POWER INT's
If you have been interviewed for a job, you may well have experienced some of the power issues that were discussed in Block 1, whereby one person’s role is perceived to be more important/dominant than another’s. These feelings may help you to understand some of the issues which researchers must understand and overcome when interviewing children.

You might have experienced interviewing a child or young person because of the nature of your work. These may well have been very informal and have taken place within a setting familiar to them. You will probably realise that an interview with another adult can be either formal or informal, whereas an interview with a child or young person will probably be very different and require you to think about the way that you speak to the child. All interviews require the interviewers to think about how they would like to record the data they collect. This can take several forms.

highly structured interviews_ One advantage of this technique is that data are, for the most part, gathered from a large number of participants fairly consistently, so it is easier for researchers to draw conclusions based on the whole population of the study. On the other hand, this sort of interviewing is often done at speed and, therefore, does not allow for a natural relationship to build between interviewer and participant. As a result there is more room for misunderstandings to occur, both at the point of recording data and the point of analysing responses.

Recording interviews - Making notes during an interview might help to jog a researcher’s memory about what was discussed after the event, but may not mean that the information recorded is entirely accurate. Making notes can also affect the natural flow of an interview by limiting eye contact. Furthermore, it is very difficult, if not impossible, to accurately record things like body language and changes in tone of voice, all of which play an important part in understanding interview data. Flewitt mentions the use of audio and video recording equipment as possible other strategies for recording data. Although these can present a more accurate account of what happened in an interview, researchers need to consider the amount of time it will take to transcribe interview data. The impact of recording equipment on the people being interviewed needs to be considered, ensuring that as far as possible it has not had any effect on answers. Either way, researchers need to be clear to participants about how they intend to record their answers so that participants can be comfortable within the interview and feel fully informed about their part in the process.

Aim: to reflect on the ways that interviews have been used in a research example.

Read the article, ‘The novice researcher: Interviewing young children’, by Danby et al., available from the Research Articles Collection.

in a pre-school setting in Australia, an interview conducted as part of a study into twin children’s friendships, interviewed a five-year-old girl called Tammy.

In order to prepare for the interview, the researcher carried out a small-scale literature review in order to find out more about what research can tell us about friendships, twins and transitions to school. She also read literature related to interviewing and, specifically, carrying out interviews with children. As a result, she developed a set of questions related to two themes: firstly, friendships; and secondly, transitions to pre-school.

Following the interview, the researcher was concerned that Tammy did not (fully) answer all of the questions that she was asked. On reflection, however, she realised that this was not because Tammy did not understand the questions but because she was actively choosing only to answer some/part of the questions being asked. Furthermore, she also felt that Tammy was trying to give her the answers that she thought she should give, rather than the answers that she truly wanted to give. As a result of this, the researcher devised a ‘sticker task’ which she would carry out with Tammy.

This was designed to provide a diversion activity, so that the focus of the interview would move away from Tammy alone and onto something else. In doing so, the researcher hoped that it would help Tammy to feel more at ease and aid the flow of the research ‘conversation’.

Danby et al. provide some clear guidance for anyone considering carrying out interviews with young children. Firstly, they suggest that the researcher should pay several visits to the research site prior to conducting the interview in order to make the children feel comfortable about having them there. Secondly, they suggest that researchers should consider using a task, such as the sticker task, to help the flow of the interview and to provide a focus for the children. Thirdly, they underline the importance of recognising children as competent participants in the research process. Finally, they suggest that face-to-face interviews should be video recorded so that the researcher can play back the interview and have the chance to analyse and appreciate the non-verbal gestures that children might make.

Danby et al. provided a creative response to the practical difficulties of obtaining interview data from young children. Flewitt, in Chapter 8 of the Module Reader, also sets out some examples of ‘participatory research approaches’ in order to ‘engage’ children in the research process. Flewitt lists several examples, such as taking photographs of children engaged in an activity and using them as a means of scaffolding an interview, to the use of a ‘video diary’ room.