Semi-structured Interview

According to Fontana and Frey (2005) the interview is a popular

method used in research as it as one of the most effective ways to

perceive and comprehend other humans’ thoughts and views. There

are three types of interview – 1) Structured where all questions are

predetermined and covered in fixed sequence; 2) Unstructured where

the researcher only sets the theme or area to talk about and lets the

discussion flow; and 3) Semi-structured where some questions are

prepared prior to the interview, and during the interview, the

The interview method was chosen as it encouraged discussion about

participants experience with their child. According to Cohen, Manion,

and Morrison (2007), “interview is a flexible tool for data collection,

enabling multi-sensory channels to be used: verbal, non-verbal,

spoken and heard” (p.349). I chose to use individual semi–structured

interviews as this was the best method to gather data on each

individual’s personal attitudes and perspectives. Furthermore, I could

not anticipate what kind of answers would be given by the

participants. By doing semi-structured interviews I was able to ask

additional questions when I felt that I needed further explanation or

information from the participants.

Generally, qualitative interviews attempt to allow researchers to

understand the world from their participants’ points of view and also to

unfold the meaning of people’s experiences, as well as to uncover

their lived world based on scientific explanations (Bogdan & Biklen,

2006; Kvale & Brinkmann, 2009; Merriam, 2007). Therefore, as in my

research, I tried to understand and explain how my participants from a

particular context experience having a gifted and talented child in their

appropriate method to achieve this objective. Bogdan and Biklen

(2006) have suggested that obtaining a rich data based on various

perspectives and examples would be successful if the research is

conducted in an appropriate way.

The interviews were conducted at the participants’ homes where the

participants feel comfortable to share their thoughts, feelings,

perceptions, and understandings about parenting young gifted and

talented children. As a means of ensuring that respondents had time

to think about what I would be asking, the questions were emailed to

everyone three days in advance. There were two interviews in this

study and they were conducted individually. The questions asked as

part of these interviews were designed to explore each participant’s

experiences and perspectives raising a gifted and talented child. Such

questions allowed people to tell me about events that were important

to them and the meanings they attached to these events. The

predetermined questions asked were:

a) What is it like parenting a young intellectually gifted child?

c) Is parenting a young gifted child different from parenting any other child? If so, what is different and what remains the same?

d) What kinds of support do the parents of gifted children need in relation to their parenting?

The initial interviews provided the information on which to base further

interviews. The first interview was to motivate respondents to share

their knowledge on the parenting tasks. The questions in the following

rounds of interviews were more specific and related to the information

gathered from the first interviews. The second was to elicit further

information that relates directly to the trends emerging from the

analysis of the first interview data. Conducting two interview sessions,

allowed the participants to reflect on what they had said previously.

The framing of the second interview questions revealed some of my

initial thoughts I had following the first interview. The second

questions were:

a) You have stated in a previous interview that you feel…Can you please tell me more about this?

b) …was a word you used often when you talked about challenges in parenting gifted children. I would like to explore that a little more with you. Can you talk about that please?

After the first interview, questions were slightly adjusted and obtaining

the feedback from the participants allowed me to clarify, change and

elaborate more on what was recorded earlier. Interviews were audio

recorded, in order to fully capture what was said. Participants were

aware of the use of the audio recording device, but it was positioned

in a discreet place in such a way that neither respondents nor myself

were distracted. I transcribed the recordings and the process took

much longer than I expected.

The first reason was due to the language background. As an Asian, I

had difficulty capturing what was said and explained by the

respondents. I had to listen several times and it took me hours to

listen to the conversation and write the information. Another barrier

was that, as I had little knowledge of the context within which I was

operating, it required a considerable amount of correcting. However, I

felt that this actually was a useful process for me as I have learnt how

to process the data and helped me to clarify much of what was

recorded. Another important opportunity the digital recorder offered

expected, was being able to play these back regularly on my

computer, and giving me the opportunities to learn to use the media

file and help develop my thinking on my recorded data.

Once I had transcribed the interviews I began writing memos on

these. Analytical memos helped me to process what was said and

discussed by the respondents and I was able to collect my thoughts of

the interactions between the respondents and myself. I was also able

to identify the emerging themes and think about what it was that I was

learning throughout this study.