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In-depth Interviews: Definition and how to conduct them

Online surveys, user review sites and focus groups can be great methods for collecting data. However, another method of gathering data that is sometimes overlooked are the in-depth interviews.

All of these methods can be used in your comprehensive customer experience management strategy, but in-depth interviews can help you collect data that can offer rich insights into your target audience’s experience and preferences from a broad sample.

In this article you will discover the main characteristics of in-depth interviews as a great tool for your qualitative research and gather better insights from your objects of study.

LEARN ABOUT: Behavioral Research

What are in-depth interviews?

In-depth interviews are a qualitative data collection method that allows for the collection of a large amount of information about the behavior, attitude and perception of the interviewees.

LEARN ABOUT: Best Data Collection Tools

During in-depth interviews, researchers and participants have the freedom to explore additional points and change the direction of the process when necessary. It is an independent research method that can adopt multiple strategies according to the needs of the research.

Characteristics of in-depth interviews

There are many types of interviews , each with its particularities, in this case the most important characteristics of in-depth interviews are:

Flexible structure: Although it is not very structured, it covers a few topics based on a guide, which allows the interviewer to cover areas appropriate for the interviewee.
Interactive: The interviewer processes the material that is produced during the interview. During the interaction the interviewer poses initial questions in a positive manner, so that the respondent is encouraged to answer. The complete process is very human, and so less mundane and dull.
Deep: Many probing techniques are used in in-depth interviews, so that results are understood through exploration and explanation. The interviewer asks follow-up questions to gain a deeper perspective and understand the participant’s viewpoint.
Generative: Often interacting with your target audience creates new knowledge. For instance, if you are talking to your customers, you learn more about the purchase behavior. Researchers and participants present ideas for a specific topic and solutions to the problems posed.

To learn more about the characteristics of in-depth interviews, check out our blog on interview questions .

Importance of conducting in-depth interviews

As an in-depth interview is a one-on-one conversation, you get enough opportunities to get to the root causes of likes/dislikes, perceptions, or beliefs.

Generally, questions are open-ended questions and can be customized as per the particular situation. You can use single ease questions . A single-ease question is a straightforward query that elicits a concise and uncomplicated response. The interviewer gets an opportunity to develop a rapport with the participant, thereby making them feel comfortable. Thus, they can bring out honest feedback and also note their expressions and body language. Such cues can amount to rich qualitative data.

LEARN ABOUT: Selection Bias

With surveys, there are chances that the respondents may select answers in a rush, but in case of in-depth interviews it’s hardly the worry of researchers.

Conversations can prove to be an excellent method to collect data. In fact, people might be reluctant to answer questions in written format, but given the nature of an interview, participants might agree giving information verbally. You can also discuss with the interviewees if they want to keep their identity confidential.

In-depth interviews are aimed at uncovering the issues in order to obtain detailed results. This method allows you to gain insight into the experiences, feelings and perspectives of the interviewees.

When conducting the initial stage of a large research project, in-depth interviews prove to be useful to narrow down and focus on important research details.

When you want to have the context of a problem, in-depth interviews allow you to evaluate different solutions to manage the research process while assisting in in-depth data analysis .

LEARN ABOUT: Research Process Steps

Steps to conduct in-depth interviews

Obtain the necessary information about the respondents and the context in which they operate.
Make a script or a list of topics you want to cover. This will make it easy to add secondary questions.
Schedule an interview at a time and date of the respondent’s choice.
Ask questions confidently and let the interviewees feel comfortable, so that they too are confident and can answer difficult questions with ease.
Set a maximum duration such that it doesn’t feel exhaustive.
Observe and make notes on the interviewee’s body expressions and gestures.
It is important to maintain ethics throughout the process.
Transcribe the recordings and verify them with the interviewee.

Advantages of in-depth interviews

The benefits of conducting an in-depth interview include the following:

They allow the researcher and participants to have a comfortable relationship to generate more in-depth responses regarding sensitive topics.
Researchers can ask follow-up questions , obtain additional information, and return to key questions to gain a better understanding of the participants’ attitudes.
The sampling is more accurate than other data collection methods .
Researchers can monitor changes in tone and word choice of participants to gain a better understanding of opinions.
Fewer participants are needed to obtain useful information.
In-depth interviews can be very beneficial when a detailed report on a person’s opinion and behavior is needed. In addition, it explores new ideas and contexts that give the researcher a complete picture of the phenomena that occurred.

Disadvantages

The disadvantages of in-depth interviews are:

They are time-consuming, as they must be transcribed, organized, analyzed in detail.
If the interviewer is inexperienced, it affects the complete process.
It is a costly research method compared to other methods.
Participants must be chosen carefully to avoid bias, otherwise it can lengthen the process.
Generally, participants decide to collaborate only when they receive an incentive in return.

LEARN ABOUT: Self-Selection Bias

What is the purpose of in-depth interviews?

The main purpose of in-depth interviews is to understand the consumer behavior and make well-informed decisions. Organizations can formulate their marketing strategies based on the information received from the respondents. They can also gain insights into the probable demand and know consumer pulse.

In the case of B2B businesses, researchers can understand the demand in more detail and can ask questions targeted for the experts. Interviews offer a chance to understand the customer’s thought process and design products that have higher chances of being accepted in the market.

LEARN ABOUT: 12 Best Tools for Researchers

Final words

An in-depth interview should follow all the steps of the process to collect meaningful data. Hope this blog helps you decide whether you should conduct a detailed interview with your target audience, keeping in mind the pros and cons of it.

If you want to get started with conducting research online, we suggest using an online survey software that offers features like designing a questionnaire , customized look and feel, distributing to your contacts and data analytics. Create an account with QuestionPro Surveys and explore the tool. If you need any help with research or data collection, feel free to connect with us.

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Chapter 11. Interviewing

Introduction.

Interviewing people is at the heart of qualitative research. It is not merely a way to collect data but an intrinsically rewarding activity—an interaction between two people that holds the potential for greater understanding and interpersonal development. Unlike many of our daily interactions with others that are fairly shallow and mundane, sitting down with a person for an hour or two and really listening to what they have to say is a profound and deep enterprise, one that can provide not only “data” for you, the interviewer, but also self-understanding and a feeling of being heard for the interviewee. I always approach interviewing with a deep appreciation for the opportunity it gives me to understand how other people experience the world. That said, there is not one kind of interview but many, and some of these are shallower than others. This chapter will provide you with an overview of interview techniques but with a special focus on the in-depth semistructured interview guide approach, which is the approach most widely used in social science research.

An interview can be variously defined as “a conversation with a purpose” ( Lune and Berg 2018 ) and an attempt to understand the world from the point of view of the person being interviewed: “to unfold the meaning of peoples’ experiences, to uncover their lived world prior to scientific explanations” ( Kvale 2007 ). It is a form of active listening in which the interviewer steers the conversation to subjects and topics of interest to their research but also manages to leave enough space for those interviewed to say surprising things. Achieving that balance is a tricky thing, which is why most practitioners believe interviewing is both an art and a science. In my experience as a teacher, there are some students who are “natural” interviewers (often they are introverts), but anyone can learn to conduct interviews, and everyone, even those of us who have been doing this for years, can improve their interviewing skills. This might be a good time to highlight the fact that the interview is a product between interviewer and interviewee and that this product is only as good as the rapport established between the two participants. Active listening is the key to establishing this necessary rapport.

Patton ( 2002 ) makes the argument that we use interviews because there are certain things that are not observable. In particular, “we cannot observe feelings, thoughts, and intentions. We cannot observe behaviors that took place at some previous point in time. We cannot observe situations that preclude the presence of an observer. We cannot observe how people have organized the world and the meanings they attach to what goes on in the world. We have to ask people questions about those things” ( 341 ).

Types of Interviews

There are several distinct types of interviews. Imagine a continuum (figure 11.1). On one side are unstructured conversations—the kind you have with your friends. No one is in control of those conversations, and what you talk about is often random—whatever pops into your head. There is no secret, underlying purpose to your talking—if anything, the purpose is to talk to and engage with each other, and the words you use and the things you talk about are a little beside the point. An unstructured interview is a little like this informal conversation, except that one of the parties to the conversation (you, the researcher) does have an underlying purpose, and that is to understand the other person. You are not friends speaking for no purpose, but it might feel just as unstructured to the “interviewee” in this scenario. That is one side of the continuum. On the other side are fully structured and standardized survey-type questions asked face-to-face. Here it is very clear who is asking the questions and who is answering them. This doesn’t feel like a conversation at all! A lot of people new to interviewing have this ( erroneously !) in mind when they think about interviews as data collection. Somewhere in the middle of these two extreme cases is the “ semistructured” interview , in which the researcher uses an “interview guide” to gently move the conversation to certain topics and issues. This is the primary form of interviewing for qualitative social scientists and will be what I refer to as interviewing for the rest of this chapter, unless otherwise specified.

Types of Interviewing Questions: Unstructured conversations, Semi-structured interview, Structured interview, Survey questions

Informal (unstructured conversations). This is the most “open-ended” approach to interviewing. It is particularly useful in conjunction with observational methods (see chapters 13 and 14). There are no predetermined questions. Each interview will be different. Imagine you are researching the Oregon Country Fair, an annual event in Veneta, Oregon, that includes live music, artisan craft booths, face painting, and a lot of people walking through forest paths. It’s unlikely that you will be able to get a person to sit down with you and talk intensely about a set of questions for an hour and a half. But you might be able to sidle up to several people and engage with them about their experiences at the fair. You might have a general interest in what attracts people to these events, so you could start a conversation by asking strangers why they are here or why they come back every year. That’s it. Then you have a conversation that may lead you anywhere. Maybe one person tells a long story about how their parents brought them here when they were a kid. A second person talks about how this is better than Burning Man. A third person shares their favorite traveling band. And yet another enthuses about the public library in the woods. During your conversations, you also talk about a lot of other things—the weather, the utilikilts for sale, the fact that a favorite food booth has disappeared. It’s all good. You may not be able to record these conversations. Instead, you might jot down notes on the spot and then, when you have the time, write down as much as you can remember about the conversations in long fieldnotes. Later, you will have to sit down with these fieldnotes and try to make sense of all the information (see chapters 18 and 19).

Interview guide ( semistructured interview ). This is the primary type employed by social science qualitative researchers. The researcher creates an “interview guide” in advance, which she uses in every interview. In theory, every person interviewed is asked the same questions. In practice, every person interviewed is asked mostly the same topics but not always the same questions, as the whole point of a “guide” is that it guides the direction of the conversation but does not command it. The guide is typically between five and ten questions or question areas, sometimes with suggested follow-ups or prompts . For example, one question might be “What was it like growing up in Eastern Oregon?” with prompts such as “Did you live in a rural area? What kind of high school did you attend?” to help the conversation develop. These interviews generally take place in a quiet place (not a busy walkway during a festival) and are recorded. The recordings are transcribed, and those transcriptions then become the “data” that is analyzed (see chapters 18 and 19). The conventional length of one of these types of interviews is between one hour and two hours, optimally ninety minutes. Less than one hour doesn’t allow for much development of questions and thoughts, and two hours (or more) is a lot of time to ask someone to sit still and answer questions. If you have a lot of ground to cover, and the person is willing, I highly recommend two separate interview sessions, with the second session being slightly shorter than the first (e.g., ninety minutes the first day, sixty minutes the second). There are lots of good reasons for this, but the most compelling one is that this allows you to listen to the first day’s recording and catch anything interesting you might have missed in the moment and so develop follow-up questions that can probe further. This also allows the person being interviewed to have some time to think about the issues raised in the interview and go a little deeper with their answers.

Standardized questionnaire with open responses ( structured interview ). This is the type of interview a lot of people have in mind when they hear “interview”: a researcher comes to your door with a clipboard and proceeds to ask you a series of questions. These questions are all the same whoever answers the door; they are “standardized.” Both the wording and the exact order are important, as people’s responses may vary depending on how and when a question is asked. These are qualitative only in that the questions allow for “open-ended responses”: people can say whatever they want rather than select from a predetermined menu of responses. For example, a survey I collaborated on included this open-ended response question: “How does class affect one’s career success in sociology?” Some of the answers were simply one word long (e.g., “debt”), and others were long statements with stories and personal anecdotes. It is possible to be surprised by the responses. Although it’s a stretch to call this kind of questioning a conversation, it does allow the person answering the question some degree of freedom in how they answer.

Survey questionnaire with closed responses (not an interview!). Standardized survey questions with specific answer options (e.g., closed responses) are not really interviews at all, and they do not generate qualitative data. For example, if we included five options for the question “How does class affect one’s career success in sociology?”—(1) debt, (2) social networks, (3) alienation, (4) family doesn’t understand, (5) type of grad program—we leave no room for surprises at all. Instead, we would most likely look at patterns around these responses, thinking quantitatively rather than qualitatively (e.g., using regression analysis techniques, we might find that working-class sociologists were twice as likely to bring up alienation). It can sometimes be confusing for new students because the very same survey can include both closed-ended and open-ended questions. The key is to think about how these will be analyzed and to what level surprises are possible. If your plan is to turn all responses into a number and make predictions about correlations and relationships, you are no longer conducting qualitative research. This is true even if you are conducting this survey face-to-face with a real live human. Closed-response questions are not conversations of any kind, purposeful or not.

In summary, the semistructured interview guide approach is the predominant form of interviewing for social science qualitative researchers because it allows a high degree of freedom of responses from those interviewed (thus allowing for novel discoveries) while still maintaining some connection to a research question area or topic of interest. The rest of the chapter assumes the employment of this form.

Creating an Interview Guide

Your interview guide is the instrument used to bridge your research question(s) and what the people you are interviewing want to tell you. Unlike a standardized questionnaire, the questions actually asked do not need to be exactly what you have written down in your guide. The guide is meant to create space for those you are interviewing to talk about the phenomenon of interest, but sometimes you are not even sure what that phenomenon is until you start asking questions. A priority in creating an interview guide is to ensure it offers space. One of the worst mistakes is to create questions that are so specific that the person answering them will not stray. Relatedly, questions that sound “academic” will shut down a lot of respondents. A good interview guide invites respondents to talk about what is important to them, not feel like they are performing or being evaluated by you.

Good interview questions should not sound like your “research question” at all. For example, let’s say your research question is “How do patriarchal assumptions influence men’s understanding of climate change and responses to climate change?” It would be worse than unhelpful to ask a respondent, “How do your assumptions about the role of men affect your understanding of climate change?” You need to unpack this into manageable nuggets that pull your respondent into the area of interest without leading him anywhere. You could start by asking him what he thinks about climate change in general. Or, even better, whether he has any concerns about heatwaves or increased tornadoes or polar icecaps melting. Once he starts talking about that, you can ask follow-up questions that bring in issues around gendered roles, perhaps asking if he is married (to a woman) and whether his wife shares his thoughts and, if not, how they negotiate that difference. The fact is, you won’t really know the right questions to ask until he starts talking.

There are several distinct types of questions that can be used in your interview guide, either as main questions or as follow-up probes. If you remember that the point is to leave space for the respondent, you will craft a much more effective interview guide! You will also want to think about the place of time in both the questions themselves (past, present, future orientations) and the sequencing of the questions.

Researcher Note

Suggestion : As you read the next three sections (types of questions, temporality, question sequence), have in mind a particular research question, and try to draft questions and sequence them in a way that opens space for a discussion that helps you answer your research question.

Type of Questions

Experience and behavior questions ask about what a respondent does regularly (their behavior) or has done (their experience). These are relatively easy questions for people to answer because they appear more “factual” and less subjective. This makes them good opening questions. For the study on climate change above, you might ask, “Have you ever experienced an unusual weather event? What happened?” Or “You said you work outside? What is a typical summer workday like for you? How do you protect yourself from the heat?”

Opinion and values questions , in contrast, ask questions that get inside the minds of those you are interviewing. “Do you think climate change is real? Who or what is responsible for it?” are two such questions. Note that you don’t have to literally ask, “What is your opinion of X?” but you can find a way to ask the specific question relevant to the conversation you are having. These questions are a bit trickier to ask because the answers you get may depend in part on how your respondent perceives you and whether they want to please you or not. We’ve talked a fair amount about being reflective. Here is another place where this comes into play. You need to be aware of the effect your presence might have on the answers you are receiving and adjust accordingly. If you are a woman who is perceived as liberal asking a man who identifies as conservative about climate change, there is a lot of subtext that can be going on in the interview. There is no one right way to resolve this, but you must at least be aware of it.

