Interview and Focus group discussion

1. Interview & Focus Group
Presented By:
Mukhtiar Ahmed Arain
Student ID; 15836
Assigned By:
Prof. Dr. Nazia Bano
Department of Education & Learning Sciences
Iqra University, Karachi

2. Outlines
 Etymology of word Interview
 Three Conceptions of Interview
 Purpose of Interview
 Types of Interview
 Planning & Conducting of Interview
 Analysis of interview
 Focus Group Interview

3. Etymology of word Interview
 early 16th century (formerly also as enterview ): from
French entrevue, from s'entrevoir ‘see each other’, from voir ‘to
see’, on the pattern of vue ‘a view’.


4. Definition(s)
 Interview is a procedure is designed to obtain information to or from
persons orally.
 It is an interchange of views between two or more people on a topic of
mutual interests, sees the centrality of human interaction from
knowledge production, and emphasizes the social situatedness of
research data (Kvale, 1996).
 Hochschild (2009) says that interview can do which surveys can not,
which is to explore issues in depth, to see how and why they make
connections between ideas, values, events, opinions, behavior etc.
 Research interview is conversation between two people which is
designed to obtain research data to meet the research objectives which
concern systematic description. (cannel and Kahn, 1968, p. 527)
 Oppenheim suggests that Interview has a higher response rate as
compare to questionnaire because of the more involvement of
respondents and motivation.

5. Conceptions of Interview
 Kitwwod (1977)
 First, conception Potential means of pure information transfer
 Second, transaction which inevitably has bias which must be
recognized and controlled. In this each participant Interviewer
and interviewee define interview in a particular way.
 Third, this conception see that it is an encounter necessarily
sharing many of the features of everyday life.

6. Purpose of Interview
 To understand , evaluate or to assess a person , situation or event
(s) in some respect.
 To select or promote an employee;
 To effect therapeutic change (E.g the psychiatric interview);
 To test or develop hypothesis;
 To develop a research instrument such as survey (as in cognitive
interviews (Pried et al., 2014));
 To gather data, as in survey, experimental situations and case
studies
 To sample respondents’ opinion

7. Purpose of Interview
 As distinctive research technique it may serve three purposes
 It may be used as the principal means to gather information to
serve the research objective, acquiring information on what a
person is thinking, knows, likes, values, and believes (Tuckman,
1972)
 It may be used to testify the hypothesis or to suggest new ones ,
or to be used as explanatory device to help identify variables and
relationship.
 It may be used in conjunction with other methods in a research
undertaking.

8. Types of Interview
Structured Interview
There is a set of standardized questions based on
job of analysis.
It is planned interview
Interviewer conducts it face to face or on any live
source
 Structured --------------------------- Semi-structured -----------------------Un-
Structured
(Directed) (Non-Directed

9. Meal Interview
 Some organizations offer to take the candidate to take lunch or Dinner for the interview.
 It is to get some information about the person such as their manners and treatment of wait
staff
 It is taken in relax and wish to observe attitude of the candidate
PANEL INTERVIEW
 It occurs when several people are interviewing on candidate at the same time or at one place.
In this type some one observe the knowledge regarding content , another observe the
confidence or body language
Group Interview
 It is taken in group
 Two or more candidates are involved at the same time

10. Video Interview
 It is a cost saving interview type by using technology
 It is helpful to take interview from out of city or abroad.
 Intelligence Interview
 To check the ability to understand your own emotions and emotions
of others
 Sometimes, interviewers assess emotional intelligence
 Situational Interview
 It to check candidate’s behavior or attitude during a situation.
 Candidate is asked specific questions about what may happen during
job

11. Structured Interview Semi-structured
Interview
Unstructured Interview
It is considered researcher-
guided.
It is by contrast, is
researcher proctored.
Interviewer asks questions which
are not prepared in advance.
questions are planned and
created in advance.
It is harder and more
complicated to develop
It takes a slightly more
open-ended approach.
The goal of it is
to recognize patterns.
questions arise spontaneously in
a free-flowing conversation.
It is Highly informal
conversation with no systematic
format to follow
You have to test them and
make sure interviewers
follow them precisely
interviewer asks only a
few predetermined
questions while the rest of
the questions are not
planned in advance
The main advantage of it is
it personalized approach

12. Structured Interview Semi-structured Interview Unstructured Interview
Researcher wants to prompt
the participant to give him
honest answers without
talking at length.
semi-structured interviews
are less objective and legally
harder to defend
It Contains open-ended
questions exclusively or
majority
Researcher tends to have a
narrower goal.
Questions Contains both open-
ended and closed ended
questions
It gives more freedom for the
respondents to give
responses
Could you describe the
educational system of rural
Sindh in your own words?
How do you feel about
educational system of
interior Sindh?
What kinds of illnesses do
children in this school get?

