Semi-Structured Interviews 1 Students

I was of the view that to leave the interview entirely unstructured would have easily taken the conversation along irrelevant tangents. The sensitivity of the data and the personal disclosures would have further encouraged this. The journals were used as key to establish the semi-structuring of the interviews, the topics under discussion with each participant being “driven” by their journal entries.

Thus, the semi-structured nature of the interviews allowed the highlighting of individual journal statements in addition to introducing concepts emerging from across the journals and offered the opportunity to do this without losing the benefit of a framework, given that the area under examination was too vast to cover in a few hours’ discussion.

The interviews were, however, free enough that the conversation could develop in directions where very personal information might be offered. The environment had to be, essentially, a “safe” and comfortable space for each participant. While it had been my original intention to audiotape all my interviews, having secured participants’ permission, in the end this intention was abandoned for reasons outlined below. Thus, some were audiotaped, some not. The interviews were conducted in students’ own place of choice (some chose open spaces – i.e. pubs, others chose closed offices), accompanied by sometimes coffees, sometimes cappuccinos and, always offered, cakes.

Initially permission to audiotape was sought. On the whole, agreement was given, but half way through the discussion, as a very personal concern was described, the participant dried up. In the first case, as I offered to turn off the tape the participant appeared to interpret this as a sign of my commitment to confidentiality. In the subsequent three audiotaped interviews, participants seemed ill at ease and uncomfortable at varying stages. Again, I offered to stop the tape and, again, they

relaxed and their willingness to go into more depth was apparent in the latter half of the interview. I changed my request for taping to make the request more neutral and the following two participants quickly chose the option not to be taped. At that point I abandoned taping completely. Notes were taken and“quotes”were checked verbally with the participants, repeating my own recording back to them for checking.

On further questioning, three participants referred to their eagerness to “tell their story” but revealed their concern that they could not be candid if criticising because they were aware of my official position in the University. On the other hand, my official position in the University was seen by some to place me at some advantage encouraging participants to feel safe and thus the extent to which some were prepared to go on describing personal details was unexpected. One participant summarised it by saying:

“I know I can trust you knowing your position in the Uni and all…..even though I know this is your private research. Still – you’re not going to be doing the job you do in the daytime if you were to go and blab it around everyone, would you?”

The obvious trust the participants were placing in me reinforced my existing resolve to develop a fair reflection of their perspectives, giving them secondary comment opportunities prior to using the data. It also, once again, reiterated my dual role emphasising the need for conscious awareness of ethical boundaries. Quotes allowed the demonstration of figurative speech of the participants to be highlighted, their rhetoric and metaphors, giving insight to the interpretation of their experiences.

The number of semi-structured interviews conducted with each participant varied according to the complexity of the story they had to tell. Each participant had an initial interview which lasted approximately one and a half to two hours. Some needed follow-up interactions and some needed three or four shorter (one hour)

interviews. The format was dictated by the commitments and the personality, or emotions, of the participant.

At the end of each set of interviews, a transcript was compiled by myself and sent to the participant. This checked accuracy in the transcript but also gave them control over the final decision over the release of the data. Some adjustment of meaning was clarified, but all participants repeated their permission to use the material.

8.10.2. Staff

Interviews with academic staff were straightforward to arrange and relaxed in content and flow with the contact as a one-off session of considerably shorter length than those of the students. However those with the other two groups necessitated some clarification of boundary roles and reassurance of confidentiality to allow the safe space to be formed before the interview could take place. “House rules” were explained referring to my unfamiliar role as researcher, their voice as institutional representative and the use of data with evidenced quotes. The purpose was not to give empty promises but to delineate the field in order for each participant to then make a personal decision on the level and depth of information they would be prepared to reveal. Given my experience of the student participants, I estimated that control by the interviewee led to richer data.

Frequent reassurance of confidentiality was sought. The belief that I was aiming to gain advantageous information to help students and institutional performance in future minimised initial anxieties of their being quoted speaking against an institution in which, without exception, they all clearly believed. Once again, I believe their ultimate agreement was enhanced because of my colleague stance and included them in being partners in this discovery process.