Field data collection and analysis Assignment

OPTION 1:

Interview

Conducting a semi-structured interview.

Preparing and conducting successful qualitative interviews involves the following elements:

1. designing a clear theme/interview guide whereby a number of questions may be grouped around identified themes or domains (these questions are not meant to limit or fully direct the interview session. It is desirable to also encourage new themes/issues to be explored as they may be introduced by the interviewee. Questions that are found to be ineffective or unproductive during the fieldwork process should be dropped;
2. building and maintaining rapport with the interviewee as to enable an environment in which rich and free-flowing information can be collected;
3. asking prompting and probing questions;
4. asking sufficiently open-ended questions that encourage qualitative responses (rather than closed questions that encourage one-word answers
5. listening to the responses in a manner that enables effective follow-up questioning and investigation;
6. managing potential disruptions and challenges to the interview process; and
7. managing any technical equipment and logistical challenges (such as making sure your tape or phone is fully charged or being aware that the air-conditioning system in the room where the interview is taking place is very noisy and distracting and may jeopardise clear taping of the session). These issues are all covered in the readings listed above.

Types of questions in qualitative interviews

In the case of all qualitative interviewing, the styles and types of questions used are an essential prerequisite to obtaining good data. For those seeking to improve their interviewing skills, Patton (2002) provides a comprehensive and fascinating overview of possible styles. Outlined below is a selection of those Patton describes:

Experience and Behaviour Questions

These are questions about what a person does or has done and they aim to provide an understanding of experiences, actions and activities that would be observable had the researcher been present. For example, an interviewer may ask: „Can you run me through a typical day in your work place? What would I see you doing if I observed you through a typical day??

Opinion and Values Questions

These are questions that are about ideas and beliefs as opposed to actions and behaviours. Answers to these questions tell us what people think about certain things, about their goals, intentions, aspirations, desires and expectations. A typical question might be: „What is your opinion of ?? Or: „What do you think about ??

Feeling Questions

These questions aim at eliciting emotions. In asking how the informant feels about something the interviewer is aiming to produce answers expressed as adjectives, or in adjectival form, eg. [I?m] „anxious,? „happy,? „sad,? „frightened,? „intimidated,? „confident,? „uncomfortable about going in there,? [I] „hate being around smokers? etc.

(Feeling questions should not be confused with opinion questions. For example, if the question „what do you feel about that?? produces the response „it?s probably the best we can do at the moment? you have ended up with a statement of opinion. Such an answer fails to reveal the feelings/emotions of the informant and to do so may require a more refined or revised question to be asked. In general, if you want answers that denote emotions you must ask such questions as: how do you feel about that? If on the other hand you want answers that express an opinion you should ask: what do you think about that?).

Knowledge Questions

These are questions which seek to elicit factual information – what the respondent knows. In this case the question may ask something directly and even baldly, eg.: what is the legal age for alcohol consumption in Queensland? Such questions can be insightful in revealing a person?s level or ignorance, knowledge or even self-delusion, but they can also sound like test. This may put the respondent on the defensive and they may give an answer that is not what they actually think or know. Alternatively it may intimidate them into silence. Even in the best circumstances, knowledge questions often also require further questioning to explore the detail and context of how such information is gained and applied in everyday life.

Background/Demographic Questions

Age, occupation, ethnicity etc are all important characteristics that help the researcher identify the person being interviewed. While such information is often gathered in a closed fashion ? ie. in an accompanying postal survey or structured interview survey – asking about such information in an open-ended qualitative way can often provide a window on how the informant views him/herself and how they categorise and experience such topics/issues. It may reveal how people perceive and talk about their backgrounds, their identities, etc.

While these question categories as laid out above are not comprehensive and other commentators may use different category headings, they do nevertheless provide a useful means for distinguishing and reflecting upon question construction in interview fieldwork.

Good quality questions and interviewer competence It should be obvious from the preceding that the success of an interview in qualitative research depends largely upon the competence, tact and personal style of the interviewer. There are, of course, good and bad interviewees as well; whether or not you include a mix or selectively weed out only the good ones from the range available depends upon your study design. However, as the researcher, you have far more control over your own standard of interviewing competence. The following summarizes some things to avoid when conducting an interview.

Poor questioning styles

• beg the question
• don’t listen to the response
• cut across or contradict or don’t allow the interviewee to put their point of view

Poor question styles

• Leading questions – these invite a particular response which the interviewee may unthinkingly give, whether or not it is true
• Loaded questions – these imply that there is only one appropriate answer and thus intimidate the interviewee into giving it, whether or not it is true
• Overloaded questions – these have too many questions or assumptions embedded in the one large question. They often arise when a nervous or insensitive interviewer asks too many things in the one speech event. This is liable to confuse the interviewee, who is suddenly confronted with too much implied information and too many possible directions of enquiry to respond to. At best they tend to respond to only the final question, leaving aside the others; at worst, they will provide a garbled response that is of no scientific use.

OPTION 2: Material Objects

In this option you will use material objects as a way to stimulate story telling about migration and belonging. You may describe items that you locate or ask an informant to bring along or find in the museum exhibit and the stories attached to them to consider the issues of identity and belonging. If you ask an informant to bring along an object that has significance to them with regards to their migration experience, they might choose a photograph, old luggage or a memento from their previous country of residence. Using this as a starting point you can get them to describe the stories attached to that object and how that is linked to their identity and if their relationship to it has changed. For example a past student concentrated upon the meanings of the drink ‘mate’ and the specific material objects associated with it among her Argentinian community members in Melbourne.

OPTION 3: Immigration Museum Exhibition

Review the question you need to answer for the assignment and peruse the Exhibition with this in mind. For the tutorial exercise please do this online if you have not already visited the Exhibition.

Select some stories, narratives, pictures and quotes (which will be the data that your collect) that make sense to you or which you find interesting with which to answer the questions. Perhaps reading the information made some of the ideas in the class readings come to mind? Note this down too.

If ideas from the class readings came to mind can you explain the data in those terms? Look back at the class reading and identify where the idea came from. Is it an idea, concept or theory of the author of the article or are they quoting from another text or theorist? You can use these ideas to discuss and make sense of your data. Note down where this came from and on what page you found it -you can build your in-text reference and bibliography from this.

Discuss the overriding themes of the Immigration Museum Exhibition ‘Identity: yours, mine, ours’ (you must visit either in person or online). Go through it together on-line if together (web page above) if you haven’t visited already.

Discuss individual migrant experiences displayed in the Exhibition that interest you. You could also decide to focus on one thematic part of the exhibit and discuss that.

Discuss what these elements of the Exhibition say about belonging and migrant identity in Australia?

STEP 3 (all options) Analyzing and incorporating a theoretical approach.

For your research report you will need to identify the main themes that have emerged from your data (from your interview, material object analysis or exhibit interaction). You need to comb through your data and identify reoccurring words, phrases, images and issues and make notes about them highlighting the main issues, themes or narrative. These maybe themes you have become aware of because of the study and discussion we have done in this unit. Illustrate these issues and themes with data: quotes and evidence from your research. Selecting a few direct quotes or other evidence to illustrate these themes will be useful and will add to the immediacy of your study.

Now align these themes with some of the major concepts we have already talked/read about in the unit. If ideas from the class readings came to mind can you explain the data in those terms? Look back at the class reading and identify where the idea came from. Is it an idea, concept or theory of the author of the article or are they quoting from another text or theorist? You can use these ideas to discuss and make sense of your data. You need to frame your case study or data with these concepts by writing about how it is related or exemplifies (or not) some of those concepts or ideas. Note down where this came from and on what page you found it -you can build your in-text reference and bibliography from this.