interview guide for qualitative research template

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9.2 Qualitative interviews

Learning objectives.

Define interviews from the social scientific perspective
Identify when it is appropriate to employ interviews as a data-collection strategy
Identify the primary aim of in-depth interviews
Describe what makes qualitative interview techniques unique
Define the term interview guide and describe how to construct an interview guide
Outline the guidelines for constructing good qualitative interview questions
Describe how writing field notes and journaling function in qualitative research
Identify the strengths and weaknesses of interviews

Knowing how to create and conduct a good interview is an essential skill. Interviews are used by market researchers to learn how to sell their products, and journalists use interviews to get information from a whole host of people from VIPs to random people on the street. Police use interviews to investigate crimes.

interview guide for qualitative research template

In social science, interviews are a method of data collection that involves two or more people exchanging information through a series of questions and answers. The questions are designed by the researcher to elicit information from interview participants on a specific topic or set of topics. These topics are informed by the research questions. Typically, interviews involve an in-person meeting between two people—an interviewer and an interviewee — but interviews need not be limited to two people, nor must they occur in-person.

The question of when to conduct an interview might be on your mind. Interviews are an excellent way to gather detailed information. They also have an advantage over surveys—they can change as you learn more information. In a survey, you cannot change what questions you ask if a participant’s response sparks some follow-up question in your mind. All participants must get the same questions. The questions you decided to put on your survey during the design stage determine what data you get. In an interview, however, you can follow up on new and unexpected topics that emerge during the conversation. Trusting in emergence and learning from participants are hallmarks of qualitative research. In this way, interviews are a useful method to use when you want to know the story behind the responses you might receive in a written survey.

Interviews are also useful when the topic you are studying is rather complex, requires lengthy explanation, or needs a dialogue between two people to thoroughly investigate. Also, if people will describe the process by which a phenomenon occurs, like how a person makes a decision, then interviews may be the best method for you. For example, you could use interviews to gather data about how people reach the decision not to have children and how others in their lives have responded to that decision. To understand these “how’s” you would need to have some back-and-forth dialogue with respondents. When they begin to tell you their story, inevitably new questions that hadn’t occurred to you from prior interviews would come up because each person’s story is unique. Also, because the process of choosing not to have children is complex for many people, describing that process by responding to closed-ended questions on a survey wouldn’t work particularly well.

Interview research is especially useful when:

You wish to gather very detailed information
You anticipate wanting to ask respondents follow-up questions based on their responses
You plan to ask questions that require lengthy explanation
You are studying a complex or potentially confusing topic to respondents
You are studying processes, such as how people make decisions

Qualitative interviews are sometimes called intensive or in-depth interviews. These interviews are semi-structured ; the researcher has a particular topic about which she would like to hear from the respondent, but questions are open-ended and may not be asked in exactly the same way or in exactly the same order to each and every respondent. For in-depth interviews , the primary aim is to hear from respondents about what they think is important about the topic at hand and to hear it in their own words. In this section, we’ll take a look at how to conduct qualitative interviews, analyze interview data, and identify some of the strengths and weaknesses of this method.

Constructing an interview guide

Qualitative interviews might feel more like a conversation than an interview to respondents, but the researcher is in fact usually guiding the conversation with the goal in mind of gathering specific information from a respondent. Qualitative interviews use open-ended questions, which are questions that a researcher poses but does not provide answer options for. Open-ended questions are more demanding of participants than closed-ended questions because they require participants to come up with their own words, phrases, or sentences to respond.

In a qualitative interview, the researcher usually develops an interview guide in advance to refer to during the interview (or memorizes in advance of the interview). An interview guide is a list of questions or topics that the interviewer hopes to cover during the course of an interview. It is called a guide because it is simply that—it is used to guide the interviewer, but it is not set in stone. Think of an interview guide like an agenda for the day or a to-do list—both probably contain all the items you hope to check off or accomplish, though it probably won’t be the end of the world if you don’t accomplish everything on the list or if you don’t accomplish it in the exact order that you have it written down. Perhaps new events will come up that cause you to rearrange your schedule just a bit, or perhaps you simply won’t get to everything on the list.

Interview guides should outline issues that a researcher feels are likely to be important. Because participants are asked to provide answers in their own words and to raise points they believe are important, each interview is likely to flow a little differently. While the opening question in an in-depth interview may be the same across all interviews, from that point on, what the participant says will shape how the interview proceeds. Sometimes participants answer a question on the interview guide before it is asked. When the interviewer comes to that question later on in the interview, it’s a good idea to acknowledge that they already addressed part of this question and ask them if they have anything to add to their response. All of this uncertainty can make in-depth interviewing exciting and rather challenging. It takes a skilled interviewer to be able to ask questions; listen to respondents; and pick up on cues about when to follow up, when to move on, and when to simply let the participant speak without guidance or interruption.

As we’ve discussed, interview guides can list topics or questions. The specific format of an interview guide might depend on your style, experience, and comfort level as an interviewer or with your topic. Figure 9.1 provides an example of an interview guide for a study of how young people experience workplace sexual harassment. The guide is topic-based, rather than a list of specific questions. The ordering of the topics is important, though how each comes up during the interview may vary.

interview guide using topics, not questions

For interview guides that use questions, there can also be specific words or phrases for follow-up in case the participant does not mention those topics in their responses. These probes , as well as the questions are written out in the interview guide, but may not always be used. Figure 9.2 provides an example of an interview guide that uses questions rather than topics.

interview guide using questions rather than topic

As you might have guessed, interview guides do not appear out of thin air. They are the result of thoughtful and careful work on the part of a researcher. As you can see in both of the preceding guides, the topics and questions have been organized thematically and in the order in which they are likely to proceed (though keep in mind that the flow of a qualitative interview is in part determined by what a respondent has to say). Sometimes qualitative interviewers may create two versions of the interview guide: one version contains a very brief outline of the interview, perhaps with just topic headings, and another version contains detailed questions underneath each topic heading. In this case, the researcher might use the very detailed guide to prepare and practice in advance of actually conducting interviews and then just bring the brief outline to the interview. Bringing an outline, as opposed to a very long list of detailed questions, to an interview encourages the researcher to actually listen to what a participant is saying. An overly detailed interview guide can be difficult to navigate during an interview and could give respondents the mis-impression the interviewer is more interested in the questions than in the participant’s answers.

Constructing an interview guide often begins with brainstorming. There are no rules at the brainstorming stage—simply list all the topics and questions that come to mind when you think about your research question. Once you’ve got a pretty good list, you can begin to pare it down by cutting questions and topics that seem redundant and group similar questions and topics together. If you haven’t done so yet, you may also want to come up with question and topic headings for your grouped categories. You should also consult the scholarly literature to find out what kinds of questions other interviewers have asked in studies of similar topics and what theory indicates might be important. As with quantitative survey research, it is best not to place very sensitive or potentially controversial questions at the very beginning of your qualitative interview guide. You need to give participants the opportunity to warm up to the interview and to feel comfortable talking with you. Finally, get some feedback on your interview guide. Ask your friends, other researchers, and your professors for some guidance and suggestions once you’ve come up with what you think is a strong guide. Chances are they’ll catch a few things you hadn’t noticed. Once you begin your interviews, your participants may also suggest revisions or improvements.

In terms of the specific questions you include in your guide, there are a few guidelines worth noting. First, avoid questions that can be answered with a simple yes or no. Try to rephrase your questions in a way that invites longer responses from your interviewees. If you choose to include yes or no questions, be sure to include follow-up questions. Remember, one of the benefits of qualitative interviews is that you can ask participants for more information—be sure to do so. While it is a good idea to ask follow-up questions, try to avoid asking “why” as your follow-up question, as this particular question can come off as confrontational, even if that is not your intent. Often people won’t know how to respond to “why,” perhaps because they don’t even know why themselves. Instead of asking “why,” you say something like, “Could you tell me a little more about that?” This allows participants to explain themselves further without feeling that they’re being doubted or questioned in a hostile way.

Also, try to avoid phrasing your questions in a leading way. For example, rather than asking, “Don’t you think most people who don’t want to have children are selfish?” you could ask, “What comes to mind for you when you hear someone doesn’t want to have children?” Finally, remember to keep most, if not all, of your questions open-ended. The key to a successful qualitative interview is giving participants the opportunity to share information in their own words and in their own way. Documenting the decisions made along the way regarding which questions are used, thrown out, or revised can help a researcher remember the thought process behind the interview guide when she is analyzing the data. Additionally, it promotes the rigor of the qualitative project as a whole, ensuring the researcher is proceeding in a reflective and deliberate manner that can be checked by others reviewing her study.

Recording qualitative data

Even after the interview guide is constructed, the interviewer is not yet ready to begin conducting interviews. The researcher has to decide how to collect and maintain the information that is provided by participants. Researchers keep field notes or written recordings produced by the researcher during the data collection process. Field notes can be taken before, during, or after interviews. Field notes help researchers document what they observe, and in so doing, they form the first step of data analysis. Field notes may contain many things—observations of body language or environment, reflections on whether interview questions are working well, and connections between ideas that participants share.

Unfortunately, even the most diligent researcher cannot write down everything that is seen or heard during an interview. In particular, it is difficult for a researcher to be truly present and observant if she is also writing down everything the participant is saying. For this reason, it is quite common for interviewers to create audio recordings of the interviews they conduct. Recording interviews allows the researcher to focus on the interaction with the interview participant.

Of course, not all participants will feel comfortable being recorded and sometimes even the interviewer may feel that the subject is so sensitive that recording would be inappropriate. If this is the case, it is up to the researcher to balance excellent note-taking with exceptional question-asking and even better listening.

Whether you will be recording your interviews or not (and especially if not), practicing the interview in advance is crucial. Ideally, you’ll find a friend or two willing to participate in a couple of trial runs with you. Even better, find a friend or two who are similar in at least some ways to your sample. They can give you the best feedback on your questions and your interview demeanor.

Another issue interviewers face is documenting the decisions made during the data collection process. Qualitative research is open to new ideas that emerge through the data collection process. For example, a participant might suggest a new concept you hadn’t thought of before or define a concept in a new way. This may lead you to create new questions or ask questions in a different way to future participants. These processes should be documented in a process called journaling or memoing. Journal entries are notes to yourself about reflections or methodological decisions that emerge during the data collection process. Documenting these are important, as you’d be surprised how quickly you can forget what happened. Journaling makes sure that when it comes time to analyze your data, you remember how, when, and why certain changes were made. The discipline of journaling in qualitative research helps to ensure the rigor of the research process—that is its trustworthiness and authenticity which we will discuss later in this chapter.

Strengths and weaknesses of qualitative interviews

As we’ve mentioned in this section, qualitative interviews are an excellent way to gather detailed information. Any topic can be explored in much more depth with interviews than with almost any other method. Not only are participants given the opportunity to elaborate in a way that is not possible with other methods such as survey research, but they also are able share information with researchers in their own words and from their own perspectives. Whereas, quantitative research asks participants to fit their perspectives into the limited response options provided by the researcher. And because qualitative interviews are designed to elicit detailed information, they are especially useful when a researcher’s aim is to study social processes or the “how” of various phenomena. Yet another, and sometimes overlooked, benefit of in-person qualitative interviews is that researchers can make observations beyond those that a respondent is orally reporting. A respondent’s body language, and even their choice of time and location for the interview, might provide a researcher with useful data.

Of course, all these benefits come with some drawbacks. As with quantitative survey research, qualitative interviews rely on respondents’ ability to accurately and honestly recall specific details about their lives, circumstances, thoughts, opinions, or behaviors. Further, as you may have already guessed, qualitative interviewing is time-intensive and can be quite expensive. Creating an interview guide, identifying a sample, and conducting interviews are just the beginning. Writing out what was said in interviews and analyzing the qualitative interview data are time consuming processes. Keep in mind you are also asking for more of participants’ time than if you’d simply mailed them a questionnaire containing closed-ended questions. Conducting qualitative interviews is not only labor-intensive but can also be emotionally taxing. Seeing and hearing the impact that social problems have on respondents is difficult. Researchers embarking on a qualitative interview project should keep in mind their own abilities to receive stories that may be difficult to hear.

Key Takeaways

Understanding how to design and conduct interview research is a useful skill to have.
In a social scientific interview, two or more people exchange information through a series of questions and answers.
Interview research is often used when detailed information is required and when a researcher wishes to examine processes.
In-depth interviews are semi-structured interviews where the researcher has topics and questions in mind to ask, but questions are open-ended and flow according to how the participant responds to each.
Interview guides can vary in format but should contain some outline of the topics you hope to cover during the course of an interview.
Qualitative interviews allow respondents to share information in their own words and are useful for gathering detailed information and understanding social processes.
Field notes and journaling are ways to document thoughts and decisions about the research process
Drawbacks of qualitative interviews include reliance on respondents’ accuracy and their intensity in terms of time, expense, and possible emotional strain.
Field notes- written notes produced by the researcher during the data collection process
In-depth interviews- interviews in which researchers hear from respondents about what they think is important about the topic at hand in the respondent’s own words
Interviews- a method of data collection that involves two or more people exchanging information through a series of questions and answers
Interview guide- a list of questions or topics that the interviewer hopes to cover during the course of an interview
Journaling- making notes of emerging issues and changes during the research process
Semi-structured interviews- questions are open ended and may not be asked in exactly the same way or in exactly the same order to each and every respondent

Image attributions

interview restaurant a pair by alda2 CC-0

questions by geralt CC-0

Figure 9.1 is copied from Blackstone, A. (2012) Principles of sociological inquiry: Qualitative and quantitative methods. Saylor Foundation. Retrieved from: https://saylordotorg.github.io/text_principles-of-sociological-inquiry-qualitative-and-quantitative-methods/ Shared under CC-BY-NC-SA 3.0 License

writing by StockSnap CC-0

Foundations of Social Work Research Copyright © 2020 by Rebecca L. Mauldin is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Qualitative Research 101: Interviewing

5 Common Mistakes To Avoid When Undertaking Interviews

By: David Phair (PhD) and Kerryn Warren (PhD) | March 2022

Undertaking interviews is potentially the most important step in the qualitative research process. If you don’t collect useful, useable data in your interviews, you’ll struggle through the rest of your dissertation or thesis. Having helped numerous students with their research over the years, we’ve noticed some common interviewing mistakes that first-time researchers make. In this post, we’ll discuss five costly interview-related mistakes and outline useful strategies to avoid making these.

Overview: 5 Interviewing Mistakes

Not having a clear interview strategy /plan
Not having good interview techniques /skills
Not securing a suitable location and equipment
Not having a basic risk management plan
Not keeping your “ golden thread ” front of mind

1. Not having a clear interview strategy

The first common mistake that we’ll look at is that of starting the interviewing process without having first come up with a clear interview strategy or plan of action. While it’s natural to be keen to get started engaging with your interviewees, a lack of planning can result in a mess of data and inconsistency between interviews.

There are several design choices to decide on and plan for before you start interviewing anyone. Some of the most important questions you need to ask yourself before conducting interviews include:

What are the guiding research aims and research questions of my study?
Will I use a structured, semi-structured or unstructured interview approach?
How will I record the interviews (audio or video)?
Who will be interviewed and by whom ?
What ethics and data law considerations do I need to adhere to?
How will I analyze my data?

Let’s take a quick look at some of these.

The core objective of the interviewing process is to generate useful data that will help you address your overall research aims. Therefore, your interviews need to be conducted in a way that directly links to your research aims, objectives and research questions (i.e. your “golden thread”). This means that you need to carefully consider the questions you’ll ask to ensure that they align with and feed into your golden thread. If any question doesn’t align with this, you may want to consider scrapping it.

Another important design choice is whether you’ll use an unstructured, semi-structured or structured interview approach . For semi-structured interviews, you will have a list of questions that you plan to ask and these questions will be open-ended in nature. You’ll also allow the discussion to digress from the core question set if something interesting comes up. This means that the type of information generated might differ a fair amount between interviews.

Contrasted to this, a structured approach to interviews is more rigid, where a specific set of closed questions is developed and asked for each interviewee in exactly the same order. Closed questions have a limited set of answers, that are often single-word answers. Therefore, you need to think about what you’re trying to achieve with your research project (i.e. your research aims) and decided on which approach would be best suited in your case.

It is also important to plan ahead with regards to who will be interviewed and how. You need to think about how you will approach the possible interviewees to get their cooperation, who will conduct the interviews, when to conduct the interviews and how to record the interviews. For each of these decisions, it’s also essential to make sure that all ethical considerations and data protection laws are taken into account.

Finally, you should think through how you plan to analyze the data (i.e., your qualitative analysis method) generated by the interviews. Different types of analysis rely on different types of data, so you need to ensure you’re asking the right types of questions and correctly guiding your respondents.

Simply put, you need to have a plan of action regarding the specifics of your interview approach before you start collecting data. If not, you’ll end up drifting in your approach from interview to interview, which will result in inconsistent, unusable data.

Your interview questions need to directly link to your research aims, objectives and research questions - your "golden thread”.

2. Not having good interview technique

While you’re generally not expected to become you to be an expert interviewer for a dissertation or thesis, it is important to practice good interview technique and develop basic interviewing skills .

Let’s go through some basics that will help the process along.

Firstly, before the interview , make sure you know your interview questions well and have a clear idea of what you want from the interview. Naturally, the specificity of your questions will depend on whether you’re taking a structured, semi-structured or unstructured approach, but you still need a consistent starting point . Ideally, you should develop an interview guide beforehand (more on this later) that details your core question and links these to the research aims, objectives and research questions.

Before you undertake any interviews, it’s a good idea to do a few mock interviews with friends or family members. This will help you get comfortable with the interviewer role, prepare for potentially unexpected answers and give you a good idea of how long the interview will take to conduct. In the interviewing process, you’re likely to encounter two kinds of challenging interviewees ; the two-word respondent and the respondent who meanders and babbles. Therefore, you should prepare yourself for both and come up with a plan to respond to each in a way that will allow the interview to continue productively.

To begin the formal interview , provide the person you are interviewing with an overview of your research. This will help to calm their nerves (and yours) and contextualize the interaction. Ultimately, you want the interviewee to feel comfortable and be willing to be open and honest with you, so it’s useful to start in a more casual, relaxed fashion and allow them to ask any questions they may have. From there, you can ease them into the rest of the questions.

As the interview progresses , avoid asking leading questions (i.e., questions that assume something about the interviewee or their response). Make sure that you speak clearly and slowly , using plain language and being ready to paraphrase questions if the person you are interviewing misunderstands. Be particularly careful with interviewing English second language speakers to ensure that you’re both on the same page.

Engage with the interviewee by listening to them carefully and acknowledging that you are listening to them by smiling or nodding. Show them that you’re interested in what they’re saying and thank them for their openness as appropriate. This will also encourage your interviewee to respond openly.

Need a helping hand?

3. Not securing a suitable location and quality equipment

Where you conduct your interviews and the equipment you use to record them both play an important role in how the process unfolds. Therefore, you need to think carefully about each of these variables before you start interviewing.

Poor location: A bad location can result in the quality of your interviews being compromised, interrupted, or cancelled. If you are conducting physical interviews, you’ll need a location that is quiet, safe, and welcoming . It’s very important that your location of choice is not prone to interruptions (the workplace office is generally problematic, for example) and has suitable facilities (such as water, a bathroom, and snacks).

If you are conducting online interviews , you need to consider a few other factors. Importantly, you need to make sure that both you and your respondent have access to a good, stable internet connection and electricity. Always check before the time that both of you know how to use the relevant software and it’s accessible (sometimes meeting platforms are blocked by workplace policies or firewalls). It’s also good to have alternatives in place (such as WhatsApp, Zoom, or Teams) to cater for these types of issues.

Poor equipment: Using poor-quality recording equipment or using equipment incorrectly means that you will have trouble transcribing, coding, and analyzing your interviews. This can be a major issue , as some of your interview data may go completely to waste if not recorded well. So, make sure that you use good-quality recording equipment and that you know how to use it correctly.

To avoid issues, you should always conduct test recordings before every interview to ensure that you can use the relevant equipment properly. It’s also a good idea to spot check each recording afterwards, just to make sure it was recorded as planned. If your equipment uses batteries, be sure to always carry a spare set.

Where you conduct your interviews and the equipment you use to record them play an important role in how the process unfolds.

4. Not having a basic risk management plan

Many possible issues can arise during the interview process. Not planning for these issues can mean that you are left with compromised data that might not be useful to you. Therefore, it’s important to map out some sort of risk management plan ahead of time, considering the potential risks, how you’ll minimize their probability and how you’ll manage them if they materialize.

