1) What experience do you have with conducting research interviews? What went well? What needed improvement? Share your advice with your class members.
My experience with conducting research interviews is limited. I last conducted a research interview with my grandfather preparing a report for my nutrition class. My research interview with my grandfather was a question and answer session that discussed nutritional habits of individuals in the foreign country of Spain. My greatest takeaway from my experience was that, as the interviewer, you must stay on track with the questioning. Specifically, when my interviewee responded to a question it was so elaborate that it began to stray away from the subject matter. I quickly realized that if I do not cut him off, he would continue to speak for an hour on my first question. Now that I am reflecting on my interview, when I began to write my paper, I recall thinking to myself, I wish I had better developed questions. When reviewing my notes, it seemed that most of my questions were close-ended and did not lead the interviewee in the direction that I had hoped. Ultimately, making my paper difficult to write.
Got to love the grandparents :) they always have so much wisdom and are full of conversation. I think even the little experience you have is significant and will definitely help you in the future. In reading the text where it goes into depth about exactly is necessary for a positive outcome, I can see where this would have been very beneficial in your case. I believe you went into your interview with a specific purpose in mind and that you selected your interviewee appropriately, but perhaps the development of your questions would have given you a better outcome. Perhaps implementing secondary questions and some leading questions would have narrowed the parameter so you had a more structured outcome versus broad and unorganized. I also think, in combination with more developed questions, and interview guide would have been an asset your process. It would have just been that much more organized in the end. As for conducting the interview, and integrating the information, sounds like you did great. I am sure, in the future, it you will have a great end product from both what you have experienced already and what we are learning from this class!! Great job so far!!
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