Theoretical workshop 1 – Introduction & types of interviews

3 basic types of research

- Exploration
o “What’s out there?”
o Finding out what to research into
o Precedes further research
- Description
o “What does it look like? How does it happen?”
o Systematic and wide description of a phenomenon
o Can be aim in itself
- (Causal) explanation
o “Why is it so?”
o Proving causal relationships
o Presupposes exploration and good description

Qualitative research
- Complete range of phenomenon
- Factors, mechanisms, processes
- Detailed descriptions
- Example: “What does the process of radicalisation look like?”

Quantitative research
- Statistical report on the representation of certain phenomena and their
(causal) statistical relationships.
- Example: “How many people voted for Trump for each of those reasons?”

Mixed methods research

Two types of research proceeding

- Induction: observation  identifying patterns  preliminary conclusions 
theory
- Deduction: theory  hypothesis  observation  accepting or rejecting
hypothesis
Essence and objectives
Qualitative research Quantitative research
Interview Questionnaire
Subjectivity is expected Aim: objectivity
Multiple realities in every situation Reality is objective and independent
of the researcher
Exploration, discovery, Description, explanation,
construction prediction
Gaining insight, understanding Hypotheses testing,
context, causes, mechanisms, finding relationships cause –
consequence, prediction
factors, relationships, motivations,
Quantification and generalization of
interpretations, social interactions, results to the whole population,
trends in opinions. statistical modeling

Inductive: generation of Deductive: hypothesis testing

hypothesis

Aspirations and generalisability

Qualitative research Quantitative research
Wide spectrum Narrowly focused
Width and depth of phenomena Testing specific hypotheses
What do people think? How many people think that?
Small number of unrepresentative Mostly a large number of cases
cases representing the whole
populationta under study
Respondents are chosen according to
a pre-established quota Respondents are chosen randomly
6 – 12 interviews can be enough Usually, a min. 100 cases for small
surveys, about 1000 for nation-wide
surveys
Non-generalisable to the whole Findings generalisable to the whole
population population

Qualitative research
- Advantages:
o Extension and depth of a phenomenon
o Detailed description of causal mechanisms and context
o Patterns, qualities, themes, and typologies
o Value-oriented
o Suitable for exploration and description
 - Disadvantages:
o Less suitable for establishing causality and theory testing
o Risk of bias

Quantitative research
- Advantages:
o Comparing responses for all respondents and subgroups
o Generally considered capable of establishing causality and theory of
testing
o Statistical relationships
o Aspiring on objectivity
o Suitable for establishing causal relationships
- Disadvantages:
o Mechanisms and context are missing
o Limited exploration and description

Types of interviews
- Individual vs. group interviews
- Focus groups  specific identification of the topics, controlled
composition of the group.
- In-depth interview  going into depth and detail, usually longer.
- Structured interview  a pre-established set of mostly closed-ended
questions.
- Unstructured  no categories of responses are imposed, resembles a
conversation.
- Narrative interview  the researcher lets the informant talk, he only
uses “prompts”.
- Elite interview  interviews with experts or people knowledgeable in
their area.

Sampling in qualitative interview research

- Qualitative interviews shall capture the complete range / variation of a
phenomenon.
- The aim of the interview sampling is to maximize the chance of
capturing that variation of the phenomenon.
- Therefore, select the respondents based on important categories
which can influence their responses to your research question (sex,
education, age, …).
- In qualitative research the variation in what people say is not important
– it is not important HOW MANY people say it - do not quantify.
- Friends of friends will give similar responses: ask people to propose an
informant completely different than they are.
- Recruit through a gatekeeper whenever possible and maintain good
relations with him (do not disappoint him).
- 6 – 12 interviews can be enough if they capture all types of opinions.
- Stop interviewing when you reach data saturation = the
responses start to repeat.

Panels and samples (Weiss, 1994)

- Panel of knowledgeable informants
o Together they provide the information the study requires.
- Representational samples
 o Probability sampling  representativity of the population.
o Samples that attempt to maximise range: maximise data.
o Convenience sampling  we accept what we can get.
 Snowball sampling
- Panels also mean asking the same pool of respondents at different time
points (finding out about processes, developments, causes)

Keep good relations with your gatekeeper

- Gatekeeper  a key person who provides you access to respondents.
- Often an important member of an organisation
- No gatekeeper = no access
- Keep him/her happy
- Do not dissapoint

Practical workshop 1 – mistakes in interviewing

Common difficulties and mistakes in interview research

- Mistakes in the formulation of interview questions
- Mistakes in the conduct of an interview
- Practical tips to save your interview

1. Mistakes in the formulation of interview questions

- Asking the key questions directly
o “Are you prejudiced?” & “Have you forgiven?”
o Decompose such terms into dimensions and ask questions about
each of them.
- Asking for conclusions / a quick confirmation of your hypothesis
o Do not ask: “What is your admiration for famous criminals that
motivated you to become a criminal?”
o Elicit observations instead and make the conclusions yourself
(Weiss, 1994).
- Asking too many close-ended questions
o “Have you been to London? … Did you like it?...”
o Give your informants the space to talk and surprise you with
answers you may not expect (Weiss, 1994).
- Unclear questions
o Ask exact questions that have one single possible meaning,
specific enough not to be ambiguous (Kahn & Cannell, 1957)
 “Why do you feel unhappy?”
 “You moved to the Netherlands. What did you do after you
arrived?”
- Two questions in one
o “What do you think about the safety regulations and about the
way your boss deals with safety in your company?” (Kahn &
Cannell, 1957)
- Too long or too complicated questions / language non
understandable to the informant
o Avoid questions that are too long (the informant cannot memorize
them) (Kahn & Cannell, 1957)
o Use a language understandable to the informant.
o “What is the social capital that foreigners bring into your
company?”
 - Leading questions
o A leading question is a question that increases the probability of a
particular answer.
o “You have been to Zoetermeer, haven’t you?”
o Be careful: certain questions can influence the responses to
questions that follow them.

