Transcribing interviews

I've transcribed a dozen interviews myself and used www.waywithwords.eu to transcribe a dozen others. I have learned to:

• secure a good quality of sound recording but that what is good quality to me may not be good quality to another transcriber.
• clarify inaudible answers during the interview. But one interview in a crowded restaurant was totally incomprehensible. I couldn't transcribe any, just make notes immediately after.
• listen immediately after to check sound quality and remind myself, in case the recording gets lost
• pose clear questions that interview subjects understand (hence the importance of the interview schedule sheet)
• listen to what is said and how, but also during the interview to watch hands and eyes because the movements add information that the recordings don't make. Hands are interesting. e.g. pointing upwards at the vision, or two turning together from left, then from right then to the middle to "form the middle ground", or a wave that means "switch off that recorder". Some movement then give information, I've "heard" it, but there're no words.
• pay attention to the voice, pauses, sighs - see Kvale, 2007 p137, who suggests the voice indicates whether the topic is important or may be too sensitive to pursue
• follow an interview with second questions - difficult when my reactions are not yet sufficiently gather to create coherent second questions
• avoid the interview becoming filled with small talk to notice the interviewer's variations of question and styles
• become aware of the differences between oral and written language. This really shows up when you try to add punctuation. Where do I put a full stop? Is that where the speaker would have put it? Sometimes when I've used a transcriber, the full stop has change the speaker's meaning
• notice how new interpretations of meanings may arise when working with the recordings - I'm not sure that happens much but I do notice things that I didn't have time for or wouldn't have followed up with the interviewee.

See Kvale 2007, Box 12.1 which is very useful. He suggests learning to interview by witnessing others interviewing, which I've not had the chance to do, expect in the Doctoral training Workshops - I hate those artificial situations.

Perhaps as students we could get together to talk about our interview stories. I'll ask our MRes group next time we reunite.

Kvale on analysis of interviews

Six steps to analysis:

1. Subjects describe how they work with and relate to each other.
2. Subjects discover new relationships, new meanings – yes I noticed this in my first case studies
3. Interviewer condenses and interprets meaning back – do I do that? Sometimes. If I had more time, I’d ask more. Sometimes I interrupt too much – lose what the subject was going to say. Sometimes I note something they’ve said then come back to it when they’ve finished talking. That follow-up may elucidate but may lead into another area.
4. The transcribed interview is interpreted by the interviewer. It’s structured through transcription. I use a computer program (Nvivo) for contextual analysis. Kvale says there are five main approaches to the analysis of meaning: condensation, categorization, narrative structuring, interpretation and ad hoc methods. Which should I use?
5. Kvale suggests as a 5th step a re-interview but I doubt I have time for this, nor do my participants. The other thing that worries me about re-interviews stems from my experience on the MRes when the Friday before the Monday I was due to submit, I received a letter from a participant asking me not to use anything that participants had said. I’d sent out the full unedited transcript with a query on a financial fact, like “was it £50k or £150K?” Participant took fright, I think. I had to check the whole 15,000 words over the weekend, editing out anything and everything that could possibly be attributed to that participant. So now I’m a bit leery about giving transcripts back to subjects to comment.
6. Kvale suggests possibly extending the continuum of descriptions and interpretation to include action, by subjects beginning to act on new insights they have gained during the interview. I doubt that’s immediately possible but perhaps the reports I feedback to my helpful participants organisations will provide insights for them to act upon, though I did have the impression that some participants found the interviews caused them to reflect on their work.
   

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Kvale, S. (1996). InterViews : an introduction to qualitative research interviewing. Thousand Oaks, CA ; London, Sage. Chapter 11 of {Kvale, 1996 #1198}

Post grads as legitimate peripheral participants

Legitimate peripheral participants are participants in an activity (Lave & Wenger, 1991), but on the edge of the activity, hence peripheral. They are legitimate when they are meant to be there, involved and usually learning. Post grads are in training in research so are legitimate and peripheral, but I'm not sure that they get to participate in research activities.
Research activities include:

• teaching,
  
• analysis,
  
• coding,
  
• perhaps interviewing and transcribing.

Open University post grads don't get training or any opportunity to teach, as I've previously mentioned.

The doctoral training workshop (DTW) sessions provide some training, but not learning by doing. For example, the DTW includes a session on interviewing, but not on transcription, or on coding of qualitative data. It's up to the PG to read up. And if you don't realise the issues, then you don't deliberately read up on the skills. Until I read Kvale (1996), and then Tilley (2003), I had considered transcription a chore, not a skill that required reflection. I believed I could create an objective representation of the dialogue that had taken place. But now I'm not so sure and have questions:

• where do I punctuate?
• was that remark a query or a statement?
• which transcript is more accurate - mine or that of the paid transcriber? For example, one of us heard "certain reviews" and the other heard "similar views".

As a legitimate peripheral participant, post grads could be learning from skilled teachers and researchers. For teaching, each PG should be assigned to an OU course with requirements to research relevant literature including web links and current news for the course team, perhaps also proof reading tutor marked assignment (TMA) questions and tutor notes. PGs could be trained on electronic asynchronous forums where they could moderate and be web masters for the course, They could learn about teaching through giving electronic tutorials - the OU uses Elluminate.