Common potential issues related to the actual interview include cancellations (people pulling out), delays (such as getting stuck in traffic), language and accent differences (especially in the case of poor internet connections), issues with internet connections and power supply. Other issues can also occur in the interview itself. For example, the interviewee could drift off-topic, or you might encounter an interviewee who does not say much at all.

You can prepare for these potential issues by considering possible worst-case scenarios and preparing a response for each scenario. For instance, it is important to plan a backup date just in case your interviewee cannot make it to the first meeting you scheduled with them. It’s also a good idea to factor in a 30-minute gap between your interviews for the instances where someone might be late, or an interview runs overtime for other reasons. Make sure that you also plan backup questions that could be used to bring a respondent back on topic if they start rambling, or questions to encourage those who are saying too little.

In general, it’s best practice to plan to conduct more interviews than you think you need (this is called oversampling ). Doing so will allow you some room for error if there are interviews that don’t go as planned, or if some interviewees withdraw. If you need 10 interviews, it is a good idea to plan for 15. Likely, a few will cancel , delay, or not produce useful data.

You should consider all the potential risks, how you’ll reduce their probability and how you'll respond if they do indeed materialize.

5. Not keeping your golden thread front of mind

We touched on this a little earlier, but it is a key point that should be central to your entire research process. You don’t want to end up with pages and pages of data after conducting your interviews and realize that it is not useful to your research aims . Your research aims, objectives and research questions – i.e., your golden thread – should influence every design decision and should guide the interview process at all times.

A useful way to avoid this mistake is by developing an interview guide before you begin interviewing your respondents. An interview guide is a document that contains all of your questions with notes on how each of the interview questions is linked to the research question(s) of your study. You can also include your research aims and objectives here for a more comprehensive linkage.

You can easily create an interview guide by drawing up a table with one column containing your core interview questions . Then add another column with your research questions , another with expectations that you may have in light of the relevant literature and another with backup or follow-up questions . As mentioned, you can also bring in your research aims and objectives to help you connect them all together. If you’d like, you can download a copy of our free interview guide here .

Recap: Qualitative Interview Mistakes

In this post, we’ve discussed 5 common costly mistakes that are easy to make in the process of planning and conducting qualitative interviews.

To recap, these include:

If you have any questions about these interviewing mistakes, drop a comment below. Alternatively, if you’re interested in getting 1-on-1 help with your thesis or dissertation , check out our dissertation coaching service or book a free initial consultation with one of our friendly Grad Coaches.

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Chapter 11. Interviewing

Introduction.

Interviewing people is at the heart of qualitative research. It is not merely a way to collect data but an intrinsically rewarding activity—an interaction between two people that holds the potential for greater understanding and interpersonal development. Unlike many of our daily interactions with others that are fairly shallow and mundane, sitting down with a person for an hour or two and really listening to what they have to say is a profound and deep enterprise, one that can provide not only “data” for you, the interviewer, but also self-understanding and a feeling of being heard for the interviewee. I always approach interviewing with a deep appreciation for the opportunity it gives me to understand how other people experience the world. That said, there is not one kind of interview but many, and some of these are shallower than others. This chapter will provide you with an overview of interview techniques but with a special focus on the in-depth semistructured interview guide approach, which is the approach most widely used in social science research.

An interview can be variously defined as “a conversation with a purpose” ( Lune and Berg 2018 ) and an attempt to understand the world from the point of view of the person being interviewed: “to unfold the meaning of peoples’ experiences, to uncover their lived world prior to scientific explanations” ( Kvale 2007 ). It is a form of active listening in which the interviewer steers the conversation to subjects and topics of interest to their research but also manages to leave enough space for those interviewed to say surprising things. Achieving that balance is a tricky thing, which is why most practitioners believe interviewing is both an art and a science. In my experience as a teacher, there are some students who are “natural” interviewers (often they are introverts), but anyone can learn to conduct interviews, and everyone, even those of us who have been doing this for years, can improve their interviewing skills. This might be a good time to highlight the fact that the interview is a product between interviewer and interviewee and that this product is only as good as the rapport established between the two participants. Active listening is the key to establishing this necessary rapport.

Patton ( 2002 ) makes the argument that we use interviews because there are certain things that are not observable. In particular, “we cannot observe feelings, thoughts, and intentions. We cannot observe behaviors that took place at some previous point in time. We cannot observe situations that preclude the presence of an observer. We cannot observe how people have organized the world and the meanings they attach to what goes on in the world. We have to ask people questions about those things” ( 341 ).

Types of Interviews

There are several distinct types of interviews. Imagine a continuum (figure 11.1). On one side are unstructured conversations—the kind you have with your friends. No one is in control of those conversations, and what you talk about is often random—whatever pops into your head. There is no secret, underlying purpose to your talking—if anything, the purpose is to talk to and engage with each other, and the words you use and the things you talk about are a little beside the point. An unstructured interview is a little like this informal conversation, except that one of the parties to the conversation (you, the researcher) does have an underlying purpose, and that is to understand the other person. You are not friends speaking for no purpose, but it might feel just as unstructured to the “interviewee” in this scenario. That is one side of the continuum. On the other side are fully structured and standardized survey-type questions asked face-to-face. Here it is very clear who is asking the questions and who is answering them. This doesn’t feel like a conversation at all! A lot of people new to interviewing have this ( erroneously !) in mind when they think about interviews as data collection. Somewhere in the middle of these two extreme cases is the “ semistructured” interview , in which the researcher uses an “interview guide” to gently move the conversation to certain topics and issues. This is the primary form of interviewing for qualitative social scientists and will be what I refer to as interviewing for the rest of this chapter, unless otherwise specified.

Types of Interviewing Questions: Unstructured conversations, Semi-structured interview, Structured interview, Survey questions

Informal (unstructured conversations). This is the most “open-ended” approach to interviewing. It is particularly useful in conjunction with observational methods (see chapters 13 and 14). There are no predetermined questions. Each interview will be different. Imagine you are researching the Oregon Country Fair, an annual event in Veneta, Oregon, that includes live music, artisan craft booths, face painting, and a lot of people walking through forest paths. It’s unlikely that you will be able to get a person to sit down with you and talk intensely about a set of questions for an hour and a half. But you might be able to sidle up to several people and engage with them about their experiences at the fair. You might have a general interest in what attracts people to these events, so you could start a conversation by asking strangers why they are here or why they come back every year. That’s it. Then you have a conversation that may lead you anywhere. Maybe one person tells a long story about how their parents brought them here when they were a kid. A second person talks about how this is better than Burning Man. A third person shares their favorite traveling band. And yet another enthuses about the public library in the woods. During your conversations, you also talk about a lot of other things—the weather, the utilikilts for sale, the fact that a favorite food booth has disappeared. It’s all good. You may not be able to record these conversations. Instead, you might jot down notes on the spot and then, when you have the time, write down as much as you can remember about the conversations in long fieldnotes. Later, you will have to sit down with these fieldnotes and try to make sense of all the information (see chapters 18 and 19).

Interview guide ( semistructured interview ). This is the primary type employed by social science qualitative researchers. The researcher creates an “interview guide” in advance, which she uses in every interview. In theory, every person interviewed is asked the same questions. In practice, every person interviewed is asked mostly the same topics but not always the same questions, as the whole point of a “guide” is that it guides the direction of the conversation but does not command it. The guide is typically between five and ten questions or question areas, sometimes with suggested follow-ups or prompts . For example, one question might be “What was it like growing up in Eastern Oregon?” with prompts such as “Did you live in a rural area? What kind of high school did you attend?” to help the conversation develop. These interviews generally take place in a quiet place (not a busy walkway during a festival) and are recorded. The recordings are transcribed, and those transcriptions then become the “data” that is analyzed (see chapters 18 and 19). The conventional length of one of these types of interviews is between one hour and two hours, optimally ninety minutes. Less than one hour doesn’t allow for much development of questions and thoughts, and two hours (or more) is a lot of time to ask someone to sit still and answer questions. If you have a lot of ground to cover, and the person is willing, I highly recommend two separate interview sessions, with the second session being slightly shorter than the first (e.g., ninety minutes the first day, sixty minutes the second). There are lots of good reasons for this, but the most compelling one is that this allows you to listen to the first day’s recording and catch anything interesting you might have missed in the moment and so develop follow-up questions that can probe further. This also allows the person being interviewed to have some time to think about the issues raised in the interview and go a little deeper with their answers.

Standardized questionnaire with open responses ( structured interview ). This is the type of interview a lot of people have in mind when they hear “interview”: a researcher comes to your door with a clipboard and proceeds to ask you a series of questions. These questions are all the same whoever answers the door; they are “standardized.” Both the wording and the exact order are important, as people’s responses may vary depending on how and when a question is asked. These are qualitative only in that the questions allow for “open-ended responses”: people can say whatever they want rather than select from a predetermined menu of responses. For example, a survey I collaborated on included this open-ended response question: “How does class affect one’s career success in sociology?” Some of the answers were simply one word long (e.g., “debt”), and others were long statements with stories and personal anecdotes. It is possible to be surprised by the responses. Although it’s a stretch to call this kind of questioning a conversation, it does allow the person answering the question some degree of freedom in how they answer.

Survey questionnaire with closed responses (not an interview!). Standardized survey questions with specific answer options (e.g., closed responses) are not really interviews at all, and they do not generate qualitative data. For example, if we included five options for the question “How does class affect one’s career success in sociology?”—(1) debt, (2) social networks, (3) alienation, (4) family doesn’t understand, (5) type of grad program—we leave no room for surprises at all. Instead, we would most likely look at patterns around these responses, thinking quantitatively rather than qualitatively (e.g., using regression analysis techniques, we might find that working-class sociologists were twice as likely to bring up alienation). It can sometimes be confusing for new students because the very same survey can include both closed-ended and open-ended questions. The key is to think about how these will be analyzed and to what level surprises are possible. If your plan is to turn all responses into a number and make predictions about correlations and relationships, you are no longer conducting qualitative research. This is true even if you are conducting this survey face-to-face with a real live human. Closed-response questions are not conversations of any kind, purposeful or not.

In summary, the semistructured interview guide approach is the predominant form of interviewing for social science qualitative researchers because it allows a high degree of freedom of responses from those interviewed (thus allowing for novel discoveries) while still maintaining some connection to a research question area or topic of interest. The rest of the chapter assumes the employment of this form.

Creating an Interview Guide

Your interview guide is the instrument used to bridge your research question(s) and what the people you are interviewing want to tell you. Unlike a standardized questionnaire, the questions actually asked do not need to be exactly what you have written down in your guide. The guide is meant to create space for those you are interviewing to talk about the phenomenon of interest, but sometimes you are not even sure what that phenomenon is until you start asking questions. A priority in creating an interview guide is to ensure it offers space. One of the worst mistakes is to create questions that are so specific that the person answering them will not stray. Relatedly, questions that sound “academic” will shut down a lot of respondents. A good interview guide invites respondents to talk about what is important to them, not feel like they are performing or being evaluated by you.

Good interview questions should not sound like your “research question” at all. For example, let’s say your research question is “How do patriarchal assumptions influence men’s understanding of climate change and responses to climate change?” It would be worse than unhelpful to ask a respondent, “How do your assumptions about the role of men affect your understanding of climate change?” You need to unpack this into manageable nuggets that pull your respondent into the area of interest without leading him anywhere. You could start by asking him what he thinks about climate change in general. Or, even better, whether he has any concerns about heatwaves or increased tornadoes or polar icecaps melting. Once he starts talking about that, you can ask follow-up questions that bring in issues around gendered roles, perhaps asking if he is married (to a woman) and whether his wife shares his thoughts and, if not, how they negotiate that difference. The fact is, you won’t really know the right questions to ask until he starts talking.

There are several distinct types of questions that can be used in your interview guide, either as main questions or as follow-up probes. If you remember that the point is to leave space for the respondent, you will craft a much more effective interview guide! You will also want to think about the place of time in both the questions themselves (past, present, future orientations) and the sequencing of the questions.

Researcher Note

Suggestion : As you read the next three sections (types of questions, temporality, question sequence), have in mind a particular research question, and try to draft questions and sequence them in a way that opens space for a discussion that helps you answer your research question.

Type of Questions

Experience and behavior questions ask about what a respondent does regularly (their behavior) or has done (their experience). These are relatively easy questions for people to answer because they appear more “factual” and less subjective. This makes them good opening questions. For the study on climate change above, you might ask, “Have you ever experienced an unusual weather event? What happened?” Or “You said you work outside? What is a typical summer workday like for you? How do you protect yourself from the heat?”

Opinion and values questions , in contrast, ask questions that get inside the minds of those you are interviewing. “Do you think climate change is real? Who or what is responsible for it?” are two such questions. Note that you don’t have to literally ask, “What is your opinion of X?” but you can find a way to ask the specific question relevant to the conversation you are having. These questions are a bit trickier to ask because the answers you get may depend in part on how your respondent perceives you and whether they want to please you or not. We’ve talked a fair amount about being reflective. Here is another place where this comes into play. You need to be aware of the effect your presence might have on the answers you are receiving and adjust accordingly. If you are a woman who is perceived as liberal asking a man who identifies as conservative about climate change, there is a lot of subtext that can be going on in the interview. There is no one right way to resolve this, but you must at least be aware of it.

Feeling questions are questions that ask respondents to draw on their emotional responses. It’s pretty common for academic researchers to forget that we have bodies and emotions, but people’s understandings of the world often operate at this affective level, sometimes unconsciously or barely consciously. It is a good idea to include questions that leave space for respondents to remember, imagine, or relive emotional responses to particular phenomena. “What was it like when you heard your cousin’s house burned down in that wildfire?” doesn’t explicitly use any emotion words, but it allows your respondent to remember what was probably a pretty emotional day. And if they respond emotionally neutral, that is pretty interesting data too. Note that asking someone “How do you feel about X” is not always going to evoke an emotional response, as they might simply turn around and respond with “I think that…” It is better to craft a question that actually pushes the respondent into the affective category. This might be a specific follow-up to an experience and behavior question —for example, “You just told me about your daily routine during the summer heat. Do you worry it is going to get worse?” or “Have you ever been afraid it will be too hot to get your work accomplished?”

Knowledge questions ask respondents what they actually know about something factual. We have to be careful when we ask these types of questions so that respondents do not feel like we are evaluating them (which would shut them down), but, for example, it is helpful to know when you are having a conversation about climate change that your respondent does in fact know that unusual weather events have increased and that these have been attributed to climate change! Asking these questions can set the stage for deeper questions and can ensure that the conversation makes the same kind of sense to both participants. For example, a conversation about political polarization can be put back on track once you realize that the respondent doesn’t really have a clear understanding that there are two parties in the US. Instead of asking a series of questions about Republicans and Democrats, you might shift your questions to talk more generally about political disagreements (e.g., “people against abortion”). And sometimes what you do want to know is the level of knowledge about a particular program or event (e.g., “Are you aware you can discharge your student loans through the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program?”).

Sensory questions call on all senses of the respondent to capture deeper responses. These are particularly helpful in sparking memory. “Think back to your childhood in Eastern Oregon. Describe the smells, the sounds…” Or you could use these questions to help a person access the full experience of a setting they customarily inhabit: “When you walk through the doors to your office building, what do you see? Hear? Smell?” As with feeling questions , these questions often supplement experience and behavior questions . They are another way of allowing your respondent to report fully and deeply rather than remain on the surface.

Creative questions employ illustrative examples, suggested scenarios, or simulations to get respondents to think more deeply about an issue, topic, or experience. There are many options here. In The Trouble with Passion , Erin Cech ( 2021 ) provides a scenario in which “Joe” is trying to decide whether to stay at his decent but boring computer job or follow his passion by opening a restaurant. She asks respondents, “What should Joe do?” Their answers illuminate the attraction of “passion” in job selection. In my own work, I have used a news story about an upwardly mobile young man who no longer has time to see his mother and sisters to probe respondents’ feelings about the costs of social mobility. Jessi Streib and Betsy Leondar-Wright have used single-page cartoon “scenes” to elicit evaluations of potential racial discrimination, sexual harassment, and classism. Barbara Sutton ( 2010 ) has employed lists of words (“strong,” “mother,” “victim”) on notecards she fans out and asks her female respondents to select and discuss.

Background/Demographic Questions

You most definitely will want to know more about the person you are interviewing in terms of conventional demographic information, such as age, race, gender identity, occupation, and educational attainment. These are not questions that normally open up inquiry. [1] For this reason, my practice has been to include a separate “demographic questionnaire” sheet that I ask each respondent to fill out at the conclusion of the interview. Only include those aspects that are relevant to your study. For example, if you are not exploring religion or religious affiliation, do not include questions about a person’s religion on the demographic sheet. See the example provided at the end of this chapter.

Temporality

Any type of question can have a past, present, or future orientation. For example, if you are asking a behavior question about workplace routine, you might ask the respondent to talk about past work, present work, and ideal (future) work. Similarly, if you want to understand how people cope with natural disasters, you might ask your respondent how they felt then during the wildfire and now in retrospect and whether and to what extent they have concerns for future wildfire disasters. It’s a relatively simple suggestion—don’t forget to ask about past, present, and future—but it can have a big impact on the quality of the responses you receive.

Question Sequence

Having a list of good questions or good question areas is not enough to make a good interview guide. You will want to pay attention to the order in which you ask your questions. Even though any one respondent can derail this order (perhaps by jumping to answer a question you haven’t yet asked), a good advance plan is always helpful. When thinking about sequence, remember that your goal is to get your respondent to open up to you and to say things that might surprise you. To establish rapport, it is best to start with nonthreatening questions. Asking about the present is often the safest place to begin, followed by the past (they have to know you a little bit to get there), and lastly, the future (talking about hopes and fears requires the most rapport). To allow for surprises, it is best to move from very general questions to more particular questions only later in the interview. This ensures that respondents have the freedom to bring up the topics that are relevant to them rather than feel like they are constrained to answer you narrowly. For example, refrain from asking about particular emotions until these have come up previously—don’t lead with them. Often, your more particular questions will emerge only during the course of the interview, tailored to what is emerging in conversation.

Once you have a set of questions, read through them aloud and imagine you are being asked the same questions. Does the set of questions have a natural flow? Would you be willing to answer the very first question to a total stranger? Does your sequence establish facts and experiences before moving on to opinions and values? Did you include prefatory statements, where necessary; transitions; and other announcements? These can be as simple as “Hey, we talked a lot about your experiences as a barista while in college.… Now I am turning to something completely different: how you managed friendships in college.” That is an abrupt transition, but it has been softened by your acknowledgment of that.

Probes and Flexibility

Once you have the interview guide, you will also want to leave room for probes and follow-up questions. As in the sample probe included here, you can write out the obvious probes and follow-up questions in advance. You might not need them, as your respondent might anticipate them and include full responses to the original question. Or you might need to tailor them to how your respondent answered the question. Some common probes and follow-up questions include asking for more details (When did that happen? Who else was there?), asking for elaboration (Could you say more about that?), asking for clarification (Does that mean what I think it means or something else? I understand what you mean, but someone else reading the transcript might not), and asking for contrast or comparison (How did this experience compare with last year’s event?). “Probing is a skill that comes from knowing what to look for in the interview, listening carefully to what is being said and what is not said, and being sensitive to the feedback needs of the person being interviewed” ( Patton 2002:374 ). It takes work! And energy. I and many other interviewers I know report feeling emotionally and even physically drained after conducting an interview. You are tasked with active listening and rearranging your interview guide as needed on the fly. If you only ask the questions written down in your interview guide with no deviations, you are doing it wrong. [2]

The Final Question

Every interview guide should include a very open-ended final question that allows for the respondent to say whatever it is they have been dying to tell you but you’ve forgotten to ask. About half the time they are tired too and will tell you they have nothing else to say. But incredibly, some of the most honest and complete responses take place here, at the end of a long interview. You have to realize that the person being interviewed is often discovering things about themselves as they talk to you and that this process of discovery can lead to new insights for them. Making space at the end is therefore crucial. Be sure you convey that you actually do want them to tell you more, that the offer of “anything else?” is not read as an empty convention where the polite response is no. Here is where you can pull from that active listening and tailor the final question to the particular person. For example, “I’ve asked you a lot of questions about what it was like to live through that wildfire. I’m wondering if there is anything I’ve forgotten to ask, especially because I haven’t had that experience myself” is a much more inviting final question than “Great. Anything you want to add?” It’s also helpful to convey to the person that you have the time to listen to their full answer, even if the allotted time is at the end. After all, there are no more questions to ask, so the respondent knows exactly how much time is left. Do them the courtesy of listening to them!

