Multiple interview technique

Data validation, and fluent and comprehensive articulation of participants’ discourses, can be further facilitated by the use of multiple interviews. Although interviewing each participant a number of times can be time consuming and difficult to negotiate, the benefits to research are significant. These benefits are explained below.

3.4.2.1 Clarification

If inconsistencies are identified within the data of single interviews, understanding becomes difficult for the researcher. Cohen, Zhan and Steeves (2000) state that multiple interviewing corrects inconsistencies because the researcher has opportunities to revisit problematical issues with participants, and gain clarification. Faye’s interview sequence can be used as an illustration. In Faye’s first interview, training prospects in her NuH were deliberated. Early in the interview, she stated that training opportunities in her NuH were ‘magnificent’. However later, she appeared to contradict this statement by saying that training was not ‘equally available’. By returning to this issue in the second interview, Faye

Extended from Figure 4 (Interpretation and triangulation of data)

development opportunities, few were provided by, or recognised by the NHS so were valueless in terms of transferability between public and private sectors.

3.4.2.2 Participant reflection

Cohen et al. (2000) suggests that multiple interviewing allows participants to reflect on previous interviews leading to richer, more extensive data in subsequent interviews. Indeed, many of the participants reported that multiple interviewing allowed them to contemplate past interviews in preparation for the next ones. The technique also prompted discussions about the research topic between participants and their families, friends and colleagues, which meant that to a certain degree, the sample was increased to include a kind of ‘shadow sample’ of the opinions of participants’ acquaintances. These points can be illustrated by Diane’s and Anne’s comments on the interview process:

Diane (4): Through you coming here has made me think very carefully and things. Yeah, analyse things.

Anne (4): My deputy has just said to me, although she hasn’t taken part in this study, she said to me, ‘I wouldn’t be interested in working here if it wasn’t for the NHS floor’. I said, ‘It’s funny you should say that because that’s exactly what we’re looking at, at the moment [in the study]’.

Although unintentional, the reflective process initiated by multiple interviews meant that interviews became instruments of data generation, and even instigators of participants’ behaviour change, rather than data collection tools only. This was particularly apparent in Diane’s case. The ‘thought-provoking’ interviews (see quote above) led her to analyse, and polarise her ideas, regarding her employment situation, so that in the fourth interview, she informed me that our encounters had helped her to realise that there were other career opportunities she wished to explore before retiring. Diane’s actions subsequent to the interviews demonstrate the views of localist researchers such as Silverman (1983), Holstein and Gubrium (1995), Hammersley (2007) and Dumay (2010). The localist view is that interviews themselves are phenomena and their position within the social context of interviewees’ lives has a generative role in narrative processes, the application of semantic knowledge, and ultimately the interviewees’ understanding of their own situation. As such, the researcher must acknowledge and consider the impact of the interview process on the data collected during the analysis stage.

3.4.2.3 Interview topic generation

Dumay (2010) and Qu and Dumay (2011) explain that multiple interviewing permits the researcher’s preliminary analysis of early interviews to generate topics for exploration in subsequent interviews. This is illustrated by the following extract from an interview with

Beth (this extract is taken from a wider discussion about the behaviour of acute care nurses and other health professionals towards NuH nurses):

Researcher: What about community nurses and district nurses (I know you’re a bank community nurse too)?

Beth (1): Erm, I think the thing that I’ve witnessed is that someof the district nurses, you know when we have to call them because a resident is in a residential bed, and that’s a bit awkward at times. They come in and are like, ‘Why can’t you do this kind of thing? You know they’re in a nursing home, and, ‘There’s nurses employed here’. But it’s all to do with politics, because they aren’t paying the same rate as people are for nursing care.

The short comment (italics) concerning the impact of funding on the NuH nurse’s occupational standing does not immediately stand out as significant within the context of this discussion, but using a ‘backgrounding’ technique (a technique whereby data that may not initially stand out as significant is re-reviewed - see 4.5.2.3) as part of the data analysis process revealed funding as a potential topic for further exploration in subsequent interviews. Thus, in the next interview with Beth, we discussed the impact of funding on the NuH nurse’s role in greater detail:

Beth (2): To be honest I absolutely hate the business side of things...I don’t really see that as my role, my role is to care for people…I really don’t like it or getting involved with it because I almost feel like my job role changes immediately and I become you know like a salesperson, and I really don’t like it.

During this second interview, Beth’s responses showed that funding of care is a major issue for her (as it subsequently proved to be for most of the other participants) as it creates role anxiety, and affects her relationships with those in her care. This demonstrates that the multiple interview supports the research aims by facilitating the exploration of a wide range of participants’ experiences and views regarding their role.

3.4.2.4 Participant-researcher trust

The trust established during multiple interviews also encourages participants to speak freely about the personal episodes that are invaluable as illuminations of their social contexts and experiences. For example, during Alice’s first interview, she presented as someone with little motivation or ambition regarding her career as a nurse. She felt that NuH nursing is ‘not a career, it’s a job’, and she stated a number of times that she works in a NuH because it is ‘convenient’ to do so. However, in later interviews, because Alice and I had had the opportunity to develop our relationship, she appeared more at ease with me, and willing to discuss more personal information. As such, she was able to explain that in fact she does have career aspirations, but the ill health of her young son prohibited the pursuit of these aspirations at that time.

3.4.2.5 Questioning technique appraisal

Multiple interviewing enables the researcher to appraise the questioning technique initially utilised, and adapt and improve it in order to support the collection of richer data in later interviews. For example, Ellen in particular struggled with narrative discourse in the first interview, often responding with ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answers. This demonstrated that my questioning technique was inadequate to stimulate full discussions. After contemplating the difficulties encountered during this initial interview, I decided to use reiterative statements rather than questions, to prompt discussion in the next interview. Reiterative statements are used by the researcher to reiterate, confirm or clarify participants’ accounts. Hannabuss (1996) states that this technique avoids condensed answers, and stimulates pace and persistence of discourse, because participants are encouraged to reflect on, reaffirm and paraphrase their views. According to Hannabus (1996), when this technique is utilised, participants feel that they are conversing, rather than being interrogated. This approach did prove more successful as demonstrated in the following extract from the second interview:

Researcher: You mentioned there about relatives coming in to look around, and they notice the building.

Ellen (2): Well they’re not sure at first. They may have been told by the hospital they have to find somewhere for their relative, so they’ve got a few, two or three homes to visit, so they look at homes easy for the family to visit. But then once they get in, it’s like the atmosphere, and they remark on the carpet and curtains. Researcher: So they’re swayed by the environment rather than the care.

Ellen (2): Yes. The ones I’ve met. I mean obviously we do tell them about, we’ve got diversional therapy, the hairdressers and the shop, and the opticians. We tell them about the care that their relatives will get. But it’s the initial impression. Same as when you’re buying a house, isn’t it? First time you set foot in it, you either like it or you don’t.