13. Types of Interview
LeCompete and Preissle gave some other
six types
Standardized Interviews
In-depth Interviews
Ethnographic Interviews
Elite Interviews
Life History Interviews
Focus Groups Interviews

14. Planning & Conducting Interview
Kvale sets out several stages to plan the interview
Stage one: Thematizing:
This is careful formulation of objectives.
It begins by outlining the theoretical basis of the study.
Its broad aim is to answer why interview approach has
been chosen.

15. Planning & Conducting Interview
 Stage two Designing:
It is to translate the research objectives and research
questions into actual questions that makeup the
main body of the schedule.
In this researcher he designs how accurately reflects
what he is trying to ask or to find out.
After preparation, researcher will consider the
question format and response mode.

16. Planning & Conducting Interview
 STAGE THREE: CONSTRUCTION OF SCHEDULE
Kerlinger used “Fixed-alternative items’ it allows the
respondent to choose two or more alternative like
dichotomous or Likert scale
Open ended questions which has so many advantages and
they are flexible.
‘Funnel’ type of open ended questions, it starts from a broad
question or statements and narrows down to more specific
ones.
‘Scale’ (rating scale), it is set of verbal items to each of which
the interviewee responds by indicating degrees of agreement
or disagreement.

17. Planning & Conducting Interview
CONSTRUCTION OF SCHEDULE:
Prompts & Probes (Framing of Semi-structured Interview)
 Prompts enable the interviewer to clarify topic or questions,
particularly if the interviewee seems not to have understood, or
he feels there is misunderstanding by rephrasing or reputing the
question.
 Probes enable the researcher to ask respondent if there is any
difficulty. Researcher enables to extend, elaborate , add to,
exemplify, provide the detail for,
 Pried et al., (2014) it is the follow up of ‘why’ ‘how’ questions
or can you give the example of that?’

18. Planning & Conducting Interview
Stage Four: Question Format
 Now it is time to look kinds of questions modes response in interviewing
 It is the matter of the question format that how it will be rephrased or
organized?
 There are some questions which deal with either a general or specific issue or
event
 It is distinction is made between questions by inviting factual answers or by
inviting opinions.
Some categories of questions
Descriptive questions Experience questions Behavior questions
Knowledge questions Background questions Demographic Questions

19. Planning & Conducting Interview
Stage Five Response Mode
There are several Response modes can be applied as
Open ended, Closed ended, Dichotomous, Multiple
choice, Rank ordering, rating scales, ratio data.
It is important to bear that more than one question
format and more than one response mode can be
employed when building up schedule. The final
mixture depends on the kind of factors mentioned
earlier- means the objective of the research.

20. Planning & Conducting Interview
Stage Six Conducting the INTERVIEW
By setting up, now it is to conduct the
interview by keeping mind these things.
Consideration of the people involved in.
Location, where he will meet his research
participant(s).
To set the time of the interview.
To set how much time he will take of the
participant(s).
Continue…

21. Planning & Conducting Interview
CONDUCTING THE INTERVIEW
The researcher carefully plan by grouping
together similar topics or questions as under
Introductory questions
Follow up questions
Direct questions or indirect questions
Interpreting questions
Researcher will ensure comfortability of
conducting the interview

22. Planning & Conducting Interview
Stage seven TRANSCRIBING
This is crucial one step to transcribe the interview
Some times it losses the data from original
encounter by translation from one set (Oral &
interpretation)to another.
Mishler (1991) suggests that data and relationship
between meaning and language are contextually
situated; they are unstable, changing and capable
of endless reinterpretation.

23. Planning & Conducting Interview
Stage Eight: Analyzing
After data collection, tension in data analysis is
between maintain a sense of holism of the interview
and the tendency for analysis to atomize and
fragment the data, to separate them into constitute
elements.
There are several stages of data analysis will be
discussed in next coming slides.

24. Planning & Conducting Interview
Stage Nine: Verifying
Theoretical foundation, it must be logical link between
such theory and the research questions.
All aspects of research design sound and rigorous
The data is accurate, reliable and valid
Translation of the data from oral to written
demonstrate fidelity.
Validity procedure has been used.
Reporting will be fair and seen to be fair by readers.

25. Planning & Conducting Interview
Stage Ten: Reporting
Kvale suggests some elements of reporting.
An introduction which interprets main theme and
contents.
An outline of the methodology and methods.
The results (Data analysis, interpretation and
verification)
The discussion (possible explanation from the
findings).

