Step 1: Design Experiment
1.3 Design experiment
chosen well in advance, and participate in the development of the research.
interviewing. A richly dressed interviewer will probably have difficulty getting good cooperation and responses from poorer respondents; a poorly dressed interviewer will have similar difficulties with richer respondents. To the extent that the interviewer’s dress and grooming differ from those of the respondents, it should be in the direction of cleanliness and neatness in modest apparel. If cleanliness is not next to godliness, it appears at least to be next to neutrality. Dress and grooming are typically regarded as signs of a person’s attitudes and orientations.
Torn jeans, green hair, and razor blade earrings may communicate -correctly or in-correctly – that the interviewer is politically radical, sexually permissive, favourable to drug use, and so forth. Any of these impressions could bias responses or affect the willingness of people to be interviewed.
Secondly, familiarity with the questionnaire is another important guide to a good interview. If an interviewer is unfamiliar with the questionnaire, the study suffers and the respondent faces an unfair burden. The interview is likely to take more time than necessary and be unpleasant. Moreover, the interviewer cannot acquire familiarity by skimming through the questionnaire two or three times. He or she must study it carefully, question by question, and must practice reading it aloud. Ultimately, the interviewer must be able to read the questionnaire items to respondents without error, without stumbling over words and phrases. A good model is the actor reading lines in a play or movie. The lines must be read as though they constituted a natural conversation, but that conversation must follow exactly the language set down in the questionnaire. By the same token, the interviewer must be familiar with the specifications prepared in conjunction with the questionnaire.
Inevitably, some questions will not exactly fit a given respondent’s situation, and the interviewer must determine how the question should be interpreted in that situation.
Thirdly, interviewer should be able to follow question wording exactly.
A slight change in the wording of a given question may lead a respondent to answer “yes” rather than “no”. It follows that interviewers must be instructed to follow the wording of questions exactly.
Otherwise, all the effort that the developers have put into carefully phrasing the questionnaire items to obtain the information they need and to ensure that respondents interpret items precisely as intended will be wasted.
Whenever the questionnaire contains open-ended questions, those soliciting the respondent’s own answers, the interviewer must record those answers exactly as given. No attempt should be made to summarise, paraphrase, or correct bad grammar. This exactness is important because the interviewer will not know how the responses are
to be coded. Indeed, the researchers themselves may not know the coding until they have read a hundred or so responses. Therefore, it is important that interviewer record the responses exactly as they are presented.
Finally, interviewers should be able to probe for responses. Sometimes respondents in an interview will give an inappropriate or incomplete answer. In such cases, a probe, or request for an elaboration, can be useful. Probes are more frequently required in eliciting responses to open-ended than closed-ended questions.
SELF-ASSESSMENT EXERCISE
List and explain three general guidelines for survey interviewing.
4.0 CONCLUSION
It is important to note that the interview method of data collection provides opportunity for researchers to study the environment of the interviewee, apart from asking question on the chosen subject. In most cases, the environment plays important role in the responses of respondents. Also, the use of interview method should be justified at every point in time, since there are different classifications of this method.
5.0 SUMMARY
In this unit, we have explained the meaning of interview method, the uses of the method and the various types or classification of the interview method. The unit has also demonstrated the advantages of the method over other methods of data collection in the social sciences.
6.0 TUTOR-MARKED ASSIGNMENT
1. List and explain the various classifications of interview method.
2. Distinguish between an In-Depth Interview and a Key Informant Interview.
3. Identify the major guidelines to conduct an interview.
7.0 REFERENCES/FURTHER READING
Asika, N. (1991). Research Methodology in the Behavioural Sciences, Ikeja: Longman.
Babbie, E. (2007). The Practice of Social Research. USA: Wadsworth.
Okoko, E. (2000). Quantitative Techniques in Urban Analysis. Ibadan:
Kraft Books.