Section A

You will reflect on your interview experience from last week. Perhaps you have noticed how well (or how poorly) you paid attention; or that something the interviewee said astonished you; or how quickly (or slowly) the time went by.

• Review this week’s Learning Resources related to qualitative interviewing.
• Consider the phone interview you conducted in Week 7.
  • Listen to your recording 2–3 times.
  • Consider how this experience is different or similar to a conventional conversation.

Post your reflection and analysis on what you learned about interviewing. Include in your reflection and analysis:

• At least two things you would do differently and why
• Something new and surprising that you learned
• A reflection about the value of interviewing as a data collection tool

Discuss your interviewing experiences – your planning of the interview, the actually interview experience, and your insights as a result of having gone through that experience. Connect this to relevant ‘best practices’ you have learned about in the readings and videos (be sure to cite). Here are the required headings:

What was Learned

What Could be Changed

Reflection on Interviews as a Tool

Of course, interviewing has a purpose, and that is to collect content for analysis. There are many ways of collecting content, depending upon research goals. You always want to align the research goals with the best content collection approach for those goals.

Section B

You will explore various content collection processes and discuss why certain choices are more appropriate than others.

• Review this week’s Learning Resources related to codes and coding.
• Consider the similarities and differences in the data collected from your interview and from the transcripts of the Scholars of Change videos.
• Consider the other data collection methods you studied (focus groups, reviews of documents and social media; and your own memos and notes).

• Compare and contrast the strengths and weaknesses of at least two data collection methods. Include an explanation of your experience using these different data collection methods. Also, include an explanation of what you found difficult or challenging and why.
• Explain how you as the researcher can ensure that your choices for data collection align with your research questions.

Here are the required headings:

Strengths of Two Methods

Weakness of Two methods

Experiences and Challenges

How to Align RQs to Content Collection Choices (justification)

Resources

Saldaña, J. (2016). The coding manual for qualitative researchers (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

• Chapter 1, “An Introduction to Codes and Coding (pp. 1–42) (previously read in Weeks 5, 6, and 7)
• Chapter 2, “Writing Analytic Memos About Narrative and Visual Data” (pp. 43–65) (previously read in Weeks 5, 6, and 7)

Ravitch, S. M., & Carl, N. M. (2016). Qualitative research: Bridging the conceptual, theoretical, and methodological. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

• Chapter 5, “Methods of Data Collection” (pp. 145–183) (previously read in Week 7)
• Chapter 7, “An Integrative Approach to Data Analysis” (pp. 215–236) (previously read in Weeks 5, 6, and 7)
• Chapter 8, “Methods and Processes of Data Analysis” (pp. 237–270) (previously read in Weeks 5, 6, and 7)

Rubin, H. J., & Rubin, I. S. (2012). Qualitative interviewing: The art of hearing data (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

• Chapter 12, “Data Analysis in the Responsive Interviewing Model” (pp. 189–211) (previously read in Weeks 5, 6, and 7)
• Chapter 14, “Personal Reflections on Responsive Interviewing”