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- 1. What is an interview?
- 2. Different types of interviews
- 3. Designing an interview
- 4. Recruiting research participants (a) Constructing the interview sample
- 5. Recruiting research participants (b) Recruitment strategies
- 6. Ethical issues to consider in recruitment of participants
- 7. Preparing for the interview
- 8. Conducting the interview (a) Being a good interviewer
- 9. Conducting the Interview (b) At the interview
- 10. Conducting the interview (c) Building trust and rapport
- 11. Conducting the interview (d) Using probes
- 12. Ethical issues in research interviews (a) Relationship between researchers and participants
- 13. Ethical issues in research interviews (b) Researchers as participants in the research process.
- 14. Ethical issues in research interviews: Insider/Outsider researchers
- 15. Post-interview practice
- 16. Summary of Module
- 17. Feedback Survey
11. Conducting the interview (d) Using probes
Probes are used by researchers to support and encourage participants during interviews to reflect or speak in more detail on a particular issue.
Some examples of common probes used in conducting in-depth interviews include:
- Silent probe: the researcher, or interviewer, remains silent but encourages the participant to continue by nodding or maintaining eye contact.
- Echo probe: Repeat what the participant has said and ask them to continue or elaborate. For example, “So when you say, ‘xxxx’, what do you mean by that?”
- Neutral affirming probe: Encourage a participant to continue their story by providing an affirmation such as “yes”, “uh-huh”, or “yes, I see”.
- Leading the participant: A more explicit probe where you try to urge the participant to think about a particular issue. For example: “How did you feel about xxx?”, or “In what sense did you mean xxx?”
Reference:
Hesse-Biber, S. N. 2014. Feminist Approaches to In-Depth Interviewing. In: S. N. Hesse-Biber (ed), Feminist Research Practice: A Primer, Los Angeles, London, New Delhi, Singapore, Washington DC: Sage, p. 198.