I have probably conducted only 2
research interviews in my lifetime, and both were done during high school. When
I used to consider research, interviewing someone never crossed my mind until
one research project that I had to do in high school required one of our
resources to be an interview with an expert. When I came across this part of my
research I began to look into what a research interview should be about. The
first thing that I looked into was finding an “expert” on my topic, this meant
looking for a professional in the field of my research. My topic dealt with
behavioral issues with young kids I began to look for local child
psychologists/psychiatrists that would be informed of specific topics that I needed
information for. The second thing I did after I chose a child psychologist that
was willing to set up an interview with me, was to prepare well for the
interview. I did not want to show up to the interview unprepared because not
only did I know that was unprofessional of me, but also because I knew that
could mean jeopardizing my report for not having specific questions answered. I
called ahead of time to set up an appointment and also informed her that I would
be asking her about ten questions about children with behavioral problems.
During my interview, I thought that preparing questions ahead of time in an
organized manner helped the research interview flow smoothly from one question
to the other. I thought that an improvement I could have made was to perhaps
have emailed the psychologist the questions ahead of time so that she may have
had better time to prepare answers in detail, instead of being put on the spot.
Hi Raman,
ReplyDeleteThat is so cool that you've had the opportunity to conduct an interview. It sounds like it was a fascinating topic too. Finding an expert was a good choice, as opposed to say, asking a mother with children and her opinions on behavioral issues in kids. Our textbook outlined step number two as selecting interviewees and mentioned to choose those who are experts in the areas one aims to find information on, which you did. Good for you. And like you stated, perhaps it would have been a good idea to give the psychologist the questions ahead of time so they could ponder them and give a more thorough answer. There's always the future interviews to prepare for I guess. Anyway, great post.
I find it rather interesting that most people have written on their blogs that the most experience they have with interviewing was based on high school experience. I like that you actually researched on how to do an interview before actually going out to do it, seems like a very organized thing to do. About how you said that an improvement would probably be just to send an email, I think that the interview idea is much better, if you have a question you could ask it right there instead of having to wait, and you got some experience talking to someone who is very knowledgeable in their field.
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