For PGs doing qualitative research, they need the chance to shadow experienced interviewers, observing how it's done. They could transcribe someone else's research, and then discuss issues arising from it, so having the experience to reflect on their own transcriptions.

I don't have enough experience to think yet what "sitting next to Nellie" experience a post grad following a quantitative approach would benefit from.

I suspect other universities not just the OU, fail their post grads on these skills, but if the PhD is really a training in research, then post grads must participate in research, and as trainees, they are peripheral. Universities that espouse learning, must legitimate that participation.

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LAVE, J. & WENGER, E. (1991) Situated learning : legitimate peripheral participation, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
Kvale, 1996, InterViews: introduction to qualitative research interviewing
TILLEY, S. A. (2003) "Challenging" Research Practices: Turning a Critical Lens on the Work of Transcription. Qualitative Inquiry, 9.

Interview quotes

Kvale has some guidelines for reporting interview quotes. It's timely that I've found them, because I'm just writing up some interviews, and before now, my supervisors have criticised my writing for having too many quotes, over-long quotes, and not linking quotes up with my own explanations.

Kvale suggests:

1. relate quotes to the general text
2. contextualise the quotes
3. interpret the quotes
4. there should be a balance between quotes and text
5. quotes should be short
6. use only the best quote
7. interview quotes should be rendered in a written style
8. there should be a simple signature system for editing the quotes.

Kvale expands on each of these guidelines - they're worth reading.

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Kvale, 1996, InterViews: introduction to qualitative research interviewing (page 266, Box 14.4)

Structuring an interview report

My research depends a lot on interview data so how do I structure an interview report? Kvale suggests:

• Thematising
• Method
• Results
• Discussion

Thematising: state the purpose, concepts and theoretical understanding, review the literature and formulate research questions.
Method: state design, interviewing transcribing and analysis. Describe methods so the reader can ascertain the relevance of the design for the topic and purpose of the investigation to evaluate the trustworthiness and to be able to replicate the investigation.
Results: state analysis and verification. Overview the main findings. Evaluate reliability, validity and generalisation.
Discussion: discuss overall implications. Discuss relevance of findings to the research questions and the theoretical and practical implication of the findings.

I guess that this is about the same as the PhD thesis structure. But do I write such a report for each interview? for each group of interviews related to the same project? or for all the interviews that I collect? The first two sections, thematising and method, should be the same for all the interviews I do, but results differ, so the discussion must differ for each interview and for each project, which is why I expect to write a chapter, for each case study, a case study being around one project. Hence, four case studies should lead to four chapters in the dissertation. Then there must be another chapter on results, and a chapter that discusses the implications from all four case studies.

And I wonder how I can fit in the information I'm getting from ad-hoc interviews with people who aren't on a particular project. Perhaps my supervisors will have a good idea - I'll ask them sometime.

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Kvale, 1996, InterViews: introduction to qualitative research interviewing (page 263)

Ethical issues of interviews

On the whole, I don't think most interviews that I've done so far have changed any participant's life view, but there were some reactions and reflections on their work. Three young men particularly seemed reflective.

1. One participant talked openly and enthusiastically about his work, expressing his willingness to learn; he hoped to learn as much from me as I from him, though he talked more, which is what I needed. But he talked around all sorts of other topics away from my focus of interest. The way he talked was saying something about the perception he wanted other people to have of him, not just his perception of the project. A very outgoing man, he runs a couple of blogs, and twitters and electronically shares his technical expertise with any who want to know. He also follows up business ideas and notes their applications.
2. Another participant was quieter, renowned for his shyness, but he chatted and thoughtfully followed up all my questions with his own ideas. He even concluded, as if he'd hardly realised it before, that his experience of the project had brought out more in him, that he was less shy than he had been and perhaps now a more confident contributor.
   
3. A third participant as we talked seemed to change his perception of the role he had played, as if he hadn't realised what he'd done and what he'd learned. The conversation implied more changes in his life view, which is something that Kvale writes about.
   

That's where ethical issues arise. The interviewer's role may affect the participant. Kvale suggests different roles in relation to participants:

• exploiter,
• reformer
• advocate
• friend.

I could add teacher, counsellor, career adviser. Talking about relationships in a project constructs a perception of the relationships in both interviewer and interviewee. Should I do that? I can't not talk about relationships - that's the research.

The questions may change the participant's self-concept. I can't help that consequence, but must be aware of the ethics, do no harm.

Another issue Kvale draws attention to is the independence of the researcher. If a researcher identifies too closely with a group of participants, then the researcher might emphasis some findings rather than others. However, I think that's obviated when I speak to participants with different roles on a project. It's more likely to happen if I get to talk to only one person, or only one group of people playing similar roles.

These are ethical issues that didn't come to mind when I first proposed the research. They were never part of my application to the research ethics panel. Perhaps I'll raise them next time we have a seminar on ethics.

