Interviewing Archives

practical guide to interviewing techniques and skills

Interviewing is increasingly a core part of commerce, the professions, and in education, yet few people are aware of the many skills needed to be a good interviewer. This book is an resource for all those looking to improve their interviewing skills. It’s important to stress that the advice offered is for those who will be conducting the interviews, not those on the receiving end. The first part deals with different types of interviews – from people offering advice over the counter on reception desks, to telephone, TV, and job interviews.

Next comes the relationship between interviewer and respondent – how empathy and rapport can built; issues of anonymity and confidentiality; and then truthfulness in representing the purpose of the interview. Anyone who has been asked questions in the street will know how common it is for interviewers to conceal their real purpose or client. Next come the important issues of constructing questions and framing the structure of the formal interview – including feedback loops. This is followed by guidance on interpreting the responses of the person being interviewed. How do we act fairly to judge non-verbal messages for instance?

The latter part of the book deals with specific examples of different types of interview – for academic research, interviewing children, adolescents, older people and those with disabilities; then interviewing people in different cultures, and people in stressful and even antagonistic situations.

It’s written in an accessible style, and is based on a solid framework of both theory and research. Nothing is explored in any particular depth, but for those who might find themselves having to ask the questions, make employment decisions, and either extract information or select personnel, this will be a very reassuring starting point.

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Daphne M. Keats, Interviewing: a practical guide for students and professionals, Buckinghamshire: Open University Press, 2000, pp.162, ISBN: 0335206670

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solving moral dilemmas in research projects

You might not think there is a book-length study to be made of the ethical issues in academic research, but Paul Oliver makes a convincing case that there are moral considerations to be made at every stage of the process – from the original concept to the publication of results. The Student’s Guide to Research Ethics starts off with the need to define terms. Is someone a subject, a participant, or an interviewee? Each term contains its own nuances, and these can have an ethical bearing on the relationship between researcher and the people being studied.

The book is mainly aimed at students in education and the social sciences who might be likely to gather information from interviewing people. However the issues it raises are general ones and might be encountered by anyone conducting a research project or doing market research. Tracing the development of a research project from methodology, through data collection and analysis, to publication, he looks in detail at the moral dilemmas which might arise between researcher and subject – including even people who are dead at the time the information is gathered.

Many of the topics he inspects involve making fine distinctions between the rights and responsibilities of the researcher and the interviewee – and sometimes between the researcher and the information that is being gathered. These issues are explored in what becomes a practical philosophic manner, so that the underlying ethical issues are brought to the surface.

He deals with the difficulties of obtaining genuinely ‘informed consent’ amongst respondents, researching vulnerable groups of people, and dealing with problems of permissions and protocols. Even the manner in which data is recorded can raise ethical issues.

He covers issues of privacy, confidentiality, anonymity, ethnocentrism, differences in gender, ethnicity, and religion, participant observation, and the disposal of data when a research project has been completed. It’s all done in a fair and even-handed manner, without any sense of taking sides or favouring the researcher.

He also looks closely at the potential – and actual – difficulties arising from the funding of research projects, of intellectual property rights, and the dissemination of research findings via publication. Although he speaks against Internet publication earlier in the book, I was surprised at this point that there was no mention of it in his discussion of plagiarism.

This will be of particular interest to students in sociology, psychology, management and organisational studies, communication studies, education, and the health service. And although the title suggests it’s for students, I can think of quite a few supervisors who would profit from considering the issues it raises.

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Paul Oliver, The Student’s Guide to Research Ethics, Maidenhead: Open University Press, 2nd edition 2010, pp.224, ISBN: 0335237975

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practical guide to interviewing techniques and skills

solving moral dilemmas in research projects

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