Interviews

This research will culminate in a final study informed by a series of individual interviews with a selection of participants to explore their individual experiences of teaching digital accessibility awareness education for the first time and their own progress of developing pedagogical content knowledge. These interviews will act as a post intervention retrospective reflection.

Interviews are a widely employed tool for data collection in social science research (Kvale, 1996; Atkins and Wallace, 2012). They are a process of personal interaction specifically between the researcher and respondent.

There are three kinds of interviews, such as structured, semi-structured and unstructured (Gill et al, 2008).

Structured interviews are more favourable for quantitative rather than qualitative studies because they require more uniform answers that lack the detail of explanation or contextual information due to having more closed questioning techniques (Sahoo, 2022). Unstructured interviews are more akin to a free flowing conversation without a specific set of pre-planned structured questions (Adhabi and Anozie, 2017).

Semi-structured interviews on the other hand offer considerable leeway and flexibility for interviewees to follow structured questioning, but offers opportunities to follow up predefined questions, and probe further into noteworthy responses or discuss topics in more depth and detail (Sahoo, 2022; Atkins and Wallace, 2012; Gill et al, 2008).

This depth helps to facilitate obtaining rich and detailed participant data to direct explanations of human actions (Kumar, 1996; Kvale, 1996; Berg, 2001; Cresswell, 2007) something this study is keen to explore from the perspective of the teaching and learning experience.

Semi-structured interviews also present the in-depth meaning from the participants point of view (Legard, Keegan and Ward, 2003), allowing participants the freedom to speak in their own voice and express their own thoughts, opinions and feelings (Berg, 2007).

This offers a valuable method for exploring the construction of negotiated meanings within the natural setting (Cohen et al, 2007), and may elaborate on information that is important to the participant, that may not have previously been considered by the researcher (Gill et al, 2008; p.291).

This is particularly useful when a topic is complex or needs a much larger exploration, or when research needs dialogue to investigate more thoroughly (Sahoo, 2022), for example the nuances in the context of an educational setting to develop pedagogical content knowledge.

It is significant to acknowledge that semi-structured interviews are considered as the preferred data collection mechanism for qualitative studies (DiCicco-Bloom and Crabtree, 2006; Adhabi and Anozi, 2017), and social science has long recognised the usefulness of semi-structured interviews (Alshengeeti, 2014).

This research therefore will employ the semi-structured interview approach.

For any interview, the venue is also an important feature to ensure that participants are comfortable, have a private space to speak and are free from distraction (Gill et al, 2008). 

With the development of technology, tools like Skype, Zoom and Teams, as well as other similar audio visual platforms, there is an alternative to the traditional face to face interview scenario (Sullivan, 2013).

These tools can help to reduce the challenges of organising specific locations, address the limitations of time necessary for busy teachers to participate, as well as reduce the cost or inconvenience of travel for those involved (Sahoo, 2022), meaning participants are in a better position to be able to engage in interviews individually from a setting of their own choice (Bryman, 2015).

It is intended in this study that participants will be given the option to be individually interviewed either face to face or online (Curasi, 2001). 

In preparation for the interview phase, advice will be followed to first plan and pilot the interview schedule of questions to check they are clear, understandable and capable of drawing out the information needed to help answer the desired research questions (Gill et al, 2008). Piloting will also help to determine any flaws, limitations, misunderstandings or weaknesses with the interview design and to help enhance the reliability and validity of the interview process (Cresswell, 2007; 2009; Silverman, 1993), as well as enable any revisions prior to implementing the study (Kvale, 1996; 2007).

 

Qualitative research interviews capture the interviewees lived experience in the everyday world of the research topic. The interview acts as a powerful method to allow participants to convey their situation from their own perspective and capture their experiences and meanings in their own words (Kvale, 2007).

An interview schedule lists the questions and topics that intend to be covered, its purpose is to help sequence the interview, aid reflection and avoid asking leading questions (Atkins and Wallace, 2012).

Recording pilot interviews offers a chance for a careful review of the process to watch or hear whether questions are asked clearly and correctly, in the right tone, whether the interviewee is getting the right time and chance to answer and also works as a tool to develop interviewing and research skills (Atkins and Wallace, 2012).

To improve communication and to develop a rapport, researchers as part of the interview process, should encourage their interviewees to elaborate and teach them the meanings of words or processes within in the research setting to better understand the context and culture, because understanding the culture helps both the interviewer and interviewee understand one another (Rubin and Rubin, 1995).  

Cultural understandings have an impact on the interview. Culture affects what is said and how the interview is heard and understood (Rubin and Rubin, 1995; p.19).

Researchers interview a number of those involved to obtain narratives on the same subject, because people experience or remember different parts of an event, therefore the researcher combines several narratives to portray what has occurred or been experienced (Rubin and Rubin, 1995; p.24). Conducting interviews from different actors across several school settings will facilitate a much broader portrayal.