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Kvale, 1996, InterViews: introduction to qualitative research interviewing

Transcripts

For all the interviews on my first couple of case studies, I did the transcription. Some of the later interviews I get transcribed. However, there're issues about transcription.

In one case study, most of the interviews took place in an otherwise empty meeting room. sound was clear - or it was to me anyhow as I didn't have anything to compare when I came to transcribe. No interruptions happened. The table available to sit at together was short, so interviewer and interviewee could sit at a corner at right angle,s and usually the participant interviewee came in and chose a seat at the end of the table with his/ her back to the door.

Another interview was in a meeting room with a big table that took up most of the room. I had a helper who sat on one site, and the participant on the other opposite the helper. Acoustics were good, but the interviews were rushed because of circumstance. Another time, there were two participants together, squeezed into a corner of a room with me and my helper. Later my helper commented that perhaps her presence might have affected what was said - interesting. Again, that interview was rushed. But the acoustics were adequate.

I've done several interviews in what I thought was a quiet office with good acoustics and no interruptions but a transcriber has commented on unclear speech. I've done interviews in quite noisy rooms with lots of other people, yet the quality was good and the transcriber reported no problems.

Listening again to the interviews with problems, it seems there might be two issues.

1. the speaker was unclear,
   
2. the transcriber might have a different accent from the speaker

Having read Kvale on transcription, I now realise that in transcribing, I'm constructing something to model the conversation that took place so I'm now annotating transcriptions where I hear something different from what the transcriber put down. Not only are there differences in what people might hear from the recording, but the body language is missing, the action of sketching diagrams as we talked is missing, and I've gone through each transcription anonymising all identifiable information.

So I've created my own construction on what was discussed before I've even started any analysis.

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Kvale, 1996, InterViews: introduction to qualitative research interviewing

Types of interview questions

Kvale elaborates on types of interview questions under the headings:

1. introducing questions: e.g. "can you tell about.." "do you remember an occasion when .."
2. follow-up questions: e.g. nod
3. probing questions: "could you say something more about that?"
4. specifying questions: e.g. "what did you think then?"
5. direct questions
6. indirect questions: e.g. "how do you think /believe other ... ?"
7. structuring questions: e.g. "I'd now like to introduce .."
8. silence
9. interpreting questions: e.g. "you mean that...?"

I can plan some of these questions, like introducing, specifying and direct questions, but other types are where an interviewer has to be listening and reacting to the situation. It's quite reassuring to read these categories that someone else recognises as questions that you are likely to ask if you want to get more from an interview. Silence is interesting too. It doesn't show up much on my recordings because I've set the machine's variable control voice actuator, so that it only records when the volume is at the threshold level. But sometimes a participant needs silence while reflecting, and an interviewer mustn't interrupt, but allow that time to reflect. Anyhow, overtalking means the recording becomes difficult to hear afterwards, so silence is important.

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Kvale, 1996, InterViews: introduction to qualitative research interviewing

Interviewing

There is so much on interviewing that Kvale has written a whole book on it. Although it might have been useful to read earlier, reading it now with a little more experience of research interviewing means that it makes more sense to me. For example, chapter 7 has a table that matches research questions to interview questions. I have problems matching mine because I've let the social capital framework interfere. The social capital framework guides the interview questions. What I want is to relate the research questions and the social capital framework. So my interview structure is based round:

1. background (to project and to participant)
2. relationships
3. knowledge (or learning)
4. value

The background is important as a start to make sure I've got the context. The questions may sometimes elicit structural dimensions of social capital.
Relationships matter. That is the crux of my interest- how do the relationships create value? So the interview questions here concern social capital in the relationship and structural dimensions. But they don't elicit information about knowledge. I ask what's helped and hindered relationships. And specifically what challenges to relationships have there been and how have they been overcome. Another interview question address specificity by asking for an anecdote or story. the question sometimes falls on blank faces. perhaps I should reword it.
Knowledge I ask about learning - what have people learned from each other? And how do they use that knowledge. I can't see how these questions address engagement though.
Value Sometimes in asking about learning I get an answer that suggests qualitative value in the learning process through building shared meanings, which is part of the cognitive dimension of social capital, and probably the most valuable non-financial and immeasurable gain from the relationship. But the valuable relationships need not be client and consultant, but developer and user, perhaps, mediated by the outsider, i.e. the consultant. So the value is a value chain! A valuable learning comes from a valuable relationships mediated and catalyzed by a consultant intervention. I've drawn a diagram of it, starting from the left with the people creating the relationship and moving to the right where the outputs are learning and a new IT system.

So I've got somewhere in my thoughts but not arrived at what I set out to do - depict in a table the relationship between my research questions and my interview questions.

The diagram must also include the value added impact on the IT system being developed. It's the human element, the soft side that matters. Engagement is soft. Perhaps I should draw rich pictures for each case study, following Checkland's soft systems methodology.

And I don't have many why interview questions - it's my job (Kvale, p131) but one I did use once was quite revealing, when someone said "It's changed", and I asked "Why do you think it's changed?" The participant wondered if they were doing something different, and it was something do with using consultants.

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Kvale, 1996, InterViews: introduction to qualitative research interviewing