Feeling questions are questions that ask respondents to draw on their emotional responses. It’s pretty common for academic researchers to forget that we have bodies and emotions, but people’s understandings of the world often operate at this affective level, sometimes unconsciously or barely consciously. It is a good idea to include questions that leave space for respondents to remember, imagine, or relive emotional responses to particular phenomena. “What was it like when you heard your cousin’s house burned down in that wildfire?” doesn’t explicitly use any emotion words, but it allows your respondent to remember what was probably a pretty emotional day. And if they respond emotionally neutral, that is pretty interesting data too. Note that asking someone “How do you feel about X” is not always going to evoke an emotional response, as they might simply turn around and respond with “I think that…” It is better to craft a question that actually pushes the respondent into the affective category. This might be a specific follow-up to an experience and behavior question —for example, “You just told me about your daily routine during the summer heat. Do you worry it is going to get worse?” or “Have you ever been afraid it will be too hot to get your work accomplished?”

Knowledge questions ask respondents what they actually know about something factual. We have to be careful when we ask these types of questions so that respondents do not feel like we are evaluating them (which would shut them down), but, for example, it is helpful to know when you are having a conversation about climate change that your respondent does in fact know that unusual weather events have increased and that these have been attributed to climate change! Asking these questions can set the stage for deeper questions and can ensure that the conversation makes the same kind of sense to both participants. For example, a conversation about political polarization can be put back on track once you realize that the respondent doesn’t really have a clear understanding that there are two parties in the US. Instead of asking a series of questions about Republicans and Democrats, you might shift your questions to talk more generally about political disagreements (e.g., “people against abortion”). And sometimes what you do want to know is the level of knowledge about a particular program or event (e.g., “Are you aware you can discharge your student loans through the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program?”).

Sensory questions call on all senses of the respondent to capture deeper responses. These are particularly helpful in sparking memory. “Think back to your childhood in Eastern Oregon. Describe the smells, the sounds…” Or you could use these questions to help a person access the full experience of a setting they customarily inhabit: “When you walk through the doors to your office building, what do you see? Hear? Smell?” As with feeling questions , these questions often supplement experience and behavior questions . They are another way of allowing your respondent to report fully and deeply rather than remain on the surface.

Creative questions employ illustrative examples, suggested scenarios, or simulations to get respondents to think more deeply about an issue, topic, or experience. There are many options here. In The Trouble with Passion , Erin Cech ( 2021 ) provides a scenario in which “Joe” is trying to decide whether to stay at his decent but boring computer job or follow his passion by opening a restaurant. She asks respondents, “What should Joe do?” Their answers illuminate the attraction of “passion” in job selection. In my own work, I have used a news story about an upwardly mobile young man who no longer has time to see his mother and sisters to probe respondents’ feelings about the costs of social mobility. Jessi Streib and Betsy Leondar-Wright have used single-page cartoon “scenes” to elicit evaluations of potential racial discrimination, sexual harassment, and classism. Barbara Sutton ( 2010 ) has employed lists of words (“strong,” “mother,” “victim”) on notecards she fans out and asks her female respondents to select and discuss.

Background/Demographic Questions

You most definitely will want to know more about the person you are interviewing in terms of conventional demographic information, such as age, race, gender identity, occupation, and educational attainment. These are not questions that normally open up inquiry. [1] For this reason, my practice has been to include a separate “demographic questionnaire” sheet that I ask each respondent to fill out at the conclusion of the interview. Only include those aspects that are relevant to your study. For example, if you are not exploring religion or religious affiliation, do not include questions about a person’s religion on the demographic sheet. See the example provided at the end of this chapter.

Temporality

Any type of question can have a past, present, or future orientation. For example, if you are asking a behavior question about workplace routine, you might ask the respondent to talk about past work, present work, and ideal (future) work. Similarly, if you want to understand how people cope with natural disasters, you might ask your respondent how they felt then during the wildfire and now in retrospect and whether and to what extent they have concerns for future wildfire disasters. It’s a relatively simple suggestion—don’t forget to ask about past, present, and future—but it can have a big impact on the quality of the responses you receive.

Question Sequence

Having a list of good questions or good question areas is not enough to make a good interview guide. You will want to pay attention to the order in which you ask your questions. Even though any one respondent can derail this order (perhaps by jumping to answer a question you haven’t yet asked), a good advance plan is always helpful. When thinking about sequence, remember that your goal is to get your respondent to open up to you and to say things that might surprise you. To establish rapport, it is best to start with nonthreatening questions. Asking about the present is often the safest place to begin, followed by the past (they have to know you a little bit to get there), and lastly, the future (talking about hopes and fears requires the most rapport). To allow for surprises, it is best to move from very general questions to more particular questions only later in the interview. This ensures that respondents have the freedom to bring up the topics that are relevant to them rather than feel like they are constrained to answer you narrowly. For example, refrain from asking about particular emotions until these have come up previously—don’t lead with them. Often, your more particular questions will emerge only during the course of the interview, tailored to what is emerging in conversation.

Once you have a set of questions, read through them aloud and imagine you are being asked the same questions. Does the set of questions have a natural flow? Would you be willing to answer the very first question to a total stranger? Does your sequence establish facts and experiences before moving on to opinions and values? Did you include prefatory statements, where necessary; transitions; and other announcements? These can be as simple as “Hey, we talked a lot about your experiences as a barista while in college.… Now I am turning to something completely different: how you managed friendships in college.” That is an abrupt transition, but it has been softened by your acknowledgment of that.

Probes and Flexibility

Once you have the interview guide, you will also want to leave room for probes and follow-up questions. As in the sample probe included here, you can write out the obvious probes and follow-up questions in advance. You might not need them, as your respondent might anticipate them and include full responses to the original question. Or you might need to tailor them to how your respondent answered the question. Some common probes and follow-up questions include asking for more details (When did that happen? Who else was there?), asking for elaboration (Could you say more about that?), asking for clarification (Does that mean what I think it means or something else? I understand what you mean, but someone else reading the transcript might not), and asking for contrast or comparison (How did this experience compare with last year’s event?). “Probing is a skill that comes from knowing what to look for in the interview, listening carefully to what is being said and what is not said, and being sensitive to the feedback needs of the person being interviewed” ( Patton 2002:374 ). It takes work! And energy. I and many other interviewers I know report feeling emotionally and even physically drained after conducting an interview. You are tasked with active listening and rearranging your interview guide as needed on the fly. If you only ask the questions written down in your interview guide with no deviations, you are doing it wrong. [2]

The Final Question

Every interview guide should include a very open-ended final question that allows for the respondent to say whatever it is they have been dying to tell you but you’ve forgotten to ask. About half the time they are tired too and will tell you they have nothing else to say. But incredibly, some of the most honest and complete responses take place here, at the end of a long interview. You have to realize that the person being interviewed is often discovering things about themselves as they talk to you and that this process of discovery can lead to new insights for them. Making space at the end is therefore crucial. Be sure you convey that you actually do want them to tell you more, that the offer of “anything else?” is not read as an empty convention where the polite response is no. Here is where you can pull from that active listening and tailor the final question to the particular person. For example, “I’ve asked you a lot of questions about what it was like to live through that wildfire. I’m wondering if there is anything I’ve forgotten to ask, especially because I haven’t had that experience myself” is a much more inviting final question than “Great. Anything you want to add?” It’s also helpful to convey to the person that you have the time to listen to their full answer, even if the allotted time is at the end. After all, there are no more questions to ask, so the respondent knows exactly how much time is left. Do them the courtesy of listening to them!

Conducting the Interview

Once you have your interview guide, you are on your way to conducting your first interview. I always practice my interview guide with a friend or family member. I do this even when the questions don’t make perfect sense for them, as it still helps me realize which questions make no sense, are poorly worded (too academic), or don’t follow sequentially. I also practice the routine I will use for interviewing, which goes something like this:

Introduce myself and reintroduce the study
Provide consent form and ask them to sign and retain/return copy
Ask if they have any questions about the study before we begin
Ask if I can begin recording
Ask questions (from interview guide)
Turn off the recording device
Ask if they are willing to fill out my demographic questionnaire
Collect questionnaire and, without looking at the answers, place in same folder as signed consent form
Thank them and depart

A note on remote interviewing: Interviews have traditionally been conducted face-to-face in a private or quiet public setting. You don’t want a lot of background noise, as this will make transcriptions difficult. During the recent global pandemic, many interviewers, myself included, learned the benefits of interviewing remotely. Although face-to-face is still preferable for many reasons, Zoom interviewing is not a bad alternative, and it does allow more interviews across great distances. Zoom also includes automatic transcription, which significantly cuts down on the time it normally takes to convert our conversations into “data” to be analyzed. These automatic transcriptions are not perfect, however, and you will still need to listen to the recording and clarify and clean up the transcription. Nor do automatic transcriptions include notations of body language or change of tone, which you may want to include. When interviewing remotely, you will want to collect the consent form before you meet: ask them to read, sign, and return it as an email attachment. I think it is better to ask for the demographic questionnaire after the interview, but because some respondents may never return it then, it is probably best to ask for this at the same time as the consent form, in advance of the interview.

What should you bring to the interview? I would recommend bringing two copies of the consent form (one for you and one for the respondent), a demographic questionnaire, a manila folder in which to place the signed consent form and filled-out demographic questionnaire, a printed copy of your interview guide (I print with three-inch right margins so I can jot down notes on the page next to relevant questions), a pen, a recording device, and water.

After the interview, you will want to secure the signed consent form in a locked filing cabinet (if in print) or a password-protected folder on your computer. Using Excel or a similar program that allows tables/spreadsheets, create an identifying number for your interview that links to the consent form without using the name of your respondent. For example, let’s say that I conduct interviews with US politicians, and the first person I meet with is George W. Bush. I will assign the transcription the number “INT#001” and add it to the signed consent form. [3] The signed consent form goes into a locked filing cabinet, and I never use the name “George W. Bush” again. I take the information from the demographic sheet, open my Excel spreadsheet, and add the relevant information in separate columns for the row INT#001: White, male, Republican. When I interview Bill Clinton as my second interview, I include a second row: INT#002: White, male, Democrat. And so on. The only link to the actual name of the respondent and this information is the fact that the consent form (unavailable to anyone but me) has stamped on it the interview number.

Many students get very nervous before their first interview. Actually, many of us are always nervous before the interview! But do not worry—this is normal, and it does pass. Chances are, you will be pleasantly surprised at how comfortable it begins to feel. These “purposeful conversations” are often a delight for both participants. This is not to say that sometimes things go wrong. I often have my students practice several “bad scenarios” (e.g., a respondent that you cannot get to open up; a respondent who is too talkative and dominates the conversation, steering it away from the topics you are interested in; emotions that completely take over; or shocking disclosures you are ill-prepared to handle), but most of the time, things go quite well. Be prepared for the unexpected, but know that the reason interviews are so popular as a technique of data collection is that they are usually richly rewarding for both participants.

One thing that I stress to my methods students and remind myself about is that interviews are still conversations between people. If there’s something you might feel uncomfortable asking someone about in a “normal” conversation, you will likely also feel a bit of discomfort asking it in an interview. Maybe more importantly, your respondent may feel uncomfortable. Social research—especially about inequality—can be uncomfortable. And it’s easy to slip into an abstract, intellectualized, or removed perspective as an interviewer. This is one reason trying out interview questions is important. Another is that sometimes the question sounds good in your head but doesn’t work as well out loud in practice. I learned this the hard way when a respondent asked me how I would answer the question I had just posed, and I realized that not only did I not really know how I would answer it, but I also wasn’t quite as sure I knew what I was asking as I had thought.

—Elizabeth M. Lee, Associate Professor of Sociology at Saint Joseph’s University, author of Class and Campus Life , and co-author of Geographies of Campus Inequality

How Many Interviews?

Your research design has included a targeted number of interviews and a recruitment plan (see chapter 5). Follow your plan, but remember that “ saturation ” is your goal. You interview as many people as you can until you reach a point at which you are no longer surprised by what they tell you. This means not that no one after your first twenty interviews will have surprising, interesting stories to tell you but rather that the picture you are forming about the phenomenon of interest to you from a research perspective has come into focus, and none of the interviews are substantially refocusing that picture. That is when you should stop collecting interviews. Note that to know when you have reached this, you will need to read your transcripts as you go. More about this in chapters 18 and 19.

Your Final Product: The Ideal Interview Transcript

A good interview transcript will demonstrate a subtly controlled conversation by the skillful interviewer. In general, you want to see replies that are about one paragraph long, not short sentences and not running on for several pages. Although it is sometimes necessary to follow respondents down tangents, it is also often necessary to pull them back to the questions that form the basis of your research study. This is not really a free conversation, although it may feel like that to the person you are interviewing.

Final Tips from an Interview Master

Annette Lareau is arguably one of the masters of the trade. In Listening to People , she provides several guidelines for good interviews and then offers a detailed example of an interview gone wrong and how it could be addressed (please see the “Further Readings” at the end of this chapter). Here is an abbreviated version of her set of guidelines: (1) interview respondents who are experts on the subjects of most interest to you (as a corollary, don’t ask people about things they don’t know); (2) listen carefully and talk as little as possible; (3) keep in mind what you want to know and why you want to know it; (4) be a proactive interviewer (subtly guide the conversation); (5) assure respondents that there aren’t any right or wrong answers; (6) use the respondent’s own words to probe further (this both allows you to accurately identify what you heard and pushes the respondent to explain further); (7) reuse effective probes (don’t reinvent the wheel as you go—if repeating the words back works, do it again and again); (8) focus on learning the subjective meanings that events or experiences have for a respondent; (9) don’t be afraid to ask a question that draws on your own knowledge (unlike trial lawyers who are trained never to ask a question for which they don’t already know the answer, sometimes it’s worth it to ask risky questions based on your hypotheses or just plain hunches); (10) keep thinking while you are listening (so difficult…and important); (11) return to a theme raised by a respondent if you want further information; (12) be mindful of power inequalities (and never ever coerce a respondent to continue the interview if they want out); (13) take control with overly talkative respondents; (14) expect overly succinct responses, and develop strategies for probing further; (15) balance digging deep and moving on; (16) develop a plan to deflect questions (e.g., let them know you are happy to answer any questions at the end of the interview, but you don’t want to take time away from them now); and at the end, (17) check to see whether you have asked all your questions. You don’t always have to ask everyone the same set of questions, but if there is a big area you have forgotten to cover, now is the time to recover ( Lareau 2021:93–103 ).

Sample: Demographic Questionnaire

ASA Taskforce on First-Generation and Working-Class Persons in Sociology – Class Effects on Career Success

Supplementary Demographic Questionnaire

Thank you for your participation in this interview project. We would like to collect a few pieces of key demographic information from you to supplement our analyses. Your answers to these questions will be kept confidential and stored by ID number. All of your responses here are entirely voluntary!

What best captures your race/ethnicity? (please check any/all that apply)

White (Non Hispanic/Latina/o/x)
Black or African American
Hispanic, Latino/a/x of Spanish
Asian or Asian American
American Indian or Alaska Native
Middle Eastern or North African
Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander
Other : (Please write in: ________________)

What is your current position?

Grad Student
Full Professor

Please check any and all of the following that apply to you:

I identify as a working-class academic
I was the first in my family to graduate from college
I grew up poor

What best reflects your gender?

Transgender female/Transgender woman
Transgender male/Transgender man
Gender queer/ Gender nonconforming

Anything else you would like us to know about you?

Example: Interview Guide

In this example, follow-up prompts are italicized. Note the sequence of questions. That second question often elicits an entire life history , answering several later questions in advance.

Introduction Script/Question

Thank you for participating in our survey of ASA members who identify as first-generation or working-class. As you may have heard, ASA has sponsored a taskforce on first-generation and working-class persons in sociology and we are interested in hearing from those who so identify. Your participation in this interview will help advance our knowledge in this area.