Conducting the Interview

Once you have your interview guide, you are on your way to conducting your first interview. I always practice my interview guide with a friend or family member. I do this even when the questions don’t make perfect sense for them, as it still helps me realize which questions make no sense, are poorly worded (too academic), or don’t follow sequentially. I also practice the routine I will use for interviewing, which goes something like this:

Introduce myself and reintroduce the study
Provide consent form and ask them to sign and retain/return copy
Ask if they have any questions about the study before we begin
Ask if I can begin recording
Ask questions (from interview guide)
Turn off the recording device
Ask if they are willing to fill out my demographic questionnaire
Collect questionnaire and, without looking at the answers, place in same folder as signed consent form
Thank them and depart

A note on remote interviewing: Interviews have traditionally been conducted face-to-face in a private or quiet public setting. You don’t want a lot of background noise, as this will make transcriptions difficult. During the recent global pandemic, many interviewers, myself included, learned the benefits of interviewing remotely. Although face-to-face is still preferable for many reasons, Zoom interviewing is not a bad alternative, and it does allow more interviews across great distances. Zoom also includes automatic transcription, which significantly cuts down on the time it normally takes to convert our conversations into “data” to be analyzed. These automatic transcriptions are not perfect, however, and you will still need to listen to the recording and clarify and clean up the transcription. Nor do automatic transcriptions include notations of body language or change of tone, which you may want to include. When interviewing remotely, you will want to collect the consent form before you meet: ask them to read, sign, and return it as an email attachment. I think it is better to ask for the demographic questionnaire after the interview, but because some respondents may never return it then, it is probably best to ask for this at the same time as the consent form, in advance of the interview.

What should you bring to the interview? I would recommend bringing two copies of the consent form (one for you and one for the respondent), a demographic questionnaire, a manila folder in which to place the signed consent form and filled-out demographic questionnaire, a printed copy of your interview guide (I print with three-inch right margins so I can jot down notes on the page next to relevant questions), a pen, a recording device, and water.

After the interview, you will want to secure the signed consent form in a locked filing cabinet (if in print) or a password-protected folder on your computer. Using Excel or a similar program that allows tables/spreadsheets, create an identifying number for your interview that links to the consent form without using the name of your respondent. For example, let’s say that I conduct interviews with US politicians, and the first person I meet with is George W. Bush. I will assign the transcription the number “INT#001” and add it to the signed consent form. [3] The signed consent form goes into a locked filing cabinet, and I never use the name “George W. Bush” again. I take the information from the demographic sheet, open my Excel spreadsheet, and add the relevant information in separate columns for the row INT#001: White, male, Republican. When I interview Bill Clinton as my second interview, I include a second row: INT#002: White, male, Democrat. And so on. The only link to the actual name of the respondent and this information is the fact that the consent form (unavailable to anyone but me) has stamped on it the interview number.

Many students get very nervous before their first interview. Actually, many of us are always nervous before the interview! But do not worry—this is normal, and it does pass. Chances are, you will be pleasantly surprised at how comfortable it begins to feel. These “purposeful conversations” are often a delight for both participants. This is not to say that sometimes things go wrong. I often have my students practice several “bad scenarios” (e.g., a respondent that you cannot get to open up; a respondent who is too talkative and dominates the conversation, steering it away from the topics you are interested in; emotions that completely take over; or shocking disclosures you are ill-prepared to handle), but most of the time, things go quite well. Be prepared for the unexpected, but know that the reason interviews are so popular as a technique of data collection is that they are usually richly rewarding for both participants.

One thing that I stress to my methods students and remind myself about is that interviews are still conversations between people. If there’s something you might feel uncomfortable asking someone about in a “normal” conversation, you will likely also feel a bit of discomfort asking it in an interview. Maybe more importantly, your respondent may feel uncomfortable. Social research—especially about inequality—can be uncomfortable. And it’s easy to slip into an abstract, intellectualized, or removed perspective as an interviewer. This is one reason trying out interview questions is important. Another is that sometimes the question sounds good in your head but doesn’t work as well out loud in practice. I learned this the hard way when a respondent asked me how I would answer the question I had just posed, and I realized that not only did I not really know how I would answer it, but I also wasn’t quite as sure I knew what I was asking as I had thought.

—Elizabeth M. Lee, Associate Professor of Sociology at Saint Joseph’s University, author of Class and Campus Life , and co-author of Geographies of Campus Inequality

How Many Interviews?

Your research design has included a targeted number of interviews and a recruitment plan (see chapter 5). Follow your plan, but remember that “ saturation ” is your goal. You interview as many people as you can until you reach a point at which you are no longer surprised by what they tell you. This means not that no one after your first twenty interviews will have surprising, interesting stories to tell you but rather that the picture you are forming about the phenomenon of interest to you from a research perspective has come into focus, and none of the interviews are substantially refocusing that picture. That is when you should stop collecting interviews. Note that to know when you have reached this, you will need to read your transcripts as you go. More about this in chapters 18 and 19.

Your Final Product: The Ideal Interview Transcript

A good interview transcript will demonstrate a subtly controlled conversation by the skillful interviewer. In general, you want to see replies that are about one paragraph long, not short sentences and not running on for several pages. Although it is sometimes necessary to follow respondents down tangents, it is also often necessary to pull them back to the questions that form the basis of your research study. This is not really a free conversation, although it may feel like that to the person you are interviewing.

Final Tips from an Interview Master

Annette Lareau is arguably one of the masters of the trade. In Listening to People , she provides several guidelines for good interviews and then offers a detailed example of an interview gone wrong and how it could be addressed (please see the “Further Readings” at the end of this chapter). Here is an abbreviated version of her set of guidelines: (1) interview respondents who are experts on the subjects of most interest to you (as a corollary, don’t ask people about things they don’t know); (2) listen carefully and talk as little as possible; (3) keep in mind what you want to know and why you want to know it; (4) be a proactive interviewer (subtly guide the conversation); (5) assure respondents that there aren’t any right or wrong answers; (6) use the respondent’s own words to probe further (this both allows you to accurately identify what you heard and pushes the respondent to explain further); (7) reuse effective probes (don’t reinvent the wheel as you go—if repeating the words back works, do it again and again); (8) focus on learning the subjective meanings that events or experiences have for a respondent; (9) don’t be afraid to ask a question that draws on your own knowledge (unlike trial lawyers who are trained never to ask a question for which they don’t already know the answer, sometimes it’s worth it to ask risky questions based on your hypotheses or just plain hunches); (10) keep thinking while you are listening (so difficult…and important); (11) return to a theme raised by a respondent if you want further information; (12) be mindful of power inequalities (and never ever coerce a respondent to continue the interview if they want out); (13) take control with overly talkative respondents; (14) expect overly succinct responses, and develop strategies for probing further; (15) balance digging deep and moving on; (16) develop a plan to deflect questions (e.g., let them know you are happy to answer any questions at the end of the interview, but you don’t want to take time away from them now); and at the end, (17) check to see whether you have asked all your questions. You don’t always have to ask everyone the same set of questions, but if there is a big area you have forgotten to cover, now is the time to recover ( Lareau 2021:93–103 ).

Sample: Demographic Questionnaire

ASA Taskforce on First-Generation and Working-Class Persons in Sociology – Class Effects on Career Success

Supplementary Demographic Questionnaire

Thank you for your participation in this interview project. We would like to collect a few pieces of key demographic information from you to supplement our analyses. Your answers to these questions will be kept confidential and stored by ID number. All of your responses here are entirely voluntary!

What best captures your race/ethnicity? (please check any/all that apply)

White (Non Hispanic/Latina/o/x)
Black or African American
Hispanic, Latino/a/x of Spanish
Asian or Asian American
American Indian or Alaska Native
Middle Eastern or North African
Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander
Other : (Please write in: ________________)

What is your current position?

Grad Student
Full Professor

Please check any and all of the following that apply to you:

I identify as a working-class academic
I was the first in my family to graduate from college
I grew up poor

What best reflects your gender?

Transgender female/Transgender woman
Transgender male/Transgender man
Gender queer/ Gender nonconforming

Anything else you would like us to know about you?

Example: Interview Guide

In this example, follow-up prompts are italicized. Note the sequence of questions. That second question often elicits an entire life history , answering several later questions in advance.

Introduction Script/Question

Thank you for participating in our survey of ASA members who identify as first-generation or working-class. As you may have heard, ASA has sponsored a taskforce on first-generation and working-class persons in sociology and we are interested in hearing from those who so identify. Your participation in this interview will help advance our knowledge in this area.

The first thing we would like to as you is why you have volunteered to be part of this study? What does it mean to you be first-gen or working class? Why were you willing to be interviewed?
How did you decide to become a sociologist?
Can you tell me a little bit about where you grew up? ( prompts: what did your parent(s) do for a living? What kind of high school did you attend?)
Has this identity been salient to your experience? (how? How much?)
How welcoming was your grad program? Your first academic employer?
Why did you decide to pursue sociology at the graduate level?
Did you experience culture shock in college? In graduate school?
Has your FGWC status shaped how you’ve thought about where you went to school? debt? etc?
Were you mentored? How did this work (not work)? How might it?
What did you consider when deciding where to go to grad school? Where to apply for your first position?
What, to you, is a mark of career success? Have you achieved that success? What has helped or hindered your pursuit of success?
Do you think sociology, as a field, cares about prestige?
Let’s talk a little bit about intersectionality. How does being first-gen/working class work alongside other identities that are important to you?
What do your friends and family think about your career? Have you had any difficulty relating to family members or past friends since becoming highly educated?
Do you have any debt from college/grad school? Are you concerned about this? Could you explain more about how you paid for college/grad school? (here, include assistance from family, fellowships, scholarships, etc.)
(You’ve mentioned issues or obstacles you had because of your background.) What could have helped? Or, who or what did? Can you think of fortuitous moments in your career?
Do you have any regrets about the path you took?
Is there anything else you would like to add? Anything that the Taskforce should take note of, that we did not ask you about here?

How to develop an interview guide (Part 1)

How do researchers take a topic and formulate a “good” interview guide? In this blogpost, I provide some tips for how to develop interview questions that (hopefully!) will facilitate rich, guided conversations in which interview participants discuss the topics that researchers want to examine.

Considering the relationships between interviewers and interviewees

First, researchers need to identify the members of populations who can provide rich, descriptive accounts of the topic of exploration. Clearly, if interviews are going to be a primary method in an investigation, it will be important to identify people who (1) can provide in-depth descriptions about the topic; and (2) are willing to take the time to talk to a researcher about those topics. There is a rich body of methodological literature that examines the relationships between interviewers and interviewees, and discusses the challenges faced in interviews when people use talk to learn about a particular phenomenon. For example, interviews with children and adolescents are not always straightforward. Thus, adults wanting to examine children’s and adolescents’ experiences via interviews may have to develop specific strategies to facilitate conversations in meaningful ways (Eder & Fingerson, 2002; Freeman & Mathison, 2009; Irwin & Johnson, 2005; O’Reilly & Dogra, 2017). Consideration of the relationships between interviewers and interviewees will assist researchers to make informed decisions about the kinds of interview strategies that may be necessary to talk with a particular population. Since interviewers and interviewees bring a multitude of subject positions (e.g., race, class, gender, ethnicity, language, sexual orientation, age, education, professional status and so forth), interviewers may need to think about the kinds of interview format that will work best for a particular study.

Selecting an interview format

Second, methodological literature on qualitative interview abounds with a myriad of terminology to describe different interview forms, including unstructured and semi-structured interviews, in addition to theoretical conceptualizations of interviews, including phenomenological interviews (Seidman, 2012), ethnographic interviews (Heyl, 2001; Spradley, 1979), feminist interviews (DeVault & Gross, 2007), epistemic interviews (Brinkmann, 2007), postmodern interviewing (Denzin, 2001), and intraviews (Kuntz & Presnall, 2012). Then there are forms of interviewing that make use of other data sources such as photos (Cappello, 2005; Clark-Ibanez, 2004; Frith & Harcourt, 2007) or using drawing and other forms of elicitation (Bagnoli, 2009). I have discussed a variety of theorizations of interviews elsewhere (Roulston, 2010). Here, I focus on the specifics of formulating interview questions.

Developing interview questions

A semi-structured interview guide . I’ll begin with a “semi-structured” interview — in which an interviewer asks open questions of multiple participants in ways that allow participants to generate descriptions in their own words. Interviews are “semi-structured” in that the same topics are discussed with multiple interviewees, but the ways in which interviews unfold will differ. This is because the interviewer formulates follow-up questions based on what a participant has said. There are numerous resources to assist with the development of interview guides. One that I have found useful is that of Michael Patton (2015). Drawing from an earlier edition of this book, Patton lays out different kinds of questions that might be asked of interviewees. In Table 1, I have included examples of Patton’s question types.

Table 1: Examples of question types


Experiences and behaviors	Tell me how you came to be involved in learning music/taking music lessons. Describe a typical music lesson.
Opinions and values	Tell me what you see as the role of your teacher. What else do you think would be helpful?
Feelings	Tell me about the feelings you experience when you perform.
Knowledge	Tell me about how the Community Band is organized.
Sensory observations	Describe what you hear and see when you are performing in the ensemble.

Source: (Roulston, 2014, adapted from Patton, 2002)

Patton also suggests that questions might be formulated to generate accounts related to an interviewee’s past, current, and future. Let’s look at a worked-out example. If one were to generate questions to do with the topic of recreational reading, one could begin by brainstorming a list of potential topics and then interview questions that relate to each topic. In Table 2, I’ve begun by looking at the first two categories of question types (behaviors and values), and generated potential interview questions. It is also a useful step to write down what one hopes to learn from a question. This should also relate to the research questions, which I have not discussed here.

Table 2: Brainstorming potential interview topics and questions

Potential topics

What I want to learn

Potential interview questions

Types of recreational reading

What do people read for recreation?

Thinking back to when you were a child, what did you read for fun? [behaviors – past]

What kinds of things do you read for recreation currently? [behaviors -current]

When you take your next vacation, what kinds of things do you plan to read for leisure? [behaviors -future]

Value for recreational reading

Do people value their engagement in reading for recreation?

Thinking back to when you were a child, how important was reading for recreation? [values – past]

Thinking about the kinds of recreational reading you engage in now – how important is that for you? [values – current]

Imagine when you have retired from employment – how important do you think recreational reading will be to you? [values – future]

If one has a specific kind of interview in mind (e.g., a phenomenological or ethnographic interview), then the formulation of an interview guide will likely take a different path.

A phenomenological interview. For example, if a researcher were to use a phenomenological interview to examine the “experience of loss of a parent”, then one might only need a single question to prompt story-telling. For example,

Think back to when you experienced the loss of your mother, and tell me about what happened.

Ensuing questions would be formulated from what the participant has already said, for example:

You mentioned _____, tell me more about that.
What happened then?
Can you describe what that felt like?
Is there anything else you would like to share about losing your mother?

An ethnographic interview. In the same way, an interview guide taking an ethnographic approach would depend on what a researcher has observed and experience in ongoing fieldwork. That is, the development of interview questions in an ethnographic study is embedded within extended fieldwork in which the researcher develops an “ethnographic record” through observation and participation in the setting, before going on to ask questions in informal and formal settings. Spradley (1979) suggests a formal sequence for doing this kind of work through asking descriptive questions, and then later structural and contrast questions, although actual fieldwork is likely to take a much messier form than suggested by his linear 12-step developmental sequence. Some of Spradley’s suggestions for asking descriptive questions have provided question types that are commonly used in interviews that may not be ethnographic, for example:

Walk me through a typical day.
Tell me how you would typically go about doing X.

Tips for formulating questions

I conclude with a few often-cited tips for formulating interview questions.

Pose open, rather than closed questions.
Sequence interview questions from broad to narrow.
Avoid the inclusion of possible responses in questions.
Pose one question at a time.
Avoid posing multi-part questions.

There are numerous excellent resources that provide assistance to researchers developing an interview guide. For more information, see Kvale and Brinkmann (2009), Rubin and Rubin (2012) and Seidman (2012).

Best wishes with your interviews.

Kathy Roulston

Bagnoli, A. (2009). Beyond the standard interview: the use of graphic elicitation and arts-based methods. Qualitative Research, 9 (5), 547-570. doi:10.1177/1468794109343625

Brinkmann, S. (2007). Could interviews be epistemic? An alternative to qualitative opinion polling. Qualitative Inquiry, 13 (8), 1116-1138.

Cappello, M. (2005). Photo Interviews: Eliciting Data through Conversations with Children. Field Methods, 17 (2), 170-182.

Clark-Ibanez, M. (2004). Framing the Social World With Photo-Elicitation Interviews. AMERICAN BEHAVIORAL SCIENTIST., 47 , 1507-1527.

Denzin, N. K. (2001). The reflexive interview and a performative social science. Qualitative Research, 1 (1), 23-46. doi:10.1177/146879410100100102

DeVault, M. L., & Gross, G. (2007). Feminist interviewing: Experience, talk, and knowledge. In S. N. Hesse-Biber (Ed.), Handbook of feminist research: Theory and praxis (pp. 173-198). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Eder, D., & Fingerson, L. (2002). Interviewing children and adolescents. In J. Gubrium & J. A. Holstein (Eds.), Handbook of interview research: Context and method (pp. 181-201). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Freeman, M., & Mathison, S. (2009). Researching children’s experiences . New York & London: The Guilford Press.

Frith, H., & Harcourt, D. (2007). Using photographs to capture women’s experiences of chemotherapy: reflecting on the method. Qualitative Health Research, 17 (10), 1340-1350.

Heyl, B. S. (2001). Ethnographic interviewing. In P. Atkinson, A. Coffey, S. Delamont, J. Lofland, & L. Lofland (Eds.), Handbook of ethnography (pp. 369-383). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Irwin, L. G., & Johnson, J. (2005). Interviewing young children: Explicating our practices and dilemmas. Qualitative Health Research, 15 (6), 821-831. doi:10.1177/1049732304273862

Kuntz, A. M., & Presnall, M. M. (2012). Wandering the tactical: From interview to intraview. Qualitative Inquiry, 18 (9), 732-744. doi:10.1177/1077800412453016

Kvale, S., & Brinkmann, S. (2009). InterViews: Learning the craft of qualitative research interviewing (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage

O’Reilly, M., & Dogra, N. (2017). Interviewing children and young people for research . Los Angeles: Sage.

Patton, M. Q. (2015). Qualitative research and evaluation methods (4th ed.). Los Angeles: Sage.

Roulston, K. (2010). Reflective interviewing: A guide to theory and practice . London & Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage

Roulston, K. (2014). Conducting and analyzing individual interviews. In C. M. Conway (Ed.), The Oxford handbook of qualitative resarch in American music education (pp. 250-270). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Rubin, H. J., & Rubin, I. S. (2012). Qualitative interviewing: The art of hearing data (3rd ed.). Los Angeles: Sage.

Seidman, I. (2012). Interviewing as qualitative research: A guide for researchers in education and the social sciences (4th ed.). New York: Teachers College.

Spradley, J. P. (1979). The ethnographic interview . Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.

Published by qualpage

Kathy Roulston is a professor in the Qualitative Research program in the Department of Lifelong Education, Administration and Policy at the University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA. She teaches qualitative research methods, and has written on qualitative interviewing. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9429-2694 Kathryn J. Roulston on ResearchGate My books include: Interviewing: A guide to theory and practice, see: https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/interviewing/book272521 Interactional studies of qualitative interviews. See: https://benjamins.com/catalog/z.220 View all posts by qualpage

6 thoughts on “ How to develop an interview guide (Part 1) ”

I would like to say you thank you for such an amazing blog on books. Keep it up and thank you.

Thanks for letting me know, and glad to hear that it is helpful to you.

Am very grateful for the learning I have gotten going through this blog

I’m glad that is helpful to you!

Thank You very much for beautifully summarizing all the details related to interview guide. Bless you

I’m glad this is helpful for you! Thanks for letting me know, Kathy

Creating Qualitative Interview Protocols

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How to conduct qualitative interviews (tips and best practices)

Last updated

18 May 2023

Reviewed by

Miroslav Damyanov

However, conducting qualitative interviews can be challenging, even for seasoned researchers. Poorly conducted interviews can lead to inaccurate or incomplete data, significantly compromising the validity and reliability of your research findings.

