Discussion – Interviewing

In this forum we will practice interviewing. Interviewing will help you understand the nature of good qualitative methodology, which is the most common method used by social psychologists and a method you will use in the research papers for this course. Practicing your interviewing skills also provides an opportunity for you to improve your listening, which of course is an important skill used in all parts of your life.

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For this assignment:

Read the articles in the modules page on interviewing (especially “In their own words” and “12 handy tips”). Using the guidance from these readings, conduct an interview with a family member or friend (18 or over). This can be in person, over the phone, or online interview. Ask them about their opinion about the natural environment and what can be done to make it better. The discussion must be about environmental problems and solutions.

You can talk about any of the following problems and related solutions: clean water, clean air, pollution, toxic waste, carbon footprint, garbage/recycling, or climate change/global warming. Do not attempt to discuss all of the topics, or even more than two of them. One or two topics is enough. It is ok to let the respondent choose which topic(s) to discuss.

Ask about what they think about these problems, how big/damaging the problems are, the cause of the problems, and most importantly, potential solutions.

For each question about problem/size/cause/solution, make sure to thoroughly probe — probing is not just asking for more information, it is, most importantly, also asking “why”. Why does your respondent believe the things they are saying? When it comes to questions about public opinion, the why question could be rephrased as “why do you believe that”? or “how did you come to those beliefs?” or something similar.

The purpose is to develop a deeper understanding of people, because we understand the meaning behind their beliefs/actions.

In the reading on the 12 tips, they emphasize probing, but not so much the “why” component. This is a fault of the article in how they presented the idea of probing. Asking the why type of probe is important especially for using symbolic interaction theory to analyze interviews. Symbolic interaction theory is the main social psychological theory among sociologists, and is also a part of upcoming readings. For symbolic interactionists, one of the key goals in doing an interview is not just to understand how the person defines reality, but also why they define reality in that way. The concept for symbolic interactionists is “verstehen” (i.e., sympathetic understanding) “meaning,” or “meaningful action”. Meaningful action can be thought of as similar to “motivation.” A formal definition looks like this,

“Action which actors invest with meanings deriving from definite motives and intentions, rather than that which follows from mere habit or INSTINCT, is meaningful action.”

Meaningful action can be uncovered during an interview by probing — not just asking for more information but more importantly, asking WHY. Why does your interview respondent believe what they do?

In this discussion forum, your job is to post at least one page of writing describing:

1) the skills from the readings that tell you how to conduct interviews

2) how you used the skills from the readings in your interview.

For the above 2 things, focus on the some of the 12 tips (from the online readings article with the subtitle “12 handy tips”), making sure that “probing” is one of those.

3) which skills were easiest to accomplish and why,

4) which skills were hardest to accomplish and why, and

5) a question you have about interviewing.

In another 1/2 page, summarize the findings from your interview:

6) what did your respondent tell you about environmental problems and

7) potential solutions.

For 6 and 7, try to discuss the meaningful action you received when probing — why do people believe that about problems/solutions?

There is no maximum word count but your writing should be at least 450 words (1.5 pages).

Lastly, record the interview and paste the transcript at the end of your forum submission (or as a reply to your own forum submission). Transcribing the interview is easiest if you use Zoom, but can also be accomplished using Ottervoice, which has a free plan with a recorder app you can download to your phone.

Your interview should be at least 5 minutes long. There is no maximum length.