In-depth interviews

At the end of the series of coaching sessions, each coach and coachee of the pair was asked to take part in an in-depth interview about the coaching relationship. This might include data on:

The formation of the relationship

Changes which took place as the coaching sessions progressed Between session reflections

Use of the reflexive journal

Whether the original decision was deemed to be a sound one.

The interview of each coach and coachee in the pair was conducted separately, so as to allow complete confidentiality and freedom of expression for the individual.

137 Simply put, an in-depth interview is a conversation with a purpose between two people in which one has the role of researcher and where the interviewer’s aim is to obtain

collaborative knowledge about the respondent’s world (Gray, 2004; Thorpe and Holt, 2008). Interviewing will generally pose challenges because of the human interaction between the interviewer and respondent, where the interviewer must ask some questions, listen to

responses and capture data. This challenge is further exposed the less structure there is in the interview, as the researcher will be constructing questions as they go along. The interview, unstructured or semi-structured, is one of the most widely used methods in qualitative research and is a very flexible method for capturing rich, descriptive research data (Bryman and Bell, 2003).

The in-depth interview is a useful technique where the objective of the research is, as in this case, largely exploratory (Gray, 2004). The key feature of conducting these interviews is to achieve a deep level of focus on the individual participant within the context of the research. Such interviews provide great detail of coverage of the phenomena being investigated (Ritchie and Lewis, 2003). In-depth interviews can be conducted in a variety of ways: They range from completely open-ended interviews, such as used in ethnographic studies, to those which are highly structured, for example in market research (Easterby-Smith et al., 2008). Bryman and Bell (2003) discuss the differences generated by varying the granularity of questioning in an in-depth interview. They suggest that in an unstructured interview, the researcher uses, at most, an ‘aide-mémoire’ as a brief set of prompts to cover the desired range of topics. This may be at the extreme a single question from which point the

interviewee answers freely. By contrast, in a semi-structured interview, the researcher will have a list of questions on fairly specific topics, often referred to as an ‘interview guide’, where the interviewee still has a great deal of leeway in how to reply. Usually, all the questions or topics on the interviewer’s list will be covered and a similar form of words might be used from interviewer to interviewee. The semi-structured interview allows for

138 probing of views and opinions where the respondent can expand on their initial answers. This is of particular benefit in a qualitative study where the object is to explore subjective meanings. In addition it is possible to divert into new pathways which, though not originally planned in the interview, can still add to knowledge around the research questions. In both levels of structure, a common feature is that the interview process can still be flexible.

Another issue to be considered in conducting the in-depth interviews required in this study was the matching of interviewer to participants. In some research, the selection of the interviewer may have considerable bearing on the nature of the research, such as when conducting feminist research, the gender of the interviewer may need clear consideration (Ritchie and Lewis, 2003). In this particular research project, there was no single criterion or group of criteria which influenced the choice of interviewer. The interview population was mixed in terms of gender and background and were not from a specialist environment which required specific management. Therefore, the researcher was the sole interviewer in the data collection process.

Within the process of interviewing, the interviewer (researcher) played a key role which brought with it some points to note. The influence of the interviewer on the interview environment and tone, atmosphere etc. should be noted. The level of experience and skill of the interviewer may have some impact on the flow of the interview and the rapport created between the pair. Some less experienced, or less skilled interviewers may have concern for losing control of the interview (Thorpe and Holt, 2008). This challenge will manifest itself differentially depending on the type of interview being conducted. Unstructured interviews, by their nature, are more fluid and the ability of the interviewer, therefore, to remain relaxed whilst still leaving the agenda open becomes more significant.

A further potential obstacle for the interview is the concern for contamination of data by the interviewer’s influence. This may be exacerbated when the interview is designed to

139 resemble a conversation and is completely non-directive (Bryman and Bell, 2003). The danger is that the more open the interview in these terms, the more scope there is for interpretation of what is said and researcher bias can creep in. Furthermore, the interviewee, in this situation, may simply try to guess what the interviewer seeks from the conversation and respond accordingly. Interview data emanates from the relationship between the two parties and the data should been seen as the product of this relationship, not as having been produced by either party solely (Thorpe and Holt, 2008).On the other side of the process, the interviewees are active human beings who are likely to have their own agenda for the conversation with points they wish to make and an impression they wish to create (Thorpe and Holt, 2008).

In order to collect data specifically to answer the research questions, some level of structure and topic specificity was required; therefore in this study the interviews conducted were semi-structured in nature. The topics to be answered are given above and cover a number of different aspects of the coaching sessions completed and the nature of the coaching relation- ship. Having selected this approach, the benefits and pitfalls were understood and the inter- view schedule and plan were drawn up accordingly. Although there were clear topics to be covered and specific questions relating to these topics were formulated, it was still important that the interviewee was enabled to express their responses freely and expansively. So as to achieve this, the interviewer should be competent in the techniques of interviewing and employ appropriate competencies to achieve the desired content and outcomes.

A number of good practice criteria for interviewing have been suggested by Kvale (1996), these suggest that the interviewer should be:

Knowledgeable: is thoroughly familiar with the focus of the interview Structuring: gives purpose for the interview; rounds it off; asks whether interviewee has questions

140 Gentle: lets people finish, gives them time to think, tolerates pauses

Sensitive: listens attentively to what is said and how it is said; is empathetic in dealing with the interviewee

Open: responds to what is important to interviewee and is flexible Steering: knows what he or she wants to find out

Critical: is prepared to challenge what is said, for example, dealing with inconsistencies in interviewee’s replies

Remembering: relates what is said to what has previously been said

Interpreting: clarifies and extends meanings of interviewee’s statements, but without imposing meaning on them.

To this list, Bryman and Bell (2003) add a further two criteria:

Balanced: does not talk too much, which may make the interviewee passive, and does not talk too little, which may result in the interviewee feeling he or she is not talking along the right lines

Ethically sensitive: is sensitive to the ethical dimension of interviewing, ensuring the interviewee appreciates what the research is about, its purposes, and that his or her answers will be treated confidentially.

In conducting the interviews themselves, a number of different approaches can be used to structure questions in order to elicit the desired levels of response. Generally speaking, open questions will generate full responses; where a yes/no response is required, a closed question is used. When the main question on a particular topic has been asked and answered further follow-up questions may be asked in order to drill down more deeply into the interviewee’s response. These supplementary questions may be direct (to find out specific information) or probing (to delve more deeply). In addition, to check the understanding of an interviewee’s response, the interviewer may use ‘reflection’ to rephrase the response and check for meaning and accuracy.

In line with suggested practice (Bryman and Bell, 2003) a number of steps were taken in preparation for the interviews, including:

141 Consideration of what information was being sought. This stage fitted into the overall data collection to answer the research questions, therefore it should be clear what information was being sought in order to complete this process appropriately

Developed a logical order for topics to be covered, so that the interview flowed well

Formulated questions which covered the desired topics and which would uncover data to answer the research questions specifically

Used language which was appropriate, technically aligned, comprehensible and relevant to the people being interviewed

Avoided asking leading questions.

In practical terms, it was important to set up the interview appropriately, taking into account timing, venue, environment and privacy; ensure that the interviewee was comfortable before commencing and that the interview outputs would be adequately recorded. Best practice suggested the use of a good microphone and recording equipment as well as supplementary (and back-up) notebook and pen. This process was important to allow for accurate capture of interviewee responses and ensured the ability to transcribe answers in the interviewee’s own terms for later analysis.