When planning to conduct qualitative interviews, you must adequately prepare yourself to get the most out of your data. Fortunately, there are specific tips and best practices that can help you conduct qualitative interviews effectively.

What is a qualitative interview?

A qualitative interview is a research technique used to gather in-depth information about people's experiences, attitudes, beliefs, and perceptions. Unlike a structured questionnaire or survey, a qualitative interview is a flexible, conversational approach that allows the interviewer to delve into the interviewee's responses and explore their insights and experiences.

In a qualitative interview, the researcher typically develops a set of open-ended questions that provide a framework for the conversation. However, the interviewer can also adapt to the interviewee's responses and ask follow-up questions to understand their experiences and views better.

How to conduct interviews in qualitative research

Conducting interviews involves a well-planned and deliberate process to collect accurate and valid data.

Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to conduct interviews in qualitative research, broken down into three stages:

1. Before the interview

The first step in conducting a qualitative interview is determining your research question . This will help you identify the type of participants you need to recruit . Once you have your research question, you can start recruiting participants by identifying potential candidates and contacting them to gauge their interest in participating in the study.

After that, it's time to develop your interview questions. These should be open-ended questions that will elicit detailed responses from participants. You'll also need to get consent from the participants, ideally in writing, to ensure that they understand the purpose of the study and their rights as participants. Finally, choose a comfortable and private location to conduct the interview and prepare the interview guide.

2. During the interview

Start by introducing yourself and explaining the purpose of the study. Establish a rapport by putting the participants at ease and making them feel comfortable. Use the interview guide to ask the questions, but be flexible and ask follow-up questions to gain more insight into the participants' responses.

Take notes during the interview, and ask permission to record the interview for transcription purposes. Be mindful of the time, and cover all the questions in the interview guide.

3. After the interview

Once the interview is over, transcribe the interview if you recorded it. If you took notes, review and organize them to make sure you capture all the important information. Then, analyze the data you collected by identifying common themes and patterns. Use the findings to answer your research question.

Finally, debrief with the participants to thank them for their time, provide feedback on the study, and answer any questions they may have.

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What kinds of questions should you ask in a qualitative interview?

Qualitative interviews involve asking questions that encourage participants to share their experiences, opinions, and perspectives on a particular topic. These questions are designed to elicit detailed and nuanced responses rather than simple yes or no answers.

Effective questions in a qualitative interview are generally open-ended and non-leading. They avoid presuppositions or assumptions about the participant's experience and allow them to share their views in their own words.

In customer research , you might ask questions such as:

What motivated you to choose our product/service over our competitors?

How did you first learn about our product/service?

Can you walk me through your experience with our product/service?

What improvements or changes would you suggest for our product/service?

Have you recommended our product/service to others, and if so, why?

The key is to ask questions relevant to the research topic and allow participants to share their experiences meaningfully and informally.

How to determine the right qualitative interview participants

Choosing the right participants for a qualitative interview is a crucial step in ensuring the success and validity of the research . You need to consider several factors to determine the right participants for a qualitative interview. These may include:

Relevant experiences : Participants should have experiences related to the research topic that can provide valuable insights.

Diversity : Aim to include diverse participants to ensure the study's findings are representative and inclusive.

Access : Identify participants who are accessible and willing to participate in the study.

Informed consent : Participants should be fully informed about the study's purpose, methods, and potential risks and benefits and be allowed to provide informed consent.

You can use various recruitment methods, such as posting ads in relevant forums, contacting community organizations or social media groups, or using purposive sampling to identify participants who meet specific criteria.

How to make qualitative interview subjects comfortable

Making participants comfortable during a qualitative interview is essential to obtain rich, detailed data. Participants are more likely to share their experiences openly when they feel at ease and not judged.

Here are some ways to make interview subjects comfortable:

Explain the purpose of the study

Start the interview by explaining the research topic and its importance. The goal is to give participants a sense of what to expect.

Create a comfortable environment

Conduct the interview in a quiet, private space where the participant feels comfortable. Turn off any unnecessary electronics that can create distractions. Ensure your equipment works well ahead of time. Arrive at the interview on time. If you conduct a remote interview, turn on your camera and mute all notetakers and observers.

Build rapport

Greet the participant warmly and introduce yourself. Show interest in their responses and thank them for their time.

Use open-ended questions

Ask questions that encourage participants to elaborate on their thoughts and experiences.

Listen attentively

Resist the urge to multitask . Pay attention to the participant's responses, nod your head, or make supportive comments to show you’re interested in their answers. Avoid interrupting them.

Avoid judgment

Show respect and don't judge the participant's views or experiences. Allow the participant to speak freely without feeling judged or ridiculed.

Offer breaks

If needed, offer breaks during the interview, especially if the topic is sensitive or emotional.

Creating a comfortable environment and establishing rapport with the participant fosters an atmosphere of trust and encourages open communication. This helps participants feel at ease and willing to share their experiences.

How to analyze a qualitative interview

Analyzing a qualitative interview involves a systematic process of examining the data collected to identify patterns, themes, and meanings that emerge from the responses.

Here are some steps on how to analyze a qualitative interview:

1. Transcription

The first step is transcribing the interview into text format to have a written record of the conversation. This step is essential to ensure that you can refer back to the interview data and identify the important aspects of the interview.

2. Data reduction

Once you’ve transcribed the interview, read through it to identify key themes, patterns, and phrases emerging from the data. This process involves reducing the data into more manageable pieces you can easily analyze.

The next step is to code the data by labeling sections of the text with descriptive words or phrases that reflect the data's content. Coding helps identify key themes and patterns from the interview data.

4. Categorization

After coding, you should group the codes into categories based on their similarities. This process helps to identify overarching themes or sub-themes that emerge from the data.

5. Interpretation

You should then interpret the themes and sub-themes by identifying relationships, contradictions, and meanings that emerge from the data. Interpretation involves analyzing the themes in the context of the research question .

6. Comparison

The next step is comparing the data across participants or groups to identify similarities and differences. This step helps to ensure that the findings aren’t just specific to one participant but can be generalized to the wider population.

7. Triangulation

To ensure the findings are valid and reliable, you should use triangulation by comparing the findings with other sources, such as observations or interview data.

8. Synthesis

The final step is synthesizing the findings by summarizing the key themes and presenting them clearly and concisely. This step involves writing a report that presents the findings in a way that is easy to understand, using quotes and examples from the interview data to illustrate the themes.

Tips for transcribing a qualitative interview

Transcribing a qualitative interview is a crucial step in the research process. It involves converting the audio or video recording of the interview into written text.

Here are some tips for transcribing a qualitative interview:

Use transcription software

Transcription software can save time and increase accuracy by automatically transcribing audio or video recordings.

Listen carefully

When manually transcribing, listen carefully to the recording to ensure clarity. Pause and rewind the recording as necessary.

Use appropriate formatting

Use a consistent format for transcribing, such as marking pauses, overlaps, and interruptions. Indicate non-verbal cues such as laughter, sighs, or changes in tone.

Edit for clarity

Edit the transcription to ensure clarity and readability. Use standard grammar and punctuation, correct misspellings, and remove filler words like "um" and "ah."

Proofread and edit

Verify the accuracy of the transcription by listening to the recording again and reviewing the notes taken during the interview.

Use timestamps

Add timestamps to the transcription to reference specific interview sections.

Transcribing a qualitative interview can be time-consuming, but it’s essential to ensure the accuracy of the data collected. Following these tips can produce high-quality transcriptions useful for analysis and reporting.

Why are interview techniques in qualitative research effective?

Unlike quantitative research methods, which rely on numerical data, qualitative research seeks to understand the richness and complexity of human experiences and perspectives.

Interview techniques involve asking open-ended questions that allow participants to express their views and share their stories in their own words. This approach can help researchers to uncover unexpected or surprising insights that may not have been discovered through other research methods.

Interview techniques also allow researchers to establish rapport with participants, creating a comfortable and safe space for them to share their experiences. This can lead to a deeper level of trust and candor, leading to more honest and authentic responses.

What are the weaknesses of qualitative interviews?

Qualitative interviews are an excellent research approach when used properly, but they have their drawbacks.

The weaknesses of qualitative interviews include the following:

Subjectivity and personal biases

Qualitative interviews rely on the researcher's interpretation of the interviewee's responses. The researcher's biases or preconceptions can affect how the questions are framed and how the responses are interpreted, which can influence results.

Small sample size

The sample size in qualitative interviews is often small, which can limit the generalizability of the results to the larger population.

Data quality

The quality of data collected during interviews can be affected by various factors, such as the interviewee's mood, the setting of the interview, and the interviewer's skills and experience.

Socially desirable responses

Interviewees may provide responses that they believe are socially acceptable rather than truthful or genuine.

Conducting qualitative interviews can be expensive, especially if the researcher must travel to different locations to conduct the interviews.

Time-consuming

The data analysis process can be time-consuming and labor-intensive, as researchers need to transcribe and analyze the data manually.

Despite these weaknesses, qualitative interviews remain a valuable research tool . You can take steps to mitigate the impact of these weaknesses by incorporating the perspectives of other researchers or participants in the analysis process, using multiple data sources , and critically analyzing your biases and assumptions.

Mastering the art of qualitative interviews is an essential skill for businesses looking to gain deep insights into their customers' needs , preferences, and behaviors. By following the tips and best practices outlined in this article, you can conduct interviews that provide you with rich data that you can use to make informed decisions about your products, services, and marketing strategies.

Remember that effective communication, active listening, and proper analysis are critical components of successful qualitative interviews. By incorporating these practices into your customer research, you can gain a competitive edge and build stronger customer relationships.

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Chapter 13: Interviews

Danielle Berkovic

Learning outcomes

Upon completion of this chapter, you should be able to:

Understand when to use interviews in qualitative research.
Develop interview questions for an interview guide.
Understand how to conduct an interview.

What are interviews?

An interviewing method is the most commonly used data collection technique in qualitative research. 1 The purpose of an interview is to explore the experiences, understandings, opinions and motivations of research participants. 2 Interviews are conducted one-on-one with the researcher and the participant. Interviews are most appropriate when seeking to understand a participant’s subjective view of an experience and are also considered suitable for the exploration of sensitive topics.

What are the different types of interviews?

There are four main types of interviews:

Key stakeholder: A key stakeholder interview aims to explore one issue in detail with a person of interest or importance concerning the research topic. 3 Key stakeholder interviews seek the views of experts on some cultural, political or health aspects of the community, beyond their personal beliefs or actions. An example of a key stakeholder is the Chief Health Officer of Victoria (Australia’s second-most populous state) who oversaw the world’s longest lockdowns in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Dyad: A dyad interview aims to explore one issue in a level of detail with a dyad (two people). This form of interviewing is used when one participant of the dyad may need some support or is not wholly able to articulate themselves (e.g. people with cognitive impairment, or children). Independence is acknowledged and the interview is analysed as a unit. 4
Narrative: A narrative interview helps individuals tell their stories, and prioritises their own perspectives and experiences using the language that they prefer. 5 This type of interview has been widely used in social research but is gaining prominence in health research to better understand person-centred care, for example, negotiating exercise and food abstinence whilst living with Type 2 diabetes. 6,7
Life history: A life history interview allows the researcher to explore a person’s individual and subjective experiences within a history of the time framework. 8 Life history interviews challenge the researcher to understand how people’s current attitudes, behaviours and choices are influenced by previous experiences or trauma. Life history interviews have been conducted with Holocaust survivors 9 and youth who have been forcibly recruited to war. 10

Table 13.4 provides a summary of four studies, each adopting one of these types of interviews.

Interviewing techniques

There are two main interview techniques:

Semi-structured: Semi-structured interviewing aims to explore a few issues in moderate detail, to expand the researcher’s knowledge at some level. 11 Semi-structured interviews give the researcher the advantage of remaining reasonably objective while enabling participants to share their perspectives and opinions. The researcher should create an interview guide with targeted open questions to direct the interview. As examples, semi-structured interviews have been used to extend knowledge of why women might gain excess weight during pregnancy, 12 and to update guidelines for statin uptake. 13
In-depth: In-depth interviewing aims to explore a person’s subjective experiences and feelings about a particular topic. 14 In-depth interviews are often used to explore emotive (e.g. end-of-life care) 15 and complex (e.g. adolescent pregnancy) topics. 16 The researcher should create an interview guide with selected open questions to ask of the participant, but the participant should guide the direction of the interview more than in a semi-structured setting. In-depth interviews value participants’ lived experiences and are frequently used in phenomenology studies (as described in Chapter 6) .

When to use the different types of interview s

The type of interview a researcher uses should be determined by the study design, the research aims and objectives, and participant demographics. For example, if conducting a descriptive study, semi-structured interviews may be the best method of data collection. As explained in Chapter 5 , descriptive studies seek to describe phenomena, rather than to explain or interpret the data. A semi-structured interview, which seeks to expand upon some level of existing knowledge, will likely best facilitate this.

Similarly, if conducting a phenomenological study, in-depth interviews may be the best method of data collection. As described in Chapter 6 , the key concept of phenomenology is the individual. The emphasis is on the lived experience of that individual and the person’s sense-making of those experiences. Therefore, an in-depth interview is likely best placed to elicit that rich data.

While some interview types are better suited to certain study designs, there are no restrictions on the type of interview that may be used. For example, semi-structured interviews provide an excellent accompaniment to trial participation (see Chapter 11 about mixed methods), and key stakeholder interviews, as part of an action research study, can be used to define priorities, barriers and enablers to implementation.

How do I write my interview questions?

An interview aims to explore the experiences, understandings, opinions and motivations of research participants. The general rule is that the interviewee should speak for 80 per cent of the interview, and the interviewer should only be asking questions and clarifying responses, for about 20 per cent of the interview. This percentage may differ depending on the interview type; for example, a semi-structured interview involves the researcher asking more questions than in an in-depth interview. Still, to facilitate free-flowing responses, it is important to use open-ended language to encourage participants to be expansive in their responses. Examples of open-ended terms include questions that start with ‘who’, ‘how’ and ‘where’.

The researcher should avoid closed-ended questions that can be answered with yes or no, and limit conversation. For example, asking a participant ‘Did you have this experience?’ can elicit a simple ‘yes’, whereas asking them to ‘Describe your experience’, will likely encourage a narrative response. Table 13.1 provides examples of terminology to include and avoid in developing interview questions.

Table 13.1. Interview question formats to use and avoid

Use	Avoid
Tell me about…	Do you think that…
What happened when…	Will you do this…
Why is this important?	Did you believe that…
How did you feel when… How do you…	Were there issues from your perspective…
What are the… What does...

How long should my interview be?

There is no rule about how long an interview should take. Different types of interviews will likely run for different periods of time, but this also depends on the research question/s and the type of participant. For example, given that a semi-structured interview is seeking to expand on some previous knowledge, the interview may need no longer than 30 minutes, or up to one hour. An in-depth interview seeks to explore a topic in a greater level of detail and therefore, at a minimum, would be expected to last an hour. A dyad interview may be as short as 15 minutes (e.g. if the dyad is a person with dementia and a family member or caregiver) or longer, depending on the pairing.

Designing your interview guide

To figure out what questions to ask in an interview guide, the researcher may consult the literature, speak to experts (including people with lived experience) about the research and draw on their current knowledge. The topics and questions should be mapped to the research question/s, and the interview guide should be developed well in advance of commencing data collection. This enables time and opportunity to pilot-test the interview guide. The pilot interview provides an opportunity to explore the language and clarity of questions, the order and flow of the guide and to determine whether the instructions are clear to participants both before and after the interview. It can be beneficial to pilot-test the interview guide with someone who is not familiar with the research topic, to make sure that the language used is easily understood (and will be by participants, too). The study design should be used to determine the number of questions asked and the duration of the interview should guide the extent of the interview guide. The participant type may also determine the extent of the interview guide; for example, clinicians tend to be time-poor and therefore shorter, focused interviews are optimal. An interview guide is also likely to be shorter for a descriptive study than a phenomenological or ethnographic study, given the level of detail required. Chapter 5 outlined a descriptive study in which participants who had undergone percutaneous coronary intervention were interviewed. The interview guide consisted of four main questions and subsequent probing questions, linked to the research questions (see Table 13.2). 17

Table 13.2. Interview guide for a descriptive study

Research question	Open questions	Probing questions and topics
How does the patient feel, physically and psychologically, after their procedure?	From your perspective, what would be considered a successful outcome of the procedure?	Did the procedure meet your expectations? How do you define whether the procedure was successful?
How did you feel after the procedure?	How did you feel one week after the procedure and how does that compare with how you feel now?
How does the patient function after their procedure?	After your procedure, tell me about your ability to do your daily activities?	Prompt for activities including gardening, housework, personal care, work-related and family-related tasks. Did you attend cardiac rehabilitation? Can you tell us about your experience of cardiac rehabilitation? What effect has medication had on your recovery?
What are the long-term effects of the procedure?	What, if any, lifestyle changes have you made since your procedure?

Table 13.3 is an example of a larger and more detailed interview guide, designed for the qualitative component of a mixed-methods study aiming to examine the work and financial effects of living with arthritis as a younger person. The questions are mapped to the World Health Organization’s International Classification of Functioning, Disability, and Health, which measures health and disability at individual and population levels. 18

Table 13.3. Detailed interview guide

Research questions	Open questions	Probing questions
How do young people experience their arthritis diagnosis?	Tell me about your experience of being diagnosed with arthritis. How did being diagnosed with arthritis make you feel? Tell me about your experience of arthritis flare ups what do they feel like? What impacts arthritis flare ups or feeling like your arthritis is worse? What circumstances lead to these feelings? Based on your experience, what do you think causes symptoms of arthritis to become worse?	When were you diagnosed with arthritis? What type of arthritis were you diagnosed with? Does anyone else in your family have arthritis? What relation are they to you?
What are the work impacts of arthritis on younger people?	What is your field of work, and how long have you been in this role? How frequently do you work (full-time/part-time/casual)?	How has arthritis affected your work-related demands or career? How so? Has arthritis led you to reconsider your career? How so? Has arthritis affected your usual working hours each week? How so? How have changes to work or career because of your arthritis impacted other areas of life, i.e. mental health or family role?
What are the financial impacts of living with arthritis as a younger person?	Has your arthritis led to any financial concerns?	Financial concerns pertaining to: • Direct costs: rheumatologist, prescribed and non-prescribed medications (as well as supplements), allied health costs (rheumatology, physiotherapy, chiropractic, osteopathy, myotherapy), Pilates, and gym/personal trainer fees, complementary therapies. • Indirect costs: workplace absenteeism, productivity, loss of wages, informal care, cost of different types of insurance: health insurance (joint replacements)

It is important to create an interview guide, for the following reasons:

The researcher should be familiar with their research questions.
Using an interview guide will enable the incorporation of feedback from the piloting process.
It is difficult to predict how participants will respond to interview questions. They may answer in a way that is anticipated or they may provide unanticipated insights that warrant follow-up. An interview guide (a physical or digital copy) enables the researcher to note these answers and follow-up with appropriate inquiry.
Participants will likely have provided heterogeneous answers to certain questions. The interview guide enables the researcher to note similarities and differences across various interviews, which may be important in data analysis.
Even experienced qualitative researchers get nervous before an interview! The interview guide provides a safety net if the researcher forgets their questions or needs to anticipate the next question.

