This is a selective summary of parts of the above text (part 4).
5. Gathering Information and Asking Questions: Interviews, Questionnaires and Accounts
The subject of this chapter is the way that people's accounts, rather than the direct observations of the researcher, can furnish information in an enquiry. Five categories of data are proposed:
- What people know
- What people do/have done
- What people think/feel
- How people think
- How people construct meaning.
Manipulation of Context: From Clinical Interviews to Diaries
Clinical Interviews and Elicitation Techniques
A high degree of manipulation is displayed in clinical interviews, designed to elicit information about how people think or how they construct meaning. Interviewees are typically faced with a task of some kind, not with the intention of determining if the subject can complete it or not, but rather to use it as a tool to investigate how he/she reasons on the way to a 'solution'. Questions cannot be formulaic but must respond to the subjects' replies, probing, and sometimes prompting, further responses that unveil the forms of reasoning employed. Questions will necessarily be informed by the theoretical perspective of the researcher, and it will be in the light of that theory that sense is made of the evidence so gathered. The work of Piaget on how children think is offered as one example of this approach.
Diaries and Documents
Evidence gathering involving a low degree of manipulation of the setting under investigation might draw on 'found' information such as existing school policies, planning documents etc., not originally produced for the purposes of research but nevertheless offering insight into practices and motivation (for example). Diaries, structured or freeform, can be kept by participants in educational inquiries and these too furnish information about the settings under investigation. There are ethical issues raised by using evidence originally produced for quite different purposes, concerns about how representative samples can be and questions about the reliability of self-reporting, but these sources offer useful data.
Structure: From Questionnaire to Conversations
Questionnaires
The use of questionniares is understood to be a useful and efficient technique for gathering (potentially) large amounts of information which can be readily analysed, though caution is counselled as there are technical and theoretical complexities that are not always immediately obvious (some of these are discussed). The need for a pilot study is indicated. Unintentional bias is highlighted as a shortcoming of the method, especially related to low rates of completion and/or idiosyncratic responses from a few individuals. Ways to ensure a high response rate, with the prospect of greater reliabilty as a result, are discussed. Questionnaires are particularly suited to establishing what people do or have done and what people know.
Exploring Opinions, Attitudes and Beliefs
It is possible to gauge what people think or feel using a questionnaire, but considerable skill in framing the questions is essential for this type of survey. The need to establish reliability and validity is highlighted. The Likert scale, a technique for testing respondents attitudes by requiring responses to a range of statements and indicating agreement or disagreement on a scale - often of five points from 'strongly agree' to 'strongly disagree' - is explained and an example given.
Interviewing
Interviews (structured or unstructured) facilitate the exploration of complex issues but are time-consuming and data may be difficult to analyse. The direct involvement of the researcher may import bias (perhaps relating to the authority relations between interviewer and interviewee). It is necessary to consider a range of practical issues including the location of the interview, its management, the organisation of its content (probes and prompts) and methods for recording responses (e.g. the time-consuming transcription of taped discussions). Pilot interviews are strongly recommended.
What is gathered by all these methods is never more than information from which the researcher must draw meaning as it relates to the inquiry. Explanations offered by respondents cannot be accepted at face value. The responsibility for interpretation always rests with the researcher.
Brown, A. & Dowling, P. (1998), Doing Research/Reading Research: A Mode of Interrogation for Education, London, Falmer Press
