivational factors on pursuing the master degree. He seems to enjoy his study very much and he thought that the master program offer many advantages as he says, “I would like to start with uh personal factors like I want to satisfy myself, I want to make myself feel happy so yes I come to study here because I believe that by taking a course here I would gain a respect from the other, and I would develop myself a lot in term of uh research skills, new knowledge, or new concepts from this program”. He also feels confident and proud of being a master student. He says “when you told the others that you a master candidate, alright! It make you feel very confident because we believe that we are doing the right thing and because of what we are doing we feel confidence”. Along with his study, he has set a clear goal and has a big ambition, he told about his goal in his education / umm, what about educational goal, do you have any educational goal to achieve?/ “ yes, uh I have….I have a clear goal since I was a student at bachelor level. I planned that at least earn the master degree and I planned to continue the doctoral degree as well if it possible after I finish my master degree”.
[7-15] Talk about his motivational factors over the career improvement. He described that he will have a lot of opportunities to get a better job than nowadays if he pursue higher education /So, in term of go on to master program, with your career as a teacher how does this program improve your career?/ “After this program, my career will improve because I want to teach at another place not only in the institute. My goal is to move to the big university like RUPP and the other universities like Panhasatra or UC, something like that alright! So I also plan to move another university after I graduate from master program”. Moreover, he expect that he would earn much money in term his level of study. He says “Uh I believe that when I hold a master degree in my hand, I could earn more than what I uh I’m earning right now. You know right now I just earn around 400$ to 500$ but I believe that in the future I can earn up to 700$ to 800$ with a master degree”. He also agree that masters program have given him a chance to connect with many people come from different places and status / in master class you will meet a lot people come from anywhere that… so do you think that it can help you to establish a wider connection with a lot of people?/ “Yes, uh I also agree with this as well because by coming to the class we will get to know each other and then we will have uh broad connection; for example, some come from Siam Rep, Battambong, and Kampong Cham and then they come to work together, they come to study in one place. And later on, we spread to our original place but we still have a connection and like a uh a just uh just a few week ago that we attain the first national seminar about the research methodology and then I …I met a lot of old friends and those who also took or are taking the program so I believe that this program has allow us to have a big connection or broad connection”.
[15-17] Talks about his career again but this time he explained that he want to have another job or additional job beside being a teacher after he graduate this master degree. When ask / And one more thing I wonder about career switching. It mans do you want to be a teacher last long or just want to change your career? As a master degree, they have a research skill mean do you want to be a researcher or to work in another field that related to your master degree?/, he interestingly answer that “Yes, it is a good question and yes after I finish my master program I want to change my career as well, I want to become ..uh.. involve in a research field like being a researcher assistant or at least work for the organization that related to the research and… yes I plan to apply for uh.. a big organization like UNICEF, UNESCO, UNDP after my graduation”.
[22-29] Talk about his challenges during the study; for example, the effect of his work to his study but there is not too much pressure on him. When I ask, /And what’s about your work, do you think it affect your study? Uh and how does it affect your study?/ “uh yes uh more or less my work also affect my study because I have to save sometime to mark my student paper, design the test or design the quiz for them but I don’t think it’s too much just uh some parts only, alright!”. And indeed, the big challenges for him are the financial problems and family problems ( family member has an argument) he describes that “Yes usu…usually, in my family there are a lot of problems like financial crisis, like I mention earlier I have to pay the bank loan and sometime we have some arguments with one another like I had an argument with my brother sometimes, who cause the problem I’m just the victim of the problem. Sometime, my father and my mother have a quarrel, they don’t talk to each other. Something like that!”. He also added that those problem cannot make him concentrate on study well and he seem to be sad to tell “Yes, when I come to school, it’s better than staying at home. If you stay at home you cannot concentrate, right! You know how it feel , right? It’s hard to describe because when family have a problem, you cannot concentrate on your study”.
[29-33] Talks about time availability for him to study and he seem not to have much challenges in his study/ And Do you thing all the course in your master degree keep you busy? Or no time to relax or you enjoy studying?/ “yes uh sometime I feel like that as well. Yes, when you keep working and you don’t have time to go out with friend. It is sad. We all suffer that we all are required to read and to write and it is time consuming but sometime we can go out with our friend and do the study together and we can have fun and it’s just the way that we relax”.
