This document discusses qualitative interviewing techniques for gathering data in criminal justice studies. It covers different types of interviews like structured, semi-structured, and unstructured interviews. Focus groups are also discussed. The document provides guidance on designing interview questions, gaining access to participants, conducting interviews, recording data, analyzing qualitative data through coding and identifying themes, and ensuring rigor and quality.

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Chapter 10:
Qualitative
Interviewing
© 2018 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved.

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© 2018 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved.
Learning Objectives
• Recognize when to use qualitative interviewing
as a data-gathering tool
• Understand that there are multiple meanings
or constructions about reality
• Know the advantages and disadvantages of
semi-structured versus unstructured interviews
• Understand the use of focus groups or
interviewing a group of people simultaneously

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Learning Objectives, cont.
• Be able to describe how to approach and
interact with participants
• Learn how to record or log data
• Understand ways to analyze and interpret
qualitative data
• Recognize how to enhance the quality of
information gathered

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Introduction
• A qualitative interview is an interaction between
an interviewer and a respondent where the
interviewer has a general plan of inquiry,
including topics to be covered
• The interviewer might not have a specific set of
questions to be asked in a particular order
• Can be thought of as a purposeful conversation
• Allows researchers to study more complex
processes or the “hows” involving human
perspective

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Qualitative Interviewing
• Qualitative interviews can be the sole way of
gathering data in criminal justice studies
• Allows the research to understand the subjects’
perspectives
• Can gather firsthand accounts of their
impressions and their lived experiences
• Can also be used to understand how people feel
about their roles and identities

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Key Features of Qualitative Interviewing
• Richness of human experience
• Approach to learning
• Critical realist perspective
• Your stance about the nature of reality (ontology)
• The nature of knowledge

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Kinds of Qualitative Interviews
• Interview schedule: The structure of the
interview that may have predetermined
questions or topical areas to be discussed
• The interview schedule will influence how
in-depth and interactive your interviews
should be

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Structured and Semi-Structured Interviews
• A structured interview schedule consists of
predetermined questions and answer sets
• Structured interviews create standardized
responses so respondents are given the same
stimulus, allowing for responses to be compared
• Semi-structured interview has standardized
questions but allows the interviewer to explore
themes that emerge during the interview
• Researcher can probe for additional information

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Unstructured Interviews
• Unstructured interviews are the most open style
of interviewing
• Provides the most breadth, depth, and natural
interaction with participants
• Two main approaches: conversations and
interview guide
• Conversations is an informal “chat” where conversation flows
organically
• Interview guide includes a list of topical areas that you want to
cover in the conversation

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Focus Group Interviews
• 6–12 people brought together to engage in
guided group discussion of some topic
• Focus groups can be used to generate
hypotheses, or combined with other types of
data gathering such as participant observation
• Can show how opinions are produced,
expressed, and exchanged in everyday life
• Can be either natural groups or artificial groups
• Natural groups have an existing connection
• Artificial groups are made up of individuals selected according to
some criteria and are brought together for research purposes

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Discussion Question 1
Would you attend a focus group if asked? Why or
why not?

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Discussion Question 2
What if you interviewed a focus group?
Would you choose conversation or interview
guiding? Why?

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Designing Qualitative Interview Questions
• Interview questions can assume different forms
• The branch approach involves having a main
topic with branching questions
• The river-and-channel approach involves many
streams of questioning that lead into the main
channel, with some streams diverging
• Must also decide what order to tell the story
• A diachronic delivery of material starts at the beginning and
progresses chronologically
• A synchronic framework does not depend on time

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Interview Schedule
• Best to create an outline of more categories of
information you want to obtain before you start
writing
• You can create categories and nested sets of topical
areas.
• How a question is worded can affect the response
• Be sure the questions encompass the overall
subject, there is a good flow between questions, the
order makes sense, and the language is appropriate
• Avoid double-barreled questions, complex
questions, difficult language, and affective words

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Probes
• Prompt participants to elaborate on responses
by filling in more detail and depth
• It is important to have built-in prompts in case
you have quiet respondents
• You can use an attention probe (e.g., lean in), a
continuation probe (e.g., nod), clarification probe
(e.g., ask the respondent to clarify), or follow-up
questions

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Gaining Access to Participants
• Establish your role: determine if you are an insider or
outsider
• To gain access to a formal organization, you will need
identify yourself as a researcher and make a formal
request and receive formal approval
• Best to use a four-step process: sponsor, letter, phone
call, and meeting
• To gain access to information subcultures, researchers
can gain access using a sponsor or hang out where
subjects hang out
• Compensation might be necessary to encourage
participation

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Discussion Question 3
What if you were searching for study
subjects? Are there any groups you would
be interested in studying that would claim
you as an insider?

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Conducting Qualitative Interviews
• Qualitative interviews can be in-person, on the phone,
online, or through a survey
• Face-to-face are most common
• Reflexivity refers to your subjectivity and the meaning
you give to information
• It is important to remain critically conscious of your
reflexivity when conducting qualitative interviews
• During interviews, you will need to develop a rapport
with respondents
• This can be done through informal conversations or
finding something you and the respondent have in
common

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Conducting Qualitative Interviews, cont.
• Might need to conduct several conversations
with the respondents
• Active interviewing is a social exchange that
allows for natural conversation and spontaneity
• The respondents’ answers determine the
subsequent questions
• During an interactive interview, you are
purposefully interactive
• The researcher must put on a social
performance where he or she must be the actor,
director, and choreographer

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Conducting Focus Group Interviews
• Must decide whether to have a natural or
artificial group, what the physical arrangement of
the group should be, and the appropriate length
of the interview
• Need to be aware of groupthink and dominant
group members
• If you are gathering data on a sensitive topic,
you must realize that participants can be upset
by having to share such information and that you
cannot ensure confidentiality

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Recording Data
• After recording information, researchers must
transcribe the dialogue verbatim
• After returning from interviews, you must write up field
notes no later than the morning after
• Memoing involves writing about your research process
and is important to recognize subjectivity
• Operational, coding, and analytic are three types of
memos
• Operational memos are steps that you took in the
research process
• Coding memos allow you to document how you coded data
• Analytic memos provide ways to explore relationships in the data.

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Data Analysis and Making Claims
• Data is managed through tables, charts, and
other visual displays
• Data reduction involves putting aside information
that seems irrelevant
• Thinking units can also be used to sort stories
• Lofland and Lofland (1995) suggests the
following thinking units: meanings, practices,
episodes, encounters, roles, relationships,
groups, organizations, settlements, social
worlds, and lifestyles

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Identifying Codes and Themes
• Coding assigns meaning to data
• Process of organizing raw data into categories
• Open coding involves exploring all possible
meanings before assigning conceptual definitions
• Microanalysis involves going deeper into the data
and challenging your original frame of reference
• The next step is to form categories and assign
data to these categories
• Data will have higher-level themes and lower-
level categories

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Quality and Rigor
• To enhance the quality of qualitative
analysis, researchers should have an
established audit trail
• An important check is to look for negative
cases that contradict the emerging themes
• Also perform member checks where other
researchers read the descriptions and
verify the accuracy of the work