Rubin and Rubin (1995) warn that a qualitative researcher will need a high tolerance for uncertainty, especially at the start of the project, because events may mean the design may change as the researcher hears what is said and learns from his or her interviewees (Rubin and Rubin, 1995; p.41), and adjusting the design as the research goes along is a normal, expected part of the qualitative research process, for example rethinking a pattern of questioning that isn’t working or needs changing to pursue unexpected insights (p.44). 

It is claimed that building a good rapport with participants can also have a positive effect on the development of the interview (Gill et al, 2008), and can help the interviewees feel comfortable and motivated to more willingly reveal their feelings and thoughts (Sahoo, 2022).

In this instance, with the interviews will follow on from the lesson study cycles and focus groups, so the initial rapport will have already been established during the lesson study process and prior focus groups.

Rapport in interviews is often be achieved much easier in a face to face environment (Sahoo, 2022).

Walford (2007, p.147) argues that interviews alone are an insufficient form of data to study social life. This study however will be using the interviews to build upon findings from the focus group sessions. 

Interviews allow for a greater depth of information which is not always possible by other means (Sahoo, 2022).

Interviews can also be used to gather information about how people come to reach a decision and how others may have responded to that decision (Sahoo, 2022).

During interviews new questions that hadn’t occurred in prior interviews may arise because each person’s story and reality is unique (Sahoo, 2022).

Interview data can be compiled into themes and codes during analysis (Cresswell, 2003; 2007; Curasi, 2001).

Interviews are best when recorded verbatim (Sahoo).

Using digital processes, transcripts can be more easily created, however it is recommended that they are checked for verbatim accuracy.

For individual interviews, respondents can be provided with the transcripts of their interview to make any corrections or editorial revisions should they feel the need (Curasi, 2001).

A completed interview transcript can be easily entered into a qualitative software program for analysis (Curasi, 2001).

Interviews can be effectively combined and triangulated with other data collection methods to strengthen credibility and confirmability of the findings (Curasi, 2001).

Semi-structured interviews consist of the key research questions to define the core areas to be explored, but also allows the interviewee the flexibility to diverge in order to pursue an idea or response in more detail (Gill et al, 2008; p. 29).

Responses such as these may not be given the opportunity to emerge in the same way, if at all, with a more structured and closed questioning method (Gill et al, 2008).

Interviews offer rich and detailed data (Gill et al, 2008)..

Follow up questions, prompts and probing (Gill et al, 2008).

Avoid leading or loaded questions that may unduly influence and bias responses (Gill et al, 2008).

Interviews in qualitative research attempt to understand the world from the participants point of view and to unfold the meaning of people’s experiences to uncover their lived world (Sewell, nd; Adhabi and Anozie, 2017; Kvale, 1996)

Probe, interject and expand (Rubin and Rubin, 2005; Adhabi and Anozie, 2017).

Interviews uncover information that is not accessible by closed techniques like questionnaires, surveys and observations (Blaxter et al, 2006).

For both the focus groups and interviews, informed consent would be required from participants (Harrell and Bradley, 2009).

Interviews generate large amounts of text and data (Newman, 2007) and the analysis of this can be done through a process of reflexive coding (Creswell, 2009).

Structured interviews are led and primarily controlled by the researcher with questions developed from the interviewer’s understanding and point of view (ref).

Interviews compared to questionnaires are more powerful in eliciting narrative data that enables researchers to investigate in much greater depth (Kvale, 1996; 2003).

Interviewing affirms the importance of the individual participants without denigrating the possibility of community and collaboration (Seidman, 2006; p.14).

Seidman (2006) points out that the primary way a researcher can investigate and educational context or process is through the experience of the individuals in it. 

To understand the meaning people make of their experiences, interviewing provides a necessary avenue of inquiry (Seidman, 2006).

If the research aims to understand the experience of what it is like to be in the classroom, something as Shutz (1967) refers to as ‘subjective understanding’ then Seidman (2006) argues that interviewing in most cases will be the best avenue of inquiry.

One drawback of interviewing is that it can take a great deal of time, not just to conduct the interview itself, but to make contact and organise suitable times and locations with participants, interview them, transcribe it, ask participants to check it with participants where appropriate and analyse the depth of data (Seidman, 2006). 

Interviews enable people to tell their stories as a microcosm of their consciousness (Vygotsky, 1987). It is this consciousness that gives access to recounting narratives in more detail and the concrete experiences of people (Seidman, 2006).

At the heart of interviewing is an interest in other individuals stories, because they are of worth (Seidman, 2006).

A basic assumption in in-depth interview research is that the meaning people make of their experience affects the way they carry out that experience (Blumber, 1969; p.2).

To observe a teacher provides access to the behaviour, but interviewing allows the researcher to put the behaviour in the context of understanding their decisions and actions (Seidman, 2006).