Finding
The qualitative research interview developed alongside a defense of its necessity and scientific status, which occurred during a time of controversy when its proponents may have overlooked its possible weaknesses.
Paper
The Individually Focused Interview: Methodological Quality Without Transcription of Audio Recordings
Citations: 42
Full text
Semantic ScholarAbstract
In using the qualitative research interview, there is a well-known risk that the researcher or student will "suffer the data death" because he or she will end up with too many pages and find it difficult to gather up the raw data. Kvale calls this "the 1,000-page question" (Kvale, 1997, p. 176), while others simply warn researchers not to "drown in the data" (Silverman, 2005, p. 349). The 1,000-page question and the risk of drowning in data come from the wish to interview more people than possible in the research process. In this paper, I argue that under certain conditions audio transcriptions of qualitative research interviews can be replaced by taking notes, with no harm done to reliability, validity, and transparency. These conditions relate to the group under study, how well the interview has been planned, focused themes, and how thorough the introduction to the interview has been. The paper introduces the Individually Focused Interview as an alternative way to find the immediate discourses that are attached to the main issue. It seeks to predict trends and explain the social dynamics, and is a way to ensure breadth of range of statements. Furthermore, the paper argues theoretically--from the standpoint of modern hermeneutics--that audio transcriptions are not necessarily needed to comply with scientific standards. Since the 1940s, the qualitative research interview has evolved from the "focused interview" of Robert K. Merton to presenting a range of qualitative interviews. Today, Merton gets the credit for the development of the focus group interview (Pedersen, 2003), although Merton's original ideas in the "The Focussed Interview" did not include today's many uses of focus group interviews (Merton 1965; Merton, Fiske & Kendall, 1990). Merton was not only the literary midwife of the focus group interview: he also represented an important change to the mentality of the research interview. Merton (1946) argued that instead of using more mechanical, quantitative measurements to understand people's statements about dissatisfaction, satisfaction, comfort, or discomfort, a fundamental shift to a qualitative interview style would bring more depth of understanding. Shortly afterwards the possibility of making recordings began to appeal to researchers. It was thus possible to transcribe interviews in the manner we know today. The qualitative research interview has reached high ground on a worldwide basis, not just at universities but also at other teaching levels and in change-oriented processes in organizations guided by consultants. Starting mainly in the 1990s, a number of researchers argued for the use of qualitative methods to complement quantitative methods (Tashakkori & Teddlie, 1998; Tellis, 1997; Yin, 1994). The father of modern hermeneutics, Hans-Georg Gadamer, argued that in interpretation of statements in dialogue, they should be understood from the individual's own situation and range of understanding. Moreover, we must understand that objectivity in the usual scientific sense is not possible in interpretation of statements; thus, the definitive interpreter is also part of the interpreted (Gadamer, 1960). Historically, the presentations of qualitative methods and their differences from quantitative methods have been part of a fierce debate about what is scientific and what is not (Tashakkori & Teddlie, 1998). The ability of qualitative methods to satisfy requirements of validity has been under fire from advocates of quantitative methods, while qualitative researchers argue the contrary--that natural science-based validity requirements cannot be used with qualitative methods. The development of the qualitative research interview thus occurred concurrently with a defence of both its necessity and its scientific status. In this context, the development of the qualitative interview may have occurred at a time of controversy when its proponents may have been too willing to overlook its possible weaknesses. …
Authors
A. S. Clausen
Journal
The Qualitative Report