Thursday, October 6, 2011

October 6 Selecting questions and learning how to interview

Every student has created a list of 20 questions (and categories?) she or he would like to ask of their interviewees. Now we need to boil this down to a core of twelve questions that each of you will be asking. Of course, you can add and modify. These are just the core questions that will make interviews comparable.
I will ask you to organize yourselves into groups and come up with the final questions today. After that, we will sit in a circle and discuss interview techniques. And practice them.
Editable document for interview questions: here

Objectives and questions for the interviews

When writing your questions, please be sure
• not to lead (manipulating the questions; "And how do you like it here in the great US of A", or "You must certainly think..."
• to allow the interviewee to ask questions of you
• to wind down the conversation slowly (you could ask whether your interviewee would like to add thoughts and ideas that you did not ask for, you could invite them to ask you questions, etc.)
• to thank your interviewee for the time and effort invested on your behalf


Each interview will have four components:
1. A country report (1-2 pages) about the country or region that your interviewee calls home
2. A process description: How did you prepare, conduct, record and transcribe the interview?
3. A transcript of the interview (you may adjust words and sentences, make mild editing choices where sentences are incomplete on the tape, etc)
4. A personal review what you thought about that interview, what was new and exciting, or what disappointed you. Here you compare what happened to your objectives, and draw conclusions.


Q&A with respect to interviews:
Q-How many interviews with international students do I have to conduct and record?  
Answer: 3
Q-Do I have to transcribe all three?  
Answer: You may deselect the weakest one and only transcribe the two best interviews.
QWhat do I post if I de-select one interview?  
Answer: You post the country report, the description of the preparation process, your objectives, and the explanation why you chose not to transcribe this interview. Then you post all of that minus the transcript.

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