26. Focused Group Interview
 Focus group is a qualitative technique for data collection.
 A focus group is “a group comprised of individuals with certain
characteristics who focus discussions on a given issue or topic”
(Anderson, 1990, p.241)
 According to Denscombe (2007, p.115), “focus group consists of a
small group of people, usually between six and nine in number,
who are brought together by a trained moderator (the researcher)
to explore attitudes and perceptions, feelings and ideas about a
topic”.
 A focus group interview provides a setting for the relatively
homogeneous group to reflect on the questions asked by the
interviewer.
Continue…

27. Focused Group Interview
Focus group is a form of group interview in which
reliance is placed on the interaction within the
group, which discusses a topic supplied by the
researcher (morgan, 1988,p 9) yielding a collective
rather than an individual view.
It is Participants’ interaction with each other.
It is unstructured interview.
In this moderator / facilitator is present to lead the
discussion session.

28. Purpose of Focused Group Interview
Focus group interview aims to collect high
quality data in social context (Patton, 2002).
It primarily help to understand a specific
problem from the viewpoint of the
participants of research (Khan & Manderson,
1992).
Focus group interview uses the important
questions as ‘why’ and ‘when’

29. Purpose of Focused Group Interview
 Firstly, focus group interview may be a valuable research
instrument when the researcher lacks substantial
information about the subjects.
 Secondly, focus groups are predominantly beneficial when a
researcher intends to find out the people‘s understanding
and experiences about the issue and reasons behind their
particular pattern of thinking. (Kitzinger, 1995).
 Thirdly, it is suitable to examine sensitive issues.
 Fourthly, it is opportunity for minority and marginalized people

30. Focused Group VS In-depth Interview
Focus group Interview In Depth Interview
It is unstructured It may structured, semi-structured
Number of participants are not defined Number of participants predefined
It interacts individuals brought together
by moderator/ Interviewer
Researcher interacts with respondents on
an individual level
Participants free to discuss on topic Participants respond to question was
It is quick and cheap to collect data It may take more time to collect data
Role of researcher is important Role of researcher is important
Easy to access more number of
participants at one point.
It provides more details about each
research participants.

31. Analysis Process of Interview
STEP 1: GATHER YOUR FEEDBACK
This data might be captured in different formats such as on
paper or post-it notes or in online forums and surveys, so
it’s important to get all of your content into a single place.

32. Analysis Process of Interview
 STEP 2: CODING YOUR COMMENTS
 This can be mapped to the areas you need to report on or the key
components of your project.
 In this legend, researcher can outline research themes and
descriptions and if he wants to take it a step. Further, he might even
add issues as a secondary tag within a theme.

33. Analysis Process of Interview
STEP 3: RUN YOUR QUERIES
RECOMMENDATIONS
Which are the most used codes or themes? Represent this
visually to get a sense of the most important areas.
How did people respond via different formats? Were there
any differences in views based on the submission type?
Which issues are of most concern to different
demographics segments?
Are there any relationships between issues? ie. are people
who are concerned with one issue more likely to be
concerned with another?

34. Analysis Process of Interview
 STEP 4: REPORTING
 This is a critical step as it’s your opportunity to tell the story of what
you learnt from your consultation/Conclusion.
 If you fail to do this step well, your community will absolutely lose
faith in your process and you might even face potential community
outrage.
 Use your insights to create a narrative about the issues and
opportunities which your community have identified.

35. Ways of Interview Analysis
 Thematic content analysis (most common method)
Getting familiar with the data (reading and re-reading).
Coding (labeling) the whole text.
Searching for themes with broader patterns of meaning.
Reviewing themes to make sure they fit the data.
Defining and naming themes.
The write-up (creating a coherent narrative that includes
quotes from the interviewees).

36. Ways of Interview Analysis
 Narrative analysis: (Increasingly popular Approach)
Gather the stories.
Analyze each story and look for insights and meanings.
Compare and contrast different stories; look for
interpretations.
Create a new story that connects the previous ones in a
novel and insightful way.

37. Ways of Interview Analysis
 A deductive approach
It is possible to use a somewhat non-qualitative approach.
Deductive approach is used if there is predetermined
framework to analyze.
This approach is relatively easy and quick.
It generally is used when you are not seeking depth
and new understanding.

40. Sources
 https://www.google.com.pk/search?sxsrf=ACYBGNTuQ7QulHfBX0CRWxizkU1VssS8
8w%3A1574065529788&source=hp&ei=eVXSXcvdLcbWapG7gUg&q=etymology+
of+word+interview+&oq=etymology+of+word+interview+&gs_l=psy-
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 https://unstick.me/3-straightforward-methods-for-analyzing-qualitative interview-
data/
Cohen, L. M. (2018). Research Methods in Education (8th ed.). London & New york :
Routledge .

41. Thank You