Using interviews to investigate education

Sociologists may use interviews to study issues such as...

Pupils subculture, pupils experience of health and sex education, class. ethnicity and language, gender identity and the male gaze and class and parental choice of schools.

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Practical issues

Young people's linguistic and intellectual skills are less developed than those of adults and this may pose practical problems for the interviewer. Young interviewee's may be less articulate, not understand long complex questions, have limited vocab.

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Practical issues (2)

These factors may lead to misunderstandings and incorrect or incomplete answers and thus undermine the validity of data obtained. Such communication difficulties also mean that unstructured interviews may be more suitable than structured ones since

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Practical issues (3)

they allow the interviewer more scope to clear up misunderstandings by re-wording questions or explaining their meaning. However children may also have more difficulty in keeping to the point. As Janet Powney and Mike Watts (1987) note young children

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Practical issues (4)

tend to be more literal minded and often pay attention to unexpected details in questions, and may use a different logic from adult interviewers. Training therefore needs to be more thorough for someone interviewing children which adds to the cost.

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Practical issues (5)

However, given that young people tend to have better verbal than literacy skills interviews may be more successful than writing questionnaires as a method of obtaining valid answers.

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Practical issues (6)

Another practical problem is that schools have very active informal communication channels. This means that the content of the interview-possibly an inaccurate version of it -may get around most pupils and teachers after a few interviews take place.

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Practical issues (7)

This may influence the responses given by later interviewees, thus reducing the validity of the data. The location of the interview can be problematic. If interviews are conducted on school premises, this may affect how comfortable the pupil or

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Practical issues (8)

parent feels. The school and the classroom represent higher status and authority and some pupils and parents might find the location off-putting. Teachers too may be put off by the fear of colleagues or the headteacher overhearing, especially if

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Practical issues (9)

questions are are of a sensitive nature. Unstructured interviews can often take an hour or more to conduct.Given the time constraints that most teachers work under, interviews with them would probably have to take place outside school hours.

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Practical issues (10)

If the interviews are conducted during school time, there are likely to be interruptions and other distractions.

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Practical issues (11)

Parents, too often have busy work and parenting schedules and may only cooperate in lengthy interviews if they can see some benefit to their children's education. For young children there is also the ethical issue that they may be unsettled by

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Practical issues (12)

strange situations such as an interview, so researchers need to take particular care that the interview does not distress them.

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Reliability and validity

Structured interviews produce reliable data because they are standardised: each interview is conducted in precisely the same way, with the same question, in the same order, tone of voice and so on. However structured interviews may not produce valid

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Reliability and validity (2)

data, since young people are unlikely to respond favourably to such a formal style- perhaps because it makes the interviewer appear too much like a teacher. Instead of using this formal approach therefore Di Bentley (1987) began each interview by

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Reliability and validity (3)

showing them a 'jokey' image of her fooling around with her daughter. During the interview, she maintained a relaxed atmosphere by nodding, smiling and making eye contact. However this is a very personal interviewing style that cannot be standardised

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Reliability and validity (4)

Thus, different interviewers would be likely to obtain very different results and this would reduce the reliability and comparability of their findings.

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Access and response rate

Schools are hierarchical institutions and this can cause problems when seeking to interview teachers or pupils. As Powney and Watts note, the lower down the hierarchy the interviewee is, the more approvals that have to be obtained.

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Access and response rate (2)

Thus to interview teachers, a researcher might first have to obtain the permission of the head teacher, whereas to interview pupils may require parental consent as well. Schools may also be reluctant to allow sociologists to conduct interviews during

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Access and response rate (2)

lesson time because of the disruption it causes, or because they object to the researchers chosen topic. For example some schools might object to interviews about drug use.

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Access and response rate (3)

Similarly, there may be problems conducting interviews after school hours, whether on the school premises or in pupils' homes. Parental permission may also be required to interview children. The likelihood of this being granted varies according to

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Access and response rate (4)

the suspect of research. Field's (1987) study of pupil's experience of sex and health education in schools had a relatively high refusal rate of 29% mainly because of parents withholding consent. On the other hand, if the researcher can obtain

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Access and response rate (5)

official support for the study, then the hierarchical nature of school may work in their favour. For example heads can instruct teachers to release pupils from class for interviews and this may increase the response rate.

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The interviewer as 'teacher in disguise'

Power and status inequalities can affect the outcome of interviews. If interviewees have less power than the interviewer, they may see it as being in their own interests to lie, exaggerate, conceal information or seek to please when answering

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The interviewer as 'teacher in disguise' (2)

questions. They may also be less self-confident and their responses less articulate. All this will reduce the validity of the data. There are power and status inequalities between young people and adults. Interviewers are usually adults and children

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The interviewer as 'teacher in disguise' (3)

may see them as authority figures. This is even more likely in educational research, especially if the interviews are conducted on school premises. In this situation Bell (1981) notes pupils may see the interviewer as a teacher in disguise.

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The interviewer as 'teacher in disguise' (4)

This may affect the validity of the data in several ways. For example, pupils may seek to win 'teacher's' approval by giving untrue but socially acceptable answers that show them in a favourable light. Similarly pupils are accustomed to adults

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The interviewer as 'teacher in disguise' (5)

'knowing better' and so may defer to them in interviews. For example children are more likely than adults to change their original answer when the question is repeated because they think it must have been wrong. There may be similar inequalities when

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The interviewer as 'teacher in disguise' (6)

interviewing certain parents. Working-class parents may perceive the interviewer as having a higher status than them and may feel that the questions are patronising or intrusive. By contrast when interviewing middle class-teachers power and status

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The interviewer as 'teacher in disguise' (7)

inequalities are likely to be less pronounced. The interview is a social interaction. The inequalities between children and adults, pupils and teachers may influence this interaction and thus distort the data obtained.

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Improving the validity of interviews with pupils

Interviews may not produce valid data. That is they may not give a true picture of young people's attitudes and behaviour. However, researchers can adopt strategies to improve the validity of interviews with pupils and young people.

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Improving the validity of interviews with pupils (2)

For example Sheila Greene and Diane Hogan (2005) argue that interviews should use open-ended questions, not interrupt children's answers, tolerate long pauses, recognise that children are more suggestible and avoid repeating questions.

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Improving the validity of interviews with pupils (3)

In general, unstructured interviews may be more suitable for overcoming barriers of power and status inequality. Their informality can put young interviewees at their ease and establish rapport more easily. As Labov's research shows this can

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Improving the validity of interviews with pupils (4)

encourage interviewees to open up and respond more fully, thus producing more valid data. This can be particularly useful when dealing with sensitive topics such as bullying.

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Group interviews with pupils

An alternative to the conventional one-to-one interview is the group interview. This has both strengths and limitations as a method of studying education. Pupils and young people are often strongly influenced by peer pressure and this may reduce the

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Group interviews with pupils (2)

data gathered in a group interview, where individuals may conform to peer expectations rather than express what they truly think. The free flowing nature of group interviews makes it impossible to standardise the questions and this will reduce the

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Group interviews with pupils (3)

reliability of the method and the comparability of findings. On the other hand, Greene and Hogan argue that group interviews are particularly suitable for use with pupils. They create a safe peer environment and they reproduce the small group setting

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Group interviews with pupils (4)

that young people are familiar with in classroom work. Peer support also reduces the power imbalance between adult interviewer and young interviewee found in one-to-one interviews. Group interviews can also reveal the interactions between pupils.

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Using interviews to investigate education

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