The first thing we would like to as you is why you have volunteered to be part of this study? What does it mean to you be first-gen or working class? Why were you willing to be interviewed?
How did you decide to become a sociologist?
Can you tell me a little bit about where you grew up? ( prompts: what did your parent(s) do for a living? What kind of high school did you attend?)
Has this identity been salient to your experience? (how? How much?)
How welcoming was your grad program? Your first academic employer?
Why did you decide to pursue sociology at the graduate level?
Did you experience culture shock in college? In graduate school?
Has your FGWC status shaped how you’ve thought about where you went to school? debt? etc?
Were you mentored? How did this work (not work)? How might it?
What did you consider when deciding where to go to grad school? Where to apply for your first position?
What, to you, is a mark of career success? Have you achieved that success? What has helped or hindered your pursuit of success?
Do you think sociology, as a field, cares about prestige?
Let’s talk a little bit about intersectionality. How does being first-gen/working class work alongside other identities that are important to you?
What do your friends and family think about your career? Have you had any difficulty relating to family members or past friends since becoming highly educated?
Do you have any debt from college/grad school? Are you concerned about this? Could you explain more about how you paid for college/grad school? (here, include assistance from family, fellowships, scholarships, etc.)
(You’ve mentioned issues or obstacles you had because of your background.) What could have helped? Or, who or what did? Can you think of fortuitous moments in your career?
Do you have any regrets about the path you took?
Is there anything else you would like to add? Anything that the Taskforce should take note of, that we did not ask you about here?

Interviews in the social sciences

Eleanor Knott ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-9131-3939 1 ,
Aliya Hamid Rao ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-0674-4206 1 ,
Kate Summers ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-9964-0259 1 &
Chana Teeger ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-5046-8280 1

Nature Reviews Methods Primers volume 2 , Article number: 73 ( 2022 ) Cite this article

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Interdisciplinary studies

In-depth interviews are a versatile form of qualitative data collection used by researchers across the social sciences. They allow individuals to explain, in their own words, how they understand and interpret the world around them. Interviews represent a deceptively familiar social encounter in which people interact by asking and answering questions. They are, however, a very particular type of conversation, guided by the researcher and used for specific ends. This dynamic introduces a range of methodological, analytical and ethical challenges, for novice researchers in particular. In this Primer, we focus on the stages and challenges of designing and conducting an interview project and analysing data from it, as well as strategies to overcome such challenges.

The fundamental importance of method to theory

Rick Dale, Anne S. Warlaumont & Kerri L. Johnson

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Participatory action research

Flora Cornish, Nancy Breton, … Darrin Hodgetts

Introduction

In-depth interviews are a qualitative research method that follow a deceptively familiar logic of human interaction: they are conversations where people talk with each other, interact and pose and answer questions 1 . An interview is a specific type of interaction in which — usually and predominantly — a researcher asks questions about someone’s life experience, opinions, dreams, fears and hopes and the interview participant answers the questions 1 .

Interviews will often be used as a standalone method or combined with other qualitative methods, such as focus groups or ethnography, or quantitative methods, such as surveys or experiments. Although interviewing is a frequently used method, it should not be viewed as an easy default for qualitative researchers 2 . Interviews are also not suited to answering all qualitative research questions, but instead have specific strengths that should guide whether or not they are deployed in a research project. Whereas ethnography might be better suited to trying to observe what people do, interviews provide a space for extended conversations that allow the researcher insights into how people think and what they believe. Quantitative surveys also give these kinds of insights, but they use pre-determined questions and scales, privileging breadth over depth and often overlooking harder-to-reach participants.

In-depth interviews can take many different shapes and forms, often with more than one participant or researcher. For example, interviews might be highly structured (using an almost survey-like interview guide), entirely unstructured (taking a narrative and free-flowing approach) or semi-structured (using a topic guide ). Researchers might combine these approaches within a single project depending on the purpose of the interview and the characteristics of the participant. Whatever form the interview takes, researchers should be mindful of the dynamics between interviewer and participant and factor these in at all stages of the project.

In this Primer, we focus on the most common type of interview: one researcher taking a semi-structured approach to interviewing one participant using a topic guide. Focusing on how to plan research using interviews, we discuss the necessary stages of data collection. We also discuss the stages and thought-process behind analysing interview material to ensure that the richness and interpretability of interview material is maintained and communicated to readers. The Primer also tracks innovations in interview methods and discusses the developments we expect over the next 5–10 years.

We wrote this Primer as researchers from sociology, social policy and political science. We note our disciplinary background because we acknowledge that there are disciplinary differences in how interviews are approached and understood as a method.

Experimentation

Here we address research design considerations and data collection issues focusing on topic guide construction and other pragmatics of the interview. We also explore issues of ethics and reflexivity that are crucial throughout the research project.

Research design

Participant selection.

Participants can be selected and recruited in various ways for in-depth interview studies. The researcher must first decide what defines the people or social groups being studied. Often, this means moving from an abstract theoretical research question to a more precise empirical one. For example, the researcher might be interested in how people talk about race in contexts of diversity. Empirical settings in which this issue could be studied could include schools, workplaces or adoption agencies. The best research designs should clearly explain why the particular setting was chosen. Often there are both intrinsic and extrinsic reasons for choosing to study a particular group of people at a specific time and place 3 . Intrinsic motivations relate to the fact that the research is focused on an important specific social phenomenon that has been understudied. Extrinsic motivations speak to the broader theoretical research questions and explain why the case at hand is a good one through which to address them empirically.

Next, the researcher needs to decide which types of people they would like to interview. This decision amounts to delineating the inclusion and exclusion criteria for the study. The criteria might be based on demographic variables, like race or gender, but they may also be context-specific, for example, years of experience in an organization. These should be decided based on the research goals. Researchers should be clear about what characteristics would make an individual a candidate for inclusion in the study (and what would exclude them).

The next step is to identify and recruit the study’s sample . Usually, many more people fit the inclusion criteria than can be interviewed. In cases where lists of potential participants are available, the researcher might want to employ stratified sampling , dividing the list by characteristics of interest before sampling.

When there are no lists, researchers will often employ purposive sampling . Many researchers consider purposive sampling the most useful mode for interview-based research since the number of interviews to be conducted is too small to aim to be statistically representative 4 . Instead, the aim is not breadth, via representativeness, but depth via rich insights about a set of participants. In addition to purposive sampling, researchers often use snowball sampling . Both purposive and snowball sampling can be combined with quota sampling . All three types of sampling aim to ensure a variety of perspectives within the confines of a research project. A goal for in-depth interview studies can be to sample for range, being mindful of recruiting a diversity of participants fitting the inclusion criteria.

Study design

The total number of interviews depends on many factors, including the population studied, whether comparisons are to be made and the duration of interviews. Studies that rely on quota sampling where explicit comparisons are made between groups will require a larger number of interviews than studies focused on one group only. Studies where participants are interviewed over several hours, days or even repeatedly across years will tend to have fewer participants than those that entail a one-off engagement.

Researchers often stop interviewing when new interviews confirm findings from earlier interviews with no new or surprising insights (saturation) 4 , 5 , 6 . As a criterion for research design, saturation assumes that data collection and analysis are happening in tandem and that researchers will stop collecting new data once there is no new information emerging from the interviews. This is not always possible. Researchers rarely have time for systematic data analysis during data collection and they often need to specify their sample in funding proposals prior to data collection. As a result, researchers often draw on existing reports of saturation to estimate a sample size prior to data collection. These suggest between 12 and 20 interviews per category of participant (although researchers have reported saturation with samples that are both smaller and larger than this) 7 , 8 , 9 . The idea of saturation has been critiqued by many qualitative researchers because it assumes that meaning inheres in the data, waiting to be discovered — and confirmed — once saturation has been reached 7 . In-depth interview data are often multivalent and can give rise to different interpretations. The important consideration is, therefore, not merely how many participants are interviewed, but whether one’s research design allows for collecting rich and textured data that provide insight into participants’ understandings, accounts, perceptions and interpretations.

Sometimes, researchers will conduct interviews with more than one participant at a time. Researchers should consider the benefits and shortcomings of such an approach. Joint interviews may, for example, give researchers insight into how caregivers agree or debate childrearing decisions. At the same time, they may be less adaptive to exploring aspects of caregiving that participants may not wish to disclose to each other. In other cases, there may be more than one person interviewing each participant, such as when an interpreter is used, and so it is important to consider during the research design phase how this might shape the dynamics of the interview.

Data collection

Semi-structured interviews are typically organized around a topic guide comprised of an ordered set of broad topics (usually 3–5). Each topic includes a set of questions that form the basis of the discussion between the researcher and participant (Fig. 1 ). These topics are organized around key concepts that the researcher has identified (for example, through a close study of prior research, or perhaps through piloting a small, exploratory study) 5 .

a | Elaborated topics the researcher wants to cover in the interview and example questions. b | An example topic arc. Using such an arc, one can think flexibly about the order of topics. Considering the main question for each topic will help to determine the best order for the topics. After conducting some interviews, the researcher can move topics around if a different order seems to make sense.

Topic guide

One common way to structure a topic guide is to start with relatively easy, open-ended questions (Table 1 ). Opening questions should be related to the research topic but broad and easy to answer, so that they help to ease the participant into conversation.

After these broad, opening questions, the topic guide may move into topics that speak more directly to the overarching research question. The interview questions will be accompanied by probes designed to elicit concrete details and examples from the participant (see Table 1 ).

Abstract questions are often easier for participants to answer once they have been asked more concrete questions. In our experience, for example, questions about feelings can be difficult for some participants to answer, but when following probes concerning factual experiences these questions can become less challenging. After the main themes of the topic guide have been covered, the topic guide can move onto closing questions. At this stage, participants often repeat something they have said before, although they may sometimes introduce a new topic.

Interviews are especially well suited to gaining a deeper insight into people’s experiences. Getting these insights largely depends on the participants’ willingness to talk to the researcher. We recommend designing open-ended questions that are more likely to elicit an elaborated response and extended reflection from participants rather than questions that can be answered with yes or no.

Questions should avoid foreclosing the possibility that the participant might disagree with the premise of the question. Take for example the question: “Do you support the new family-friendly policies?” This question minimizes the possibility of the participant disagreeing with the premise of this question, which assumes that the policies are ‘family-friendly’ and asks for a yes or no answer. Instead, asking more broadly how a participant feels about the specific policy being described as ‘family-friendly’ (for example, a work-from-home policy) allows them to express agreement, disagreement or impartiality and, crucially, to explain their reasoning 10 .

For an uninterrupted interview that will last between 90 and 120 minutes, the topic guide should be one to two single-spaced pages with questions and probes. Ideally, the researcher will memorize the topic guide before embarking on the first interview. It is fine to carry a printed-out copy of the topic guide but memorizing the topic guide ahead of the interviews can often make the interviewer feel well prepared in guiding the participant through the interview process.

Although the topic guide helps the researcher stay on track with the broad areas they want to cover, there is no need for the researcher to feel tied down by the topic guide. For instance, if a participant brings up a theme that the researcher intended to discuss later or a point the researcher had not anticipated, the researcher may well decide to follow the lead of the participant. The researcher’s role extends beyond simply stating the questions; it entails listening and responding, making split-second decisions about what line of inquiry to pursue and allowing the interview to proceed in unexpected directions.

Optimizing the interview

The ideal place for an interview will depend on the study and what is feasible for participants. Generally, a place where the participant and researcher can both feel relaxed, where the interview can be uninterrupted and where noise or other distractions are limited is ideal. But this may not always be possible and so the researcher needs to be prepared to adapt their plans within what is feasible (and desirable for participants).

Another key tool for the interview is a recording device (assuming that permission for recording has been given). Recording can be important to capture what the participant says verbatim. Additionally, it can allow the researcher to focus on determining what probes and follow-up questions they want to pursue rather than focusing on taking notes. Sometimes, however, a participant may not allow the researcher to record, or the recording may fail. If the interview is not recorded we suggest that the researcher takes brief notes during the interview, if feasible, and then thoroughly make notes immediately after the interview and try to remember the participant’s facial expressions, gestures and tone of voice. Not having a recording of an interview need not limit the researcher from getting analytical value from it.

As soon as possible after each interview, we recommend that the researcher write a one-page interview memo comprising three key sections. The first section should identify two to three important moments from the interview. What constitutes important is up to the researcher’s discretion 9 . The researcher should note down what happened in these moments, including the participant’s facial expressions, gestures, tone of voice and maybe even the sensory details of their surroundings. This exercise is about capturing ethnographic detail from the interview. The second part of the interview memo is the analytical section with notes on how the interview fits in with previous interviews, for example, where the participant’s responses concur or diverge from other responses. The third part consists of a methodological section where the researcher notes their perception of their relationship with the participant. The interview memo allows the researcher to think critically about their positionality and practice reflexivity — key concepts for an ethical and transparent research practice in qualitative methodology 11 , 12 .

Ethics and reflexivity

All elements of an in-depth interview can raise ethical challenges and concerns. Good ethical practice in interview studies often means going beyond the ethical procedures mandated by institutions 13 . While discussions and requirements of ethics can differ across disciplines, here we focus on the most pertinent considerations for interviews across the research process for an interdisciplinary audience.

Ethical considerations prior to interview

Before conducting interviews, researchers should consider harm minimization, informed consent, anonymity and confidentiality, and reflexivity and positionality. It is important for the researcher to develop their own ethical sensitivities and sensibilities by gaining training in interview and qualitative methods, reading methodological and field-specific texts on interviews and ethics and discussing their research plans with colleagues.

Researchers should map the potential harm to consider how this can be minimized. Primarily, researchers should consider harm from the participants’ perspective (Box 1 ). But, it is also important to consider and plan for potential harm to the researcher, research assistants, gatekeepers, future researchers and members of the wider community 14 . Even the most banal of research topics can potentially pose some form of harm to the participant, researcher and others — and the level of harm is often highly context-dependent. For example, a research project on religion in society might have very different ethical considerations in a democratic versus authoritarian research context because of how openly or not such topics can be discussed and debated 15 .

The researcher should consider how they will obtain and record informed consent (for example, written or oral), based on what makes the most sense for their research project and context 16 . Some institutions might specify how informed consent should be gained. Regardless of how consent is obtained, the participant must be made aware of the form of consent, the intentions and procedures of the interview and potential forms of harm and benefit to the participant or community before the interview commences. Moreover, the participant must agree to be interviewed before the interview commences. If, in addition to interviews, the study contains an ethnographic component, it is worth reading around this topic (see, for example, Murphy and Dingwall 17 ). Informed consent must also be gained for how the interview will be recorded before the interview commences. These practices are important to ensure the participant is contributing on a voluntary basis. It is also important to remind participants that they can withdraw their consent at any time during the interview and for a specified period after the interview (to be decided with the participant). The researcher should indicate that participants can ask for anything shared to be off the record and/or not disseminated.

In terms of anonymity and confidentiality, it is standard practice when conducting interviews to agree not to use (or even collect) participants’ names and personal details that are not pertinent to the study. Anonymizing can often be the safer option for minimizing harm to participants as it is hard to foresee all the consequences of de-anonymizing, even if participants agree. Regardless of what a researcher decides, decisions around anonymity must be agreed with participants during the process of gaining informed consent and respected following the interview.

Although not all ethical challenges can be foreseen or planned for 18 , researchers should think carefully — before the interview — about power dynamics, participant vulnerability, emotional state and interactional dynamics between interviewer and participant, even when discussing low-risk topics. Researchers may then wish to plan for potential ethical issues, for example by preparing a list of relevant organizations to which participants can be signposted. A researcher interviewing a participant about debt, for instance, might prepare in advance a list of debt advice charities, organizations and helplines that could provide further support and advice. It is important to remember that the role of an interviewer is as a researcher rather than as a social worker or counsellor because researchers may not have relevant and requisite training in these other domains.

Box 1 Mapping potential forms of harm

Social: researchers should avoid causing any relational detriment to anyone in the course of interviews, for example, by sharing information with other participants or causing interview participants to be shunned or mistreated by their community as a result of participating.

Economic: researchers should avoid causing financial detriment to anyone, for example, by expecting them to pay for transport to be interviewed or to potentially lose their job as a result of participating.

Physical: researchers should minimize the risk of anyone being exposed to violence as a result of the research both from other individuals or from authorities, including police.

