#6 Reflecting on my interview style

I have read through all fifteen group interview transcripts and performed the initial coding on two thirds of them. I think now would be an opportune time to reflect on my interview style and how I think it changed over the two months in which moderated my online group interviews.

My group interviews started with a brief introduction to the project, explaining why preparedness is important and a little about the transition from students mostly learning in the classroom to workplace clinical training (WCT). I finished the presentation putting the idea of a ‘preparedness toolkit’ to the participants and used the sensitising concepts of knowledge and skills, behaviours, personal attributes and awarenesses as potential candidate groups of preparedness characteristics; things that could help students to get the most out of WCT. These were generated from my review of learning theory and I felt they were necessary to stimulate discussion and ensure that we covered the breadth of topics I thought were required.

I commenced the recording at this point. When I first started moderating the group interviews, I started by asking one open question e.g. “what personal attributes do you think are important in a vet student on day one of WCT?” Then I would pick out something a participant said in response and asked another open question about that, the conversation subsequently filled out in that respect. If the conversation ‘ran dry’ I had a list of open questions about the other candidate groups of preparedness characteristics to use. Initially, I didn’t really use probing questions, and I think that the conversation remained fairly superficial and skipped from preparedness characteristic to preparedness characteristic. With time, my technique changed in a few ways:

· I used an open question to start then included some closed questions to probe deeper – asking participants to expand further or provide examples

· I asked other participants if they agreed with, or had anything to add to, what another participant had said

· I asked if any participant had anything more to add on the general topic being discussed e.g. on practical skills, and then made a change to another topic e.g. knowledge

· I paraphrased and checked my understanding e.g. “so just to clarify, you think….”

I think that as my interview technique developed, I was able to gain a deeper understanding of topics as opposed to superficially skimming across subjects, I was able to perform on-line member checking and to make sure that all participants felt heard.