Interviews: Structure and Planning

A particular challenge for the design of the interviews was the need to explore and gather data on the multiple, individual instances of activity, all carried out at different locations, and at a time and place of the respondents’ choosing. As I was the respondents’ tutor and the researcher it was possible to use verbal cues in a meaningful way to prompt reflection as well as recall (Gass, 2001). Therefore, similarly to McDonnel (1985) who used interview prompts to assess students' learning by providing verbal cues to recently acquired knowledge, interview questions were devised that triggered recall and reflection of the respondent’s experience of the literacy practices activities undertaken whilst undertaking tasks as part of the literacy intervention.

These prompts were also used to elicit respondents’ general feelings of confidence, family support, and views of preparedness for HE study and motivation. In effect the information being accessed by verbal prompts is the conscious thoughts during a previous activity (Edwards-Leis, 2006; pp: 4). The same prompt notes were generally used in all the interviews; however they were adapted or restated according to the needs of each participant (Robson, 1993; pp: 231). Interviews commenced with questions aimed at relaxing the respondent (Babbie, 1992; pp: 270) and as a means of easing our way into the discussion around literacy practices.

I wanted the respondents to feel comfortable and reflect back to the start of their course. Questions around family therefore were serving the dual purpose of providing useful background information whilst simultaneously stimulating reflection of arriving at university having left their families.

The following Table 5.3 shows example questions used to prompt recall and reflection of feelings at point of transition to HE and illuminate background

and context of respondents’ family and previous academic experiences (also see appendix three):

Could you tell me about -

Who are you?

Gender –

Age –

Demographics:

Where did you spend your first 0 – 18 years?

Country –

Urban/rural

School –

Parental background:

Did your parents go to Higher or Further education/professional training?

What was/is your father’s work?

What was/is your mother’s work?

Siblings?

Where are you in the order?

When you spent time together as a family what did you do?

Language (cultural and foreign):

What language do you speak with your family?

What language did you speak at school?

Describe the aspect of school you enjoyed the most to me –

Describe the aspect of school you least enjoyed the most to me –

What do you do in your free time?

Table 5-3 Background and Context of Respondents’ family and previous academic experiences

The second part of the interview prompted recall and reflection on the actual literacy activities they had engaged with during the literacy intervention, plus an additional verbal reminder of the first session and literacy intervention task that was set.

Table 5-4 below shows example questions used to prompt recall and reflection of respondents’ information literacy practices at point of transition to Higher Education and first semester academic experiences during the literacy intervention.

What can the students explain about academic literacy practices?

➢ Can you explain how you tackled the first task (writing the reflective essay)? ➢ Can you explain why you tackled the task that particular way?

➢ Now how do you think you ought to have tackled the task?

➢ Can you describe the literacy development activities you participated in and any changes in your literacy habits as a result?

➢ Anything else you can tell me about your digital and information literacy habits that you think might help us to understand how people can learn how to engage effectively with digital literacies.

Table 5-4 Example Questions used to prompt recall of information literacy practices

5.12.1 Initial interviews

Individual interviews were conducted with each of the six respondents; in which semi-structured or focused interview questions (Robson, 1993; pp: 240) were used to stimulate recall (Lyle, 2000). The questions were designed to obtain reports of experience (for an example of prompt questions see Table 5.3 and Table 5.4) and elicit understanding of previous literacy activities (Edwards-Leis, 2006; pp: 4). The interviews were conducted over an extended period through March, April, and May 2012, at a time selected by the participant. Bearing in mind the role of place and power relations as considered by Ellwood and Martin (2000; pp: 649-657), the interviews took place in a small tutorial library classroom booked through the university. This was to place respondents in familiar surroundings in a space which was shared by tutors and students and therefore did not have the same power significance as my office. Whilst, as argued by Ellwood and Martin (2000; pp: 652), it is not possible to erase the inherent power dynamics of the situation, the location sought to make the interview more balanced and conversational as suggested by Richards (2009; pp: 42). The data gathering exercise elicited respondents’ accounts of experiences that took place over a period of six months following arrival and commencement of studies. Each interview lasted for 45 to 60 minutes. All interviews were recorded with the participants’ permission (Bryman, 2012; pp: 483) and were later transcribed by myself.

5.12.2 Transcribing the interviews

As the transcribing process was forming part of the analysis (Bailey, 2008, 129) it was also necessary to determine the process for transcribing the interviews. I was aware that as Bryman (2012, pp: 484) describes, it is very time consuming. However; I was keen to gain familiarity with the data and start to identify key themes and to facilitate realisations and ideas that might

emerge during analysis (Bailey, 2008, 129). Therefore I selected not to use a professional transcriber to undertake this work and transcribed it myself, which proved to be beneficial in terms of understanding the data, if a steep learning curve in the challenges of transcribing. I was aware that transcripts are not neutral records, but reflections of researcher interpretation (Bailey, 2008, 129); however, as far as possible, verbatim transcripts were produced. As Bryman (2012, pp: 486) points out, errors can happen even among experienced transcribers so this process entailed care being taken and constant referring back to the original recording and notes taken during the interview. For purposes of clarity, all questions posed by myself are prefixed with ‘interviewer’ and coloured blue, whilst all responses were left in black and ‘respondent’ precedes replies. For ease of identifying the location of quotes used in the thesis, each question and answer in the transcripts has its own unique reference, derived from the respondent’s identity number. This careful attention to detail of the transcribing process contributed to the data analysis, which is discussed in the next part of the thesis.

5.13 Interviews – Transcript and Field Memos Thematic and