Psychological: researchers should minimize the risk of causing anyone trauma (or re-traumatization) or psychological anguish as a result of the research; this includes not only the participant but importantly the researcher themselves and anyone that might read or analyse the transcripts, should they contain triggering information.

Political: researchers should minimize the risk of anyone being exposed to political detriment as a result of the research, such as retribution.

Professional/reputational: researchers should minimize the potential for reputational damage to anyone connected to the research (this includes ensuring good research practices so that any researchers involved are not harmed reputationally by being involved with the research project).

The task here is not to map exhaustively the potential forms of harm that might pertain to a particular research project (that is the researcher’s job and they should have the expertise most suited to mapping such potential harms relative to the specific project) but to demonstrate the breadth of potential forms of harm.

Ethical considerations post-interview

Researchers should consider how interview data are stored, analysed and disseminated. If participants have been offered anonymity and confidentiality, data should be stored in a way that does not compromise this. For example, researchers should consider removing names and any other unnecessary personal details from interview transcripts, password-protecting and encrypting files and using pseudonyms to label and store all interview data. It is also important to address where interview data are taken (for example, across borders in particular where interview data might be of interest to local authorities) and how this might affect the storage of interview data.

Examining how the researcher will represent participants is a paramount ethical consideration both in the planning stages of the interview study and after it has been conducted. Dissemination strategies also need to consider questions of anonymity and representation. In small communities, even if participants are given pseudonyms, it might be obvious who is being described. Anonymizing not only the names of those participating but also the research context is therefore a standard practice 19 . With particularly sensitive data or insights about the participant, it is worth considering describing participants in a more abstract way rather than as specific individuals. These practices are important both for protecting participants’ anonymity but can also affect the ability of the researcher and others to return ethically to the research context and similar contexts 20 .

Reflexivity and positionality

Reflexivity and positionality mean considering the researcher’s role and assumptions in knowledge production 13 . A key part of reflexivity is considering the power relations between the researcher and participant within the interview setting, as well as how researchers might be perceived by participants. Further, researchers need to consider how their own identities shape the kind of knowledge and assumptions they bring to the interview, including how they approach and ask questions and their analysis of interviews (Box 2 ). Reflexivity is a necessary part of developing ethical sensibility as a researcher by adapting and reflecting on how one engages with participants. Participants should not feel judged, for example, when they share information that researchers might disagree with or find objectionable. How researchers deal with uncomfortable moments or information shared by participants is at their discretion, but they should consider how they will react both ahead of time and in the moment.

Researchers can develop their reflexivity by considering how they themselves would feel being asked these interview questions or represented in this way, and then adapting their practice accordingly. There might be situations where these questions are not appropriate in that they unduly centre the researchers’ experiences and worldview. Nevertheless, these prompts can provide a useful starting point for those beginning their reflexive journey and developing an ethical sensibility.

Reflexivity and ethical sensitivities require active reflection throughout the research process. For example, researchers should take care in interview memos and their notes to consider their assumptions, potential preconceptions, worldviews and own identities prior to and after interviews (Box 2 ). Checking in with assumptions can be a way of making sure that researchers are paying close attention to their own theoretical and analytical biases and revising them in accordance with what they learn through the interviews. Researchers should return to these notes (especially when analysing interview material), to try to unpack their own effects on the research process as well as how participants positioned and engaged with them.

Box 2 Aspects to reflect on reflexively

For reflexive engagement, and understanding the power relations being co-constructed and (re)produced in interviews, it is necessary to reflect, at a minimum, on the following.

Ethnicity, race and nationality, such as how does privilege stemming from race or nationality operate between the researcher, the participant and research context (for example, a researcher from a majority community may be interviewing a member of a minority community)

Gender and sexuality, see above on ethnicity, race and nationality

Social class, and in particular the issue of middle-class bias among researchers when formulating research and interview questions

Economic security/precarity, see above on social class and thinking about the researcher’s relative privilege and the source of biases that stem from this

Educational experiences and privileges, see above

Disciplinary biases, such as how the researcher’s discipline/subfield usually approaches these questions, possibly normalizing certain assumptions that might be contested by participants and in the research context

Political and social values

Lived experiences and other dimensions of ourselves that affect and construct our identity as researchers

In this section, we discuss the next stage of an interview study, namely, analysing the interview data. Data analysis may begin while more data are being collected. Doing so allows early findings to inform the focus of further data collection, as part of an iterative process across the research project. Here, the researcher is ultimately working towards achieving coherence between the data collected and the findings produced to answer successfully the research question(s) they have set.

The two most common methods used to analyse interview material across the social sciences are thematic analysis 21 and discourse analysis 22 . Thematic analysis is a particularly useful and accessible method for those starting out in analysis of qualitative data and interview material as a method of coding data to develop and interpret themes in the data 21 . Discourse analysis is more specialized and focuses on the role of discourse in society by paying close attention to the explicit, implicit and taken-for-granted dimensions of language and power 22 , 23 . Although thematic and discourse analysis are often discussed as separate techniques, in practice researchers might flexibly combine these approaches depending on the object of analysis. For example, those intending to use discourse analysis might first conduct thematic analysis as a way to organize and systematize the data. The object and intention of analysis might differ (for example, developing themes or interrogating language), but the questions facing the researcher (such as whether to take an inductive or deductive approach to analysis) are similar.

Preparing data

Data preparation is an important step in the data analysis process. The researcher should first determine what comprises the corpus of material and in what form it will it be analysed. The former refers to whether, for example, alongside the interviews themselves, analytic memos or observational notes that may have been taken during data collection will also be directly analysed. The latter refers to decisions about how the verbal/audio interview data will be transformed into a written form, making it suitable for processes of data analysis. Typically, interview audio recordings are transcribed to produce a written transcript. It is important to note that the process of transcription is one of transformation. The verbal interview data are transformed into a written transcript through a series of decisions that the researcher must make. The researcher should consider the effect of mishearing what has been said or how choosing to punctuate a sentence in a particular way will affect the final analysis.

Box 3 shows an example transcript excerpt from an interview with a teacher conducted by Teeger as part of her study of history education in post-apartheid South Africa 24 (Box 3 ). Seeing both the questions and the responses means that the reader can contextualize what the participant (Ms Mokoena) has said. Throughout the transcript the researcher has used square brackets, for example to indicate a pause in speech, when Ms Mokoena says “it’s [pause] it’s a difficult topic”. The transcription choice made here means that we see that Ms Mokoena has taken time to pause, perhaps to search for the right words, or perhaps because she has a slight apprehension. Square brackets are also included as an overt act of communication to the reader. When Ms Mokoena says “ja”, the English translation (“yes”) of the word in Afrikaans is placed in square brackets to ensure that the reader can follow the meaning of the speech.

Decisions about what to include when transcribing will be hugely important for the direction and possibilities of analysis. Researchers should decide what they want to capture in the transcript, based on their analytic focus. From a (post)positivist perspective 25 , the researcher may be interested in the manifest content of the interview (such as what is said, not how it is said). In that case, they may choose to transcribe intelligent verbatim . From a constructivist perspective 25 , researchers may choose to record more aspects of speech (including, for example, pauses, repetitions, false starts, talking over one another) so that these features can be analysed. Those working from this perspective argue that to recognize the interactional nature of the interview setting adequately and to avoid misinterpretations, features of interaction (pauses, overlaps between speakers and so on) should be preserved in transcription and therefore in the analysis 10 . Readers interested in learning more should consult Potter and Hepburn’s summary of how to present interaction through transcription of interview data 26 .

The process of analysing semi-structured interviews might be thought of as a generative rather than an extractive enterprise. Findings do not already exist within the interview data to be discovered. Rather, researchers create something new when analysing the data by applying their analytic lens or approach to the transcripts. At a high level, there are options as to what researchers might want to glean from their interview data. They might be interested in themes, whereby they identify patterns of meaning across the dataset 21 . Alternatively, they may focus on discourse(s), looking to identify how language is used to construct meanings and therefore how language reinforces or produces aspects of the social world 27 . Alternatively, they might look at the data to understand narrative or biographical elements 28 .

A further overarching decision to make is the extent to which researchers bring predetermined framings or understandings to bear on their data, or instead begin from the data themselves to generate an analysis. One way of articulating this is the extent to which researchers take a deductive approach or an inductive approach to analysis. One example of a truly inductive approach is grounded theory, whereby the aim of the analysis is to build new theory, beginning with one’s data 6 , 29 . In practice, researchers using thematic and discourse analysis often combine deductive and inductive logics and describe their process instead as iterative (referred to also as an abductive approach ) 30 , 31 . For example, researchers may decide that they will apply a given theoretical framing, or begin with an initial analytic framework, but then refine or develop these once they begin the process of analysis.

Box 3 Excerpt of interview transcript (from Teeger 24 )

Interviewer : Maybe you could just start by talking about what it’s like to teach apartheid history.

Ms Mokoena : It’s a bit challenging. You’ve got to accommodate all the kids in the class. You’ve got to be sensitive to all the racial differences. You want to emphasize the wrongs that were done in the past but you also want to, you know, not to make kids feel like it’s their fault. So you want to use the wrongs of the past to try and unite the kids …

Interviewer : So what kind of things do you do?

Ms Mokoena : Well I normally highlight the fact that people that were struggling were not just the blacks, it was all the races. And I give examples of the people … from all walks of life, all races, and highlight how they suffered as well as a result of apartheid, particularly the whites… . What I noticed, particularly my first year of teaching apartheid, I noticed that the black kids made the others feel responsible for what happened… . I had a lot of fights…. A lot of kids started hating each other because, you know, the others are white and the others were black. And they started saying, “My mother is a domestic worker because she was never allowed an opportunity to get good education.” …

Interviewer : I didn’t see any of that now when I was observing.

Ms Mokoena : … Like I was saying I think that because of the re-emphasis of the fact that, look, everybody did suffer one way or the other, they sort of got to see that it was everybody’s struggle … . They should now get to understand that that’s why we’re called a Rainbow Nation. Not everybody agreed with apartheid and not everybody suffered. Even all the blacks, not all blacks got to feel what the others felt . So ja [yes], it’s [pause] it’s a difficult topic, ja . But I think if you get the kids to understand why we’re teaching apartheid in the first place and you show the involvement of all races in all the different sides , then I think you have managed to teach it properly. So I think because of my inexperience then — that was my first year of teaching history — so I think I — maybe I over-emphasized the suffering of the blacks versus the whites [emphasis added].

Reprinted with permission from ref. 24 , Sage Publications.

From data to codes

Coding data is a key building block shared across many approaches to data analysis. Coding is a way of organizing and describing data, but is also ultimately a way of transforming data to produce analytic insights. The basic practice of coding involves highlighting a segment of text (this may be a sentence, a clause or a longer excerpt) and assigning a label to it. The aim of the label is to communicate some sort of summary of what is in the highlighted piece of text. Coding is an iterative process, whereby researchers read and reread their transcripts, applying and refining their codes, until they have a coding frame (a set of codes) that is applied coherently across the dataset and that captures and communicates the key features of what is contained in the data as it relates to the researchers’ analytic focus.

What one codes for is entirely contingent on the focus of the research project and the choices the researcher makes about the approach to analysis. At first, one might apply descriptive codes, summarizing what is contained in the interviews. It is rarely desirable to stop at this point, however, because coding is a tool to move from describing the data to interpreting the data. Suppose the researcher is pursuing some version of thematic analysis. In that case, it might be that the objects of coding are aspects of reported action, emotions, opinions, norms, relationships, routines, agreement/disagreement and change over time. A discourse analysis might instead code for different types of speech acts, tropes, linguistic or rhetorical devices. Multiple types of code might be generated within the same research project. What is important is that researchers are aware of the choices they are making in terms of what they are coding for. Moreover, through the process of refinement, the aim is to produce a set of discrete codes — in which codes are conceptually distinct, as opposed to overlapping. By using the same codes across the dataset, the researcher can capture commonalities across the interviews. This process of refinement involves relabelling codes and reorganizing how and where they are applied in the dataset.

From coding to analysis and writing

Data analysis is also an iterative process in which researchers move closer to and further away from the data. As they move away from the data, they synthesize their findings, thus honing and articulating their analytic insights. As they move closer to the data, they ground these insights in what is contained in the interviews. The link should not be broken between the data themselves and higher-order conceptual insights or claims being made. Researchers must be able to show evidence for their claims in the data. Figure 2 summarizes this iterative process and suggests the sorts of activities involved at each stage more concretely.

As well as going through steps 1 to 6 in order, the researcher will also go backwards and forwards between stages. Some stages will themselves be a forwards and backwards processing of coding and refining when working across different interview transcripts.

At the stage of synthesizing, there are some common quandaries. When dealing with a dataset consisting of multiple interviews, there will be salient and minority statements across different participants, or consensus or dissent on topics of interest to the researcher. A strength of qualitative interviews is that we can build in these nuances and variations across our data as opposed to aggregating them away. When exploring and reporting data, researchers should be asking how different findings are patterned and which interviews contain which codes, themes or tropes. Researchers should think about how these variations fit within the longer flow of individual interviews and what these variations tell them about the nature of their substantive research interests.

A further consideration is how to approach analysis within and across interview data. Researchers may look at one individual code, to examine the forms it takes across different participants and what they might be able to summarize about this code in the round. Alternatively, they might look at how a code or set of codes pattern across the account of one participant, to understand the code(s) in a more contextualized way. Further analysis might be done according to different sampling characteristics, where researchers group together interviews based on certain demographic characteristics and explore these together.

When it comes to writing up and presenting interview data, key considerations tend to rest on what is often termed transparency. When presenting the findings of an interview-based study, the reader should be able to understand and trace what the stated findings are based upon. This process typically involves describing the analytic process, how key decisions were made and presenting direct excerpts from the data. It is important to account for how the interview was set up and to consider the active part that the researcher has played in generating the data 32 . Quotes from interviews should not be thought of as merely embellishing or adding interest to a final research output. Rather, quotes serve the important function of connecting the reader directly to the underlying data. Quotes, therefore, should be chosen because they provide the reader with the most apt insight into what is being discussed. It is good practice to report not just on what participants said, but also on the questions that were asked to elicit the responses.

Researchers have increasingly used specialist qualitative data analysis software to organize and analyse their interview data, such as NVivo or ATLAS.ti. It is important to remember that such software is a tool for, rather than an approach or technique of, analysis. That said, software also creates a wide range of possibilities in terms of what can be done with the data. As researchers, we should reflect on how the range of possibilities of a given software package might be shaping our analytical choices and whether these are choices that we do indeed want to make.

Applications

This section reviews how and why in-depth interviews have been used by researchers studying gender, education and inequality, nationalism and ethnicity and the welfare state. Although interviews can be employed as a method of data collection in just about any social science topic, the applications below speak directly to the authors’ expertise and cutting-edge areas of research.

When it comes to the broad study of gender, in-depth interviews have been invaluable in shaping our understanding of how gender functions in everyday life. In a study of the US hedge fund industry (an industry dominated by white men), Tobias Neely was interested in understanding the factors that enable white men to prosper in the industry 33 . The study comprised interviews with 45 hedge fund workers and oversampled women of all races and men of colour to capture a range of experiences and beliefs. Tobias Neely found that practices of hiring, grooming and seeding are key to maintaining white men’s dominance in the industry. In terms of hiring, the interviews clarified that white men in charge typically preferred to hire people like themselves, usually from their extended networks. When women were hired, they were usually hired to less lucrative positions. In terms of grooming, Tobias Neely identifies how older and more senior men in the industry who have power and status will select one or several younger men as their protégés, to include in their own elite networks. Finally, in terms of her concept of seeding, Tobias Neely describes how older men who are hedge fund managers provide the seed money (often in the hundreds of millions of dollars) for a hedge fund to men, often their own sons (but not their daughters). These interviews provided an in-depth look into gendered and racialized mechanisms that allow white men to flourish in this industry.

