Qualitative Interviewing

In-depth interviewing is a widely used method for data collection in the social and human sciences. It is the method of choice for research projects that aim to explore people's experiences, motives, opinions and perspectives in their depth and richness and without constraining the respondents' answers by a priori categories or pre-set reply options. In political science in particular, it is often also used for the purpose of reconstructing processes and events. A yet less frequent, but equally interesting use of interviews is to use them as tools for accessing collective and cultural discourses. Although generally structured by a topic guide, in-depth interviews allow for flexibility and openness throughout the interview interaction and are based on open and non-leading questions that are designed to get the interviewee to talk freely and at length, and to explore the width and depth of his or her views and experiences (see for example Ritchie et al. 2013, Kvale/Brinkman 2008 or Hermanowicz 2002).

Although widely used, in-depth interviewing as a method is also often under-reflected, and consequently used too "naively" and with an insufficient understanding of its limitations, specificities and difficulties. This hands-on Master Course aims to provide participants with methodological tools and with a space for critical reflection so as to refine their understanding of the method and help them fine-tuning the use they make of it. It assumes that the participants are familiar with the basics of some form of qualitative interviewing (such as semi-structured in-depth interviewing, biographic interviewing or other forms of un- or loosely structured interviewing, oral history interviews, expert interviews, etc. (Experience with focus group interviewing or even with journalistic or clinical interviewing might also be fine, provided that the participants are familiar with the literature on research interviewing as well). Whether this experience has been acquired through formal training or/and hands-on experience is secondary – what counts is that the participants do have a concrete sense of what research interviewing entails.

Part of each teaching day will be devoted to lectures, discussions and exercises revolving around key methodological issues (in the light of, but not necessarily limited to the participants' own projects) such as: elaborating efficient topic guides that ensure both theoretical soundness and communicative quality; interviewing techniques and ways of handling "difficult" respondents, topics, groups or situations (for example un-talkative or evasive respondents; specific respondents groups such as high-level political elites or vulnerable respondents; sensitive topics such as corruption or violence;  specific situations such as interviewing in non-democratic or cross-cultural contexts); strategies for negotiating access and for selecting respondents in a way that results in a meaningful "sample"; ensuring research ethics on issues such as confidentiality and informed consent; or criteria of scientific soundness (such as internal validity and process transparency), how they should manifest themselves during data collection, data analysis and writing up, and how to pre-empt and confront methodological criticism on the part of external agents such as PhD committees or editors. Data analysis will also be briefly considered in the course of the week, mainly with the aim of making the participants aware of how to "hear" data beyond explicit contents, and how to deal with the specific dilemmas inherent in interview data (such as participants making contradictory statements at different points of the interview, or discrepancies between what respondents say and what documents show). This is not a full data analysis course though – participants mainly interested in data analysis are advised to attend a specific data analysis course.

Their general aim of this part of the course is to broaden the participants' methodological horizon and their understanding of how data collection through interviewing fits into the overall research design (whether qualitative or mixed methods), and how it relates to epistemological and theoretical as well as practical and ethical questions.

The other part of the day will be used to discuss particular aspects of participant projects (collectively) and thereby to give participants ideas on how to move forward with their projects. The participants will be invited to give short presentations (to the whole group or sometimes - possibly - to a sub-group having similar issues). These presentations will oblige the participants to make their assumptions and strategies explicit and confront critical questions. They will hopefully also gain new insights into how they could enrich their approach, or ground or streamline it better.

After each day the participants will be given a homework task for the next day (such as: work on their topic guide; articulate their theoretical/epistemological understanding of interviewing; reflect on practical and ethical issues related to their planned interviews, etc.), which will feed into next day's activities.

To benefit from this course, participants need to be willing to be actively engaged throughout the week, and to engage in methodological discussions beyond their own specific projects – a lot of learning will happen through collective engagement with the participants' projects.

By the end of the week, each participant will have had various opportunities to present her/his project and submit her/his emerging ideas for discussion and feedback.

A critical requirement for participation in this course is that (1) you are using some form of qualitative interviewing in your current research (PhD thesis, project etc.) and (2) that you are already familiar with the basics of qualitative interviewing, as this course is not a beginners' course.

1. This Master course is suitable for two types of participants:
   1.  participants who have not yet collected their own interview data, but are planning to start their interviews in the near future – they can use this workshop to a) actively work on the preparatory steps of their study (topic guides, access strategies, "sampling"/selection procedures, etc.), b) enhance their understanding of interviewing by learning from more advanced participants who have already collected more data, and from readings and common discussions;
   2. participants who have already done a number of interviews that they will bring along to the workshop – for them the workshop can be an opportunity to reflect on and fine-tune their data collection, in the light of their and other  participants' experiences, and also with an eye on data analysis.

2. All participants in this workshop are assumed to be familiar with the basics of qualitative interviewing. At the very least they will be acquainted with the basic literature on interviewing; ideally they should have some practical  research interviewing experience as well (this experience may be acquired in a context other than their current research, such as a Master's thesis, project work, or some pilot stage data collection). Beware that this is not an introductory course that will take the participants step-by-step through the whole process of an interview research or teach interviewing techniques.

The course requires submission before the course of a well elaborated (draft) research design that makes clear how qualitative interviews are intended to be used; of a tentative topic guide that should have been discussed with their supervisor and (if at all possible) pre-tested or at least submitted to a few other people for preliminary feedback); and for those participants who have already collected some of their data, an interviewing transcript (a full transcript if the data are in English, German, French, Italian or Spanish; a partial transcript of 5-6 pages translated into English, German or French if the original data are in any other language).

More information about the documents to be submitted ahead will be circulated well in advance of the course. Prospective participants will be asked to fill out a short questionnaire to make sure they have the pre-requisites for the course.

Participants who are unsure whether they have the required perquisites for this course are advised to contact the instructor before enrolling.