The Research Process
2.7 The Interviews
The interviewing process began on 14 June 2000 and the final interview was undertaken on the 31 August 2000. Fourteen interviews were carried out, consisting of twelve face-to-face interviews and two telephone interviews (see Appendix C for a list of the organisations and individuals involved in the interview process). Two of the face-to-face interviews were undertaken in Auckland, five were situated in Wellington, one in Dunedin, and the remaining four took place in Christchurch. Both of the telephone interviewees were located in Auckland. Before each interview commenced, the participant or participants were given an information sheet and asked to complete a consent form (see Appendix F for examples). The information sheet explained the focus of the interviews and reminded the participants that they were being interviewed as representatives of the organisation for which they worked. All of the interviewees were interviewed in their professional capacity as representatives of organisations or as academic researchers/commentators who have made public contributions to the ART policy debate and, as such, it was not considered necessary to offer anonymity. Thirteen of the interviews were audiotaped to allow the interview to be transcribed verbatim and to ensure the information collected was accurate. Although permission to tape the interviews was sought during the access process, I repeated this request before commencing the interviews. Where possible, hand written notes were taken. However, note taking proved difficult when I considered it necessary to concentrate fully on the participant’s conversation. This was particularly necessary in two cases when there was significant background noise and the participants were very softly spoken. An interview with Dianne Yates (Member of Parliament for Hamilton East) was so constrained by time that it was not feasible to set up the tape recorder and only hand written notes were taken. Although this severely limited interview did not provide any information I could use in the final analysis, it did provide an unplanned opportunity to access invaluable documentary information in the form of the written submissions to the Health Select Committee.30
30 This serendipitous event is described in Section 2.4, Strategies for Accessing Documents, in this
Eleven of the face-to-face interviews were conducted in the participants’ workplaces and one interview was conducted in the participant’s home. The two telephone interviews were conducted at a time the participant nominated. One provider representative consented to material from an interview for an earlier research project being included in this thesis. Consequently, material from both interviews has been used in this thesis and is differentiated by the dates on which the interviews took place. The length of the interviews ranged from 10 minutes to 105 minutes. This variation in length was dependent on the participant’s personal and professional involvement in and knowledge of the policy debate, as well as other commitments. All the interviews were undertaken using a semi-structured, in-depth approach. This meant that, although the interviews were focused on ART policy and what the participant perceived to be the enabling or constraining aspects of this policy, standardised questions were not used. This approach allowed the interview participant/s to engage with the topic and address issues they thought were important. However, as I was interested in the policy ‘gaps’ and the marginalisation of certain groups within current policy discussions, I would introduce these topics if the participant/s had not addressed them during the course of the interview. Accordingly, interview guides were used to help keep the interview focused and to ensure these issues were addressed (see Appendix G for an example of the interview guide). These guides varied between the three categories of participating organisations to allow for the different institutional contexts and perspectives.
On three occasions, considerable prompting and probing were necessary to generate engagement with the topic. This occurred in interviews with representatives of state organisations. Participants in two of these interviews had been nominated by a gatekeeper to represent their organisation and were accompanied by a more senior work colleague. These representatives tended to have little accumulated knowledge of ART practices and policy. Restructuring, changing administration, and staff retrenchment have meant that staff with institutional and historical knowledge of the issues have moved on and those interviewed were new to the area and had a limited work-related knowledge of ART policy issues.31 This would
have influenced their ability to engage with the topic without prompting and could explain why some individuals and organisations would not agree to an interview. The responses of participants working within government organisations may also have been influenced by their
31 See Chapter 3, Regulating Practices, Section 3.7, Accountability, for a discussion of how the depletion
of institutional knowledge and experience within government agencies has affected consumer trust in these policy organisations.