Research by Rao draws on dozens of interviews with men and women who had lost their jobs, some of the participants’ spouses and follow-up interviews with about half the sample approximately 6 months after the initial interview 34 . Rao used interviews to understand the gendered experience and understanding of unemployment. Through these interviews, she found that the very process of losing their jobs meant different things for men and women. Women often saw job loss as being a personal indictment of their professional capabilities. The women interviewed often referenced how years of devaluation in the workplace coloured their interpretation of their job loss. Men, by contrast, were also saddened by their job loss, but they saw it as part and parcel of a weak economy rather than a personal failing. How these varied interpretations occurred was tied to men’s and women’s very different experiences in the workplace. Further, through her analysis of these interviews, Rao also showed how these gendered interpretations had implications for the kinds of jobs men and women sought to pursue after job loss. Whereas men remained tied to participating in full-time paid work, job loss appeared to be a catalyst pushing some of the women to re-evaluate their ties to the labour force.

In a study of workers in the tech industry, Hart used interviews to explain how individuals respond to unwanted and ambiguously sexual interactions 35 . Here, the researcher used interviews to allow participants to describe how these interactions made them feel and act and the logics of how they interpreted, classified and made sense of them 35 . Through her analysis of these interviews, Hart showed that participants engaged in a process she termed “trajectory guarding”, whereby they sought to monitor unwanted and ambiguously sexual interactions to avoid them from escalating. Yet, as Hart’s analysis proficiently demonstrates, these very strategies — which protect these workers sexually — also undermined their workplace advancement.

Drawing on interviews, these studies have helped us to understand better how gendered mechanisms, gendered interpretations and gendered interactions foster gender inequality when it comes to paid work. Methodologically, these studies illuminate the power of interviews to reveal important aspects of social life.

Nationalism and ethnicity

Traditionally, nationalism has been studied from a top-down perspective, through the lens of the state or using historical methods; in other words, in-depth interviews have not been a common way of collecting data to study nationalism. The methodological turn towards everyday nationalism has encouraged more scholars to go to the field and use interviews (and ethnography) to understand nationalism from the bottom up: how people talk about, give meaning, understand, navigate and contest their relation to nation, national identification and nationalism 36 , 37 , 38 , 39 . This turn has also addressed the gap left by those studying national and ethnic identification via quantitative methods, such as surveys.

Surveys can enumerate how individuals ascribe to categorical forms of identification 40 . However, interviews can question the usefulness of such categories and ask whether these categories are reflected, or resisted, by participants in terms of the meanings they give to identification 41 , 42 . Categories often pitch identification as a mutually exclusive choice; but identification might be more complex than such categories allow. For example, some might hybridize these categories or see themselves as moving between and across categories 43 . Hearing how people talk about themselves and their relation to nations, states and ethnicities, therefore, contributes substantially to the study of nationalism and national and ethnic forms of identification.

One particular approach to studying these topics, whether via everyday nationalism or alternatives, is that of using interviews to capture both articulations and narratives of identification, relations to nationalism and the boundaries people construct. For example, interviews can be used to gather self–other narratives by studying how individuals construct I–we–them boundaries 44 , including how participants talk about themselves, who participants include in their various ‘we’ groupings and which and how participants create ‘them’ groupings of others, inserting boundaries between ‘I/we’ and ‘them’. Overall, interviews hold great potential for listening to participants and understanding the nuances of identification and the construction of boundaries from their point of view.

Education and inequality

Scholars of social stratification have long noted that the school system often reproduces existing social inequalities. Carter explains that all schools have both material and sociocultural resources 45 . When children from different backgrounds attend schools with different material resources, their educational and occupational outcomes are likely to vary. Such material resources are relatively easy to measure. They are operationalized as teacher-to-student ratios, access to computers and textbooks and the physical infrastructure of classrooms and playgrounds.

Drawing on Bourdieusian theory 46 , Carter conceptualizes the sociocultural context as the norms, values and dispositions privileged within a social space 45 . Scholars have drawn on interviews with students and teachers (as well as ethnographic observations) to show how schools confer advantages on students from middle-class families, for example, by rewarding their help-seeking behaviours 47 . Focusing on race, researchers have revealed how schools can remain socioculturally white even as they enrol a racially diverse student population. In such contexts, for example, teachers often misrecognize the aesthetic choices made by students of colour, wrongly inferring that these students’ tastes in clothing and music reflect negative orientations to schooling 48 , 49 , 50 . These assessments can result in disparate forms of discipline and may ultimately shape educators’ assessments of students’ academic potential 51 .

Further, teachers and administrators tend to view the appropriate relationship between home and school in ways that resonate with white middle-class parents 52 . These parents are then able to advocate effectively for their children in ways that non-white parents are not 53 . In-depth interviews are particularly good at tapping into these understandings, revealing the mechanisms that confer privilege on certain groups of students and thereby reproduce inequality.

In addition, interviews can shed light on the unequal experiences that young people have within educational institutions, as the views of dominant groups are affirmed while those from disadvantaged backgrounds are delegitimized. For example, Teeger’s interviews with South African high schoolers showed how — because racially charged incidents are often framed as jokes in the broader school culture — Black students often feel compelled to ignore and keep silent about the racism they experience 54 . Interviews revealed that Black students who objected to these supposed jokes were coded by other students as serious or angry. In trying to avoid such labels, these students found themselves unable to challenge the racism they experienced. Interviews give us insight into these dynamics and help us see how young people understand and interpret the messages transmitted in schools — including those that speak to issues of inequality in their local school contexts as well as in society more broadly 24 , 55 .

The welfare state

In-depth interviews have also proved to be an important method for studying various aspects of the welfare state. By welfare state, we mean the social institutions relating to the economic and social wellbeing of a state’s citizens. Notably, using interviews has been useful to look at how policy design features are experienced and play out on the ground. Interviews have often been paired with large-scale surveys to produce mixed-methods study designs, therefore achieving both breadth and depth of insights.

In-depth interviews provide the opportunity to look behind policy assumptions or how policies are designed from the top down, to examine how these play out in the lives of those affected by the policies and whose experiences might otherwise be obscured or ignored. For example, the Welfare Conditionality project used interviews to critique the assumptions that conditionality (such as, the withdrawal of social security benefits if recipients did not perform or meet certain criteria) improved employment outcomes and instead showed that conditionality was harmful to mental health, living standards and had many other negative consequences 56 . Meanwhile, combining datasets from two small-scale interview studies with recipients allowed Summers and Young to critique assumptions around the simplicity that underpinned the design of Universal Credit in 2020, for example, showing that the apparently simple monthly payment design instead burdened recipients with additional money management decisions and responsibilities 57 .

Similarly, the Welfare at a (Social) Distance project used a mixed-methods approach in a large-scale study that combined national surveys with case studies and in-depth interviews to investigate the experience of claiming social security benefits during the COVID-19 pandemic. The interviews allowed researchers to understand in detail any issues experienced by recipients of benefits, such as delays in the process of claiming, managing on a very tight budget and navigating stigma and claiming 58 .

These applications demonstrate the multi-faceted topics and questions for which interviews can be a relevant method for data collection. These applications highlight not only the relevance of interviews, but also emphasize the key added value of interviews, which might be missed by other methods (surveys, in particular). Interviews can expose and question what is taken for granted and directly engage with communities and participants that might otherwise be ignored, obscured or marginalized.

Reproducibility and data deposition

There is a robust, ongoing debate about reproducibility in qualitative research, including interview studies. In some research paradigms, reproducibility can be a way of interrogating the rigour and robustness of research claims, by seeing whether these hold up when the research process is repeated. Some scholars have suggested that although reproducibility may be challenging, researchers can facilitate it by naming the place where the research was conducted, naming participants, sharing interview and fieldwork transcripts (anonymized and de-identified in cases where researchers are not naming people or places) and employing fact-checkers for accuracy 11 , 59 , 60 .

In addition to the ethical concerns of whether de-anonymization is ever feasible or desirable, it is also important to address whether the replicability of interview studies is meaningful. For example, the flexibility of interviews allows for the unexpected and the unforeseen to be incorporated into the scope of the research 61 . However, this flexibility means that we cannot expect reproducibility in the conventional sense, given that different researchers will elicit different types of data from participants. Sharing interview transcripts with other researchers, for instance, downplays the contextual nature of an interview.

Drawing on Bauer and Gaskell, we propose several measures to enhance rigour in qualitative research: transparency, grounding interpretations and aiming for theoretical transferability and significance 62 .

Researchers should be transparent when describing their methodological choices. Transparency means documenting who was interviewed, where and when (without requiring de-anonymization, for example, by documenting their characteristics), as well as the questions they were asked. It means carefully considering who was left out of the interviews and what that could mean for the researcher’s findings. It also means carefully considering who the researcher is and how their identity shaped the research process (integrating and articulating reflexivity into whatever is written up).

Second, researchers should ground their interpretations in the data. Grounding means presenting the evidence upon which the interpretation relies. Quotes and extracts should be extensive enough to allow the reader to evaluate whether the researcher’s interpretations are grounded in the data. At each step, researchers should carefully compare their own explanations and interpretations with alternative explanations. Doing so systematically and frequently allows researchers to become more confident in their claims. Here, researchers should justify the link between data and analysis by using quotes to justify and demonstrate the analytical point, while making sure the analytical point offers an interpretation of quotes (Box 4 ).

An important step in considering alternative explanations is to seek out disconfirming evidence 4 , 63 . This involves looking for instances where participants deviate from what the majority are saying and thus bring into question the theory (or explanation) that the researcher is developing. Careful analysis of such examples can often demonstrate the salience and meaning of what appears to be the norm (see Table 2 for examples) 54 . Considering alternative explanations and paying attention to disconfirming evidence allows the researcher to refine their own theories in respect of the data.

Finally, researchers should aim for theoretical transferability and significance in their discussions of findings. One way to think about this is to imagine someone who is not interested in the empirical study. Articulating theoretical transferability and significance usually takes the form of broadening out from the specific findings to consider explicitly how the research has refined or altered prior theoretical approaches. This process also means considering under what other conditions, aside from those of the study, the researcher thinks their theoretical revision would be supported by and why. Importantly, it also includes thinking about the limitations of one’s own approach and where the theoretical implications of the study might not hold.

Box 4 An example of grounding interpretations in data (from Rao 34 )

In an article explaining how unemployed men frame their job loss as a pervasive experience, Rao writes the following: “Unemployed men in this study understood unemployment to be an expected aspect of paid work in the contemporary United States. Robert, a white unemployed communications professional, compared the economic landscape after the Great Recession with the tragic events of September 11, 2001:

Part of your post-9/11 world was knowing people that died as a result of terrorism. The same thing is true with the [Great] Recession, right? … After the Recession you know somebody who was unemployed … People that really should be working.

The pervasiveness of unemployment rendered it normal, as Robert indicates.”

Here, the link between the quote presented and the analytical point Rao is making is clear: the analytical point is grounded in a quote and an interpretation of the quote is offered 34 .

Limitations and optimizations

When deciding which research method to use, the key question is whether the method provides a good fit for the research questions posed. In other words, researchers should consider whether interviews will allow them to successfully access the social phenomena necessary to answer their question(s) and whether the interviews will do so more effectively than other methods. Table 3 summarizes the major strengths and limitations of interviews. However, the accompanying text below is organized around some key issues, where relative strengths and weaknesses are presented alongside each other, the aim being that readers should think about how these can be balanced and optimized in relation to their own research.

Breadth versus depth of insight

Achieving an overall breadth of insight, in a statistically representative sense, is not something that is possible or indeed desirable when conducting in-depth interviews. Instead, the strength of conducting interviews lies in their ability to generate various sorts of depth of insight. The experiences or views of participants that can be accessed by conducting interviews help us to understand participants’ subjective realities. The challenge, therefore, is for researchers to be clear about why depth of insight is the focus and what we should aim to glean from these types of insight.

Naturalistic or artificial interviews

Interviews make use of a form of interaction with which people are familiar 64 . By replicating a naturalistic form of interaction as a tool to gather social science data, researchers can capitalize on people’s familiarity and expectations of what happens in a conversation. This familiarity can also be a challenge, as people come to the interview with preconceived ideas about what this conversation might be for or about. People may draw on experiences of other similar conversations when taking part in a research interview (for example, job interviews, therapy sessions, confessional conversations, chats with friends). Researchers should be aware of such potential overlaps and think through their implications both in how the aims and purposes of the research interview are communicated to participants and in how interview data are interpreted.

Further, some argue that a limitation of interviews is that they are an artificial form of data collection. By taking people out of their daily lives and asking them to stand back and pass comment, we are creating a distance that makes it difficult to use such data to say something meaningful about people’s actions, experiences and views. Other approaches, such as ethnography, might be more suitable for tapping into what people actually do, as opposed to what they say they do 65 .

Dynamism and replicability

Interviews following a semi-structured format offer flexibility both to the researcher and the participant. As the conversation develops, the interlocutors can explore the topics raised in much more detail, if desired, or pass over ones that are not relevant. This flexibility allows for the unexpected and the unforeseen to be incorporated into the scope of the research.

However, this flexibility has a related challenge of replicability. Interviews cannot be reproduced because they are contingent upon the interaction between the researcher and the participant in that given moment of interaction. In some research paradigms, replicability can be a way of interrogating the robustness of research claims, by seeing whether they hold when they are repeated. This is not a useful framework to bring to in-depth interviews and instead quality criteria (such as transparency) tend to be employed as criteria of rigour.

Accessing the private and personal

Interviews have been recognized for their strength in accessing private, personal issues, which participants may feel more comfortable talking about in a one-to-one conversation. Furthermore, interviews are likely to take a more personable form with their extended questions and answers, perhaps making a participant feel more at ease when discussing sensitive topics in such a context. There is a similar, but separate, argument made about accessing what are sometimes referred to as vulnerable groups, who may be difficult to make contact with using other research methods.

There is an associated challenge of anonymity. There can be types of in-depth interview that make it particularly challenging to protect the identities of participants, such as interviewing within a small community, or multiple members of the same household. The challenge to ensure anonymity in such contexts is even more important and difficult when the topic of research is of a sensitive nature or participants are vulnerable.

Increasingly, researchers are collaborating in large-scale interview-based studies and integrating interviews into broader mixed-methods designs. At the same time, interviews can be seen as an old-fashioned (and perhaps outdated) mode of data collection. We review these debates and discussions and point to innovations in interview-based studies. These include the shift from face-to-face interviews to the use of online platforms, as well as integrating and adapting interviews towards more inclusive methodologies.

Collaborating and mixing

Qualitative researchers have long worked alone 66 . Increasingly, however, researchers are collaborating with others for reasons such as efficiency, institutional incentives (for example, funding for collaborative research) and a desire to pool expertise (for example, studying similar phenomena in different contexts 67 or via different methods). Collaboration can occur across disciplines and methods, cases and contexts and between industry/business, practitioners and researchers. In many settings and contexts, collaboration has become an imperative 68 .

Cheek notes how collaboration provides both advantages and disadvantages 68 . For example, collaboration can be advantageous, saving time and building on the divergent knowledge, skills and resources of different researchers. Scholars with different theoretical or case-based knowledge (or contacts) can work together to build research that is comparative and/or more than the sum of its parts. But such endeavours also carry with them practical and political challenges in terms of how resources might actually be pooled, shared or accounted for. When undertaking such projects, as Morse notes, it is worth thinking about the nature of the collaboration and being explicit about such a choice, its advantages and its disadvantages 66 .

A further tension, but also a motivation for collaboration, stems from integrating interviews as a method in a mixed-methods project, whether with other qualitative researchers (to combine with, for example, focus groups, document analysis or ethnography) or with quantitative researchers (to combine with, for example, surveys, social media analysis or big data analysis). Cheek and Morse both note the pitfalls of collaboration with quantitative researchers: that quality of research may be sacrificed, qualitative interpretations watered down or not taken seriously, or tensions experienced over the pace and different assumptions that come with different methods and approaches of research 66 , 68 .

At the same time, there can be real benefits of such mixed-methods collaboration, such as reaching different and more diverse audiences or testing assumptions and theories between research components in the same project (for example, testing insights from prior quantitative research via interviews, or vice versa), as long as the skillsets of collaborators are seen as equally beneficial to the project. Cheek provides a set of questions that, as a starting point, can be useful for guiding collaboration, whether mixed methods or otherwise. First, Cheek advises asking all collaborators about their assumptions and understandings concerning collaboration. Second, Cheek recommends discussing what each perspective highlights and focuses on (and conversely ignores or sidelines) 68 .