Setting up the interview

In the past, most interviews were conducted in person or by telephone. Emerging technologies promote easier access to research participation (e.g. by people living in rural or remote communities, or for people with mobility limitations). Even in metropolitan settings, many interviews are now conducted electronically (e.g. using videoconferencing platforms). Regardless of your interview setting, it is essential that the interview environment is comfortable for the participant. This process can begin as soon as potential participants express interest in your research. Following are some tips from the literature and our own experiences of leading interviews:

Answer questions and set clear expectations . Participating in research is not an everyday task. People do not necessarily know what to expect during a research interview, and this can be daunting. Give people as much information as possible, answer their questions about the research and set clear expectations about what the interview will entail and how long it is expected to last. Let them know that the interview will be recorded for transcription and analysis purposes. Consider sending the interview questions a few days before the interview. This gives people time and space to reflect on their experiences, consider their responses to questions and to provide informed consent for their participation.
Consider your setting . If conducting the interview in person, consider the location and room in which the interview will be held. For example, if in a participant’s home, be mindful of their private space. Ask if you should remove your shoes before entering their home. If they offer refreshments (which in our experience many participants do), accept it with gratitude if possible. These considerations apply beyond the participant’s home; if using a room in an office setting, consider privacy and confidentiality, accessibility and potential for disruption. Consider the temperature as well as the furniture in the room, who may be able to overhear conversations and who may walk past. Similarly, if interviewing by phone or online, take time to assess the space, and if in a house or office that is not quiet or private, use headphones as needed.
Build rapport. The research topic may be important to participants from a professional perspective, or they may have deep emotional connections to the topic of interest. Regardless of the nature of the interview, it is important to remember that participants are being asked to open up to an interviewer who is likely to be a stranger. Spend some time with participants before the interview, to make sure that they are comfortable. Engage in some general conversation, and ask if they have any questions before you start. Remember that it is not a normal part of someone’s day to participate in research. Make it an enjoyable and/or meaningful experience for them, and it will enhance the data that you collect.
Let participants guide you. Oftentimes, the ways in which researchers and participants describe the same phenomena are different. In the interview, reflect the participant’s language. Make sure they feel heard and that they are willing and comfortable to speak openly about their experiences. For example, our research involves talking to older adults about their experience of falls. We noticed early in this research that participants did not use the word ‘fall’ but would rather use terms such as ‘trip’, ‘went over’ and ‘stumbled’. As interviewers we adopted the participant’s language into our questions.
Listen consistently and express interest. An interview is more complex than a simple question-and-answer format. The best interview data comes from participants feeling comfortable and confident to share their stories. By the time you are completing the 20th interview, it can be difficult to maintain the same level of concentration as with the first interview. Try to stay engaged: nod along with your participants, maintain eye contact, murmur in agreement and sympathise where warranted.
The interviewer is both the data collector and the data collection instrument. The data received is only as good as the questions asked. In qualitative research, the researcher influences how participants answer questions. It is important to remain reflexive and aware of how your language, body language and attitude might influence the interview. Being rested and prepared will enhance the quality of the questions asked and hence the data collected.
Avoid excessive use of ‘why’. It can be challenging for participants to recall why they felt a certain way or acted in a particular manner. Try to avoid asking ‘why’ questions too often, and instead adopt some of the open language described earlier in the chapter.

After your interview

When you have completed your interview, thank the participant and let them know they can contact you if they have any questions or follow-up information they would like to provide. If the interview has covered sensitive topics or the participant has become distressed throughout the interview, make sure that appropriate referrals and follow-up are provided (see section 6).

Download the recording from your device and make sure it is saved in a secure location that can only be accessed by people on the approved research team (see Chapters 35 and 36).

It is important to know what to do immediately after each interview is completed. Interviews should be transcribed – that is, reproduced verbatim for data analysis. Transcribing data is an important step in the process of analysis, but it is very time-consuming; transcribing a 60-minute interview can take up to 8 hours. Data analysis is discussed in Section 4.

Table 13.4. Examples of the four types of interviews

Title
CC Licence
First author and year	Cuthbertson, 2019	Bannon, 2021	McGranahan, 2020	Gutierrez-Garcia, 2021
Interview type	Key stakeholder	Dyad	Narrative	Life history
Interview guide	Appendix A	eAppendix Supplement	Not provided, but the text states that ‘qualitative semi-structured narrative interviews’ were conducted.’ [methods]	Not provided, but the text states that ‘an open and semi-structured question guide was designed for use.' [methods]
Study design	Convergent mixed-methods study	Qualitative dyadic study	Narrative interview study	Life history and lifeline techniques
Number of participants	30 Key stakeholders were emergency management or disaster healthcare practitioners, academics specialising in disaster management in the Oceania region, and policy managers.	23 dyads	28	7
Aim	‘To investigate threats to the health and well-being of societies associated with disaster impact in Oceania.’ [abstract]	‘To explore the lived experiences of couples managing young-onset dementia using an integrated dyadic coping model.’[abstract]	‘To explore the experiences and views of people with psychotic experiences who have not received any treatment or other support from mental health services for the past 5 years.’ [abstract]	‘To analyse the use of life histories and lifelines in the study of female genital mutilation in the context of cross-cultural research in participants with different languages.’ [abstract]
Country	Australia, Fiji, Indonesia, Aotearoa New Zealand, Timor Leste and Tonga	United States	England	Spain
Length of interview	45–60 minutes	60 minutes	40-120 minutes	3 sessions Session 1: life history interview Session 2: Lifeline activity where participants used drawings to complement or enhance their interview Session 3: The researchers and participants worked together to finalise the lifeline. The life history interviews ran for 40 – 60 minutes. The timing for sessions 2 and 3 is not provided.
Sample of interview questions from interview guide	1. What do you believe are the top five disaster risks or threats in the Oceania region today? 2. What disaster risks do you believe are emerging in the Oceania region over the next decade? 3. Why do you think these are risks? 4. What are the drivers of these risks? 5. Do you have any suggestions on how we can improve disaster risk assessment? 6. Are the current disaster risk plans and practices suited to the future disaster risks? If not, why? If not, what do you think needs to be done to improve them? 7. What are the key areas of disaster practice that can enhance future community resilience to disaster risk? 8. What are the barriers or inhibitors to facilitating this practice? 9. What are the solutions or facilitators to enhancing community resilience? [Appendix A]	1. We like to start by learning more about what you each first noticed that prompted the evaluations you went through to get to the diagnosis. • Can you each tell me about the earliest symptoms you noticed? 2. What are the most noticeable or troubling symptoms that you have experienced since the time of diagnosis? • How have your changes in functioning impacted you? • Emotionally, how do you feel about your symptoms and the changes in functioning you are experiencing? 3. Are you open with your friends and family about the diagnosis? • Have you experienced any stigma related to your diagnosis? 4. What is your understanding of the diagnosis? • What is your understanding about the how this condition will affect you both in the future? How are you getting information about this diagnosis? [eAppendix Supplement]	Not provided.	Not provided.
Analysis	Thematic analysis guided by The Hazard and Peril Glossary for describing and categorising disasters applied by the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters Emergency Events Database	Thematic analysis guided by the Dyadic Coping Theoretical Framework	Inductive thematic analysis outlined by Braun and Clarke.	Phenomenological method proposed by Giorgi (sense of the whole): 1. Reading the entire description to obtain a general sense of the discourse 2. The researcher goes back to the beginning and reads the text again, with the aim of distinguishing the meaning units by separating the perspective of the phenomenon of interest 3. The researcher expresses the contents of the units of meaning more clearly by creating categories 4. The researcher synthesises the units and categories of meaning into a consistent statement that takes into account the participant’s experience and language.
Main themes	1. Climate change is observed as a contemporary and emerging disaster risk 2. Risk is contextual to the different countries, communities and individuals in Oceania. 3. Human development trajectories and their impact, along with perceptions of a changing world, are viewed as drivers of current and emerging risks. 4. Current disaster risk plans and practices are not suited to future disaster risks. 5. Increased education and education of risk and risk assessment at a local level to empower community risk ownership. [Results, Box 1]	1. Stress communication 2. Positive individual dyadic coping 3. Positive conjoint dyadic coping 4. Negative individual dyadic coping 5. Negative conjoint dyadic coping [Abstract]	1. Perceiving psychosis as positive 2. Making sense of psychotic experiences 3. Finding sources of strength 4. Negative past experiences of mental health services 5. Positive past experiences with individual clinicians [Abstract]	1. Important moments and their relationship with female genital mutilation 2. The ritual knife: how sharp or blunt it is at different stages, where and how women are subsequently held as a result 3. Changing relationships with family: how being subject to female genital mutilation changed relationships with mothers 4. Female genital mutilation increases the risk of future childbirth complications which change relationships with family and healthcare systems 5. Managing experiences with early exposure to physical and sexual violence across the lifespan.

Interviews are the most common data collection technique in qualitative research. There are four main types of interviews; the one you choose will depend on your research question, aims and objectives. It is important to formulate open-ended interview questions that are understandable and easy for participants to answer. Key considerations in setting up the interview will enhance the quality of the data obtained and the experience of the interview for the participant and the researcher.

Gill P, Stewart K, Treasure E, Chadwick B. Methods of data collection in qualitative research: interviews and focus groups. Br Dent J . 2008;204(6):291-295. doi:10.1038/bdj.2008.192
DeJonckheere M, Vaughn LM. Semistructured interviewing in primary care research: a balance of relationship and rigour. Fam Med Community Health . 2019;7(2):e000057. doi:10.1136/fmch-2018-000057
Nyanchoka L, Tudur-Smith C, Porcher R, Hren D. Key stakeholders’ perspectives and experiences with defining, identifying and displaying gaps in health research: a qualitative study. BMJ Open . 2020;10(11):e039932. doi:10.1136/bmjopen-2020-039932
Morgan DL, Ataie J, Carder P, Hoffman K. Introducing dyadic interviews as a method for collecting qualitative data. Qual Health Res . 2013;23(9):1276-84. doi:10.1177/1049732313501889
Picchi S, Bonapitacola C, Borghi E, et al. The narrative interview in therapeutic education. The diabetic patients’ point of view. Acta Biomed . Jul 18 2018;89(6-S):43-50. doi:10.23750/abm.v89i6-S.7488
Stuij M, Elling A, Abma T. Negotiating exercise as medicine: Narratives from people with type 2 diabetes. Health (London) . 2021;25(1):86-102. doi:10.1177/1363459319851545
Buchmann M, Wermeling M, Lucius-Hoene G, Himmel W. Experiences of food abstinence in patients with type 2 diabetes: a qualitative study. BMJ Open . 2016;6(1):e008907. doi:10.1136/bmjopen-2015-008907
Jessee E. The Life History Interview. Handbook of Research Methods in Health Social Sciences . 2018:1-17:Chapter 80-1.
Sheftel A, Zembrzycki S. Only Human: A Reflection on the Ethical and Methodological Challenges of Working with “Difficult” Stories. The Oral History Review . 2019;37(2):191-214. doi:10.1093/ohr/ohq050
Harnisch H, Montgomery E. “What kept me going”: A qualitative study of avoidant responses to war-related adversity and perpetration of violence by former forcibly recruited children and youth in the Acholi region of northern Uganda. Soc Sci Med . 2017;188:100-108. doi:10.1016/j.socscimed.2017.07.007
Ruslin., Mashuri S, Rasak MSA, Alhabsyi M, Alhabsyi F, Syam H. Semi-structured Interview: A Methodological Reflection on the Development of a Qualitative Research Instrument in Educational Studies. IOSR-JRME . 2022;12(1):22-29. doi:10.9790/7388-1201052229
Chang T, Llanes M, Gold KJ, Fetters MD. Perspectives about and approaches to weight gain in pregnancy: a qualitative study of physicians and nurse midwives. BMC Pregnancy & Childbirth . 2013;13(47)doi:10.1186/1471-2393-13-47
DeJonckheere M, Robinson CH, Evans L, et al. Designing for Clinical Change: Creating an Intervention to Implement New Statin Guidelines in a Primary Care Clinic. JMIR Hum Factors . 2018;5(2):e19. doi:10.2196/humanfactors.9030
Knott E, Rao AH, Summers K, Teeger C. Interviews in the social sciences. Nature Reviews Methods Primers . 2022;2(1)doi:10.1038/s43586-022-00150-6
Bergenholtz H, Missel M, Timm H. Talking about death and dying in a hospital setting – a qualitative study of the wishes for end-of-life conversations from the perspective of patients and spouses. BMC Palliat Care . 2020;19(1):168. doi:10.1186/s12904-020-00675-1
Olorunsaiye CZ, Degge HM, Ubanyi TO, Achema TA, Yaya S. “It’s like being involved in a car crash”: teen pregnancy narratives of adolescents and young adults in Jos, Nigeria. Int Health . 2022;14(6):562-571. doi:10.1093/inthealth/ihab069
Ayton DR, Barker AL, Peeters G, et al. Exploring patient-reported outcomes following percutaneous coronary intervention: A qualitative study. Health Expect . 2018;21(2):457-465. doi:10.1111/hex.12636
World Health Organization. International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF). WHO. https://www.who.int/standards/classifications/international-classification-of-functioning-disability-and-health#:~:text=ICF%20is%20the%20WHO%20framework,and%20measure%20health%20and%20disability.
Cuthbertson J, Rodriguez-Llanes JM, Robertson A, Archer F. Current and Emerging Disaster Risks Perceptions in Oceania: Key Stakeholders Recommendations for Disaster Management and Resilience Building. Int J Environ Res Public Health . 2019;16(3)doi:10.3390/ijerph16030460
Bannon SM, Grunberg VA, Reichman M, et al. Thematic Analysis of Dyadic Coping in Couples With Young-Onset Dementia. JAMA Netw Open . 2021;4(4):e216111. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2021.6111
McGranahan R, Jakaite Z, Edwards A, Rennick-Egglestone S, Slade M, Priebe S. Living with Psychosis without Mental Health Services: A Narrative Interview Study. BMJ Open . 2021;11(7):e045661. doi:10.1136/bmjopen-2020-045661
Gutiérrez-García AI, Solano-Ruíz C, Siles-González J, Perpiñá-Galvañ J. Life Histories and Lifelines: A Methodological Symbiosis for the Study of Female Genital Mutilation. Int J Qual Methods . 2021;20doi:10.1177/16094069211040969

Qualitative Research – a practical guide for health and social care researchers and practitioners Copyright © 2023 by Danielle Berkovic is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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How to carry out great interviews in qualitative research.

11 min read An interview is one of the most versatile methods used in qualitative research. Here’s what you need to know about conducting great qualitative interviews.

What is a qualitative research interview?

Qualitative research interviews are a mainstay among q ualitative research techniques, and have been in use for decades either as a primary data collection method or as an adjunct to a wider research process. A qualitative research interview is a one-to-one data collection session between a researcher and a participant. Interviews may be carried out face-to-face, over the phone or via video call using a service like Skype or Zoom.

There are three main types of qualitative research interview – structured, unstructured or semi-structured.

Structured interviews Structured interviews are based around a schedule of predetermined questions and talking points that the researcher has developed. At their most rigid, structured interviews may have a precise wording and question order, meaning that they can be replicated across many different interviewers and participants with relatively consistent results.
Unstructured interviews Unstructured interviews have no predetermined format, although that doesn’t mean they’re ad hoc or unplanned. An unstructured interview may outwardly resemble a normal conversation, but the interviewer will in fact be working carefully to make sure the right topics are addressed during the interaction while putting the participant at ease with a natural manner.
Semi-structured interviews Semi-structured interviews are the most common type of qualitative research interview, combining the informality and rapport of an unstructured interview with the consistency and replicability of a structured interview. The researcher will come prepared with questions and topics, but will not need to stick to precise wording. This blended approach can work well for in-depth interviews.

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What are the pros and cons of interviews in qualitative research?

As a qualitative research method interviewing is hard to beat, with applications in social research, market research, and even basic and clinical pharmacy. But like any aspect of the research process, it’s not without its limitations. Before choosing qualitative interviewing as your research method, it’s worth weighing up the pros and cons.

Pros of qualitative interviews:

provide in-depth information and context
can be used effectively when their are low numbers of participants
provide an opportunity to discuss and explain questions
useful for complex topics
rich in data – in the case of in-person or video interviews , the researcher can observe body language and facial expression as well as the answers to questions

Cons of qualitative interviews:

can be time-consuming to carry out
costly when compared to some other research methods
because of time and cost constraints, they often limit you to a small number of participants
difficult to standardize your data across different researchers and participants unless the interviews are very tightly structured
As the Open University of Hong Kong notes, qualitative interviews may take an emotional toll on interviewers

Qualitative interview guides

Semi-structured interviews are based on a qualitative interview guide, which acts as a road map for the researcher. While conducting interviews, the researcher can use the interview guide to help them stay focused on their research questions and make sure they cover all the topics they intend to.

An interview guide may include a list of questions written out in full, or it may be a set of bullet points grouped around particular topics. It can prompt the interviewer to dig deeper and ask probing questions during the interview if appropriate.

Consider writing out the project’s research question at the top of your interview guide, ahead of the interview questions. This may help you steer the interview in the right direction if it threatens to head off on a tangent.

Avoid bias in qualitative research interviews

According to Duke University , bias can create significant problems in your qualitative interview.

Acquiescence bias is common to many qualitative methods, including focus groups. It occurs when the participant feels obliged to say what they think the researcher wants to hear. This can be especially problematic when there is a perceived power imbalance between participant and interviewer. To counteract this, Duke University’s experts recommend emphasizing the participant’s expertise in the subject being discussed, and the value of their contributions.
Interviewer bias is when the interviewer’s own feelings about the topic come to light through hand gestures, facial expressions or turns of phrase. Duke’s recommendation is to stick to scripted phrases where this is an issue, and to make sure researchers become very familiar with the interview guide or script before conducting interviews, so that they can hone their delivery.

What kinds of questions should you ask in a qualitative interview?

The interview questions you ask need to be carefully considered both before and during the data collection process. As well as considering the topics you’ll cover, you will need to think carefully about the way you ask questions.

Open-ended interview questions – which cannot be answered with a ‘yes’ ‘no’ or ‘maybe’ – are recommended by many researchers as a way to pursue in depth information.

An example of an open-ended question is “What made you want to move to the East Coast?” This will prompt the participant to consider different factors and select at least one. Having thought about it carefully, they may give you more detailed information about their reasoning.

A closed-ended question , such as “Would you recommend your neighborhood to a friend?” can be answered without too much deliberation, and without giving much information about personal thoughts, opinions and feelings.

Follow-up questions can be used to delve deeper into the research topic and to get more detail from open-ended questions. Examples of follow-up questions include:

What makes you say that?
What do you mean by that?
Can you tell me more about X?
What did/does that mean to you?

As well as avoiding closed-ended questions, be wary of leading questions. As with other qualitative research techniques such as surveys or focus groups, these can introduce bias in your data. Leading questions presume a certain point of view shared by the interviewer and participant, and may even suggest a foregone conclusion.

An example of a leading question might be: “You moved to New York in 1990, didn’t you?” In answering the question, the participant is much more likely to agree than disagree. This may be down to acquiescence bias or a belief that the interviewer has checked the information and already knows the correct answer.

Other leading questions involve adjectival phrases or other wording that introduces negative or positive connotations about a particular topic. An example of this kind of leading question is: “Many employees dislike wearing masks to work. How do you feel about this?” It presumes a positive opinion and the participant may be swayed by it, or not want to contradict the interviewer.

Harvard University’s guidelines for qualitative interview research add that you shouldn’t be afraid to ask embarrassing questions – “if you don’t ask, they won’t tell.” Bear in mind though that too much probing around sensitive topics may cause the interview participant to withdraw. The Harvard guidelines recommend leaving sensitive questions til the later stages of the interview when a rapport has been established.

More tips for conducting qualitative interviews

Observing a participant’s body language can give you important data about their thoughts and feelings. It can also help you decide when to broach a topic, and whether to use a follow-up question or return to the subject later in the interview.

Be conscious that the participant may regard you as the expert, not themselves. In order to make sure they express their opinions openly, use active listening skills like verbal encouragement and paraphrasing and clarifying their meaning to show how much you value what they are saying.

Remember that part of the goal is to leave the interview participant feeling good about volunteering their time and their thought process to your research. Aim to make them feel empowered , respected and heard.

Unstructured interviews can demand a lot of a researcher, both cognitively and emotionally. Be sure to leave time in between in-depth interviews when scheduling your data collection to make sure you maintain the quality of your data, as well as your own well-being .

Recording and transcribing interviews

Historically, recording qualitative research interviews and then transcribing the conversation manually would have represented a significant part of the cost and time involved in research projects that collect qualitative data.

Fortunately, researchers now have access to digital recording tools, and even speech-to-text technology that can automatically transcribe interview data using AI and machine learning. This type of tool can also be used to capture qualitative data from qualitative research (focus groups,ect.) making this kind of social research or market research much less time consuming.

Data analysis

Qualitative interview data is unstructured, rich in content and difficult to analyze without the appropriate tools. Fortunately, machine learning and AI can once again make things faster and easier when you use qualitative methods like the research interview.

Text analysis tools and natural language processing software can ‘read’ your transcripts and voice data and identify patterns and trends across large volumes of text or speech. They can also perform khttps://www.qualtrics.com/experience-management/research/sentiment-analysis/

which assesses overall trends in opinion and provides an unbiased overall summary of how participants are feeling.

Another feature of text analysis tools is their ability to categorize information by topic, sorting it into groupings that help you organize your data according to the topic discussed.

