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The authors contextualize
their argument with 20 years of conversation analytic research on the Q&A
format in institutional settings and everyday life. On top of that, researchers
are now studying the use of Q&A in the social sciences, turning the
"analytic searchlight" on themselves (p. 4).
Potter and Hepburn want to bring rigor to a form of data collection that has been "too easy,
too obvious, and too little studied," and, thus, has been the basis of
much poor research (p. 3). They say their goal is to critique the ubiquitous
open-ended interview so as to improve it. Considering their backgrounds, can they do this without coming
across as theoretically and methodologically imperialist?
To their critics, Potter
and Hepburn simply say "...[R]esearchers defending the status quo will
need to show that the close dependence of both the form and content of the
‘answer' on the design and delivery of the ‘question' is not of general
consequence" (p. 17). Who can argue with that?
A theory-to-practice feedback loop
The chapter is organized
into two sections: analyzing interview data and reporting findings from
interview data. Personally, I would have preferred more discussion about the
design and conduct of interviews themselves, as that is what I'm in the process
of doing right now. It seems that as we are interviewing so many procedural and
methodological missteps can occur.
I guess it is Potter and
Hepburn's belief that the researcher has more oversight over the analysis and
reporting stages. We have greater opportunity at these stages to practice
reflexivity and exercise conscious control over methodological choices than
during the unstructured free-flow of qualitiative interviews. Their point is
that theory feeds practice. The more carefully we attend to the challenges in our analysis and
presentation of findings, the more thoughtful we will be in our future
interview set-ups. Maybe we will reconsider our choice of data generation
altogether. (True to their roots, Potter and Hepburn recommend more consideration
be given to natural interactions.)
Each section of the
chapter addresses four challenges. The first section deals with challenges in
reporting and representing data; the second section discusses analytical
challenges. As I summarize these, I will note specific implications for my
current project.
Challenges and opportunities for reporting interview data
1) Make the interview
set-up explicit. Describe how the participants were recruited and the explicit
language and categories used to do so. Further, what kind of task, instruction,
guidance were the interviewees given? I did not conduct a blind recruitment.
I simply sent out a blanket invitation to all the study participants asking
them to talk to me about their experience. I have the wording of that email
which I can include as an appendix along with the interview protocol that I
read verbatim at the outset of each interview.
2) Display the active role
of the interviewer. Rather than inserting illustrative quotes from participants
only, carefully include extracts that include the entire interactional turn
between interviewer and interviewee. This enables readers to see "how the
form of the answer may be occasioned by the form of the question" (p. 10).
Fair enough. This seems more doable in a dissertation study than in a
journal article with space constraints. Potter and Hepburn are building a case
for a total departure from how participants' voices are depicted in qualitative
studies. The introduction of the playscript format, itself not widely used in
research articles, is still inadequate, according to the authors, because it
does not capture "delivery of the talk" (p. 10). Are they really
suggesting that all qualitative researchers use Jeffersonian transcription?
3) Represent talk in a way
that captures action. And there it is: Jeffersonian transcription
"allows the identification of a number of potentially consequential
interviewer actions" (p. 13). Potter and Hepburn suggest that we give our
extracts (not the full transcripts) the Jeffersonian treatment. This is also
completely doable in a dissertation study and would likely be appreciated by
committee members, so long as an explicit explanation is provided and a key to
Jeffersonian notation appears in the appendices. I am currently revising portions of Chapter 3, and I wonder if this isn't something I should consider doing?
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Challenges and opportunities during analysis
5) Flooding. This is the
phenomenon of the interviewer's agenda creeping into the interview in benign
ways, such as follow-up questions and probs formulated on the fly as well as
"acknowledgement tokens" and agreement statements which potentially
lead interviewees down a desired path. While these interactional events are
natural and cannot necessarily be curtailed, they need to be acknowledged or
risk analysis "chasing its own tail" (p. 20). I am not sure what
the implications of this might be other than to heighten awareness and
reflexivity and to perhaps include interpretive commentary to that effect when
including extracts with multiple turns.
6) Footing. Footing refers
to the various positions or categories that participants may speak from during
an interview. In Extract 3 the interviewer poses a question that the
interviewee may answer from a personal or institutional standpoint or some
combination thereof. Likewise, the interviewer may be positioned as someone who
is personally interested in the question or one who is just asking the question
so it can go "on the record," like a disinterested reporter. This
is fascinating. At this point in the discussion, it is safe to say that the
extract Potter and Hepburn have used extensively throughout this article, the
one illustrating a "put together on the spot" question about teachers (p. 19), is
really just pretty terrible. It is like the proverbial "How did you feel
when _____" questions that TV news reporters ask disaster survivors.
Does the question really bear asking? Potter and Hepburn don't belabor
that point; they simply call attention to the lack of interviewer engagement, no "ohs" or "hmm-hmms." To an extent, these
conversational elements are "subtle, complex and potentially consequential"
(p. 24). When they are missing altogether, it suggests that the interviewer perhaps asked a question for which he or she already knew the answer. To be considered a credible social scientist, I had better ask
thoughtful questions I genuinely care about, lest I be compared to a "news
anchor."
7) Stake and interest.
Unlike corporate-sponsored focus group surveys, qualitative research is
typically conducted by someone who feels passionately about the topic, and
interviewees are recruited because they ostensibly have an interest in the
topic too. It is a wise analytic move to pay attention to how interviewer and
interviewee manage their stake in the discussion. It seems that stake and
interest are the the next logical progression from footing. If I openly
acknowledge my interest in the topic, listen attentively, and engage with my
participants, I must be reflexive about the consequences of these actions.
8) Cognitivism and individualism.
Potter and Hepburn call qualitative researchers to task -- particularly constructivists
-- for the ironic "privileging of conceptual mediation over action
and the treatment of cognitive language as referential" (p. 28).
Qualitative researchers put their interviewees in an impossible "epistemic
position" to speak their minds and the minds of others, as if that kind of
knowledge can be objectively reported and stated without performing
a "range of ambitious cognitive judgments and feats of memory and
analysis" (p. 29). Cognitive language (reminding me of the
"residue" of positivism from Piantanida and Garman's book) creeps
into our interactions, carrying with it the assumption that somehow people have
"immediate and privileged access to their own opinions and attitudes"
(p. 30). A discourse or conversation analysis approach would obviously be
Potter's and Hepburn's desired route to mediate this challenge, but that isn't
the only way. I am interested in the analytical tools of Cultural-Historical
Activity Theory, which enable the researcher to explore "agentive
dimensions" (emotions, identity, motivation) (Roth, 2009, p. 53). In one
such study, Roth and colleagues (2004) drew from case study data, including
transcripts, to theorize identity formation as predicated upon actions and
outcomes.The authors contended that identity is not
stable and is the outcome of participation in social activity. The key here is
that interview data was not privileged over other forms (videotapes, journal
reflections, field notes, and emails), a methodological move that Potter and
Hepburn would endorse.
Potter, J., & Hepburn, A. (in press). Eight challenges for interview researchers. In J. F. Gubrium, & J. A. Holstein (Eds.), Handbook of interview research (2nd ed.). London: Sage Publications.
Roth, W.-M. (2009). On the inclusion of emotions, identity, and ethico-moral dimensions of actions. In A. Sannino, H. Daniels, & K. D. Gutierrez (Eds.), Learning and expanding with activity theory (pp. 53–71). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Roth, W.-M. (2004). Activity theory and education: An introduction. Mind, Culture, and Activity, 11(1), 1–8. doi:10.1207/s15327884mca1101_1