A different way to engage with the idea of collaboration and mixed methods research is by fostering greater collaboration between researchers in the Global South and Global North, thus reversing trends of researchers from the Global North extracting knowledge from the Global South 69 . Such forms of collaboration also align with interview innovations, discussed below, that seek to transform traditional interview approaches into more participatory and inclusive (as part of participatory methodologies).

Digital innovations and challenges

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has centred the question of technology within interview-based fieldwork. Although conducting synchronous oral interviews online — for example, via Zoom, Skype or other such platforms — has been a method used by a small constituency of researchers for many years, it became (and remains) a necessity for many researchers wanting to continue or start interview-based projects while COVID-19 prevents face-to-face data collection.

In the past, online interviews were often framed as an inferior form of data collection for not providing the kinds of (often necessary) insights and forms of immersion face-to-face interviews allow 70 , 71 . Online interviews do tend to be more decontextualized than interviews conducted face-to-face 72 . For example, it is harder to recognize, engage with and respond to non-verbal cues 71 . At the same time, they broaden participation to those who might not have been able to access or travel to sites where interviews would have been conducted otherwise, for example people with disabilities. Online interviews also offer more flexibility in terms of scheduling and time requirements. For example, they provide more flexibility around precarious employment or caring responsibilities without having to travel and be away from home. In addition, online interviews might also reduce discomfort between researchers and participants, compared with face-to-face interviews, enabling more discussion of sensitive material 71 . They can also provide participants with more control, enabling them to turn on and off the microphone and video as they choose, for example, to provide more time to reflect and disconnect if they so wish 72 .

That said, online interviews can also introduce new biases based on access to technology 72 . For example, in the Global South, there are often urban/rural and gender gaps between who has access to mobile phones and who does not, meaning that some population groups might be overlooked unless researchers sample mindfully 71 . There are also important ethical considerations when deciding between online and face-to-face interviews. Online interviews might seem to imply lower ethical risks than face-to-face interviews (for example, they lower the chances of identification of participants or researchers), but they also offer more barriers to building trust between researchers and participants 72 . Interacting only online with participants might not provide the information needed to assess risk, for example, participants’ access to a private space to speak 71 . Just because online interviews might be more likely to be conducted in private spaces does not mean that private spaces are safe, for example, for victims of domestic violence. Finally, online interviews prompt further questions about decolonizing research and engaging with participants if research is conducted from afar 72 , such as how to include participants meaningfully and challenge dominant assumptions while doing so remotely.

A further digital innovation, modulating how researchers conduct interviews and the kinds of data collected and analysed, stems from the use and integration of (new) technology, such as WhatsApp text or voice notes to conduct synchronous or asynchronous oral or written interviews 73 . Such methods can provide more privacy, comfort and control to participants and make recruitment easier, allowing participants to share what they want when they want to, using technology that already forms a part of their daily lives, especially for young people 74 , 75 . Such technology is also emerging in other qualitative methods, such as focus groups, with similar arguments around greater inclusivity versus traditional offline modes. Here, the digital challenge might be higher for researchers than for participants if they are less used to such technology 75 . And while there might be concerns about the richness, depth and quality of written messages as a form of interview data, Gibson reports that the reams of transcripts that resulted from a study using written messaging were dense with meaning to be analysed 75 .

Like with online and face-to-face interviews, it is important also to consider the ethical questions and challenges of using such technology, from gaining consent to ensuring participant safety and attending to their distress, without cues, like crying, that might be more obvious in a face-to-face setting 75 , 76 . Attention to the platform used for such interviews is also important and researchers should be attuned to the local and national context. For example, in China, many platforms are neither legal nor available 76 . There, more popular platforms — like WeChat — can be highly monitored by the government, posing potential risks to participants depending on the topic of the interview. Ultimately, researchers should consider trade-offs between online and offline interview modalities, being attentive to the social context and power dynamics involved.

The next 5–10 years

Continuing to integrate (ethically) this technology will be among the major persisting developments in interview-based research, whether to offer more flexibility to researchers or participants, or to diversify who can participate and on what terms.

Pushing the idea of inclusion even further is the potential for integrating interview-based studies within participatory methods, which are also innovating via integrating technology. There is no hard and fast line between researchers using in-depth interviews and participatory methods; many who employ participatory methods will use interviews at the beginning, middle or end phases of a research project to capture insights, perspectives and reflections from participants 77 , 78 . Participatory methods emphasize the need to resist existing power and knowledge structures. They broaden who has the right and ability to contribute to academic knowledge by including and incorporating participants not only as subjects of data collection, but as crucial voices in research design and data analysis 77 . Participatory methods also seek to facilitate local change and to produce research materials, whether for academic or non-academic audiences, including films and documentaries, in collaboration with participants.

In responding to the challenges of COVID-19, capturing the fraught situation wrought by the pandemic and the momentum to integrate technology, participatory researchers have sought to continue data collection from afar. For example, Marzi has adapted an existing project to co-produce participatory videos, via participants’ smartphones in Medellin, Colombia, alongside regular check-in conversations/meetings/interviews with participants 79 . Integrating participatory methods into interview studies offers a route by which researchers can respond to the challenge of diversifying knowledge, challenging assumptions and power hierarchies and creating more inclusive and collaborative partnerships between participants and researchers in the Global North and South.

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Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to the MY421 team and students for prompting how best to frame and communicate issues pertinent to in-depth interview studies.

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A pre-written interview outline for a semi-structured interview that provides both a topic structure and the ability to adapt flexibly to the content and context of the interview and the interaction between the interviewer and participant. Others may refer to the topic guide as an interview protocol.

Here we refer to the participants that take part in the study as the sample. Other researchers may refer to the participants as a participant group or dataset.

This involves dividing a population into smaller groups based on particular characteristics, for example, age or gender, and then sampling randomly within each group.

A sampling method where the guiding logic when deciding who to recruit is to achieve the most relevant participants for the research topic, in terms of being rich in information or insights.

Researchers ask participants to introduce the researcher to others who meet the study’s inclusion criteria.

Similar to stratified sampling, but participants are not necessarily randomly selected. Instead, the researcher determines how many people from each category of participants should be recruited. Recruitment can happen via snowball or purposive sampling.

A method for developing, analysing and interpreting patterns across data by coding in order to develop themes.

An approach that interrogates the explicit, implicit and taken-for-granted dimensions of language as well as the contexts in which it is articulated to unpack its purposes and effects.

A form of transcription that simplifies what has been said by removing certain verbal and non-verbal details that add no further meaning, such as ‘ums and ahs’ and false starts.

The analytic framework, theoretical approach and often hypotheses, are developed prior to examining the data and then applied to the dataset.

The analytic framework and theoretical approach is developed from analysing the data.

An approach that combines deductive and inductive components to work recursively by going back and forth between data and existing theoretical frameworks (also described as an iterative approach). This approach is increasingly recognized not only as a more realistic but also more desirable third alternative to the more traditional inductive versus deductive binary choice.

A theoretical apparatus that emphasizes the role of cultural processes and capital in (intergenerational) social reproduction.

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In-Depth Interviews

Walter J. Eppich 6 ,
Gerard J. Gormley 7 &
Pim W. Teunissen 8 , 9
First Online: 14 November 2019

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In-depth interviewing has become a popular data collection method in qualitative research in health professions education. Interviews can be unstructured, highly structured or semi-structured, the latter being most common. A well-crafted semi-structured interview guide includes predetermined questions while allowing flexibility to explore emergent topics based on the research question. In order to collect rich interview data, researchers must attend to key elements before, during, and after the interview. The qualitative methodology used impacts key aspects, including: who performs the interview, who participates in the interview, what is included in the interview guide, where the interview takes place, and how data will be captured, transcribed, and analyzed.

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Eppich, W.J., Gormley, G.J., Teunissen, P.W. (2019). In-Depth Interviews. In: Nestel, D., Hui, J., Kunkler, K., Scerbo, M., Calhoun, A. (eds) Healthcare Simulation Research. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-26837-4_12

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Conducting In-Depth Interviews in Qualitative Research

In-depth interviews are a cornerstone of qualitative research, providing researchers with the opportunity to explore participants' experiences, perspectives, and emotions in detail. This installment delves into the art of conducting in-depth interviews, offering insights into building rapport, creating a comfortable environment, and eliciting detailed responses.

Building Rapport and Creating Comfort

1. introduction and ice breakers:.

Start the interview with a friendly introduction and ice breakers to put participants at ease.
Establish a casual and conversational tone to encourage openness.

2. Active Listening:

Demonstrate active listening by nodding, making eye contact, and providing verbal affirmations.
Show genuine interest in participants' responses to foster a sense of trust.

Eliciting Detailed Responses

1. use of probing questions:.

Incorporate probing questions to delve deeper into participants' responses.
Ask follow-up questions that encourage reflection and the sharing of specific details.

2. Allowing Silence:

Embrace moments of silence to give participants the opportunity to collect their thoughts.
Avoid rushing to fill pauses, as participants may use this time to share more profound insights.

Handling Sensitive Topics

1. establishing ground rules:.

Set clear ground rules for discussing sensitive topics, ensuring participants feel safe.
Provide information on confidentiality measures to build trust.

2. Empathetic Responses:

Respond empathetically to participants' emotions, acknowledging their feelings without judgment.
Create a supportive environment for participants to share without fear of criticism.

Adapting to Participant Dynamics

1. cultural sensitivity:.

Be culturally sensitive and aware of potential cultural nuances during the interview.
Adapt communication styles to align with participants' cultural backgrounds.

2. Flexibility in Approach:

Remain flexible in your approach, adjusting based on the participant's communication style and preferences.
Allow participants to guide the conversation to areas they find most meaningful.

Practical Tips for Success

1. pilot interviews:.

Conduct pilot interviews with a small sample to refine your interview approach.
Gather feedback from pilot participants to make adjustments before the full study.

2. Transparency about Recording:

Clearly communicate the recording process to participants and obtain consent.
Ensure that participants feel comfortable with the recording method used.

Conducting in-depth interviews requires a combination of interpersonal skills, empathy, and methodological rigor. By building rapport, eliciting detailed responses, and adapting to participant dynamics, researchers can unlock valuable insights. In the next part of this series, we'll explore the unique dynamics of phone and video interviews, providing tips for overcoming challenges in virtual interview settings. Stay tuned for more insights into the world of qualitative research interviews!

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In-Depth Interviews and All You Need to Know About Them

While online surveys, user evaluations, and focus groups are valuable tools for customer experience management (CXM) research, in-depth interviews provide a distinct and frequently ignored perspective. They can provide rich, comprehensive insights that quantitative tools simply cannot capture.

What Are In-Depth Interviews

In-depth interviews (IDI) are individual interviews that often last 30-90 minutes and in which an interviewer uses open-ended questions and active listening to delve deeply into a given issue. The goal isn’t to collect data but to comprehend the intricacies of human experiences and unearth hidden meanings.

How to Plan for An In-Depth Interview

digital transformation myths and realities illustration

IDIs take extensive planning and preparation to execute effectively. Here are some steps that can help you through the process:

Define Your Goals and Scope of Interview

First, decide what information you want—like user experiences or opinions on a product. Consider your target audience’s demographics , expertise, and experience in planning. Lastly, know how you’ll use the interview data—whether it’s for research, product development, or marketing.

Develop An Interview Guide

Craft a comprehensive guide with diverse questions—start with general ones and then delve into specifics about the topic you want insights on. This guide ensures your interview serves its purpose, and you can use it as a reference if the conversation veers off track. Tailor your questions based on the interviewee’s purpose. Crucially, test the guide in a mock interview to ensure the questions are effective.

Recruit and Schedule Interviews

Before starting interviews to gather insights, locate individuals by asking others (snowball sampling), using online platforms, or tapping into your existing connections; once you have a contacts list and know your questions, begin scheduling the interviews. Explain the value of their participation and offer flexible times to accommodate their schedule.

Confirm the interview format—in-person, online, or over the phone. This straightforward approach ensures you collect helpful information.

Prepare the Interview Environment

Choose a peaceful, distraction-free location for your interview to minimize distractions. If recording is part of the process, be sure you have all the essential equipment. Dress professionally and keep a neutral demeanor throughout the interview, fostering open discussion and a focused flow of information.

These measures help to ensure a smooth and efficient interviewing process.

Conduct the Interview

Establish rapport and trust with your interviewee. To deepen the discussion, actively listen and ask follow-up questions. Encourage them to elaborate on their experiences and offer more details. If they agree, take careful notes or record the interview for future reference. Maintain flexibility and adjust to the interview’s flow to provide a pleasant and productive exchange of information. These methods improve the interview’s quality and build a friendly interaction.

Analyze and Report the Findings

After interviews, transcribe recordings and identify key themes. Present findings clearly. Take notes, stay focused, and summarize major points for effective communication. Minimize distractions, compile data, and adapt these practices for successful interviews, ensuring valuable insights.

Data Accuracy and Reliability

The key to ensuring data accuracy and reliability is defining the research objectives and questions, choosing an interview type, and critically analyzing the data collected. Let’s understand how to do that:

Thorough Planning and Design

It’s essential to plan out the interviews you conduct thoroughly so that no mistakes are made in the data collection and analysis process . To this end, interviewers must ensure that they correctly outline the objective of the interview as well as a question guide. A formal interview guide ensures uniformity across interviews, and a pilot interview test can help weed out any issues in planning.

Participant Selection

Interviewers must carefully analyze which participants they want to interview so they can get the most valuable and relevant insights out of them. Purposive sampling, which targets people with relevant experiences and perspectives, increases the richness and usefulness of the data collected.

Train The Interviewer

The success of an excellent in-depth interview is how comfortable the interviewer makes the interviewee and how well they navigate the conversation. The interviewer must thus be very familiar with the research objectives, interview guide, interviewee profile, and ethical considerations surrounding the topic of conversation.

Active listening and probing tactics should be emphasized in training, and mock interviews can provide great chances for practice and skill refining.

Building A Rapport

Building a deep relationship with participants is vital to encourage free and honest discussion. This includes appropriately communicating the interview’s purpose, maintaining confidentiality, and creating an environment where participants feel comfortable discussing their experiences and points of view.

Ethical considerations are non-negotiable. Obtaining informed consent, maintaining confidentiality, and prioritizing participant well-being is critical.

Recording and Documentation

Maintaining data integrity requires accurate recording and documentation. When interviews are recorded with participant approval, precise transcription, and analysis are possible. Taking comprehensive notes during interviews guarantees that nuances and contextual information are recorded.

You can use Audacity, an open-source audio recording and editing software that allows precise control over recording settings. For easy note-taking, you can use Microsoft OneNote or Evernote. These apps allow for easy note-taking during interviews. They also support multimedia attachments, such as images or sketches. Notion is another versatile tool that combines note-taking, task management, and collaboration features.

Data Validation and Triangulation

Using data validation techniques increases the level of reliability. Member-checking techniques, in which participants look over summaries or transcripts, help verify the information’s accuracy.

The utilization of multiple data sources to cross-verify information is known as triangulation. Combining interview data with documents, observations, or other relevant sources increases the reliability and accuracy of the findings.

Peer Debriefing

Peer debriefing can help participants discuss their interview experiences with peers to share their thoughts and identify potential biases and blind spots that might affect data accuracy.

Continuous Reflection and Reiteration

Reflecting on the interview process regularly and being open to adjusting the interview guide or approach based on ongoing insights and feedback help to refine procedures and increase the overall reliability of the data.

Recording And Transcribing Interview Data

Select a Reliable Recording Method You should choose a high-quality audio recording device or software to ensure the interview is recorded clearly without distortions or mishaps.
Ask for Permission Before Recording Communicate your intention to record the interview, answer their concerns with empathy, and consent before recording it.
Use Timestamps Timestamp essential moments during the interview so you can return to the recording later to reference and transcribe.
Choose A Reliable Recording Service Use professional transcription services or reliable transcription software to convert audio into written text. Review and edit transcriptions for accuracy, especially if using automated transcription tools.

Benefits of Conducting In-Depth Interviews

In-depth interviews (IDIs) are a qualitative research method that involves engaging in detailed, one-on-one conversations with participants to gather rich and comprehensive insights.

