Michelle and I conducted and recorded two interviews this week with students we collected screenshots of texts from. We used the same questions we wrote up last week and also composed a general script to use for every interview. We had an introduction that would ask for the respondent’s verbal consent and explain the study to them:
“Thanks for agreeing to participate in this study. We will ask you 10 questions, and this interview will take about 30 minutes. You may skip any questions you do not wish to answer, and you may end the interview at any time. Your responses may be used in a future podcast. We may use your comments in reports on this research, but no personally identifying information will be shared. Also, feel free to take your time to answer these questions. Don’t feel pressured to fill the silence. If you’re ready, we’ll get started…”
Michelle and I realized early on in our first interview that our 10 questions were lacking. We had two pairs of questions that asked similar things which prompted our respondent to repeat themselves. As the interview went on, we also realized there were questions we wanted to ask that we did not plan for. Michelle and I decided right after the first interview to change some of the questions and add probes to help clarify what we were asking.
We conducted the second interview within minutes of the first and it also helped us improve the list of questions we wanted to ask. During the first, Michelle and I strictly followed the 10 questions which made for a formal-sounding interview. We took the liberty during the second interview to ask follow-up questions that were not necessarily on our script and to help our respondent comment further on certain topics. Although the first respondent had more to say, Michelle and I found we preferred how we handled the second one more.
These two interviews were short and incomplete but we learned a lot from them. Michelle and I decided that these interview questions would instead be the basis of discussion for a podcast we will conduct instead of the interviews. We found that the second interview felt more conversational and casual which we wanted in the first place. We are considering bringing back the same respondents and rerecording them but in a podcast format since they provided interesting information. These interviews were really the first stages of our research and experimental, which I am glad we organized so that we could change the study for the better. I think it gave Michelle and I a better sense of where we want this research to go.