In qualitative research, interview questions should follow the following best practices:
Question Design:
- Mostly contain open ended questions, though some closed demographic type questions at the end may also be helpful.
- Begin with easy questions that help participants feel at ease.
- Include “grand tour questions” that is, questions that encourage the participant to think of the topic or issue as a whole.
- Include specific and detailed questions, that help uncover the unique details of the participants experience.
- Include some sort of question aimed at asking if there is anything else about the topic the participant would like the researcher to know.
- Like surveys, double-barrelled or leading questions should be avoided.
Time and Location:
- In general, interviews should be between 45 and 60 minutes in length if possible, and should be shorter than 90 minutes.
- Interviews should be held in a location where the interviewer and interviewee can both feel comfortable, and where anonymity of the interviewee is ensured, if the research is sensitive.
- Interviews take more time than some other methods, but the benefit is a large amount of deep and detailed data from participants.
- Most qualitative studies using interviews do not have more than 10-12 participants. This is due to the fact that data collection and transcription takes a lot of time.
- For public consultation type research, interviews would be most effective if held with specific high value stakeholders or specific expert groups.
This video from our friends at Yale University provides a thorough overview of qualitative interviewing as a method of data collection (22 mins).
Test your knowledge:
Using the research goal from the previous section on surveys, now design two or three open-ended questions – suitable for a semi structured interview – to find out more detail about willingness to ban different plastic items. Now that you’ve designed both interview and survey questions, how do you think the data you get from each might be different?