Semi-structured and Unstructured Interviews

The third distinctive method of data collection is semi-structured and unstructured interviews. Whereas “structured interviews follow a predetermined and standardised list of questions”, “at the other end of the continuum are unstructured forms of interviewing such as oral histories” (Dunn, 2005); the semi-structured interview “has some degree of predeterminded order but still ensures flexibility in the way issues are addressed by the informant” (ibid.). Two semi-structured interviews for each VQ participant (except Chris who replied to the questions for the

semi-structured interviews in a questionnaire format due to his busy schedule), each one lasting approximately thirty minutes, and another interview for the assessor, together with irregular unstructured interviews on various occasions at the HKACC, were conducted over a period of two years in either the squadron’s training venues or the meeting venues for the operational unit’s volunteers and the functional unit’s volunteers, respectively. The topics of the first semi-structured interviews were derived from the VQ assignments my participants had submitted earlier, whereas the second ones were related to the Facebook practices they engaged in. My interpretation of the interview data will be further explained in forthcoming chapters.

Generally, the prime objective of semi-structured interviews is “to probe beneath the surface of things and try to see things from students’ perspective”

(Richards, 2009, p.183). Since the ultimate goal of my research is to obtain a deep and rounded understanding (Mason, 2002) of the literacy practices of adult volunteers, collecting precise and comparable data using a ‘spoken questionnaire’ during a relatively controlled structured interview or conducting an open interview in an ‘in-depth’ but ‘unstructured’ form (ibid., p.184) is relatively unfeasible. Instead, conducting semi-structured interviews with three interview guides is one of the more appropriate data collection methods in my research. All the semi-structured interviews were audiotaped and the audio recordings were transcribed for further analysis. As a newer mediated observation technique, audiotaping is more convenient for me as an observer since I can replay tapes during the transcription stage (Knupfer & McLellan, 1996).

The interview itself is a textually oriented activity because its content is related to the informants’ own written assignments. Using Interview 1 as an example, by asking specific questions based on the content of their assignments, I was able to understand how different institutional and contextual factors and personal experiences were brought into the literacy practices of volunteers.

3.5.3.1 Interview Guide for Literacy Acquisition Background and Vocational Qualifications

One practical issue that prompted my concern before the first semi-structured interview was conducted was the language to be used. My original plan was to

interview all VQ writers in English as their L2 for three reasons: first, central features underpinning the training curriculum and day-to-day correspondence in our UG are in English. Second, my prior knowledge of their academic backgrounds and professions let me know their fluency in speaking English. Third, by conducting an interview in English with the English version of the interview guide, translation from Cantonese as L1 to English can be skipped and thus facilitate the transcription for my data analysis later. However, based on Sam’s feedback as well as that of other target participants who agreed to join my project, using their own L1 in interviews would enable them to convey their messages more clearly; therefore, a Chinese version of the interview guide for Interview 1 (Appendix 6) was created and used. This compromise was a vital step in maintaining our rapport and long-term collaboration (Boccagni, 2011).

The first semi-structured interview aimed to explore the issues of the literacy acquisition background of adult volunteers and their reading and writing practices and written assignments in the VQ programme. The questions covered in the first interview guide are shown in Figure 3.2:

Figure 3.2 First Semi-structured Interview Guide

Part A – Second Language Learning Experience 1. What is your first language (L1)?

2. What is your second language (L2)?

3. Do you know any other language(s) apart from L1 and L2? (L3) 4. What are your personal attitudes towards L1 and its culture?

5. What are your personal attitudes towards L2 and its culture?

6. Do you have close friends or relatives who use English as well as Cantonese as their first language? If yes, do they influence your English language learning?

7. Previous school experience: Can you tell me about your first experience of learning English?

What did you do? What were the environment, the people and the activities? Did you attend any English related extra-curricular activities?

8. Previous voluntary experience: Were there any fellow volunteers who spoke fluent English?

What did you think of your own English at that time?

9. Do you remember a fellow volunteer or an incident at the Corps that had an impact on your language learning?

10. What were your best and worst language learning experiences?

11. What activities do you do in the Corps, where do you communicate in English?

12. Are you conscious of any strategies that you use to communicate in English in those activities (that the interviewee mentioned in Qs7–11)?

13. Do you feel that your service or voluntary work in the Corps has contributed to your second language learning? If yes, how do you assess that? E.g. Slightly? Moderately? Significantly?

14. Do you feel your service or voluntary work in the Corps has a positive influence on your English language learning in terms of pronunciation, language acquisition and comprehension?

15. What kinds of effort do you make for your English learning?

16. Are you satisfied with the L2 performance you have achieved?

A series of first semi-structured interviews, as a reflection of the reported beliefs of the volunteers, is able to provide insights into and information about the VQ writers’ ideas about their writing and the rationales behind written content, as well as the institutional factors including document analysis of assessment criteria and regulations related to their learning of writing.