The benefits of in-depth interviews span various industries, offering a nuanced understanding of participants’ perspectives and experiences. Here are some key advantages:

Rich and Detailed Insights

In-depth interviews allow researchers to dive deeper into participants’ thoughts, feelings, and experiences. This depth often leads to a more comprehensive understanding of the subject than other research methods.

Adaptability in Questioning

Unlike structured surveys, in-depth interviews provide flexibility in questioning. Researchers can adapt their approach based on participants’ responses, allowing for exploring unexpected insights and issues.

Easier Inquiry and Clarification

It’s easier and more convenient for interviewers to examine and ask for clarification during in-depth interviews. This helps ensure that responses are fully understood, reducing the likelihood of misinterpretation and enabling a more accurate representation of participants’ perspectives. IDIs allow present interviewers the opportunity to explain themselves in case of any misunderstandings.

Contextual Understanding

In-depth interviews allow researchers to gather insights within the context of participants’ lives. This contextual understanding is valuable for industries where the environment significantly influences behavior and decision-making.

Complex Topics Exploration

IDIs are particularly useful for exploring complex topics or issues that may require in-depth discussion. This is advantageous in industries where a nuanced understanding of factors influencing behavior or decision-making is crucial.

Sensitive Topics Exploration

In industries dealing with sensitive topics, such as healthcare or social issues, in-depth interviews provide a private and confidential setting for participants to express their thoughts openly, leading to more honest and authentic responses.

Building Rapport

The one-on-one nature of in-depth interviews facilitates the building of rapport between the interviewer and the participant. This rapport can contribute to more candid and detailed responses.

Iterative Research Design

Researchers can adapt and refine their research questions based on early interview findings. This iterative approach is beneficial for industries where a continuous refinement of research objectives is necessary.

Participant Empowerment

Participants in in-depth interviews often feel empowered as their individual experiences and perspectives are valued. This is particularly relevant in industries where a participant-centric approach is essential.

Strategic Decision-Making

The detailed insights gathered from in-depth interviews can inform strategic decision-making in various industries, ensuring that decisions are grounded in a thorough understanding of stakeholder perspectives.

Leveraging Interview Data

Businesses can use the findings of in-depth interviews (IDIs) for decision-making and strategy in various ways. These interviews can provide crucial information for understanding client demands, improving products or services, and making strategic decisions. Here are a few examples of how firms might use interview findings:

Develop More Customer-Centric Products

In-depth interviews can reveal customer pain points, preferences, and unmet needs. Businesses can use this information to improve and develop their products or services to align more closely with customer expectations.

Brand Perception and Reputation Management

It’s critical to understand how customers view your brand. In-depth interviews can reveal the factors impacting brand perception, allowing firms to reinforce positive associations with the brand while addressing negative opinions, misconceptions or concerns.

Strategic Planning and Decision Making

Interview findings can help strategic planning by giving qualitative data to decision-makers regarding market trends, customer behaviors, and future challenges. This data assists in making informed and strategic decisions that align with business objectives.

Customer Retention and Loyalty

Interviews can reveal the factors that influence consumer loyalty. Businesses can utilize this data to create targeted retention strategies and loyalty programs that improve client satisfaction and long-term connections.

Crisis Management and Risk Management

By understanding customer concerns and potential risks through interviews, businesses can proactively address issues before they escalate. This contributes to effective crisis management and risk mitigation strategies.

Innovative Applications of In-Depth Interviews

In the software development field, in-depth interviews (IDIs) are increasingly used innovatively to gather insights, understand user experiences, and improve the overall development process. Here are some emerging applications of in-depth interviews in software development:

User-Centered Design (UCD) and User Experience (UX) Research

It’s important to keep users in mind when developing software. In-depth interviews are used at the start of User-Centered Design (UCD) and User Experience (UX) research to identify what people want and what obstacles they face. This assists developers in creating software that is simple to use and meets the needs of the user.

Understanding preferences and difficulties early on improves the final product’s usability and intuitiveness. It’s as if the software was designed with users in mind from the start, resulting in a better and more enjoyable experience for them.

Accessibility and Inclusivity Testing

Making sure everyone can use the software you have developed is crucial. Accessibility and Inclusivity Testing uses in-depth interviews to understand the needs of different users, especially those with diverse abilities. This helps developers see how people with various skills interact with the software.

The goal is to make sure features for accessibility are done right. By listening to users early on, developers can ensure that the software is user-friendly for everyone. It’s like checking that a building has ramps and elevators so that everyone can easily access and use it regardless of abilities.

Remote Collaboration Tools

As more people work from different places, interviews become essential to know how users use virtual collaboration tools. Developers use this info to make these tools better and easier to use.

Understanding how people experience and interact with these tools helps improve how they work and what they can do.

It’s like asking people who use a virtual meeting room what they like and don’t like so developers can make the room better for everyone, making remote work smoother and more effective.

Top 5 Tips to Improve the Quality of Your In-Depth Interviews

Improving the quality of in-depth interviews (IDIs) is essential for gaining insightful information. Here are the top five suggestions for improving the quality of your in-depth interviews:

Plan Thoroughly Before the session, conduct extensive research about your interviewees. Recognize their history, experiences, and context. This planning ensures that your questions are pertinent to each participant.
Establish Rapport Begin the interview with a polite greeting and some small talk. Establishing rapport to generate trust and encourage people to discuss matters honestly is critical.
Encourage Detailed Responses with Open-Ended Questions Frame your questions in a way that encourages participants to provide extensive and descriptive responses. Open-ended questions spark lively discussions and generate more profound insights.
Listen Actively Pay close attention to what the participants say. Listen actively for nuances, emotions, and unsaid cues. This shows genuine enthusiasm and interest in what they have to say.
Probe Effectively Use probing tactics to dig deeper into responses. Ask follow-up questions to urge participants to elaborate on their opinions and experiences.

Success Stories Related to In-Depth Interviews

Several well-known companies collect consumer data through various research methods to leverage it for business success. Let’s take a look at a few of them:

GitHub’s Community-Centered Development

GitHub’s success in developing a developer-centric platform is largely due to its dedication to community-centered development. In-depth interviews were critical in this strategy, providing vital insights into the demands and concerns of developers.

What GitHub Did

Conducted in-depth interviews with developers from diverse backgrounds and experience levels.
Focused on understanding their pain points and workflow challenges within the platform.
Encouraged open and honest feedback on features, functionalities, and overall user experience.

What GitHub Learned

Here’s what GitHub learned and why this was a stellar strategy to adopt:

Prioritize Feature Development Based on User Needs: The input gathered directly affected GitHub’s product plan, ensuring that they focused on things that developers desired and used. This resulted in the creation of popular features such as improved pull request management, enhanced code search, and improved collaboration tools.
Create A More User-Friendly Platform: GitHub was able to streamline the platform, making it more intuitive and accessible, by addressing developers’ issues with navigation, interface complexity, and learning curve. As a result, user engagement and retention increased.
Build and Trust Your Community: The open discussion developed through interviews instilled in developers a sense of trust and ownership. They felt heard and valued, resulting in a more lively and engaged community contributing to the platform’s success.

Examples of Successful Implementation

Here are some examples of user feedback they successfully implemented:

GitHub developed customizable issue labels and templates responding to developer input, easing project management and communication.
GitHub redesigned the code search tool after learning about developers’ search issues. The result is a more efficient and accurate code search.
GitHub shortened the review and merging process in response to feedback on pull request complexity, improving collaboration and efficiency.

Key Takeaways

Here are the main takeaways from this case:

Go beyond surface-level feedback and investigate your target audience’s motivations, wants, and needs.
Create a safe environment for open and honest discourse where people feel comfortable sharing their opinions and experiences.
Don’t just collect data; evaluate it and identify significant themes and patterns that provide valuable insights.
Demonstrate your dedication to community-centered development by transforming insights into practical enhancements for your users.

In-depth interviews aren’t a one-time event but rather an ongoing conversation. Gathering feedback and iterating on your strategy will ensure you always provide your users with the most excellent possible experience.

Netflix’s Recommendation Engine

digital transformation netflix example screenshot

Netflix’s success in recommending content its subscribers enjoy isn’t by chance. In-depth discussions with subscribers were critical in refining their advanced recommendation algorithms, resulting in better engagement and subscriber retention.

Let’s dive into this case study and extract some valuable lessons:

What Netflix Did

Conducted in-depth interviews with subscribers across diverse demographics and viewing preferences.
Focused on understanding motivations for watching specific shows and genres and factors influencing their viewing decisions.
Explored emotional responses to content, binge-watching habits, and preferred discovery methods.

What Netflix Learned

Here’s what Netflix learned and how it helped them improve their recommendation engine:

Genre Not Key Determinant for Recommendations: The interviews revealed that genre alone wasn’t enough to predict preferences. Netflix learned about emotional drivers, thematic interests, and cultural factors influencing user choices. This led to the development of more personalized and context-aware recommendations.
Understanding What Makes People Binge: Insights into viewing patterns helped Netflix optimize content delivery and recommendation timing, catering to the popularity of binge-watching. This resulted in increased user engagement and satisfaction.
Customer Behavior Is Ever-Changing: The interviews revealed that user preferences and discovery methods change. Netflix realized the need for continuous feedback and adaptation to maintain relevance and personalized recommendations.
By studying viewers’ emotional responses to content, Netflix’s algorithm can recommend shows that resonate with their preferred mood, even if they fall outside their regular genre.
By analyzing user binge-watching tendencies, Netflix can adjust content release timetables and offer “next episodes” based on individual viewing patterns.
Interviews indicated user preferences for various techniques of discovery. Netflix uses this information to personalize user interfaces and provide options such as “Continue Watching” or genre-specific carousels.
Don’t just ask what people watch; ask why and how they watch. Understand the deeper motivations driving their viewing decisions.
Include participants from various backgrounds and demographics to capture broader perspectives and avoid biases.
Understanding the reasons behind user behavior is crucial for developing practical solutions and recommendations.
User preferences and technology evolve constantly. Be prepared to adapt your approach and refine your methods based on new insights.

You can leverage in-depth interviews to succeed in any industry by understanding your audience, iterating on your strategy, and adjusting to changing needs.

How Iterators Can You Help You Conduct In-Depth Interviews

In-depth interviews (IDIs) dive deep into what people think and feel. They go beyond simple surveys or polls to uncover rich insights that help you understand complex topics and make better decisions.

This guide has walked you through the process, from setting your goals to conducting interviews and analyzing the results. We’ve shown you how IDIs can be especially useful in software development, where they let you explore complicated issues and adapt your questions on the fly.

We’ve also shared some practical tips on how to run great interviews and even shown you some real-life examples of how IDIs have made a difference. At Iterators HQ, we’re experts at helping organizations use IDIs to get the valuable insights they need to succeed. So contact us today and let us help you! Schedule a free consultation and let’s take it from there.

In-depth interviews in qualitative research: Not 'just a chat'

In-depth interview, that's just a chat', you might say. Well, no, it's not, and here's why, and when to use it.

Cathy Gibbons

What is an in-depth interview.

In-depth interviews are described by Fontana and Frey (2000) as a kind of interview that uses anything from structured questions to 'negotiated text', but they also describe it as open-ended and ethnographic. More helpfully, they say it is used as an attempt “to understand the complex behaviour of members of society without imposing any a-priori categorization that may limit the field of inquiry”. They also consider the establishment of a ‘human-to-human connection’, as fundamental to in-depth interviews.

Well, you might say, that’s still just chat, but a really long one, isn’t it? Well no.

According to Kvale and Brinkmann (2009), in-depth interviews are considered to be research conversations. As a genre of conversation, an in-depth interview has its own conventions and rules, distinct from a chat with a friend, a legal interrogation, a therapeutic session, or professional discussion. What makes them distinct is the purpose of the conversation. In qualitative research the purpose is to 'produce' knowledge, “is an interview where knowledge is constructed in the inter-action between the interviewer and the interviewee”. However there is much overlap and no hard and fast distinction between different forms of conversation.

So, ‘chatting’ around inconsequential topics (the state of traffic, whether you prefer tea or coffee) might genuinely be part of the forming and maintenance of rapport. However trust and genuine interview dialogue will be developed through human skills and behaviours that demonstrate that you are trustworthy, respectful of the knowledge and person(s) you are working with, genuinely want to hear what they have to say, see what they have to show you, and will be careful in your representation. These are skills that we all have at some level, but with practice can be honed to the point where you know when to ask a sensitive question, probe more deeply or return at a later point; can detect that there is more to be heard or you can move on; can select from a variety of questioning techniques; have sharp observation skills, and fundamentally, know how to actively listen.

It is probably apparent by now that in-depth interviews are time consuming and take some skill. However, as Guest, Namey & Mitchell say, “there is good reason for the pervasiveness of this method: it is versatile across a range of study topics, adaptable to challenging field conditions, and excellent for not just providing information but for generating understanding as well.” ( 2013 )

When do you use an in-depth interview?

Fontana and Frey (2020) call in-depth interviews ethnographic and open-ended. So in-depth interviews are suitable for the kind of topics where the researcher needs to be in the ‘field’ under examination and/or close to people the people who inhabit that field. Subjects that could require that kind of closeness include:

· socially sensitive topics, (such as bereavement, abuse of any kind, financial issues)

· marginalised and closed groups

· life-course or bibliographic accounts

· examining professional practice in detail

You may also choose to do in-depth interviews when access to field is limited, where there are elements of danger, such as gangs, criminal processes, dangerous or controlled workplaces with restricted access (diving, oil-rigs, operating theatres).

You might also choose to combine in-depth interviews with more traditional ethnographic techniques, such as observation, or with more creative and arts-based methods, where the co-construction of knowledge can be physically made manifest in ways beyond an academic report.

What’s the role of the researcher in an in-depth interview?

Acknowledging that subjective experience is valuable and that the researcher needs to be aware of their own subjectivities are givens in any qualitative research. The literature describes the involvement of the interviewer in research conversations in many ways, from ‘listen, don’t talk, (which might sit well with a more therapeutic approach), all the way to sharing personal opinions, likes/dislikes, which contribute to the co-construction of knowledge. Kvale and Brinkmann (2009) even discuss more challenging styles, where the interviewer freely expresses disagreement with interviewees. There is an element of personality and competence involved in this choice, but your particular research question should guide you across the spectrum of roles, from quiet researcher, to knowledgeable peer, or activist with a purpose of social change.

However there are four areas of consensus in researcher approach:

· Listen more than you talk

· Take time to develop genuine rapport

· Understand your purpose

· Don’t give advice

This is all probably good guidance for any kind of interview, but fail in the first of these two and you cannot claim to be using in-depth interviews in any methodological sense. As for not giving advice, you would need to have a good ethical and methodological rationale for why you might be asked for advice, and how you would handle that appropriately.

Do you need an interview guide for an in-depth interview?

Usually: as the Wallace foundation workbook suggests, you will need a guide with some sense of the questions you could ask, and the areas that you wish to cover (as well as a sampling strategy and thoughts on how you will make sense of your findings). However, that doesn’t mean you have to clutch it in your hand and read from it through-out your interviews.

Our blog on semi-structured interview guides recommends that you learn all of the questions in your topic guide/interview guide, and keep the guide near to hand. Certainly being able to glide seamlessly from question to question, topic to topic really helps keep interviews on track, when each participant may only cover different parts of the topic. However, it is knowing the purpose of your guide that is important, not the order of the questions or verbatim regurgitation of the questions. If you find forming questions difficult, why not have some generalised starters on your guide, along with purpose, and go from there? Our blog Talking naturally in qualitative research interviews has a whole section on questions to help you keep going with your in-depth interview.

What's the difference between in-depth, unstructured and structured interviews?

There are so many ways to describe interviews that it can appear a bit random, with authors like Flick (2015) , using labels that refer not just to the structure of the interview (e.g. semi-structured), but also to the people to be interviewed, their status relative to the context under discussion (e.g. expert, adult or child service user), and the linguistic form of the interview (e.g. narrative, and episodic). Then to add to the confusion, we throw in another term like ‘in-depth’.

