I personally have not had a whole lot of experience conducting research interviews. As a matter of fact I can only remember one instance of ever having to do so, which was during my sophomore year of high school. My final project for my English class that year was a large research essay that I believe had to be over 10 pages and include 3 research interviews. I wrote my paper about HIV/AIDS because somebody in my family that I am very close to has been living with HIV for well over 20 years now.
Of the 3 interviews that I conducted I felt that the most productive and informative one was that in which I interviewed somebody who worked at a hospice caring for AIDS patients. Part of what made this interview so good was that I branched out of my comfort zone and found somebody who I had absolutely no connection with. They were an authority on the source and were very knowledgeable on the subject matter. This gave the information that I obtained from them credibility. Even though my questions were not as well constructed as this week's reading informed me that interview questions should be, they were still well thought out in advance and had a natural structure or flow to them.
My biggest mistake during these interviews was in choosing to interview family members for the other 2 interviews. My family member who has HIV was very helpful and gave me exactly the insight that I was looking for, but I think that this was mostly luck. I also chose to interview another one of my family members about what it was like to have a close family member with HIV and how they had dealt with it. This was a very poor decision. I was too familiar with the interviewee in this case and the interview turned out to be rather less formal than I had hoped it would be. They were too casual about the whole thing and didn't take it as seriously as I would have liked. I ended up including almost nothing from their interview in my final report.
"It's cool, it's cool to love your family." -Feist
I find it to be interesting that your most productive interview was conducted in a manner that made you step out of your comfort zone. I think that it is very important to keep an open mind when interviewing and to not be afraid to be put in an uncomfortable situation or to engage in uncomfortable dialogue. It seems like when you go in to an interview with that openness and versatility you are more likely to gain knowledge about many facets of your subject, as opposed to being biased or excluding and/or avoiding information that you do not feel comfortable with. I also liked that you mentioned you made a mistake in interviewing someone who you were too close to. As you seem to be aware, sometimes personal connections can cause interviews to be unreliable, informal, biased, or even irrelevant. Its good that you learned from that because it should help make your future research interviews more efficient and beneficial.
ReplyDeleteI am sorry to hear someone you’re close with has HIV. It seems as though you were very passionate about this research topic, most likely because you have a connection with it. I do find it strange that you didn't have much of an impact conducting your other interviews with people close to you. I understand you were already familiar with it, so i get that it wasn’t as useful. Another thing I noticed was that you visited a hospice patient. That is very neat that you went out of your way, it showed that you worked hard on this paper. Most people I know would feel very uncomfortable with that, and I think that's awesome!
ReplyDeleteHey Stencil-
ReplyDeleteThat is a tough one. A family member with HIV/AIDS has got to be an issue with its own stess. That was the bad news in your post. The good news was it sounds like they are still alive. I think 20 years ago they were making some progress in the treatment so hopefully they have benefited from that. Good luck with that in your life.
It sounds like that was one hell of a long essay. Wow! That is one advantage I had when I was in high school...I did not care that much about my work. That is why it was hard for me to get into college. My grades sucked! Good job following through.
I too have little experience with interviewing someone. The book had some good step by step ideas. The 6 steps to the research interview process (page 111) looks like a good place to start. I hope this will help. F.D.