All in all, interviews are a valuable technique for qualitative research in business, yielding rich and detailed unstructured data. Historically, they have only been limited by the human capacity to interpret and communicate results and conclusions, which demands considerable time and skill.

When you combine this data with AI tools that can interpret it quickly and automatically, it becomes easy to analyze and structure, dovetailing perfectly with your other business data. An additional benefit of natural language analysis tools is that they are free of subjective biases, and can replicate the same approach across as much data as you choose. By combining human research skills with machine analysis, qualitative research methods such as interviews are more valuable than ever to your business.

Related resources

Market intelligence 10 min read, marketing insights 11 min read, ethnographic research 11 min read, qualitative vs quantitative research 13 min read, qualitative research questions 11 min read, qualitative research design 12 min read, primary vs secondary research 14 min read, request demo.

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Interviews as a Method for Qualitative Research (video) This short video summarizes why interviews can serve as useful data in qualitative research.
InterViews by Steinar Kvale Interviewing is an essential tool in qualitative research and this introduction to interviewing outlines both the theoretical underpinnings and the practical aspects of the process. After examining the role of the interview in the research process, Steinar Kvale considers some of the key philosophical issues relating to interviewing: the interview as conversation, hermeneutics, phenomenology, concerns about ethics as well as validity, and postmodernism. Having established this framework, the author then analyzes the seven stages of the interview process - from designing a study to writing it up.
Practical Evaluation by Michael Quinn Patton Surveys different interviewing strategies, from, a) informal/conversational, to b) interview guide approach, to c) standardized and open-ended, to d) closed/quantitative. Also discusses strategies for wording questions that are open-ended, clear, sensitive, and neutral, while supporting the speaker. Provides suggestions for probing and maintaining control of the interview process, as well as suggestions for recording and transcription.
The SAGE Handbook of Interview Research by Amir B. Marvasti (Editor); James A. Holstein (Editor); Jaber F. Gubrium (Editor); Karyn D. McKinney (Editor) The new edition of this landmark volume emphasizes the dynamic, interactional, and reflexive dimensions of the research interview. Contributors highlight the myriad dimensions of complexity that are emerging as researchers increasingly frame the interview as a communicative opportunity as much as a data-gathering format. The book begins with the history and conceptual transformations of the interview, which is followed by chapters that discuss the main components of interview practice. Taken together, the contributions to The SAGE Handbook of Interview Research: The Complexity of the Craft encourage readers simultaneously to learn the frameworks and technologies of interviewing and to reflect on the epistemological foundations of the interview craft.
International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry They host an annual confrerence at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, which aims to facilitate the development of qualitative research methods across a wide variety of academic disciplines, among other initiatives.
METHODSPACE An online home of the research methods community, where practicing researchers share how to make research easier.
Social Research Association, UK The SRA is the membership organisation for social researchers in the UK and beyond. It supports researchers via training, guidance, publications, research ethics, events, branches, and careers.
Social Science Research Council The SSRC administers fellowships and research grants that support the innovation and evaluation of new policy solutions. They convene researchers and stakeholders to share evidence-based policy solutions and incubate new research agendas, produce online knowledge platforms and technical reports that catalog research-based policy solutions, and support mentoring programs that broaden problem-solving research opportunities.
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Introduction to Research Methods

6 qualitative research and interviews.

So we’ve described doing a survey and collecting quantitative data. But not all questions can best be answered by a survey. A survey is great for understanding what people think (for example), but not why they think what they do. If your research is intending to understand the underlying motivations or reasons behind peoples actions, or to build a deeper understanding on the background of a subject, an interview may be the more appropriate data collection method.

Interviews are a method of data collection that consist of two or more people exchanging information through a structured process of questions and answers. Questions are designed by the researcher to thoughtfully collect in-depth information on a topic or set of topics as related to the central research question. Interviews typically occur in-person, although good interviews can also be conducted remotely via the phone or video conferencing. Unlike surveys, interviews give the opportunity to ask follow-up questions and thoughtfully engage with participants on the spot (rather than the anonymous and impartial format of survey research).

And surveys can be used in qualitative or quantitative research – though they’re more typically a qualitative technique. In-depth interviews , containing open-ended questions and structured by an interview guide . One can also do a standardized interview with closed-ended questions (i.e. answer options) that are structured by an interview schedule as part of quantitative research. While these are called interviews they’re far closer to surveys, so we wont cover them again in this chapter. The terms used for in-depth interviews we’ll cover in the next section.

6.1 Interviews

In-depth interviews allow participants to describe experiences in their own words (a primary strength of the interview format). Strong in-depth interviews will include many open-ended questions that allow participants to respond in their own words, share new ideas, and lead the conversation in different directions. The purpose of open-ended questions and in-depth interviews is to hear as much as possible in the person’s own voice, to collect new information and ideas, and to achieve a level of depth not possible in surveys or most other forms of data collection.

Typically, an interview guide is used to create a soft structure for the conversation and is an important preparation tool for the researcher. You can not go into an interview unprepared and just “wing it”; what the interview guide allows you to do is map out a framework, order of topics, and may include specific questions to use during the interview. Generally, the interview guide is thought of as just that — a guide to use in order to keep the interview focused. It is not set in stone and a skilled researcher can change the order of questions or topics in an interviews based on the organic conversation flow.

Depending on the experience and skill level of the researcher, an interview guide can be as simple as a list of topics to cover. However, for consistency and quality of research, the interviewer may want to take the time to at least practice writing out questions in advance to ensure that phrasing and word choices are as clear, objective, and focused as possible. It’s worth remembering that working out the wording of questions in advance allows researchers to ensure more consistency across interview. The interview guide below, taken from the wonderful and free textbook Principles of Sociological Inquiry , shows an interview guide that just has topics.

Alternatively, you can use a more detailed guide that lists out possible questions, as shown below. A more detailed guide is probably better for an interviewer that has less experience, or is just beginning to work on a given topic.

The purpose of an interview guide is to help ask effective questions and to support the process of acquiring the best possible data for your research. Topics and questions should be organized thematically, and in a natural progression that will allow the conversation to flow and deepen throughout the course of the interview. Often, researchers will attempt to memorize or partially memorize the interview guide, in order to be more fully present with the participant during the conversation.

6.2 Asking good Questions

Remember, the purposes of interviews is to go more in-depth with an individual than is possible with a generalized survey. For this reason, it is important to use the guide as a starting point but not to be overly tethered to it during the actual interview process. You may get stuck when respondents give you shorter answers than you expect, or don’t provide the type of depth that you need for your research. Often, you may want to probe for more specifics. Think about using follow up questions like “How does/did that affect you?” or “How does X make you feel?” and “Tell me about a time where X…”

For example, if I was researching the relationship between pets and mental health, some strong open-ended questions might be: * How does your pet typically make you feel when you wake up in the morning? * How does your pet generally affect your mood when you arrive home in the evening? * Tell me about a time when your pet had a significant impact on your emotional state.

Questions framed in this manner leave plenty of room for the respondent to answer in their own words, as opposed to leading and/or truncated questions, such as: * Does being with your pet make you happy? * After a bad day, how much does seeing your pet improve your mood? * Tell me about how important your pet is to your mental health.

These questions assume outcomes and will not result in high quality research. Researchers should always avoid asking leading questions that give away an expected answer or suggest particular responses. For instance, if I ask “we need to spend more on public schools, don’t you think?” the respondent is more likely to agree regardless of their own thoughts. Some wont, but humans generally have a strong natural desire to be agreeable. That’s why leaving your questions neutral and open so that respondents can speak to their experiences and views is critical.

6.3 Analyzing Interview Data

Writing good questions and interviewing respondents are just the first steps of the interview process. After these stages, the researcher still has a lot of work to do to collect usable data from the interview. The researcher must spend time coding and analyzing the interview to retrieve this data. Just doing an interview wont produce data. Think about how many conversations you have everyday, and none of those are leaving you swimming in data.

Hopefully you can record your interviews. Recording your interviews will allow you the opportunity to transcribe them word for word later. If you can’t record the interview you’ll need to take detailed notes so that you can reconstruct what you heard later. Do not trust yourself to “just remember” the conversation. You’re collecting data, precious data that you’re spending time and energy to collect. Treat it as important and valuable. Remember our description of the methodology section from Chapter 2, you need to maintain a chain of custody on your data. If you just remembered the interview, you could be accused of making up the results. Your interview notes and the recording become part of that chain of custody to prove to others that your interviews were real and that your results are accurate.

Assuming you recorded your interview, the first step in the analysis process is transcribing the interview. A transcription is a written record of every word in an interview. Transcriptions can either be completed by the researcher or by a hired worker, though it is good practice for the researcher to transcribe the interview him or herself. Researchers should keep the following points in mind regarding transcriptions: * The interview should take place in a quiet location with minimal background noise to produce a clear recording; * Transcribing interviews is a time-consuming process and may take two to three times longer than the actual interview; * Transcriptions provide a more precise record of the interview than hand written notes and allow the interviewer to focus during the interview.

After transcribing the interview, the next step is to analyze the responses. Coding is the main form of analysis used for interviews and involves studying a transcription to identify important themes. These themes are categorized into codes, which are words or phrases that denote an idea.

You’ll typically being with several codes in mind that are generated by key ideas you week seeking in the questions, but you can also being by using open coding to understand the results. An open coding process involves reading through the transcript multiple times and paying close attention to each line of the text to discover noteworthy concepts. During the open coding process, the researcher keeps an open mind to find any codes that may be relevant to the research topic.

After the open coding process is complete, focused coding can begin. Focused coding takes a closer look at the notes compiled during the open coding stage to merge common codes and define what the codes mean in the context of the research project.

Imagine a researcher is conducting interviews to learn about various people’s experiences of childhood in New Orleans. The following example shows several codes that this researcher extrapolated from an interview with one of their subjects.

6.4 Using interview data

The next chapter will address ways to identify people to interview, but most of the remainder of the book will address how to analyze quantitative data. That shouldn’t be taken as a sign that quantitative data is better, or that it’s easier to use interview data. Because in an interview the researcher must interpret the words of others it is often more challenging to identify your findings and clearly answer your research question. However, quantitative data is more common, and there are more different things you can do with it, so we spend a lot of the textbook focusing on it.

I’ll work through one more example of using interview data though. It takes a lot of practice to be a good and skilled interviewer. What I show below is a brief excerpt of an interview I did, and how that data was used in a resulting paper I wrote. These aren’t the only way you can use interview data, but it’s an example of what the intermediary and final product might look like.

The overall project these are drawn from was concerned with minor league baseball stadiums, but the specific part I’m pulling from here was studying the decline and rejuvenation of downtown around those stadiums in several cities. You’ll see that I’m using the words of the respondent fairly directly, because that’s my data. But I’m not just relying on one respondent and trusting them, I did a few dozen interviews in order to understand the commonalities in people’s perspectives to build a narrative around my research question.

Excerpt from Notes

Excerpt from Resulting Paper

How many interviews are necessary? It actually doesn’t take many. What you want to observe in your interviews is theoretical saturation , where the codes you use in the transcript begin to appear across conversations and groups. If different people disagree that’s fine, but what you want to understand is the commonalities across peoples perspectives. Most research on the subject says that with 8 interviews you’ll typically start to see a decline in new information gathered. That doesn’t mean you won’t get new words , but you’ll stop hearing completely unique perspectives or gain novel insights. At that point, where you’ve ‘heard it all before’ you can stop, because you’ve probably identified the answer to the questions you were trying to research.

6.5 Ensuring Anonymity

One significant ethical concern with interviews, that also applies to surveys, is making sure that respondents maintain anonymity. In either form of data collection you may be asking respondents deeply personal questions, that if exposed may cause legal, personal, or professional harm. Notice that in the excerpt of the paper above the respondents are only identified by an id I assigned (Louisville D) and their career, rather than their name. I can only include the excerpt of the interview notes above because there are no details that might lead to them being identified.

You may want to report details about a person to contextualize the data you gathered, but you should always ensure that no one can be identified from your research. For instance, if you were doing research on racism at large companies, you may want to preface people’s comments by their race, as there is a good chance that white and minority employees would feel differently about the issues. However, if you preface someones comments by saying they’re a minority manager, that may violate their anonymity. Even if you don’t state what company you did interviews with, that may be enough detail for their co-workers to identify them if there are few minority managers at the company. As such, always think long and hard about whether there is any way that the participation of respondents may be exposed.

6.6 Why not both?

We’ve discussed surveys and interviews as different methods the last two chapters, but they can also complement each other.

For instance, let’s say you’re curious to study people who change opinions on abortion, either going from support to opposition or vice versa. You could use a survey to understand the prevalence of changing opinions, i.e. what percentage of people in your city have changed their views. That would help to establish whether this is a prominent issue, or whether it’s a rare phenomenon. But it would be difficult to understand from the survey what makes people change their views. You could add an open ended question for anyone that said they changed their opinion, but many people won’t respond and few will provide the level of detail necessary to understand their motivations. Interviews with people that have changed their opinions would give you an opportunity to explore how their experiences and beliefs have changed in combination with their views towards abortion.

6.7 Summary

In the last two chapters we’ve discussed the two most prominent methods of data collection in the social sciences: surveys and interviews. What we haven’t discussed though is how to identify the people you’ll collect data from; that’s called a sampling strategy. In the next chapter

Designing a semi-structured interview guide for qualitative interviews

But what exactly do semi structured interviews mean? What exactly counts as in-depth? How structured are semi-structured interviews?

Daniel Turner

Interviews are a frequently used research method in qualitative studies. You will see dozens of papers that state something like “We conducted n in-depth semi-structured interviews with key informants”. But what exactly does this mean? What exactly counts as in-depth? How structured are semi-structured interviews?

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The term “in-depth” is defined fairly vaguely in the literature: it generally means a one-to-one interview on one general topic, which is covered in detail. Usually these qualitative interviews last about an hour, although sometimes much longer. It sounds like two people having a discussion, but there are differences in the power dynamics, and end goal: for the classic sociologist Burgess (2002) these are “conversations with a purpose”.

Qualitative interviews generally differ from quantitative survey based questions in that they are looking for a more detailed and nuanced response. They also acknowledge there is no ‘one-size fits all’, especially when asking someone to recall a personal narrative about their experiences. Instead of a fixed “research protocol” that asks the same question to each respondent, most interviewees adopt a more flexible approach. However there is still a need “...to ensure that the same general areas of information are collected from each interviewee; this provides more focus than the conversational approach, but still allows a degree of freedom and adaptability in getting information from the interviewee” – MacNamara (2009) .

Turner (2010) (who coincidentally shares the same name as me) describes three different types of qualitative interview; Informal Conversation, General Interview Guide, and Standardised Open-Ended. These can be seen as a scale from least to most structured, and we are going to focus on the ‘interview guide’ approach, which takes a middle ground.

An interview guide is like a cheat-sheet for the interviewer – it contains a list of questions and topic areas that should be covered in the interview. However, these are not to be read verbatim and in order, in fact they are more like an aide-mémoire. “Usually the interviewer will have a prepared set of questions but these are only used as a guide, and departures from the guidelines are not seen as a problem but are often encouraged” – Silverman (2013) . That way, the interviewer can add extra questions about an unexpected but relevant area that emerges, and sections that don’t apply to the participant can be negated.

So what do these look like, and how does one go about writing a suitable semi-structured interview guide? Unfortunately, it is rare in journal articles for researchers to share the interview guide, and it’s difficult to find good examples on the internet. Basically they look like a list of short questions and follow-on prompts, grouped by topic. There will generally be about a dozen. I’ve written my fair share of interview guides for qualitative research projects over the years, either on my own or with the collaboration of colleagues, so I’m happy to share some tips.

Questions should answer your research questions Your research project should have one or several main research questions, and these should be used to guide the topics covered in the interviews, and hopefully answer the research questions. However, you can’t just ask your respondents “Can the experience of male My Little Pony fans be described through the lens of Derridean deconstruction?”. You will need to break down your research into questions that have meaning for the participant and that they can engage with. The questions should be fairly informal and jargon free (unless that person is an expert in that field of jargon), open ended - so they can’t be easily answered with a yes or no, and non-leading so that respondents aren’t pushed down a certain interpretation.

Link to your proposed analytical approach The questions on your guide should also be constructed in such a way that they will work well for your proposed method of analysis – which again you should already have decided. If you are doing narrative analysis, questions should be encouraging respondents to tell their story and history. In Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis you may want to ask more detail about people’s interpretations of their experiences. Think how you will want to analyse, compare and write up your research, and make sure that the questioning style fits your own approach.

Specific ‘Why’ and prompt questions It is very rare in semi-structured interviews that you will ask one question, get a response, and then move on to the next topic. Firstly you will need to provide some structure for the participant, so they are not expected (or encouraged) to recite their whole life story. But on the other level, you will usually want to probe more about specific issues or conditions. That is where the flexible approach comes in. Someone might reveal something that you are interested in, and is relevant to the research project. So ask more! It’s often useful in the guide to list a series of prompt words that remind you of more areas of detail that might be covered. For example, the question “When did you first visit the doctor?” might be annotated with optional prompts such as “Why did you go then?”, “Were you afraid?” or “Did anyone go with you?”. Prompt words might reduce this to ‘Why THEN / afraid / with someone’.

Be flexible with order Generally, an interview guide will be grouped into several topics, each with a few questions. One of the most difficult skills is how to segue from one topic or question to the next, while still seeming like a normal conversation. The best way to manage this is to make sure that you are always listening to the interviewee, and thinking at the same time about how what they are saying links to other discussion topics. If someone starts talking about how they felt isolated visiting the doctor, and one of your topics is about their experience with their doctor, you can ask ‘Did you doctor make you feel less isolated?’. You might then be asking about topic 4, when you are only on topic 1, but you now have a logical link to ask the more general written question ‘Did you feel the doctor supported you?’. The ability to flow from topic to topic as the conversation evolves (while still covering everything on the interview guide) is tricky, and requires you to:

Know your guide backwards - literally I almost never went into an interview without a printed copy of the interview guide in front of me, but it was kind of like Dumbo’s magic feather : it made me feel safe, but I didn’t really need it. You should know everything on your interview guide off by heart, and in any sequence. Since things will crop up in unpredictable ways, you should be comfortable asking questions in different orders to help the conversational flow. Still, it’s always good to have the interview guide in front of you; it lets you tick off questions as they are asked (so you can see what hasn’t been covered), is space to write notes, and also can be less intimidating for the interviewee, as you can look at your notes occasionally rather than staring them in the eye all the time.

Try for natural conversation Legard, Keegan and Ward (2003) note that “Although a good in-depth interview will appear naturalistic, it will bear little resemblance to an everyday conversation”. You will usually find that the most honest and rich responses come from relaxed, non-combative discussions. Make the first question easy, to ease the participant into the interview, and get them used to the question-answer format. But don’t let it feel like a tennis match, where you are always asking the questions. If they ask something of you, reply! Don’t sit in silence: nod, say ‘Yes’, or ‘Of course’ every now and then, to show you are listening and empathising like a normal human being. Yet do be careful about sharing your own potentially leading opinions, and making the discussion about yourself.

Discuss with your research team / supervisors You should take the time to get feedback and suggestions from peers, be they other people on your research project, or your PhD supervisors. This means preparing the interview guide well in advance of your first interview, leaving time for discussion and revisions. Seasoned interviewers will have tips about wording and structuring questions, and even the most experienced researcher can benefit from a second opinion. Getting it right at this stage is very important, it’s no good discovering after you’ve done all your interviews that you didn’t ask about something important.

Adapting the guide While these are semi-structured interviews, in general you will usually want to cover the same general areas every time you do an interview, no least so that there is some point of comparison. It’s also common to do a first few interviews and realise that you are not asking about a critical area, or that some new potential insight is emerging (especially if you are taking a grounded theory approach). In qualitative research, this need not be a disaster (if this flexibility is methodologically appropriate), and it is possible to revise your interview guide. However, if you do end up making significant revisions, make sure you keep both versions, and a note of which respondents were interviewed with each version of the guide.

Test the timing Inevitably, you will not have exactly the same amount of time for each interview, and respondents will differ in how fast they talk and how often they go off-topic! Make sure you have enough questions to get the detail you need, but also have ‘lower priority’ questions you can drop if things are taking too long. Test the timing of your interview guide with a few participants, or even friends before you settle on it, and revise as necessary. Try and get your interview guide down to one side of paper at the most: it is a prompt, not an encyclopaedia!