In general, research interviews can be divided in to three kinds of structure:

· Structured

· Semi-structured

· Unstructured

In-depth interviews generally overlap the area between Unstructured and Semi-structured interviews. In Figure 1, the In-depth interviews circle barely skims the Structured interview circle. It is possible to use a structured interview instrument that is extremely detailed, wide-ranging and long. However, these are rare, as gathering such data is often better served by a questionnaire, and they are not in-depth in a qualitative methodological sense. When you find yourself choosing in-depth interviews, you are looking to generate a rich dialogue between you and your interviewee that will allow both of you to expore a topic in a free-flowing and informative way.

Whatever type of interviews you end up using for your qualitative research, Quirkos is a great way to transcribe them, with our automated transcription service , and analyse them with our simple qualitative coding and analysis tool . You can try both free of charge for 14 days, so register for a free trial and see if Quirkos can help you after your interviews!

References and Resources

Fontana, Andrea. and Frey, James H. (2000) The interview; from structured questions to negotiated text. In Handbook of Qualitative Research , Eds. Norman K. Denzin , Yvonna S. Lincoln . Sage.

Flick, Uwe. (2015) Introducing Research Methodology: A Beginner's Guide to Doing a Research Project 2nd Ed. Sage.

Guest, G., Namey, E., & Mitchell, M. (2013). in-depth interviews. (Vols. 1-0). SAGE Publications, Ltd, https://doi.org/10.4135/9781506374680 [Accessed online 03 July 2023]

Kvale, Steinar (1996) InterViews: An introduction to research interviewing . Sage. Thousand Oaks. London.

Kvale, Steinar and Brinkmann, Svend (2009) ( 2014 ) InterViews: Learning the Craft of Qualitative Research Interviewing. Sage. Thousand Oaks. London.

Morris, A. (2015). A practical introduction to in-depth interviewing. SAGE Publications Ltd, https://doi.org/10.4135/9781473921344

The Wallace Foundation’s Knowledge Center, has useful material about many issues, including the arts, learning enrichment and school leadership. https://www.wallacefoundation.org/knowledge-center/pages/kc-results.aspx

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Methodological Practices in Social Movement Research

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10 In-Depth Interviews

Published: September 2014
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The chapter analyzes in-depth interviews , defined as a fundamental tool for generating empirical knowledge through asking people to talk about certain themes. It looks at the main approaches that have made use of qualitative interviews, observing that they have been preferred, especially where the researcher is aiming to make a detailed description. Attention is paid to the process and interest taken in the interpretations interviewees give of the process itself. The chapter addresses the different steps of a research design based on in-depth interviews, with attention to the specific challenges of research on social movements: the questions to ask and how to ask them; strategies for the selection of interviewees, based mainly on theoretical considerations rather than randomness; the delicate relations between interviewers and interviewees; and how in-depth interviews are analyzed by social movement researchers.

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A Practical Introduction to In-Depth Interviewing

By: Alan Morris
Publisher: SAGE Publications Ltd
Publication year: 2015
Online pub date: December 28, 2018
Discipline: Sociology
Methods: In-depth interviews , Research questions , Interview guides
DOI: https:// doi. org/10.4135/9781473921344
Keywords: consent forms , domestic violence , ethics committees , knowledge , probing , rapport , students Show all Show less
Print ISBN: 9781446287637
Online ISBN: 9781473921344
Buy the book icon link

Subject index

Are you new to qualitative research or a bit rusty and in need of some inspiration? Are you doing a research project involving in-depth interviews? Are you nervous about carrying out your interviews? This book will help you complete your qualitative research project by providing a nuts and bolts introduction to interviewing. With coverage of ethics, preparation strategies and advice for handling the unexpected in the field, this handy guide will help you get to grips with the basics of interviewing before embarking on your research. While recognising that your research question and the context of your research will drive your approach to interviewing, this book provides practical advice often skipped in traditional methods textbooks. Written with the needs of social science students and those new to qualitative research in mind, the book will help you plan, prepare for, carry out and analyse your interviews.

Front Matter

Acknowledgements
About the Author
Chapter 1 | The what and why of in-depth interviewing
Chapter 2 | Ethics – the need to tread carefully
Chapter 3 | Developing the interview guide
Chapter 4 | Selecting, finding and accessing research participants
Chapter 5 | Preparing for the interview
Chapter 6 | Conducting the interview
Chapter 7 | Dealing with difficulties and the unexpected
Chapter 8 | Transcribing, analysing and writing up the interviews

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J Basic Clin Pharm
v.5(4); September 2014-November 2014

Qualitative research method-interviewing and observation

Shazia jamshed.

Department of Pharmacy Practice, Kulliyyah of Pharmacy, International Islamic University Malaysia, Kuantan Campus, Pahang, Malaysia

Buckley and Chiang define research methodology as “a strategy or architectural design by which the researcher maps out an approach to problem-finding or problem-solving.”[ 1 ] According to Crotty, research methodology is a comprehensive strategy ‘that silhouettes our choice and use of specific methods relating them to the anticipated outcomes,[ 2 ] but the choice of research methodology is based upon the type and features of the research problem.[ 3 ] According to Johnson et al . mixed method research is “a class of research where the researcher mixes or combines quantitative and qualitative research techniques, methods, approaches, theories and or language into a single study.[ 4 ] In order to have diverse opinions and views, qualitative findings need to be supplemented with quantitative results.[ 5 ] Therefore, these research methodologies are considered to be complementary to each other rather than incompatible to each other.[ 6 ]

Qualitative research methodology is considered to be suitable when the researcher or the investigator either investigates new field of study or intends to ascertain and theorize prominent issues.[ 6 , 7 ] There are many qualitative methods which are developed to have an in depth and extensive understanding of the issues by means of their textual interpretation and the most common types are interviewing and observation.[ 7 ]

Interviewing

This is the most common format of data collection in qualitative research. According to Oakley, qualitative interview is a type of framework in which the practices and standards be not only recorded, but also achieved, challenged and as well as reinforced.[ 8 ] As no research interview lacks structure[ 9 ] most of the qualitative research interviews are either semi-structured, lightly structured or in-depth.[ 9 ] Unstructured interviews are generally suggested in conducting long-term field work and allow respondents to let them express in their own ways and pace, with minimal hold on respondents’ responses.[ 10 ]

Pioneers of ethnography developed the use of unstructured interviews with local key informants that is., by collecting the data through observation and record field notes as well as to involve themselves with study participants. To be precise, unstructured interview resembles a conversation more than an interview and is always thought to be a “controlled conversation,” which is skewed towards the interests of the interviewer.[ 11 ] Non-directive interviews, form of unstructured interviews are aimed to gather in-depth information and usually do not have pre-planned set of questions.[ 11 ] Another type of the unstructured interview is the focused interview in which the interviewer is well aware of the respondent and in times of deviating away from the main issue the interviewer generally refocuses the respondent towards key subject.[ 11 ] Another type of the unstructured interview is an informal, conversational interview, based on unplanned set of questions that are generated instantaneously during the interview.[ 11 ]

In contrast, semi-structured interviews are those in-depth interviews where the respondents have to answer preset open-ended questions and thus are widely employed by different healthcare professionals in their research. Semi-structured, in-depth interviews are utilized extensively as interviewing format possibly with an individual or sometimes even with a group.[ 6 ] These types of interviews are conducted once only, with an individual or with a group and generally cover the duration of 30 min to more than an hour.[ 12 ] Semi-structured interviews are based on semi-structured interview guide, which is a schematic presentation of questions or topics and need to be explored by the interviewer.[ 12 ] To achieve optimum use of interview time, interview guides serve the useful purpose of exploring many respondents more systematically and comprehensively as well as to keep the interview focused on the desired line of action.[ 12 ] The questions in the interview guide comprise of the core question and many associated questions related to the central question, which in turn, improve further through pilot testing of the interview guide.[ 7 ] In order to have the interview data captured more effectively, recording of the interviews is considered an appropriate choice but sometimes a matter of controversy among the researcher and the respondent. Hand written notes during the interview are relatively unreliable, and the researcher might miss some key points. The recording of the interview makes it easier for the researcher to focus on the interview content and the verbal prompts and thus enables the transcriptionist to generate “verbatim transcript” of the interview.

Similarly, in focus groups, invited groups of people are interviewed in a discussion setting in the presence of the session moderator and generally these discussions last for 90 min.[ 7 ] Like every research technique having its own merits and demerits, group discussions have some intrinsic worth of expressing the opinions openly by the participants. On the contrary in these types of discussion settings, limited issues can be focused, and this may lead to the generation of fewer initiatives and suggestions about research topic.

Observation

Observation is a type of qualitative research method which not only included participant's observation, but also covered ethnography and research work in the field. In the observational research design, multiple study sites are involved. Observational data can be integrated as auxiliary or confirmatory research.[ 11 ]

Research can be visualized and perceived as painstaking methodical efforts to examine, investigate as well as restructure the realities, theories and applications. Research methods reflect the approach to tackling the research problem. Depending upon the need, research method could be either an amalgam of both qualitative and quantitative or qualitative or quantitative independently. By adopting qualitative methodology, a prospective researcher is going to fine-tune the pre-conceived notions as well as extrapolate the thought process, analyzing and estimating the issues from an in-depth perspective. This could be carried out by one-to-one interviews or as issue-directed discussions. Observational methods are, sometimes, supplemental means for corroborating research findings.

COMMENTS

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In-depth Interviews: Definition and how to conduct them
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PDF CONDUCTING IN-DEPTH INTERVIEWS: A Guide for Designing and Conducting In
In-depth interviewing is a qualitative research technique that involves conducting intensive individual interviews with a small number of respondents to explore their perspectives on a particular idea, program, or situation. For example, we might ask participants, staff, and others associated with a program about their experiences and ...
In‐Depth Interviews
An in-depth interview is a qualitative research technique that is used to conduct detailed interviews with a small number of participants. In contrast to other forms of qualitative research, researchers using an in-depth interviewing approach invest a significant amount of time with each participant employing a conversational format. Interview ...
In-Depth Interviewing
In disciplines that privilege quantitative research, in-depth interviews may seem like a soft option. They are anything but. They require a high level of commitment and skill on the part of the researcher and can involve a significant degree of ethical, theoretical, methodological, and analytical complexity.
Chapter 11. Interviewing
This chapter will provide you with an overview of interview techniques but with a special focus on the in-depth semistructured interview guide approach, which is the approach most widely used in social science research. An interview can be variously defined as "a conversation with a purpose" (Lune and Berg 2018) and an attempt to understand ...
PDF A al oduction h iewing Alan Morris
chapter gives a brief history and definition of the in-depth interview and reviews its advantages and limitations. The question of when to use in-depth interviews is ... in a research interview there is far more probing by the interviewer. A probe involves asking interviewees to elaborate or explain an answer. It is an endeavour
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In-depth interviews are a versatile form of qualitative data collection used by researchers across the social sciences. In this Primer, Knott et al. describe the stages and challenges involved in ...
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In-depth semi-structured interviews are the sole or primary mode of data collection in most qualitative research projects , making them the most widely used form of interview. Semi-structured interviews combine a series of pre-planned questions in an interview guide with emergent questions or probes depending on the dialogue between interviewer ...
Conducting In-Depth Interviews in Qualitative Research
In-depth interviews are a cornerstone of qualitative research, providing researchers with the opportunity to explore participants' experiences, perspectives, and emotions in detail. This installment delves into the art of conducting in-depth interviews, offering insights into building rapport, creating a comfortable environment, and eliciting ...
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In-depth interviews (IDIs) are a qualitative research method that involves engaging in detailed, one-on-one conversations with participants to gather rich and comprehensive insights. The benefits of in-depth interviews span various industries, offering a nuanced understanding of participants' perspectives and experiences.
In-depth interviews in qualitative research: Not 'just a chat'
According to Kvale and Brinkmann (2009), in-depth interviews are considered to be research conversations. As a genre of conversation, an in-depth interview has its own conventions and rules, distinct from a chat with a friend, a legal interrogation, a therapeutic session, or professional discussion. What makes them distinct is the purpose of ...
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OVERVIEW OF IN-DEPTH INTERVIEWS An in-depth interview is an open-ended, discovery-oriented method to obtain detailed information about a topic from a stakeholder. In-depth interviews are a qualitative research method; their goal is to explore in depth a respondent's point of view, experiences, feelings, and perspectives.
In-Depth Interviews
The chapter addresses the different steps of a research design based on in-depth interviews, with attention to the specific challenges of research on social movements: the questions to ask and how to ask them; strategies for the selection of interviewees, based mainly on theoretical considerations rather than randomness; the delicate relations ...
In-Depth Interviews in Qualitative Research
In-depth interviews are a cornerstone of qualitative research, especially in approaches like grounded theory and ethnography where understanding the nuances of personal experiences and cultural contexts is key to developing rich, grounded theories. By using QDA coding tools like Delve, handling the wealth of data from these interviews is much ...
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An in-depth interview is an empirical research method through which it is possible to study a particular audience, their preferences, needs, and demographics and to produce a desired product or idea based on the information gleaned. In simple terms, in-depth interviews are conducted to understand people better.
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Dr. Katy Wheeler, PhD, Senior Lecturer in Sociology of Consumption, University of Essex, discusses types of research suitable for, and what to expect from, in-depth interviews in qualitative research.
In-Depth Interview
In-depth interviews are unstructured interviews that have similarities with a conversation—albeit a conversation with a purpose, i.e., the research topic. In-depth interviews range in duration from 1 hour to upward to 5 hours and beyond. Interviews in excess of 2 hours may be conducted over a series of sessions.
A Comprehensive Guide to In-Depth Interviews (IDIs)
An in-depth interview is a qualitative research technique that involves conducting multiple individual interviews. They involve one-on-one engagement with participants, usually taking place face-to-face, either remotely or in-person. Unlike other research methods, in-depth interviews have a more flexible structure than moderated usability studies.
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This chapter focuses on in-depth interviewing in criminological and criminal justice research. It highlights various types of in-depth interviews - with special attention given to depth, focus group, and life history interviews. The chapter identifies different forms and types of questions that can be used while interviewing participants, and ...
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In-depth interviews in peace research involve questions related to events that . have taken place during or in the aftermath of violent conflict, and it is important to .
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Chapters. Chapter 1 | The what and why of in-depth interviewing. Chapter 2 | Ethics - the need to tread carefully. Chapter 3 | Developing the interview guide. Chapter 4 | Selecting, finding and accessing research participants. Chapter 5 | Preparing for the interview. Chapter 6 | Conducting the interview. Chapter 7 | Dealing with difficulties ...
Qualitative research method-interviewing and observation
As no research interview lacks structure most of the qualitative research interviews are either semi-structured, lightly structured or in-depth. Unstructured interviews are generally suggested in conducting long-term field work and allow respondents to let them express in their own ways and pace, with minimal hold on respondents' responses.[ 10 ]

In-depth Interviews: Definition and how to conduct them

What are in-depth interviews?

Characteristics of in-depth interviews

Importance of conducting in-depth interviews

Steps to conduct in-depth interviews

Advantages of in-depth interviews

Disadvantages

What is the purpose of in-depth interviews?

Final words

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Chapter 11. Interviewing

Types of Interviews

Creating an Interview Guide

Type of Questions

Background/Demographic Questions

Temporality

Question Sequence

Probes and Flexibility

The Final Question

Conducting the Interview

How Many Interviews?

Your Final Product: The Ideal Interview Transcript

Final Tips from an Interview Master

Sample: Demographic Questionnaire

Example: Interview Guide

Further Readings

Interviews in the social sciences

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The fundamental importance of method to theory

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Introduction

Experimentation

Research design

Study design

Data collection

Topic guide

Optimizing the interview

Ethics and reflexivity

Ethical considerations prior to interview

Box 1 Mapping potential forms of harm

Ethical considerations post-interview

Reflexivity and positionality

Box 2 Aspects to reflect on reflexively

Preparing data

Box 3 Excerpt of interview transcript (from Teeger 24 )

From data to codes

From coding to analysis and writing

Applications

Nationalism and ethnicity

Education and inequality

The welfare state

Reproducibility and data deposition

Box 4 An example of grounding interpretations in data (from Rao 34 )

Limitations and optimizations

Breadth versus depth of insight

Naturalistic or artificial interviews

Dynamism and replicability

Accessing the private and personal

Collaborating and mixing

Digital innovations and challenges

The next 5–10 years

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