3.5.3.2 Interview Guide for Technology-related Life History, Current Practices, Social Networking and Interacting on Facebook

New data types emerge in the volunteers’ online world. To understand how the writers interacted with technologies in the past, what their present practices on Facebook are and how they interact in this social network, I arranged another interview with the list of questions shown on Figure 3.3.

Figure 3.3 Second Semi-structured Interview Guide

Part B – Vocational Qualifications

1. How do you know about the CVQO-led Qualifications?

2. Why do/did you choose to enrol for the aforementioned vocational qualification? What makes/made you decide to pursue this qualification?

3. Do you plan to enrol for any more vocational qualifications? Why/why not?

4. Do you think using your L2 instead of your L1 would affect your performance when doing your written work?

5. Compared with your written work for previous academic qualifications, what do/did you feel about preparing your written work in your L2?

6. What do you do if you feel you cannot understand the content/instructions in your student guidebook?

7. Have you found language to be a problem when doing written work?

8. How do/did you find the feedback you received from the CVQO assessor? Is/was it helpful or not?

9. What parts of the programme did you find most helpful in your overall success as an ‘all criteria which are fully met’ graduate? What factors determined your final success?

10. What do you think is needed for successful VQ L2 learning?

11. Would you recommend this programme to anyone else? Why or why not?

Part A – Technology-related life history

1. Can you remember when you started using a computer?

2. Can you remember when you started using the Internet?

3. Can you remember when you started using Facebook?

4. Why did you join Facebook?

5. What are your reasons for using Facebook?

3.5.3.3 Interview Guide for the Perspective of the CVQO Assessor

To build a more comprehensive picture of the VQ programme, I also focused on the perspective of the CVQO Assessor, David Harris, and so I developed questions specific to his views and feelings on assessing student assignments, as shown in Figure 3.4.

Figure 3.4 Third Semi-structured Interview Guide

My research is about Hong Kong adult volunteers’ reading and writing practices. I would like to better understand your perspective on assessing student assignments.

Before starting the interview, I would like to emphasise that your participation is entirely voluntary and that you can refuse to answer any questions or withdraw at any time. For the purpose of anonymity, I will use a pseudonym in all references to you.

Part A – Background

1. In what ways are your experiences with Hong Kong students and their use of digital communications different from your experiences with UK students?

Part B – Assessing student assignments

1. How has your previous experience as a teacher influenced you, or not, in the decisions that you have made when assessing written work?

2. As you know, Hong Kong students uss English as their second language. To what extent do you feel you can concentrate on the content of their assignments? How does their style of grammar affect you?

3. Do you think Hong Kong students using their second language would affect their performance when doing written work?

4. Are you conscious of any strategies that you use to assess their written work?

5. What do you do if you feel you cannot understand a particular sentence or paragraph in a candidate’s work?

6. How can interviews with candidates be useful?

7. What do you think is needed for successful written work?

Part B – Current practices

1. Do you go on Facebook in different places (home computer, work computer, mobile device)?

2. How often do you use a mobile phone, home computer or work computer to access Facebook?

3. How much reading and writing related to our Corps do you do on Facebook?

4. How often do you post or share images and/or videos related to our Corps on Facebook?

5. Do you enjoy posting Corps-related messages on Facebook? Why?

6. Do you like writing comments about your Corps-related photos?

7. How often do you comment on the messages of other volunteers on Facebook?

8. In general, do you enjoy making comments on Facebook? Why?

9. Which languages do you prefer to use on Facebook? Why?

Part C – Social network and interaction

1. How do you choose your ‘friends’ on Facebook in terms of i) accepting friend requests and ii) initiating friend requests?

2. What proportion of your Facebook ‘friends’ are Corps members (i.e. fellow volunteers)?

3. Do you get to know more about Corps members on Facebook in terms of both quantity and quality?

4. What do you think about the relationship between Facebook and mutual communication between Corps members?

The above general interview guides, compared with the detailed interview schedules normally used in structured interviews, imply a sense of flexibility (Richards, 2009). Nevertheless, I treat research design as an ongoing process and so the interview guides for the informants were amended at various stages of the research. In spite of the long list of planned interview questions with three main focus themes, namely, second language learning experience, vocational qualifications and Facebook use, not all interviews were strictly structured. With the objective to generate new themes in our discussions, I allowed and encouraged my research participants to reply to questions in a spontaneous way. Sometimes, unexpected answers given by the participants led to adjusting the actual list of interview questions in the field. Also, all informants were given the opportunity to seek clarification of some particular wordings of the interview questions when they were in doubt. In short, it was my common practice to go beyond the interview guides and encourage my participants to express their ideas as freely as possible. In addition, ad hoc unstructured interviews were also arranged when I met VQ writers or their peers at some large-scale events or training activities within our UG. On average, the number of ad hoc interviews was two per participant.