~AEA Public Library

Handout from session at 2011 AEA/CDC Summer Evaluation Institute

Description: Preparing a proper interview guide is only a first step to proper Q & A in a qualitative data collection episode. This session outlines key sections to include in an interview guide and offers suggestions for how to conduct a qualitative interview and/or focus group. The face-to-face interaction in this case is critical. The interviewer must balance attention to the questions designed for the interaction and the emergent topics in the interview. Core skills that focus attention on the audience for the study, the topics of the project, important lines of questioning and goals for ensuring quality interaction in this relationship improve the quality of data collection.

Audience: Researchers in any discipline with a basic knowledge of qualitative analysis who are interested in using conversational techniques in the form of interviews or focus groups.

Raymond C. Maietta is president of ResearchTalk Inc., a qualitative research consulting company. A sociologist from the State University of New York at Stony Brook, Ray's interests in the art of qualitative research methods motivated him to start ResearchTalk in 1996. ResearchTalk Inc. provides advice on all phases of qualitative analysis to university, government, not-for-profit and corporate researchers. Work with ResearchTalk clients using qualitative software informs recent book chapters: Systematic Procedures of Inquiry and Computer Data Analysis Software for Qualitative Research (with John Creswell) and State of the Art: Integrating Software with Qualitative Analysis. More than 15 years of consultation with qualitative researchers informs the methods book Ray is writing. Sort and Sift, Think and Shift will be completed in 2012.

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