Describe the process of intensive interviewing and compare it to the process of interviewing in survey research.

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Asking questions is part of almost all qualitative research designs (Wolcott, 1995). Many qualitative researchers employ intensive interviewing exclusively, without systematic observation of respondents in their natural setting. Unlike the more structured interviewing that may be used in survey research (discussed in Chapter 7), intensive interviewing relies on open-ended questions. Qualitative researchers do not presume to know the range of answers that respondents might give, and they seek to hear these answers in the respondents’ own words. Rather than asking standard questions in a fixed order, intensive interviewers allow the specific content and order of questions to vary from one interviewee to another.
What distinguishes intensive interviewing from more structured forms of questioning is consistency and thoroughness. The goal is to develop a comprehensive picture of the interviewees’ background, attitudes, and actions, in their own terms—to “listen to people as they describe how they understand the worlds in which they live and work” (Rubin & Rubin, 1995, p. 3). For example, even though Decker and Van Winkle (1996) had an interview guide, they encouraged elaboration on the part of their respondents and “went to great lengths to insure that each person we interviewed felt they had received the opportunity to tell their story in their own words” (p. 45).
Intensive interviewing A qualitative method that involves open-ended, relatively unstructured questioning in which the interviewer seeks in-depth information on the interviewee’s feelings, experiences, and perceptions; also called in-depth interviewing
Random selection is rarely used to select respondents for intensive interviews, but the selection method still must be considered carefully. Researchers should try to select interviewees who are knowledgeable about the subject of the interview, who are open to talking, and who represent the range of perspectives (Rubin & Rubin, 1995). Selection of new interviewees should continue, if possible, at least until the saturation point is reached, the point when new interviews seem to yield little additional information. As new issues are uncovered, additional interviewees may be selected to represent different opinions about these issues.
Saturation point : The point at which subject selection is ended in intensive interviewing, when new interviews seem to yield little additional information.
Research by Fleury-Steiner (2003) that examines the thoughts and emotions of jurors in death penalty cases is an excellent illustration of the tremendous insights that can be uncovered through intensive interviewing. In Jurors’ Stories of Death, Fleury-Steiner reports on his work with the Capital Jury Project (CJP), which was a national study of the experiences of citizens who served as jurors on death penalty cases. To encourage respondents to tell stories about their experiences, the CJP survey explicitly asked jurors to tell interviewers about important moments during the trial and deliberations and their impressions of the defendant. Fleury-Steiner states,
The goal of these questions was to facilitate jurors to construct their responses in their own ways.... Given the leeway to answer as they saw fit, in many instances jurors’ stories emerged when I least expected them to.