Taped semi-structured interviews

Semi-structured interviews were conducted to explore the processes involved in individual teacher educators developing their own habitus in terms of meta-pedagogical practice, and their perceptions of teaching and learning in ITE. The choice of semi-structured, as opposed to structured or unstructured, interviews is perhaps not surprising, given the nature of the data which were sought. The intention was to probe and expand on responses, revealing more complex factors than structured interviews might do, whilst remaining easier to manage than the more ethnographic unstructured variety. This enabled insight into the participants’ assumptions, experience, values and beliefs, as well as to their personal body of knowledge, which, with regard to Bourdieu’s essential elements of habitus, are factors which drive and shape practice. Semi-structured interviews, therefore, provided the perfect opportunity to generate data for examination. The advantages of semi-structured interviews, according to Newby (2010:342), include their capacity to reflect research questions, clarify misunderstanding, allow questioning to explore the issue, and produce rich data; the disadvantages are related more to resource issues of time and cost, which meant the number of participants had to be kept to a manageable level.

In the early stages of planning the study, I had considered using questionnaires in order to get a ‘broad sweep’ understanding of how tutors perceive teaching and learning in ITE, but initial attempts at formulating a draft of this suggested that more useful data would be collected more effectively through extending the interviews instead. Due to the complexities inherent in the research focus, interviews seemed to be more likely to yield the rich data required, exploring personal opinions which are a core part of habitus. I would concur here with the view that “the questionnaire procedure is often not good at enabling us to explore [findings] in more detail, in short providing an answer to the ‘Why?’ behind it” (Opie 2004:111). However, it was also the ‘what’ and ‘how’ questions demanded

by my study which required further elucidation than a questionnaire might allow, in order to tease out participants’ nuanced feelings, beliefs, attitudes and insights. Resonating with these purposes was Newby’s (2010) perception that “(t)he flexibility of interviews and their ability to expose issues creates an understanding of processes, events and emotions, all of which makes them particularly suitable in qualitative research” (p338).

In formulating the interview schedule (Appendix 3), questions were phrased in such a way as to encourage fulsome responses, with the intention of harnessing the richness and depth of insights required for the study, whilst following Kvale’s (2007) advice that the “interviewer’s questions should be brief and simple” (p60). However, the schedule was treated as a working document, with the option of adding and amending (sub-)questions both during and in-between interviews as the need seemed to arise (Cousin 2009:83). This, and the use of prompts and probes (Cohen et al 2000:278), would go some way to addressing Newby’s (2010:340) perception that the term ‘guide’ is preferable to ‘schedule’ in relation to semi-structured interviews, and Kvale’s (2007) observation that:

The quality of an interview relies not only on the questions posed: the way the interviewer reacts after an answer may be just as important, such as allowing a pause for the interviewee to continue an answer, by probing for more information and by attempting to verify the answers given. (p65) (emphasis in original)

According to Cohen et al (2000), an interview schedule for a semi-structured interview, “where topics and open-ended questions are written but the exact sequence and wording does not have to be followed with each respondent”, might include the specific possible questions to be put for each topic, as well or instead of a series of prompts and probes (p278). Wragg (2012:110) suggests that the resultant flexibility can encourage a degree of natural conversation, albeit with “a structure and a purpose determined by the one party – the interviewer” (Kvale 2007:6). However, a possible weakness of this type of interview is that the flexibility of the interviewer can lead to a reduction in the comparability of the responses during analysis (Cohen et al:271), and I needed to be wary of this.

Whilst interviews also appeared to be the most appropriate research instrument where the subject matter is potentially sensitive, as in this study, I acknowledge that this method does require particular skill from the interviewer in order to elicit reliable data (Hinds 2000). I was aware that taking cognisance of tone of voice and body language can be an important way in which the researcher may be able to achieve this, especially in light of the particular position of researcher as ‘quasi-peer’, as previously outlined. Hitchcock & Hughes (1989) warn of the possibility of a “degree of reciprocity” between interviewer and interviewee as peers, which means that interviewees may provide answers they think the interviewer may want to hear, but also that “some teachers being interviewed may feel that evaluation or criticism is being implied” (p89). Perhaps even more salient in my case, they highlight the position of the ‘teacher (educator) researcher’, and the need for (her) to

consider the context of each interview and examine the nature of any of her own values or prejudices... Teacher researchers as well as the subjects of their research have values, attitudes, political affiliations, and often firmly held opinions on what constitutes ‘good teaching’... The important point...is that she attempts to understand the significance and impact of them. (Hitchcock & Hughes 1989:89)

Cousin’s (2009) advice, that “the researcher needs to take a reflexive stance by problematizing positionality throughout the interview process” (p76), is apposite in this regard, and was a guiding principle to be borne in mind at each stage. Cohen et al (2000) encapsulate these two aspects as “a reflective approach to the knowledge sought and the interpersonal relation of the interview situation” (p274), also suggesting that the subsequent analysis of qualitative data will be interpretive, and therefore

less a completely accurate representation (as in the numerical, positivist tradition) but more of a reflexive, reactive interaction between researcher and the decontextualized data that are already interpretations of a social encounter. (p282)

The unstructured nature of the responses also posed challenges for the coding and categorisation of data.

In asking “What status do you attach to your data?”, Silverman (2001) raises the issue of whether we view interviews as potentially ‘true’ reports or situated narratives (p113), and suggests that this depends in part on the purposes of the research. The nature and purpose of this study meant from the outset that the interview would be viewed more as a situated narrative, which then raises issues of validation. Cohen et al (2000) suggest that this must take place at all stages of the interview-based investigation, from what they refer to as ‘thematizing’ and designing through to reporting; above all, “the notion of fitness for purpose within an ethically defensible framework should be adopted” (p286) (see also Section 3.8).