position within an “institutional context of hierarchy, loyalty and formal procedures” (Green & Thorogood, 1998:163). This was sometimes evident when the interviews were completed and the tapes were turned off, as the participants relaxed and were more open about their personal and professional views. Although employees of private organisations may also be influenced by their position within the institutional context, those interviewed within the provider and consumer/commentator categories appeared to be less constrained and guarded in their views and were more inclined to blend their personal and professional opinions. The organisations targeted in these groups were smaller than the state organisations and were represented by a manager, chief executive, or director who had more institutional authority to speak on behalf of their organisation than the state employees did. Their confidence and candour when discussing the issues could have been due to the senior positions they held in their organisations. Furthermore, the provider and consumer/commentator organisations that participated in the research generally specialised within the ART area and were directly affected by the policy debate. Therefore, they may have been more informed and more capable of discussing the issues in depth. However, it was evident that all the interviewees engaged in strategic representation of their organisations and their policy positions.
One state organisation initially declined my request to tape-record the interview and hesitated about signing a consent form. Although the organisation had previously contributed to the ART policy discussion, this input was limited, and those who had been involved in this work were no longer part of the organisation. Understandably, the representatives were wary of discussing something about which they had only limited knowledge. Although an interview strategy was negotiated that enabled the interview to proceed and gave the participants more control over the eventual use of the interview material,32 they were generally very cautious with their
responses throughout the interview. Although copies of relevant published information from the organisation were made available, I was informed that I would have to use the Official Secrets Act to gain access to unpublished material related to their policy involvement (this related to submissions, guidelines, and recommendations). Hornsby-Smith (1993:54) argues that some organisations approach participation in research with caution because they “see research as a threat because … there are fears of exploitation or it may result in damaging disclosures….” Although the organisation did not restrict physical access to the research setting, access to information was restricted through discursive strategies, such as reluctance in responding to questions and an unwillingness to provide access to unpublished documentation.
These were tightly focused interviews with representatives of public or private organisations reflecting on their organisations’ role in the ART policy debate. As such, participants were interviewed in their official capacity and were not required to share personal information or experiences. The more formal nature of the interviews precluded the use of a conversational style and equal sharing to reduce power differentials between the participants, as advocated by Anne Oakley (1981).33 Although I occasionally employed conversational interaction, I preferred
to limit my spoken involvement in the interviews. Rather than positioning myself as distant and impartial, I was attempting to remove any influencing or disrupting elements while maintaining an involved presence. The first transcription made it obvious that even my restrained presence could disrupt the participants’ focus or train of thought. My murmured agreement could also prevent the speaker from finishing what they were saying, as they obviously assumed I understood or knew what they intended to say. I tried to be more aware of the impact of my own participation in the subsequent interviews. Although I would intercede to clarify a point, direct the discussion towards certain issues, or answer direct questions, I tried to limit my own participation so that I was not interrupting the participants or preventing them from completing what they were saying. Nevertheless, some interviews were more informal than others and it was not possible to sustain this strategy of limited participation. Increased participation on my part was also necessary in the interviews that required more prompting and consistent follow- up questions. By necessity, the telephone interviews were more focused and formal than the face-to-face interviews. These variations in procedure highlighted the unpredictable nature of interviews and the need for flexibility in interview techniques.
Scheduling five interviews over three days while in Wellington was tiring, with little time to refine and reflect on the process. Ideally, more time between interviews would have enabled me to transcribe and absorb what was discussed in each interview before carrying out the next interview. Although I had allowed five days between the Auckland and Wellington trips to review the interview process, this time was taken up with access issues and reorganising scheduled interviews. Time constraints in Wellington also caused problems when two interview participants needed to reschedule at short notice. My inability to reschedule within the time I had allowed meant that one interview was severely constricted by time and the other had to be carried out with a replacement representative who was less informed than the original
33 See Section 2.8, ‘Studying Up’ & Discrepancies in Power, in this chapter for a discussion of the
participant. All the participants agreed to further contact if the transcription and analysis process highlighted any issues or questions that needed clarification. Both telephone interview participants were forwarded consent forms to complete.