Chapter 8 - What are the strengths, challenges, and future of qualitative interviews?

Like all things, Interviews under the qualitative form of research has its own Strengths and Challenges. This chapter will show case what these Strengths and Challenges are and it will also talk about the Future of Qualitative Interviews.



STRENGTHS

Lots of would argue that Interviews is the best way to gather information because it is done through a social interaction, instead of the sample just writing or typing their answers and probably picking through suggested answers. The answers taken from Interviews are all from the sample itself.

Paul Atkinson and David Silverman ( 1997 ) argued that we are in an interview society where interviews have become a fundamental activity, and crucial to people’s understanding of themselves. So instead of taking answers from a pre-set choice, the interviewee has the chance to answer it in a way only he would.

Giampietro Gobo stated that " If the ‘interview society’ is still the dominant societal model, the recent sudden increase of ethnography can be explained with the hypothesis that we are entering a[n] ‘observation society’, a society in which observing (as interviewing) has become a fundamental activity, and watching and scrutinizing are becoming important cognitive modes alongside the others, like listening, feeling, hearing and eavesdropping, typical of the ‘interview society’. (Gobo 2011 : 48)". He is stating that it isn't just the answers that we get from the interviews itself, we are able to fully observe, listen and scrutinize the information we are getting from the interviewee. Is he feeling fraustrated? happy? etc.


As stated we get more from the interviews than just answers, and that also affects the viewers the people who get to watch the interviews. In fact, Malcolm Williams and Paul Vogt offered reasons as to why interviews has started to grow in popularity. They explained that "The increasing popularity of qualitative interviews offered are recognition of a need for methods that can give insight into the meanings that individuals and groups attach to experiences, social processes, practices and events."

People find it easier to answer if they based it off their own experiences, own practices etc. And based off of these, the answers that the researchers may get from will have more Quality. Since the interviewee experienced it first hand, they will be able to talk explain in more detail and give out more in-depth answers.

Jennifer Mason ( 2002 : 1) listed down a few strengths of qualitative interviews.
- Texture and Weave of Everyday Life
- The understandings, experiences and imaginings of research participants
- How social processes, institutions, discourses or relationships work
- The significance of the meanings that they generate.

based off of this listed that Jennifer Manson had written down, it shows a more personal level of understanding. From the interviewee to the interviewer.

Another strength of this method is that it Evolves along with technology.


It evolves incorporating technological change, using visual and other methods within the interview to enhance the process of knowledge production.The method can provide depth and detail to the more general picture offered by the quantitative social data.


CHALLENGES

Of course since it has strengths, Interviews also have challenges they must face. Any piece of qualitative research and any qualitative interview can be criticized from a number of perspectives, and just as with any type of research method, not all qualitative interviews constitute good research.  Qualitative interviews have been criticized as the following: it is anecdotal, illustrative, descriptive, lacks rigour, is unsystematic, biased, impossible to replicate and not generalizable.

Research often follow a framework or a system to the dot to make it sturdy and academic. Jaes Scheurich(1995,1997) stated that there are two important challenges that this type of method entails. He pointed out that "The language itself has inherent instability, with contested meanings, ambiguity and open-endedness, and is subject to endless reinterpretation". Second, "What a question or answer means to the interviewer can easily mean something different to the interviewee." Jeas tried to point out that we have to make the language clear and to the interviewee so that they're standing on the same ground.



Graham crow (2012) mentioned 4 challenges when it comes to interviews.
1. Keeping up with explioting of technological change
2. Enhancing research capacity in an integrated way, methodological pluralism and collaboration in inter-diciplinary tears are essential for moving such integration forward
3. Research Ethics
4. Democratization of social research that is expanding the collaboration more widely to include participants who might be inclined to ask "What's in it for us?" and feel over-searched.

Crow suggests a 5th challenge; that we need to keep a sense of purpose and of history, and not rush headlong into innovatory methods of research before assuming ourselves that it will result in answers for new research questions that are arising, and generate better quality data and analyses than our old methods. He is trying to say that we shouldn't rush ourselves with innovations. It is nice to think outside the box just make sure the original box is filled up first.

Indeed we will encounter all these challenges through our research. It is upto us as researchers to get passed them and make our research as full proof as possible.


FUTURE

As stated in the earlier, Qualitative interview adapts to the technology and is always evolving. Hence it's popularity will only rise even more. Qualitative research is vibrant, alive and in demand in the interview and observation society (Atkinson and Silverman 1997 ; Gobo 2011 ; Mason 2002 ). It has survived massive cuts in public expenditure in the United Kingdom where research budgets have been reduced, or have disappeared entirely, without itself being disproportionately affected.

There have been dramatic changes in communication technology and qualitative interviewing must adapt if it is to survive. This does not mean pitting old methods against new, but it calls for constant renewal and making sure that we have the right tools for the job while also recognizing and supporting an enduring role for classic approaches, as argued by Crow quoted earlier.

The studies conducted via qualitative interviews can be used even for future studies, so that the researchers in the future may have a grasp or an idea as to how the people were back then. Qualitative Interview will stay strong and be useful for future references.



Source:Edwards, Rosalind & Holland, Janet. What is qualitative interviewing? New York: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2013, Print.