Episodic Interviewing

To hear the career stories of Community Employment scheme participants, and to explore the meaning of a particular issue to them, I asked them questions to find out about their experiences (Patton, 2002). The interview is a frequently cited elicitation technique in qualitative research, allowing the respondents to express their understanding of their world in their own terms (Flick, 2002; Marshall & Rossman, 2010; Mason, 2002; Patton, 2002; Silverman, 2009). As this study examines particular aspects of the participants‟ lives, that is, their career experiences, the episodic interview, a narrative technique, was deemed an appropriate approach (Flick, 2000, 2009).

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The episodic interview was developed as an approach to social representations (Flick, 2000, 2009; Flick & Röhnsch, 2007). The theoretical background of studies using the episodic interview is the social construction of reality during the presentation of experiences (Flick, 2002). A social representation is a form of social knowledge (a system of values, ideas and practices) shared by those who are members of a specific social group (Moscovici, 1973, 1988). Studies researching social representations are concerned with how a phenomenon is constructed by members of social groups. Such inquiries pose two questions: how is this understanding influenced by the person‟s conditions of living and how does it shape his or her practices in everyday life; and what similarities and differences can empirically be found in these interpretations (Flick & Röhnsch, 2007; Herzlich & Douglas, 1973)? Episodic interviewing was developed in the context of a study on the social representation of technological change in everyday life (Flick, 2000, 2002, 2009). The original research recognised that the phenomenon under consideration impacted on most aspects of daily life, and on the everyday existence of almost everyone, and that it manifested itself in concrete situational contexts over time (Flick, 2000).

The episodic interview is based on two theoretical assumptions: the processes underpinning the structure of narrative as experience; and how individuals store and use knowledge (Flick, 2000). The first theoretical pillar presupposes that experience and life are constructed in the form of a narrative (Polkinghorn, 1988; Riesmann, 1993). Reconstructing these experiences involves two kinds of negotiation for the individual: internal cognition negotiation to ensure a fit between a person‟s experience and the prototypical narratives in a given culture; and external negotiation with listeners, whereby third parties are convinced (or otherwise) of the validity of a narrator‟s story. The results of these two processes are contextualised in socially shared forms of

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knowledge (Flick, 2000). The second theoretical pillar is the distinction between different types of knowledge. Cognitive psychologists (e.g., Eysenck & Keane, 2005; Moody, Blanton & Cheney, 1998; Sternberg, 2009) have identified two components of knowledge, processual and organisational. The processual dimension entails procedural knowledge (knowing how) and declarative knowledge (knowing that), whereas the organisational dimension comprises episodic knowledge (biographical and experiential) and semantic knowledge (abstract and generalised assumptions and relations).

The episodic interview focuses on the organisational domain of knowledge, encompassing episodic and semantic knowledge (Flick, 2000). Episodic knowledge is organised by time and place, and is described by its perceptual characteristics, that is, it is autonoetic (individual). For example, asking someone what he or she was doing on 9/11. Semantic knowledge is arranged in a hierarchy of relationships and is distinct from any temporal or spatial referents, thus it is not dependent upon context. It is concerned with conceptual knowledge, rule knowledge and/or knowledge of schemes of events. Flick (1992, 2000) designed the episodic interviewing technique to collect and analyse both forms of knowledge: episodic, using narratives; and semantic, by employing directed questions (Flick, 2009).

The episodic interview yields context-related presentations about particular experiences, events and/or situations that the interviewee remembers in the form of a narrative (Flick, 2000, 2009). The selection of the episodic-situational forms of experiential knowledge is made by the interviewee according to the subjective relevance that he or she places on the topic under discussion (Flick, 2009). Routine and normal everyday phenomena (such as career experiences) can be analysed with episodic interviewing (Flick, 2000, 2009). This technique draws out descriptions of specific episodes or features in the

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interviewee‟s daily life (Flick, 2000, 2009). The goal is to analyse the interviewee‟s everyday knowledge about a particular realm in a way that allows the researcher to compare the knowledge of interviewees from different social groups, that is, as a social representation (Flick, 2000).

