2134/15020
Jonathan Potter
Jonathan
Potter
Alexa Hepburn
Alexa
Hepburn
Qualitative interviews in psychology: problems and possibilities
Loughborough University
2014
Qualitative interviews
Discursive psychology
Footing
Stake and interest
Transcription
Research agenda
Cognitivism
Language, Communication and Culture not elsewhere classified
Studies in Human Society not elsewhere classified
2014-06-25 13:59:18
Journal contribution
https://repository.lboro.ac.uk/articles/journal_contribution/Qualitative_interviews_in_psychology_problems_and_possibilities/9475712
This paper distinguishes a series of contingent and necessary problems that arise in the design, conduct, analysis and reporting of open-ended or conversational qualitative interviews in psychological research. Contingent problems in the reporting of interviews include: (1) the deletion of the interviewer; (2) the conventions of representation of interaction; (3) the specificity of analytic observations; (4) the unavailability of the interview set-up; (5) the failure to consider interviews as interaction. Necessary problems include: (1) the flooding of the interview with social science agendas and categories; (2) the complex and varying footing positions of interviewer and interviewee; (3) the orientations to stake and interest on the part of the interviewer and interviewee; (4) the reproduction of cognitivism. The paper ends with two kinds of recommendation. First, we argue that interviews should be studied as an interactional object, and that study should feed back into the design, conduct and analysis of interviews so that they can be used more effectively in cases where they are the most appropriate data gathering tools. Second, these problems with open-ended interviews highlight a range of specific virtues of basing analysis on naturalistic materials. Reasons for moving away from the use of interviews for many research questions are described.