Hopefully these points will help demystify qualitative interview guides, and help you craft a useful tool to shape your semi-structured interviews. I’d also caution that semi-structured interviewing is a very difficult process, and benefits majorly from practice. I have been with many new researchers who tend to fall back on the interview guide too much, and read it verbatim. This generally leads to closed-off responses, and missed opportunities to further explore interesting revelations. Treat your interview guide as a guide, not a gospel, and be flexible. It’s extra hard, because you have to juggle asking questions, listening, choosing the next question, keeping the research topic in your head and making sure everything is covered – but when you do it right, you’ll get rich research data that you will actually be excited to go home and analyse.

Don’t forget to check out some of the references above, as well as the myriad of excellent articles and textbooks on qualitative interviews. There’s also Quirkos itself , software to help you make the research process engaging and visual, with a free trial to download of this innovative tool. We also have a rapidly growing series of blog post articles on qualitative interviews. These now include 10 tips for qualitative interviewing , transcribing qualitative interviews and focus groups , and how to make sure you get good recordings . Our blog is updated with articles like this every week, and you can hear about it first by following our Twitter feed @quirkossoftware .

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Types of Interviews in Research | Guide & Examples

Types of Interviews in Research | Guide & Examples

Published on March 10, 2022 by Tegan George . Revised on June 22, 2023.

An interview is a qualitative research method that relies on asking questions in order to collect data . Interviews involve two or more people, one of whom is the interviewer asking the questions.

There are several types of interviews, often differentiated by their level of structure.

Structured interviews have predetermined questions asked in a predetermined order.
Unstructured interviews are more free-flowing.
Semi-structured interviews fall in between.

Interviews are commonly used in market research, social science, and ethnographic research .

What is a structured interview, what is a semi-structured interview, what is an unstructured interview, what is a focus group, examples of interview questions, advantages and disadvantages of interviews, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about types of interviews.

Structured interviews have predetermined questions in a set order. They are often closed-ended, featuring dichotomous (yes/no) or multiple-choice questions. While open-ended structured interviews exist, they are much less common. The types of questions asked make structured interviews a predominantly quantitative tool.

Asking set questions in a set order can help you see patterns among responses, and it allows you to easily compare responses between participants while keeping other factors constant. This can mitigate research biases and lead to higher reliability and validity. However, structured interviews can be overly formal, as well as limited in scope and flexibility.

You feel very comfortable with your topic. This will help you formulate your questions most effectively.
You have limited time or resources. Structured interviews are a bit more straightforward to analyze because of their closed-ended nature, and can be a doable undertaking for an individual.
Your research question depends on holding environmental conditions between participants constant.

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Semi-structured interviews are a blend of structured and unstructured interviews. While the interviewer has a general plan for what they want to ask, the questions do not have to follow a particular phrasing or order.

Semi-structured interviews are often open-ended, allowing for flexibility, but follow a predetermined thematic framework, giving a sense of order. For this reason, they are often considered “the best of both worlds.”

However, if the questions differ substantially between participants, it can be challenging to look for patterns, lessening the generalizability and validity of your results.

You have prior interview experience. It’s easier than you think to accidentally ask a leading question when coming up with questions on the fly. Overall, spontaneous questions are much more difficult than they may seem.
Your research question is exploratory in nature. The answers you receive can help guide your future research.

An unstructured interview is the most flexible type of interview. The questions and the order in which they are asked are not set. Instead, the interview can proceed more spontaneously, based on the participant’s previous answers.

Unstructured interviews are by definition open-ended. This flexibility can help you gather detailed information on your topic, while still allowing you to observe patterns between participants.

However, so much flexibility means that they can be very challenging to conduct properly. You must be very careful not to ask leading questions, as biased responses can lead to lower reliability or even invalidate your research.

You have a solid background in your research topic and have conducted interviews before.
Your research question is exploratory in nature, and you are seeking descriptive data that will deepen and contextualize your initial hypotheses.
Your research necessitates forming a deeper connection with your participants, encouraging them to feel comfortable revealing their true opinions and emotions.

A focus group brings together a group of participants to answer questions on a topic of interest in a moderated setting. Focus groups are qualitative in nature and often study the group’s dynamic and body language in addition to their answers. Responses can guide future research on consumer products and services, human behavior, or controversial topics.

Focus groups can provide more nuanced and unfiltered feedback than individual interviews and are easier to organize than experiments or large surveys . However, their small size leads to low external validity and the temptation as a researcher to “cherry-pick” responses that fit your hypotheses.

Your research focuses on the dynamics of group discussion or real-time responses to your topic.
Your questions are complex and rooted in feelings, opinions, and perceptions that cannot be answered with a “yes” or “no.”
Your topic is exploratory in nature, and you are seeking information that will help you uncover new questions or future research ideas.

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Depending on the type of interview you are conducting, your questions will differ in style, phrasing, and intention. Structured interview questions are set and precise, while the other types of interviews allow for more open-endedness and flexibility.

Here are some examples.

Semi-structured
Unstructured
Focus group
Do you like dogs? Yes/No
Do you associate dogs with feeling: happy; somewhat happy; neutral; somewhat unhappy; unhappy
If yes, name one attribute of dogs that you like.
If no, name one attribute of dogs that you don’t like.
What feelings do dogs bring out in you?
When you think more deeply about this, what experiences would you say your feelings are rooted in?

Interviews are a great research tool. They allow you to gather rich information and draw more detailed conclusions than other research methods, taking into consideration nonverbal cues, off-the-cuff reactions, and emotional responses.

However, they can also be time-consuming and deceptively challenging to conduct properly. Smaller sample sizes can cause their validity and reliability to suffer, and there is an inherent risk of interviewer effect arising from accidentally leading questions.

Here are some advantages and disadvantages of each type of interview that can help you decide if you’d like to utilize this research method.

Advantages and disadvantages of interviews
Type of interview	Advantages	Disadvantages
Structured interview
Semi-structured interview		, , , and
Unstructured interview		, , , and
Focus group		, , and , since there are multiple people present

If you want to know more about statistics , methodology , or research bias , make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples.

Student’s t -distribution
Normal distribution
Null and Alternative Hypotheses
Chi square tests
Confidence interval
Quartiles & Quantiles
Cluster sampling
Stratified sampling
Data cleansing
Reproducibility vs Replicability
Peer review
Prospective cohort study

Research bias

Implicit bias
Cognitive bias
Placebo effect
Hawthorne effect
Hindsight bias
Affect heuristic
Social desirability bias

The four most common types of interviews are:

Structured interviews : The questions are predetermined in both topic and order.
Semi-structured interviews : A few questions are predetermined, but other questions aren’t planned.
Unstructured interviews : None of the questions are predetermined.
Focus group interviews : The questions are presented to a group instead of one individual.

The interviewer effect is a type of bias that emerges when a characteristic of an interviewer (race, age, gender identity, etc.) influences the responses given by the interviewee.

There is a risk of an interviewer effect in all types of interviews , but it can be mitigated by writing really high-quality interview questions.

Social desirability bias is the tendency for interview participants to give responses that will be viewed favorably by the interviewer or other participants. It occurs in all types of interviews and surveys , but is most common in semi-structured interviews , unstructured interviews , and focus groups .

Social desirability bias can be mitigated by ensuring participants feel at ease and comfortable sharing their views. Make sure to pay attention to your own body language and any physical or verbal cues, such as nodding or widening your eyes.

This type of bias can also occur in observations if the participants know they’re being observed. They might alter their behavior accordingly.

A focus group is a research method that brings together a small group of people to answer questions in a moderated setting. The group is chosen due to predefined demographic traits, and the questions are designed to shed light on a topic of interest. It is one of 4 types of interviews .

Quantitative research deals with numbers and statistics, while qualitative research deals with words and meanings.

Quantitative methods allow you to systematically measure variables and test hypotheses . Qualitative methods allow you to explore concepts and experiences in more detail.

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Open access
Published: 04 September 2024

Exploring the feasibility and acceptability of community paramedicine programs in achieving vaccination equity: a qualitative study

Monica L. Kasting 1 , 2 ,
Alfu Laily 1 ,
Sidney J. Smith 1 ,
Sathveka Sembian 3 ,
Katharine J. Head 4 ,
Bukola Usidame 1 ,
Gregory D. Zimet 5 &
Laura M. Schwab-Reese 1

BMC Health Services Research volume 24 , Article number: 1022 ( 2024 ) Cite this article

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Metrics details

Mobile Integrated Health-Community Paramedicine (MIH-CP) is a novel approach that may reduce the rural-urban disparity in vaccination uptake in the United States. MIH-CP providers, as physician extenders, offer clinical follow-up and wrap-around services in homes and communities, uniquely positioning them as trusted messengers and vaccine providers. This study explores stakeholder perspectives on feasibility and acceptability of community paramedicine vaccination programs.

We conducted semi-structured qualitative interviews with leaders of paramedicine agencies with MIH-CP, without MIH-CP, and state/regional leaders in Indiana. Interviews were audio recorded, transcribed verbatim, and analyzed using content analysis.

We interviewed 24 individuals who represented EMS organizations with MIH-CP programs (MIH-CP; n = 10), EMS organizations without MIH-CP programs (non-MIH-CP; n = 9), and state/regional administrators (SRA; n = 5). Overall, the sample included professionals with an average of 19.6 years in the field (range: 1–42 years). Approximately 75% ( n = 14) were male, and all identified as non-Hispanic white. MIH-CPs reported they initiated a vaccine program to reach underserved areas, operating as a health department extension. Some MIH-CPs integrated existing services, such as food banks, with vaccine clinics, while other MIH-CPs focused on providing vaccinations as standalone initiatives. Key barriers to vaccination program initiation included funding and vaccinations being a low priority for MIH-CP programs. However, participants reported support for vaccine programs, particularly as they provided an opportunity to alleviate health disparities and improve community health. MIH-CPs reported low vaccine hesitancy in the community when community paramedics administered vaccines. Non-CP agencies expressed interest in launching vaccine programs if there is clear guidance, sustainable funding, and adequate personnel.

Conclusions

Our study provides important context on the feasibility and acceptability of implementing an MIH-CP program. Findings offer valuable insights into reducing health disparities seen in vaccine uptake through community paramedics, a novel and innovative approach to reduce health disparities in rural communities.

Peer Review reports

Introduction

Mobile integrated health-community paramedicine (MIH-CP) is a rapidly evolving patient-centered healthcare delivery model within the domain of emergency medical services (EMS) [ 1 , 2 ]. Community Paramedics (CP)s, a large portion of the MIH-CP workforce, expand the traditional role of EMS personnel to be physician extenders, delivering non-urgent but key medical services such as vaccinations. This is particularly important considering the existing vaccination inequities.

The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted these systemic health inequities, exacerbated existing health disparities, and broadened the gap in access to care. For example, many healthcare visits during the COVID-19 pandemic took place virtually using telemedicine and research shows that low socioeconomic status (SES), rural, and minority populations received less access to telehealth during the pandemic [ 3 , 4 ]. Furthermore, a study of Rural Health Clinics (RHCs) found that the clinics reported high levels of financial concerns and challenges obtaining personal protective equipment, resulting in them providing fewer preventive services during the pandemic [ 5 ].

Vaccination rates also dropped during the pandemic, with early reports suggesting some childhood vaccination rates dropping by as much as 70% in the beginning of the pandemic [ 6 , 7 ]. These reductions in vaccine uptake are multifactorial and are associated not only with lack of access to care, but also higher levels of mistrust in the medical system and medical establishment among underrepresented minorities as well as people living in rural areas [ 7 ]. A potential solution to address these disparities is through trusted messengers, who have the opportunity to change previously held beliefs and increase awareness and acceptability of vaccinations [ 8 ]. One example of a trusted messenger is a CP.

CPs are evolving to be a blend of community health workers, social workers, and non-emergency health care providers [ 1 , 2 , 9 ]. Approximately 18 states in the United States (U.S.) have CPs, but the roles vary in scope, training, and authority [ 1 , 10 ]. Studies have shown that they are positively accepted and reviewed across the quadruple aim framework used to assess the effectiveness of a health care system (i.e., improved patient satisfaction, improved provider satisfaction, reducing healthcare costs, and improved population health outcomes) [ 1 , 11 ]. While there are limited studies encompassing all of the quadruple aims, review papers have shown that MIH-CP programs are generally perceived positively as a means of bridging the healthcare delivery gap, especially within communities with healthcare shortages, such as rural areas, and can potentially reduce existing disparities [ 1 , 2 , 9 , 10 , 12 , 13 , 14 , 15 ].

This positive reception and patient satisfaction suggests MIH-CP may be a novel approach to address health disparities and improve uptake of preventive health services, including vaccinations [ 1 , 14 , 15 ]. MIH-CP programs are often able to administer vaccines [ 16 , 17 , 18 , 19 , 20 , 21 , 22 ], but there are few studies specifically examining the impact of this service. Currently, Indiana has more than a dozen MIH-CP programs [ 23 ], including many that provide vaccination services. More research is needed to understand program effectiveness and the potential usefulness in improving health equity through these programs. In addition, it is unclear whether community paramedics are receptive to including vaccine administration in their scope of care, which may cause implementation challenges. Therefore, the aim of this study was to determine perceived barriers, facilitators, attitudes, and beliefs of relevant stakeholders (i.e., MIH-CP/EMS providers, leaders, and administrators) regarding implementation of MIH-CP-based adult vaccination services in the state of Indiana.

This study was reviewed and approved as exempt by the Institutional Review Boards at both Purdue University and Indiana University.

Setting, design, sample, and recruitment

We conducted one-time interviews with three groups of participants: leaders of paramedicine agencies with registered MIH-CP programs (10 interviews), leaders of paramedicine agencies without MIH-CP programs (9 interviews), and state/regional administrators (SRA; 5 interviews). Below we describe how each group was identified and recruited.

The Indiana Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which oversees EMS in Indiana, provided a list of registered MIH-CP programs as of January 2023. Team members contacted the administrators of these programs via email or phone to confirm whether the MIH-CP program was active. Of the 16 registered agencies with an active MIH-CP program, 10 (63%) completed interviews.

To identify non-MIH-CP providers, we used targeted recruitment and identified counties that were demographically similar to the counties served by the MIH-CP interviewees, specifically focusing on rurality (within 4% rurality of MIH-CP interviewees) and average resident age (mean age within 2 years of MIH-CP interviewees). Then, we identified the hospital-based, governmental, paid fire, and private paramedicine agencies in those counties from a registry of ambulance service providers from DHS. We excluded volunteer organizations, as they are quite different in scope and function than organizations with employees. Of the 18 programs identified and contacted, 9 (50%) completed an interview.

Finally, we contacted the state MIH-CP administrators and regional EMS administrators, based on the contact information provided on the DHS website [ 24 ]. Approximately half (i.e., 5 of 9) of the state and reginal administrators contacted by the team completed an interview.

All interviews were conducted by study team members (MLK, AL, SJS) trained in qualitative interviewing and were recorded via Zoom. One interviewer (MLK) is a faculty member with a PhD and two are graduate students (AL, SJS). All interviewers are female. No one else was present in the interviews besides the participants and research team members. The interview guides are included as Additional File 1 (leaders of paramedicine agencies) and Additional File 2 (state/regional administrators). The audio files were transcribed in three rounds, one by artificial-intelligence transcriber through happyscribe.com, then verified by two rounds of manual transcriptions carried out by team members with training in qualitative methods (AL, SJS, SS). Following the interview, participants completed an anonymous survey about their demographic characteristics and beliefs about the COVID-19 vaccine. Survey items were adapted from previously validated surveys [ 25 , 26 , 27 ], where applicable. The survey codebook is included as Additional File 3. All participants were offered a $50 gift card in appreciation of their time, although many declined due to agency restrictions on accepting gifts.

Interviews started with introductory questions about the participants’ roles within their agency to build rapport, better understand the participants’ experience in EMS, and describe the goals of the research project. The rest of the interview questions focused on MIH-CP program history and functions. However, the questions were tailored to the participants’ experiences with MIH-CP and whether they had vaccination programs. For MIH-CP interviews, the subsequent questions focused on their overall MIH-CP programs as well as their vaccination programs, emphasizing how the programs started, barriers to implementation, operational barriers, and lessons learned. Non-MIH-CP interviews emphasized similar topics except that the questions were framed around their opinions and perspectives on MIH-CP as someone without a program. State/regional administrator interviews focused on higher-level administration of MIH-CP programs.

Data analysis

We used qualitative content analysis, as described by Schreier, to analyze the transcripts [ 28 ]. First, two authors (LMSR, AL) completed an exhaustive and comprehensive review of the transcripts to ensure a thorough understanding of all the data. During these reviews, they took notes on content that was repeated across interviews and areas that were unique to each interview. After gaining familiarity with the material, each author reviewed the transcripts for a second time, specifically focusing on content that was not noted in the first review. Then, each author organized their notes into a first draft of a codebook. This approach is most similar to the codebook development strategy described by Schrier as summarization. As part of our note-taking process, we paraphrased relevant passages. As we developed the codebook, we deleted paraphrases that were superfluous and combined related paraphrases. Then, we used the paraphrases to generate the main category and subcategory names. Although we did not generate the main categories prior to codebook development, our draft codebooks were closely aligned with our objectives because the semi-structured interview guide used to collect data was aligned with our objectives.

Based on these initial drafts, two members of the research team (LMSR, MLK) reviewed the draft codebooks, combined the codebook drafts into a single comprehensive codebook (Additional File 4), and pilot-coded a transcript together. Then, one member of the team (LMSR) applied the codebook to the transcripts. Finally, two members of the team (LMSR, MLK) met to review the coded materials and assess for disagreement in the code application. However, the codebook is quite straightforward and descriptive, so there were no disagreements.

Saturation has multiple meanings in qualitative methods. In qualitative content analysis, as described by Schreier, saturation occurs when each subcategory has at least one code segment (i.e., no subcategory is ‘empty’). Because we used a data-driven approach to develop our codebook, we automatically met the criterion of saturation. That is, if the content was not present in the data, it was not present in our coding framework. Data analyses were conducted using MAXQDA.

Sample characteristics

We interviewed 24 individuals who represented EMS organizations with MIH-CP programs (MIH-CP; n = 10), EMS organizations without MIH-CP programs (non-MIH-CP; n = 9), and state/regional administrators (SRA; n = 5). Interviews lasted an average of 41 min (range: 14–75 min). Of the 24 interviewees, 19 responded to the survey provided at the end of the interview. Overall, the sample included highly experienced EMS professionals with an average of 19.6 years in the field (range: 1–42 years). Approximately 75% ( n = 14) of respondents were male, and all identified as non-Hispanic white. Nearly two-thirds of respondents were fully vaccinated for COVID-19 and had received at least one booster shot ( n = 12). Another quarter were fully vaccinated without a booster shot ( n = 5). One respondent received one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, and one was not vaccinated.

When asked if their programs ever distributed vaccines, more than 75% of agencies reported doing so. This was significantly different between MIH-CP (10 out of 10 distributed vaccines) and non-MIH-CP (5 out of 9 distributed vaccines) programs ( p < 0.05). Most programs ( n = 11) discussed distributing COVID-19 vaccines during the pandemic. Flu vaccines were the second most commonly administered vaccine ( n = 7). Other vaccines included Tetanus, Hepatitis A, and childhood vaccines. Some agencies partnered with other organizations (i.e., primary care providers, health departments, and schools) and were willing to give any vaccines requested by these partners. These partnerships and structures are further discussed in the next section.

Vaccine program structure and organization

All vaccine programs fit into one of three structures: outreach for a separate agency, extension of existing MIH-CP services, or standalone programs focused on vaccine distribution.

Outreach for Separate Agencies

Most vaccine programs were outreach for a separate agency, generally the county health department during the COVID-19 pandemic. In Indiana, many county health departments sponsored mass vaccine clinics and/or provided in-home vaccines for individuals unable to leave their homes. EMS agencies provided staffing for both approaches. One individual shared that during the COVID-19 mass clinics “ the state said that anywhere they were administering vaccines , they had to have a paramedic on site.” (Non-MIH-CP-15). Some agencies allowed their staff to go during normal work hours, while others treated it as volunteer/non-work time. Generally, the MIH-CP programs were more focused on providing in-home services, although a couple of non-MIH-CP programs also provided these services. As one participant explained, “ Let’s do what paramedicine’s meant to do , and it’s to be mobile… ” (MIH-CP-08). Generally, these programs followed the same administrative processes:

“So basically, county health nurse will identify Mrs. Smith at 1234 North Main Street, needs a vaccine. Can you do it on this date? Sure, we’ll do it. We’ll send all the information back to the county health nurse and then she’ll enter it in [the state vaccine registry]. And that’s kind of the partnership we have is we’re the boots on the ground and they’re the paperwork side of things, which is obviously the least fun part.” (MIH-CP-05).