[33-35] Talk about the money he earn that afford for the school fee. “yes uh sometime like I mentioned. Sometime I don’t have enough money to pay for the school fee. So It’s really hard and sometime I want to earn a lot of money, I may teach many classes. So I decide to teach many class then I have much time to study”. He told that the school fee is a little bit expensive but it is acceptable for him because the quality of the study is good / Do you think this course fee is acceptable?/ “Yes it is acceptable if we compare to the other university. This university is a little bit expensive because… just uh… another university they offer the same course that just cost 1500$ for whole course but for this university it spend up to 2000$ for the whole course. But I think it is acceptable if we look at the quality of the course”.
[35-40]Talks about the his challenge over the master courses, especially, research skill. He try so hard to study here, there are a lot work to do “Yes, honestly speaking, when I come to this program, I work double than I take bachelor degree, I have to spend more time, more difficult work”. In addition, he told that he find very challenges in the first two term but later on he seem to be more familiar with it and start to like the research skill “yes, for the first two term, I find very challenges because we aren’t familiar with that and we don’t have enough existing knowledge so that it quite difficult when the teacher try to explain and when the teacher ask us to read the report, journal, or the thesis. So we find it difficult. And right now, I become familiar with the research and them I start to like it, I start to learn from it so it doesn’t challenge anymore, right!”
[45-50] Talks about the his strategies to solve some challenges that he used to face during the study. He talk about doing the assignment without any wasting of time or delaying time and also about how to get help when we get stuck with the work. He describe that “Yes, sometime I used my own experiences to handle with the problem and sometimes, I get experiences from the older people from.. uh .. those who had attained this course from the previous cohort. For my own experience, related to complete the job on time, I tried to work as early as possible and I’ve put what I can do today until tomorrow. For example, If the teacher give me assignment to do, I just start work on them and finish them before time so that I can relax and revise it. Another thing, sometimes when I get stuck, I try to get help… uh .. usually I notice that those who couldn’t move to another step, they neglect and finish that job with the poor quality. But for me I find something difference. If get stuck, I need to access the help from…. Uh it can be our friend, our supervisor, or our lecturer. I think most of them are helpful. At least…. Uh although they could not give us the direct help but at least they will guide us where else that we could access the help”.
Part 6:
Identification of Data Collection Technique’s Strengths and Limitations
The structure interview technique has both strengths and limitations. The strength is it allow the researcher to explore more understandings over some particular phenomena. Indeed, interviews allow interviewees to talk over their understandings of the situation in which they live, and to express how they concern about the conditions from their own opinions (Cohen, Manion, & Morris., 2007). The structure interview, the researcher has developed a set of questions in advance so that it can direct the interview go straight to the main ideas of the topic (Gay, Mills, & Airasian., 2009). In my interview, I used the guideline to probe and confirm the information when interviewee missed to say something; for example, he missed talking about the wide connection he had during studying in this masters program. All the process of interview went step by step follow the guideline.
There are, however, disadvantages of this tool. It works only in small group sample. It is difficult and time consuming to develop the questions and to summary and analyze data (Lodico, Spaulding, & Voegtle, 2010). I spent 12 hours to transcript 13 pages. Moreover, surrounding, interruptions and pressures of time may influence on responses (Anderson & Arsenault, 1998). In my real interview above, He could not provide detail strategies to cope with the challenge as the constrain of the time. The interviewer must also give careful attention to the fact that respondents may not always be what they seem; they may be providing misinformation; telling lies, avoiding the issue and being unkind and cruel (Cohen et al., 2007).
References:
Anderson, G., & Arsenault, N. (1998). Fundamentals of Educational Research (2nd ed.).
USA, Philadophia: The Falmer Press, Taylor & Francis Inc.
Cohen, L., Manion, L., & Morris, K, (2007). Research Method in Educational (6thed.). New
York. NY: Roultledge.
Creswell, J. W. (2009). Research Design: Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods
approaches (3th ed.). USA: SAGE Publications, Inc.
Gay, L.R., Mills, G. E. &Airasian, P. (2009).Educational Research: Competencies for
Analysis and Applications (9th ed.). Ohio: Pearson.
Lodico, M. G., Spaulding, D. T., & Voegtle, K. H. (2010). Methods in educational research:
From theory to practice (2nd ed.). San Francisco, CA: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.