Examples of studies using episodic interviews include: public information needs of a working-class community in Ireland (Bates, 2004); abuse and violence among young Mexican women in the family home (Belknapp & Cruz, 2007); general experiences of individuals who are homeless and living in squatter settlements in Ghana (de-Graft Aikins & Ofori-Atta, 2007); and understanding the meaning of health for German adolescents experiencing homelessness (Flick & Röhnsch, 2007). Episodic interviewing has been utilised in situations where interviewees have difficulty responding to a formal line of questioning (Bates, 2004; de-Graft Aikins & Ofori-Atta, 2007; Flick & Röhnsch, 2007). It is, therefore, relevant for studies focusing on marginalised members of society, whose stories have not been previously privileged, such as with this research.

There are nine phases to an episodic interview (Flick, 2000, 2009):

1. Prepare an interview guide based on the researcher‟s experience of the area under study, theoretical accounts of this area, other studies and their results, and/or from a preparatory analysis of the relevant domain.

2. Devise a comprehensive introduction for the interviewee to explain the general principles of the interview (e.g., „in this interview, I will repeatedly ask you to recount situations where you had experiences with ...‟).

3. Develop questions to allow the interviewee to provide subjective definitions of the issue under study (e.g., „what does the word/phrase xxx mean to you?‟).

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4. Ask the interviewee to present narratives of the topic to access their episodic knowledge from their everyday life (e.g., „if you look back, what was your first encounter with …?‟).

5. Probe the interviewee‟s personal relationship to the central issue under consideration, including their future expectations (e.g., „what developments do you expect about xxx this time next year?‟).

6. Garner personal or situational references in the interviewee‟s responses even when discussing abstract (semantic) knowledge (e.g., „in your opinion, who should be responsible for …?‟).

7. Allow small-talk and conversation at the end of the interview to facilitate reflection by the interviewee (e.g., „what was missing from the interview that could have provided you with an opportunity to further explain your point of view?‟).

8. Write a context protocol immediately after the interview to include, inter alia, information regarding the respondent‟s responses and behaviour and the overall impression of the content and conduct of the conversation.

9. Choose an appropriate method for coding and interpreting the tape-recorded transcripts, such as thematic coding (explained in Section 2.6.3).

The episodic interview encourages storytelling, which can be beneficial where the researcher needs to gain an insight into the daily experiences of the interviewee, and how he or she makes sense of his or her experiences within his or her wider environment (Bates, 2004). It provides the inquirer with a window into the interviewee‟s world, inviting respondents to become narrators, telling stories that are meaningful to them. The episodic interview combines the advantages of both the narrative interview (a format that facilitates comprehensive descriptions) and the semi-

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structured interview (a technique that involves stimulus-response sequences) (Flick, 1992, 2000, 2009). Episodic interviews rely on the interviewee‟s competence to present his or her experiences as narratives (Flick, 2009). They recognise that interviews are a form of discourse, thus acknowledging that they are speech events, where the dialogue is jointly constructed by the interviewer and informant, and the meanings of questions and answers are contextually grounded (Mishler, 1986). Using the episodic technique also allows the researcher to intervene and direct the interview through a series of key questions prompting the interviewee to recount and define germane situations. Thus, the potentially one-sided and artificial situation of the narrative interview is supplemented by a more open discussion in which narratives are utilised as only one form of data. By linking general descriptions (emanating from the narrative interview format) and question-answer schema (originating from the semi-structured interview), episodic interviews realise the triangulation of different approaches as the basis of data collection (Flick, 2009).

This approach, however, has potential limitations (Flick, 2009). As with all interviews that generate narratives, the calibre of the communication skills of the narrator is an issue (further discussed in Chapter Nine). This, however, is somewhat mitigated by requesting several delimited narratives, rather than one single, overall account. In addition, the interviewing technique of the researcher is crucial, in that he or she has to ensure that all situations mentioned by the interviewee are afforded an opportunity for an adequate recounting. This concern is somewhat allayed given my experience and qualifications as a trained interviewer (Section 2.2.2). Finally, the application of this method is confined to the analysis of everyday knowledge of objects and topics, and the interviewee‟s own history of them, which is ultimately the purpose of the study.

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