Self-Reflection: What I learned from Interviewing In Week 7, I conducted a phone interview with an interviewee based in Lebanon who is a Ph.D. candidate at Walden University in Leadership program. The interview was conducted on Saturday 15 th  October 2016. The interview started at around 19.00 GMT and lasted for about 12 minutes. The main purpose of the interview was to discuss social change and what it means to the interviewee in the context of Walden University. In this discussion post, I reflect on this practical experience of conducting live interview and the lessons learned in the process. Self-Reflection on my Interviewing Experience There are two significant ways in which I found the experience of conducting live interview different from a conventional conversation. The first key difference between conducting a qualitative interviewing and a normal conversation is evidenced in the process of choosing participants. I found the process followed in the choice of interviewee to differs significantly from what would normally be the case when engaging in an ordinary conversation. As noted by Rubin and Rubin (2012), ordinary conversations normally take place among friends, relatives, or even strangers, and it mostly happens without much planning. As explained by Burkholder, Cox, and Crawford (2016), the focus of a conversational outcome is often immediate. Unlike the case with the ordinary conversation however, my choice of who to interview was purposeful, with specific aim to gaining information and perspectives on a phenomenon of social change. Rubin and Rubin (2012) further stressed the point that in qualitative interviews, researchers seek more depth on a narrower range of issues that what people do in normal conversations. My choice of the interviewee therefore was deliberate so that the participant is encouraged to contribute to the understanding of the topic at hand. Another obvious difference between ordinary conversation and qualitative interview concerns the level of planning and organization done with interview questions. Unlike the case with normal conversation, interviewer engages in the planning of interview questions in advance (Babbie, 2016). Such interview questions are usually linked and organized to help in obtaining the information needed for answering the research question. Rubin and Rubin (2012) stressed on this point and explained that for interviewers to obtain depth and details it is critical to structure interview questions around three types of linked questions, involving the main questions, probes, and follow-up questions. Further, one of the surprising experiences that I faced during the course of the interview was the difficulty of recruiting the interviewee. I could not start the process of recruiting the interviewee until the last few days. This was due to misconception, from my side, that the process would be easy since the target population are colleagues from Walden University. This turned out not to be the.

1. Self-Reflection: What I learned from Interviewing
In Week 7, I conducted a phone interview with an interviewee
based in Lebanon who is a Ph.D. candidate at Walden
University in Leadership program. The interview was conducted
on Saturday 15
th
October 2016. The interview started at around 19.00 GMT and
lasted for about 12 minutes. The main purpose of the interview
was to discuss social change and what it means to the
interviewee in the context of Walden University. In this
discussion post, I reflect on this practical experience of
conducting live interview and the lessons learned in the process.
Self-Reflection on my Interviewing Experience
There are two significant ways in which I found the experience
of conducting live interview different from a conventional
conversation. The first key difference between conducting a
qualitative interviewing and a normal conversation is evidenced
in the process of choosing participants. I found the process
followed in the choice of interviewee to differs significantly
from what would normally be the case when engaging in an
ordinary conversation. As noted by Rubin and Rubin (2012),
ordinary conversations normally take place among friends,
relatives, or even strangers, and it mostly happens without much
planning. As explained by Burkholder, Cox, and Crawford
(2016), the focus of a conversational outcome is often
immediate. Unlike the case with the ordinary conversation
however, my choice of who to interview was purposeful, with
specific aim to gaining information and perspectives on a
phenomenon of social change. Rubin and Rubin (2012) further
stressed the point that in qualitative interviews, researchers
seek more depth on a narrower range of issues that what people
do in normal conversations. My choice of the interviewee
therefore was deliberate so that the participant is encouraged to
contribute to the understanding of the topic at hand.
Another obvious difference between ordinary conversation and

2. qualitative interview concerns the level of planning and
organization done with interview questions. Unlike the case
with normal conversation, interviewer engages in the planning
of interview questions in advance (Babbie, 2016). Such
interview questions are usually linked and organized to help in
obtaining the information needed for answering the research
question. Rubin and Rubin (2012) stressed on this point and
explained that for interviewers to obtain depth and details it is
critical to structure interview questions around three types of
linked questions, involving the main questions, probes, and
follow-up questions.
Further, one of the surprising experiences that I faced during
the course of the interview was the difficulty of recruiting the
interviewee. I could not start the process of recruiting the
interviewee until the last few days. This was due to
misconception, from my side, that the process would be easy
since the target population are colleagues from Walden
University. This turned out not to be the case and I had to make
several contacts with potential candidate before I was
successful. Yet, another learning experience from this exercise
relates to a challenge that was caused by the time difference
between South Sudan and Lebanon. I was not able to reach the
interviewee on my first phone call at the time agreed for the
interview. This worried me a great deal but it turned out that
there was misunderstanding caused by time difference between
our two countries.
Conclusion
This interviewing exercise has provided me with opportunity to
practice live qualitative inquiry interviewing. I have attempted
to highlight how such interviewing differs from the ordinary
conversation. I also discussed some of the surprises, which I
experienced during the course of the interview. In general, I
found the experience useful, as it has offered practical example
of what it look like to conduct interview in the real world. The
opportunity has thus enable me to practice skills learned during
the course and was able to grasp what the process of

3. interviewing entails and the outcomes a researcher can expect.
References
Babbie, E. (2016).
Basics of social research
(7
th
Ed.). Boston, MA: Cengage Learning.
Burkholder, G. J., Cox, K. A., & Crawford, L. M. (2016).
The scholar-practitioner’s guide to research design
. Baltimore, MD: Laureate Publishing.
Rubin, H. J., & Rubin, I. S. (2012).
Qualitative interviewing: The art of hearing data
(3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.