What is Interview technique?
Interview, considered as a purposeful interaction, is one of qualitative methods in which one person obtains information from another person. There are five types of doing interview. First is one-on-one interview. It is conducted individually when the researcher wants to get in-depth information from the interviewee. Second is focus group interview. It works well when the researcher needs the whole picture from multiple participants who have similar experiences and common references. It should be noted that the role of the interviewer is just a facilitator who makes sure that discussion goes well. Third is structured interview in which the researcher uses already- developed-questions to ask interviewee. Fourth is semi-structured interview. The researcher develops an interview protocol which includes location, interviewer and interviewee’s name, background information of interviewee, a list of questions, or topics to be addressed during interviews. What is more, the researcher can use probes to get explanation and additional details from the participant. Last is unstructured interview which the researcher might quickly list down topics that he wants to ask.
Besides, there are 7 types of questions that the researcher needs to consider when conducting an interview: grand tour question, example question, native language question, hypothetical question, devil’s advocate question, ideal position question, and interpretive. Furthermore, there are 6 sequences of steps in conducting an interview. In the first step, the researcher introduces himself to participant. Next, he informs the participant about the confidentiality issues and agreement in the study. After that, it is useful to obtain general descriptive information about the participant or the issue or phenomenon being studied. Then, the researcher, in whatever conditions, should be sensitive and never get shocked by what he hears. Last, tape-recorder and note taking are the best tools used to keep the interview data. To conduct a good interview all the points mentioned above are useful for researcher to use.