Interviews

What I liked most was Lukar’s pre-interview process. I think that her idea of writing out all the questions on index cards, setting them on the floor, and ordering them is a fantastic way to do it. I really liked how she referred to the ordering as "clumps" and to make sure you tell your interviewee that you are moving on to a different "clump."

When doing an interview assignment for Foundations in Library and Information Science, I did not inform my participant that I was moving on to different 'clumps.' In retrospect, I really think this would have helped me get better answers, as my interviewee seemed to think that a lot of the questions were kind of the same, when they were asking very different things. Perhaps if I had told the participant that I was moving to a different subject, I would have gotten different, and better answers.

           

However, there is one part of her chapter that I could not agree with. I don’t like that she believed that it is okay to provoke the participant so that they could outline what he/she actually meant. I suppose that if you were to tread carefully, and have an idea about his/her temperament, it would be okay. What if it went poorly, and ended the interview? Although she claims that this is generally “low-risk,” you can anger the person whom you are interviewing if you have not built a rapport. But I’m not sure I am personally comfortable with putting words in the participant’s mouth in order to get a reaction.