At least one program continued partnering with the county health department beyond the COVID-19 vaccine clinics, including providing vaccines to students in schools and routine vaccines in people’s homes. These arrangements had several benefits for EMS agencies: reduced administrative burden, financial compensation, and relationship building with community organizations. As discussed above, the health department was responsible for procuring and storing the vaccines, managing the schedule, and documenting the distribution with the state vaccine registry. This administrative oversight was particularly helpful when the storage and maintenance of multiple COVID-19 vaccines became complicated. As one participant explained:

“It got crazy. Like you had to order your patients in such a way to where your vaccines weren’t expiring. So, we had a fridge inside of the vehicle, but it does not get to cold storage temperatures. So, it’s only maintaining. So yeah, you had to schedule your Johnson and Johnson’s first and then your Modernas and then your Pfizers…” (MIH-CP-10).

Providing vaccines as an extension of the health department was also financially beneficial for some agencies. All agencies were eligible for reimbursement for vaccine administration as part of a state-wide program. One individual explained, “ We got compensated for all those. I think we got like seventy-five dollars- seventy five to one hundred dollars for- per dose.” (MIH-CP-04). However, some agencies preferred to use the opportunity to build relationships. One individual described their motivation as “ just to help the health department.” (MIH-CP-09). For many agencies, these programs ended when the mass COVID-19 vaccine clinics ended. Some, including non-MIH-CP programs, used the existing processes and relationships as an opportunity to continue the partnerships, including “ a vaccine clinic at our school.” (Non-MIH-CP-12).

Extension of Current Services

Some MIH-CP programs also provided vaccines as an extension of their current services. Several programs offered vaccines to all existing MIH-CP patients. A primary care provider or health department was responsible for vaccine storage and documentation in these instances. Other extensions reflected the uniqueness of the MIH-CP programs. For example, one MIH-CP program operated out of a community center that hosted a weekly food bank. As demand for the food bank increased, MIH-CP personnel decided to pilot a vaccine clinic, which became the basis for mass vaccine drive-through clinics in the state:

“We tied it into the food distribution. So, people were already here, they were already in line. They would get their food, and as they drove through, we flagged the ones that would like- you know, they said, ‘yeah, we’ll do a flu shot as well.’ It was a simple- it started off with a post-it note on their windshield. And as they came through the food distribution, we’d flag them into the other part of the parking lot, and they would stay in their car, roll down their window, we would vaccinate them, and then we’d move them off just to the side to stay there for their 15 minutes to make sure that they weren’t having a reaction. Their instructions were, if you start feeling funny or ill in any way, honk your horn, turn on your flashers, we’ll be right there.” (MIH-CP-06).

Another MIH-CP program was integrated into an occupational health program and had provided vaccines to their patients since 2013. Generally, this consisted of on-site vaccine clinics, particularly for employers who mandated the vaccines. For other employers, program staff “ just made ourselves available. ” (MIH-CP-07). During the pandemic, this program expanded its vaccine services to other MIH-CP programs. For example, they regularly held clinics at Salvation Army and transitional housing centers. During these events, they started “ providing vaccines at every single one of those community events. And that was just simple walk up.” (MIH-CP-07).

Because these programs were unique, the relative benefits and challenges were also unique. Some agencies acted as independent vaccine providers, while others’ administrative structure was more similar to that of the agencies acting as outreach (i.e., purchasing, storage, and documentation were managed by a separate agency). Agencies acting as independent vaccine providers did not frame purchasing, storage, or documentation as challenging. However, these agencies had a history of vaccine administration before the COVID-19 pandemic, meaning they had built sufficient infrastructure (e.g., staff, space, and financial resources) for their day-to-day operations.

Standalone Program

Only one MIH-CP program had a standalone program focused exclusively on vaccines, which started in 2020. The goal was to provide vaccines in schools for staff and students, with a particular emphasis on vaccines required to attend school. During the pandemic, the program shifted to “ a lot more work with COVID vaccines and testing ” (MIH-CP-08). After schools began reopening, the team learned that a local hospital had started providing a traveling nurse to schools to provide vaccines, which duplicated their service. They decided to shift the focus to “ really just finding those gaps and needs.” (MIH-CP-08). For this community, that looked like:

“Let’s do what paramedicine’s meant to do, and it’s to be mobile, right, to go out and fill that fill that gap. So if we have students that are getting to that point where school is going to kick them out because they haven’t met their mandated vaccines, we’ll go out and do that. We’ll put clinics together and fill that piece….We have some vaccinations- for HPV and meningitis I believe - that we needed to- we knew that was the right age, so we connected with the school nurse there and did clinics for the [the local college] students.” (MIH-CP-08).

For this program, vaccine storage and documentation were not reported as challenges. The primary challenge was finding the right partnerships and gaps, although there were also financial challenges. Because they operated as a standalone program, they also managed purchasing the vaccines. The administrator described one related issue as, “ You have to be very strategic about it. And we run into that. You know , there are a few where we’ve had some expire because we haven’t got shots in arms and you eat that cost. ” (MIH-CP-08).

Vaccine program challenges

When talking about challenges related to providing vaccines through an MIH-CP program, participants reported a range of challenges, including concerns about funding, vaccine hesitancy in communities, and vaccines as a low priority for MIH-CP.

One participant described the funding issue as “ Vaccines aren’t sexy. It’s not a big money maker. It’s just- It’s one of those things that has to be done .” (MIH-CP-08). During the COVID-19 pandemic, the state had a program for reimbursing vaccines. Since that program expired, there has been no funding for vaccine distribution through MIH-CP. Without this funding, the biggest barrier for many agencies was “ really just having the money to cover the supplies and the uh cost of actually getting the money out there to do it.” (MIH-CP-01). Even if funding was available, the administrative burden can be overwhelming. One participant described their program’s decision to stop providing vaccines as:

“But there’s just too much already on a day-to-day basis to where even just that minor ask that they’re trying to ask for it’s becoming too burdensome….it would be fantastic if everyone in our organization also had a secretary, right? I mean, that would be- just someone to help. I’m talking about interns or whatever….you’re sacrificing a lot of your personal time in order to do that, because it’s just not- the reimbursement is just not there to really build up the workforce how it needs to be.” (MIH-CP-10).

The lack of established funding mechanisms was perceived by some participant as evidence that it was not a high priority for the state. As one participant said, “ I’m here to serve my community. So , I don’t mind going out there and helping somebody and administering that. But if that was something the health care field thought we should do all the time , then there have to be some kind of funding mechanism for that. ” (Non-MIH-CP-16).

In discussing funding challenges, a few other participants discussed how the lack of MIH-CP infrastructure and state policies impeded reimbursement and billing mechanisms. A state/regional administrator explained that many state agencies oversee vaccine regulations. The “ Department of Health , because they regulate vaccines. They have reimbursed for some of it” , “ the FFSA [Family and Social Services Administration] was covering [MIH-CP vaccines] for Medicaid” and the Department of Homeland Security play roles in who is allowed to administer vaccines and reimbursement (SRA-21). Some MIH-CP administrators believed that the lack of policies governing MIH-CP contributed to the limited reimbursement opportunities. One participant said,

“We just don’t have a standard documented [reimbursement policy] in the state of Indiana….I mean, there are other states that have it out there. I think Minnesota is a prime example, but yeah. What does that look like for the state of Indiana? And let’s get it written into policy, and it’s been talked about for the last several years, and it’s supposed to be coming up, but it’s just nature of how that works.” (MIH-CP-08).

Vaccine Hesitancy

Because most of the programs provided vaccines to individuals who requested them, vaccine hesitancy was not a primary challenge. As one participant described, “ I mean , because we’re not beating their door down and jabbing them without their permission , right? So if we’re there for a service that they’ve requested , uh , I don’t see there being any divide. Uh , I don’t see there being any issue.” (Non-MIH-CP-15). However, many of the participants described wide-spread vaccine hesitancy in their communities. One explained that, “ Yeah , there’s always hesitant , not because we’re doing it. The hesitancy exists because of the vaccine , the misinformation from the vaccines. Um , when the vaccines became a political issue and a political fireball to use , that created a hesitancy . ” (Non-MIH-CP-13).

Some people saw addressing vaccine hesitancy as within the scope of paramedicine. Many felt “ comfortable communicating with people” about vaccines (MIH-CP-01). One went further and said that to address vaccine hesitancy, “ I mean , what do you do? You know , you can talk to individuals. ” (MIH-CP-06). Others wanted to avoid the “ political involvement ” with vaccines (Non-MIH-CP-18). One participant further explained that “ We see them when they’re sick , whether they’re vaccinated or not with COVID or whatever…If they don’t want it , they don’t want it. We as an agency , don’t push that to outside people.” (Non-MIH-CP-13).

These differences in opinions may be related to participants’ own feelings about vaccines. In the open-ended question at the end of the post-interview survey, one participant said that,

“Combating misinformation has been required in our vaccination program. Not only with patients but with healthcare providers. More information to healthcare workers delivered in a manner they will digest such as 1-to-2-minute videos would be beneficial. So much information was given, but ultimately ignored during COVID, and I believe the delivery of the information could have been improved. Asking how do we get all our Healthcare providers speaking comfortably, confidently and competently while delivering the same talking points I believe will be critical to build public trust.” (Post-Interview Survey, anonymous).

This view was also shared by another participant who said, “ And even amongst healthcare workers , the number of them that just outright refuse for whatever reason is pretty , pretty impressive. ” (Non-MIH-CP-17). This division was evident in our post-interview survey questions about vaccine hesitancy. We asked participants how strongly they agreed or disagreed with 12 statements describing vaccine hesitancy like, “Getting a COVID-19 vaccine is a good way to protect me from coronavirus disease.” and “I think COVID-19 vaccines might cause lasting health problems for me.” For all questions, there were individuals who answered “Strongly Agree” and individuals who answered “Strongly Disagree,” respectively. The overall mean score of the 12 items on a scale of 1–5 (with higher numbers indicating more confidence in vaccines) was 3.6 out of 5. However, the anonymous nature of the study precluded us from connecting their interview data with their survey responses.

Vaccines as a Low Priority for MIH-CP

A few participants with MIH-CP programs thought vaccines could be a component of their services, but the other services were more critical: “ We were very protective of our Medics because they see only chronic disease patients , right - the highest risk patients…So we didn’t- we don’t really do , we’re not high-volume vaccines comparatively to some of our other peer programs .” (MIH-CP-02). Although this view was less commonly described in the interviews, several voiced it in the post-interview survey. One said:

“We should be asking if this is the best way to utilize community paramedics. There are much more beneficial tasks (fall prevention, home modification, collection of health information in case of emergency, risk mitigation) that should be prioritized over vaccines. The vaccinations could be a portion of a holistic health picture but is relatively low priority when it comes to the numbers and severity of those impacted.” (Post-Interview Survey, anonymous).

Some participants perceived vaccines to be a low priority for MIH-CP because EMTs could provide the same service. One participant stated, “ I guess when I think community paramedicine , I think more of an advanced scope than vaccine distribution. Um , and here in the state of Indiana , EMT Basics are eligible to distribute vaccinations. ” (Non-MIH-CP-11). However, one of the state administrators clarified that EMTs can “ do influenza and COVID. We added that to their scope of practice. Anything else would have to be a paramedic for vaccination.” (SRA-21).

Vaccine program opportunities

Despite the challenges, many participants felt there were benefits to providing vaccines through MIH-CP and that their programs were successful. Many people viewed vaccines as “ beneficial ” (MIH-CP-01) and that MIH-CP could be an important part of reducing health disparities saying, “ I think that leans into a large ability to see the patient as a whole. And certainly , vaccines are within that ability to go into the home and do and make sure that everybody has equal access. ” (Non-MIH-CP-18). Agencies that had COVID-19 programs reported that they were successful. One said that, “ we ended up doing hundreds of vaccines. I can’t remember how many , but it was a lot of them .” (MIH-CP-10). Another described the response to their services as:

“Oh, incredibly successful. You know, the whole concept was it wasn’t just the clinics that were successful. I say clinic and that’s kind of a broad term ….And so part of these clinics were us going to these individuals homes and giving them these vaccinations on site in their own homes. And that part of this was just, you know, I thought, wildly successful too. Because, you know, here we are taking care to people who otherwise wouldn’t have a means of getting there. And I think that that’s the kind of health care system we need to start moving towards in a lot of respects, not just in vaccinations.” (MIH-CP-07).

In this qualitative study examining implementation of MIH-CP vaccination programs, participants reported a wide variety of vaccination program structure and functions. Overall, vaccine programs were described as very successful and have the potential to serve as an effective way to improve access to underserved areas. The largest overall challenge reported was funding for the program, and the lack of funding had a ripple effect, affecting multiple functions within the organization, resulting in a lack of dedicated staff for vaccines and a perception that vaccinations were a low priority for the organization. Some participants commented on upstream causes of the lack of funding, including that there are not state-wide and federal policies governing MIH-CP, which limits reimbursement opportunities and limits the implementation of broader vaccination programs. Most participants described their vaccination programs as very successful and a way to reach people who were homebound or otherwise unable to access vaccines within their communities. The overall sentiment was that while vaccine hesitancy was not a barrier with the patient population they were serving, they did express discomfort at the prospect of being perceived as “pushing” or advocating for vaccines.

When discussing the feasibility of implementing an MIH-CP vaccine program, the main barrier described was funding. This was described as a barrier at multiple levels, including gaining initial funding, maintaining funding, and having dedicated staffing when sustained funding is not guaranteed. This same barrier has been reported in the literature for community health workers (CHWs), with one study also conducted in Indiana specifically reporting on the difficulties maintaining personnel with uncertain funding mechanisms and a cumbersome and confusing structure to apply for Medicaid reimbursement [ 29 ]. Like our findings, the CHW study reported that inconsistent funding jeopardizes CHW programs and recommended clarifying the existing Medicaid reimbursement policies. Recently, Indiana county health departments have received an influx of public health funding from the state that increased funding for public health in the state by 1500% [ 30 ]. Some of these funds are being used to expand the geographic reach of existing MIH-CP programs. This increased funding should alleviate the barriers discussed by our participants. Future work should examine the effects of this funding on alleviating disparities in the expanded areas.

Overall, CP vaccination programs were perceived as acceptable across EMS organizations. Our participants also reported they believed community members would be supportive of receiving vaccines from a CP. However, there have been limited studies examining patient perceptions of the acceptability of CP vaccine provision, particularly in the U.S [ 2 ]. Similar studies examining patient acceptability of the CHW-model has shown overall positive perceptions and high acceptability both in the U.S [ 31 ], and abroad [ 32 , 33 ]. Future studies should examine community perceptions of CP acceptability to determine whether this might be a model that could be implemented more broadly to address health disparities.

While CPs in our study did report they felt comfortable giving vaccines, most also expressed that they would not want to advocate for vaccines or be seen as “pushing” vaccines on their patients. Even though they did not report any personal vaccination hesitancy in the qualitative interviews, the answers on the anonymous survey did indicate a significant level of vaccination hesitancy in this group of providers. This sentiment is seen across health professionals with one publication finding that nearly one-third of US healthcare providers were hesitant about vaccinations [ 34 ]. This is not a new phenomenon and vaccine hesitant providers existed before the COVID-19 pandemic and continue to exist after the pandemic [ 35 ]. Thus, there is a pressing need not only to educate healthcare providers to reduce vaccination hesitancy among this group, but also to give providers across the spectrum adequate training to effectively communicate with patients so that they feel comfortable combatting existing misinformation to improve vaccination uptake.

This study is among the first to examine feasibility and acceptability of implementing vaccination programs within MIH-CP programs. The findings can be used to inform implementation of other programs and to improve existing programs. However, the results should be interpreted in light of several limitations. First, the participants in this study are from a single state and the findings may be different in other geographic locations. Second, there were counties within the state that had no EMS services, and we were not able to gain perspectives of professionals working in those counties. Third, while the qualitative nature of our study allowed us to gain an in-depth understanding of the existing programs, we did not have quantitative data assessing program effectiveness and we are unable to determine if the implemented programs have had an impact on the health of the community.

This study provides important context on the feasibility and acceptability of implementing an MIH-CP vaccination program. Major barriers to implementing and maintaining these programs are lack of sustained funding and unclear policies governing the programs. While participants in our study did not describe vaccine hesitancy as a major problem in their communities, they also expressed discomfort in advocating for vaccines, should people express hesitancy. They also described vaccines as a lower priority for their agencies than other services they provide, like managing chronic diseases. However, many did describe vaccines as beneficial and an important part of reducing health disparities in their communities. Future research should conduct rigorous evaluations of MIH-CP programs to determine program effectiveness and examine patient perceptions of the acceptability of receiving a vaccine from a CP. Using CP to deliver vaccinations to underserved communities has the potential to reduce health disparities and improve health outcomes for these communities.

Data availability

The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Abbreviations

Community health worker

Community paramedics

Department of Homeland Security

Emergency Medical Services

Mobile integrated health-community paramedicine

Rural health clinics

Socioeconomic Status

State/regional administrators

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Acknowledgements

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This project was supported in part by a research grant from the Investigator-Initiated Studies Program of Merck Sharp & Dohme LLC. The opinions expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of Merck Sharp & Dohme LLC.

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Monica L. Kasting, Alfu Laily, Sidney J. Smith, Bukola Usidame & Laura M. Schwab-Reese

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Contributions

MK, KH, GZ, and LSR contributed to the study conception and design. Data collection was performed by MK, AL, and SS. Data analysis was performed by AL, SS and LSR. The first draft of the manuscript was written by AL, LSR, BU, and MK. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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GDZ has served as an external advisory board member for Pfizer and Moderna, and as a consultant to Merck. MLK has served as a consultant to Merck. GDZ, KJH, LMSR, and MLK have received investigator-initiated research funding from Merck administered through Indiana University and Purdue University, respectively. The other co-authors have no relevant financial or non-financial interests to disclose.

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Kasting, M.L., Laily, A., Smith, S.J. et al. Exploring the feasibility and acceptability of community paramedicine programs in achieving vaccination equity: a qualitative study. BMC Health Serv Res 24 , 1022 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-024-11422-0

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PDF Guide to Interview Guides and Interviewing
Don't ask, instruct (command!) Ask one question at a time; get the detail in the probes. Ask questions that can be answered. Repeat, and redirect. Use your naïveté to your advantage. Ask how, not why questions. Make people respondents, not key informants (individuals are unreliable) Don't ask respondents to be analysts.
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5. Not keeping your golden thread front of mind. We touched on this a little earlier, but it is a key point that should be central to your entire research process. You don't want to end up with pages and pages of data after conducting your interviews and realize that it is not useful to your research aims.
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Exploring the feasibility and acceptability of community paramedicine
All interviews were conducted by study team members (MLK, AL, SJS) trained in qualitative interviewing and were recorded via Zoom. One interviewer (MLK) is a faculty member with a PhD and two are graduate students (AL, SJS). All interviewers are female. No one else was present in the interviews besides the participants and research team members.

9.2 Qualitative interviews

Constructing an interview guide

Recording qualitative data

Strengths and weaknesses of qualitative interviews

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Qualitative Research 101: Interviewing

Overview: 5 Interviewing Mistakes

1. Not having a clear interview strategy

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Chapter 11. Interviewing

Types of Interviews

Creating an Interview Guide

Type of Questions

Background/Demographic Questions

Temporality

Question Sequence

Probes and Flexibility

The Final Question

Conducting the Interview

How Many Interviews?

Your Final Product: The Ideal Interview Transcript

Final Tips from an Interview Master

Sample: Demographic Questionnaire

Example: Interview Guide

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How to develop an interview guide (Part 1)

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Creating Qualitative Interview Protocols

How to conduct qualitative interviews (tips and best practices)

1. Before the interview

2. During the interview

3. After the interview

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Explain the purpose of the study

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Offer breaks

1. Transcription

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5. Interpretation

6. Comparison

7. Triangulation

8. Synthesis

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Listen carefully

Use appropriate formatting

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Subjectivity and personal biases

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Socially desirable responses

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Chapter 13: Interviews

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