Semi-structured interviews

Kvale (2007) emphasizes that the purpose of an interview is to obtain descriptions of the world of the interviewee so that the meaning of the described phenomena can be interpreted. Interviews are relatively flexible and personal and provide relatively rich data in either written or spoken forms, or both. This flexibility allows the interviewer to explore new avenues of opinion in ways that a questionnaire does not; Thus, interviews seem better suited to exploratory tasks (Brown, 2001). Forming the interview schedule was mainly guided by the research questions. Moreover. in order to formulate interview questions that could achieve the coverage of breath of key issues and depth of content I considered the guidelines provided by Wellington (2015) and Ritchie et al. (2014).

I also needed to decide on the type of interview most suited for use in this study. Lichtman (2014) asserts that there are four types of interview that are commonly used in data collection; i) the structured or standardized interview, ii) the semi- structured or guided interview, iii) the unstructured or in-depth interview, and iv) the casual or unplanned interview. For the purpose of this study, I chose a semi- structured interview as it not only allows the interviewer to lead the participants to a focused and systematic inquiry on the topic, but also provides the participants with some ease, freedom and flexibility in expressing their views and experiences. Kvale and Brinkmann (2009) asserted that a semi-structured interview has a sequence of themes to be covered, as well as suggested questions. Yet at the same time, there

126 remains openness to changes of sequence and forms of questions in order to follow up the answers given, and the story told by the subjects. Hence, the semi-structured individual interview will serve as a data collection tool to explore in depth and at a more confidential level the teachers’ perspectives, understandings and the adjustments that they have had to make in order to cope with this process of curricular change. It was expected that by providing access to what is inside the participants’ head, it would become possible to learn what they know, value, and think (Cohen, Manion & Morrison, 2014)

Nonetheless, these advantages are not as simple as they seem. There are several aspects that need to be taken into account in semi-structured interviews, otherwise it can create further problems. Yee and Anderson (2006) argue that the researcher should establish a rapport with the participants which may lead to personal discourse. As a result, there could be too many distractions for the researcher that can block whole areas of the interview.

Among other reasons to choose the interview as a data collection method were that the knowledge obtained is produced through the interpersonal interaction in the interview; different interviewees can produce different statements on the same themes and descriptions of specific situations and action sequences are elicited, not general opinions. The qualitative interview can elicit the lived world of the subjects and their relation to it (Cohen, Manion & Morrison, 2014)

The interview was piloted with one school principal and two female teachers to identify ambiguous or confusing questions in order to revise them before their actual use. The pilot interviews also helped to gauge the possible length of the interview. As a result of the piloting, I revised some of the items and others were deleted. I was

127 also flexible with the wording and the order of the questions because they depended on the flow of each individual interview. The schedule therefore served as a reference rather than a closed-ended format of questions that have to be strictly followed (see Appendix 6). The interview schedule in appendix 6 which is for English teachers consists of the main questions and the probing questions. In addition, not all questions were asked to all participants due to limited time and sometimes the participants spontaneously talked about the topic on the listed questions without me asking them. The interviews were all conducted in Indonesian for the participants to feel comfortable and to be able to express themselves as clearly as possible.

For interview participants, there were five school principals and thirteen English teachers from five different schools in five different cities in West Java Province. Inviting the participants for the interview was not a straightforward process. First, I had to contact the school principals in each school as the gate keeper to allow me to conduct research. Then they suggested several names of English teachers to be interviewed and observed in the classroom. After gaining consent from all participants, they all were briefly informed about the purpose of the interview, the duration, the venue and that it will be conducted in Indonesian. Before the interview, I briefed the participants about the aim of the research and the interview, and they were assured confidentiality and anonymity. I also explained that the interview is not judgemental and that there are no right and wrong answers. Next, their permission was requested to audio record the interview. Finally, I asked them to sign two copies of the consent form (Appendix 7), one for themselves and the other for me. During the interview I tried to listen carefully to the meaning of what was said in order to ask relevant follow-up questions (Kvale, 2007; Ritchie et al., 2014). I also made an effort

128 to stay calm, friendly, as neutral as possible and to show interest in what the participants said. As in-depth responses were sought, I used probes for clarification and prompts when necessary. Before ending the interview, I asked the participants to add any final thoughts or comments to ensure that important issues had not been omitted. Finally, I thanked them for their participation and I briefly informed them about what happens next to the data. After each interview that lasted between 30- 40 minutes, I wrote a brief reflection in my notebook.