2. Mistakes in the conduct of an interview

Common errors in conducting interviews (Weiss, 1994)
- Pushing your assumptions onto the respondent.
- Refusing respondent leads.
- Losing the research partnership (failure to pick up markers, imposing a
line of thought, failure to respond to important claims and hints).

Interviewing failures (Weiss, 1994)

- Feeling of oppression by the interview: asking repeatedly for concrete
instances, not being understood.
- Brief answers
- Tension, discomfort
- Body language: respondents get nervous, check their watch, ask how
many questions you have…

3. Practical tips to save your interview

What to do
- Motivate your respondent for the interview: this increases the
amount of time they are willing to dedicate to you
- Show interest in the topic AND in your informant as a person.
- Check for what you can achieve in the amount of time you have.
- Well precise and aimed questions (“What job did you find after you
quit your job as a police officer?”) vs. a simple prompt like “Tell me
more about...” (narrative interview)? Depends on what you need to
hear.
- The respondent is the expert, not you, BUT check for the validity of
his claims and do not take them as granted knowledge
- Create an atmosphere of mutual trust
- Check for “reference frames”: the informant can unconsciously refer
to a system of knowledge that you do not know (his own world) – make
him aware and ask him for clarification, otherwise you risk serious
misunderstandings.

Theoretical workshop 2 - Preparing an interview guide

Conceptualisation
- “Concepts are constructs derived by mutual agreement from mental
images (conceptions)” (Babbie: 129).
- The same concept may have different meanings.
- In your study, you need to define the meaning of your concepts.
- Proceeding:
o Define the precise meaning of the concept in your study
 o Decompose your concept into dimensions
o Assign at least 1 indicator (or a set of indicators) to each
dimension
(Babbie 2010, chapter 5)
- DEFINITION – describing the concept by its synonym or several words
- DIMENSION – an aspect of the term / concept / its characteristics
- INDICATOR
o Determines whether the given concept is present or not
o Indicators for the same dimension are interchangeable
o It is good to have more than one indicator per dimension: the
presence of the concepts may show in some indicators but not in
others (that’s what scales are for)

Competitive victimhood (Noor 2012)  inter-group competitive victimhood

refers to a group’s motivation and consequent efforts to establish that it has
suffered more than its adversaries.

Preparing an interview guide

When to use a…
- Unstructured interview
o Exploration, discovery
o When you don’t know what’s out there, what needs to be known,
found out
o When the informant might be inhibited or constrained by a more
structured approach
o When there is interest in some dimension of an individual’s life
experience
o Where the significant themes can only be elicited by allowing the
individual to give their account in their own way, without the
fragmentation of structured questioning.
- Semi-structured interview
o When you know what needs to be found out at a level of specific
detail
o Presupposes preliminary work of an exploratory and more
unstructured character
o Presupposes knowledge of theory and/or a good literature review
o To keep focus on important things when having too little time for
the interview

Phases of an interview
- Introduction
- Warm-up
- Key questions / body
- Cooling-off
- Wrap-up / ending

Steps of making the interview guide

1. Assign topics to the single phases of the interview
2. Assign your questions to the topics in the different phases of the
interview
3. Note possible complementary questions: What is not essential but
could eventually be talked about?
 4. Do not make the interview guide too long
5. Highlight the key passages / topics (underlined, in colour, ...)
6. Write down the time that the single topics of the interview may take
7. Prepare different interview guides for different groups of
informants (ordinary NW members vs. leaders, ordinary citizens...)

The order of the questions on your interview guide

- Funnel sequence  asking the most general questions in an area first,
following with the precise objectives (questions).
- Inverted funnel  start with specific questions and end up asking the
more general question (this teachnique can help the informant to form an
opinion on the topic if he does not yet have it).
(Kahn & Cannell, 1957)

Practical workshop 2 – Adapting to the field

1. How to deal with different types of respondents

Interviewing difficulties (Weiss, 1994)

- The Unresponsive Respondent  nothing will make him cooperate
- The Respondent Determined to Present a Particular picture  ask
for concreteness until you understand further effort is pointless; identify
an area in which the respondent is willing to be candid; ask for concrete
stories and examples
- People Whose Feelings Are Raw  may find talking helpful; may
want to talk (but not always); no report-limiting sympathy
- If I Weren’t in This Situation, You Wouldn’t Want to Interview Me

2. Conducting the interview

Tip 1: pay attention to markers (Weiss, 1994)

- Markers  a passing reference made by respondents to an important
event or feeling state.
o Respondent talking about A but also mentioning B without paying
further attention to it.
o Pick up on the reference and ask more about B if important.

Tip 2: probing
- Probing is key to exploring questions more fully, steering the respondent
toward your research aims.
- Probes are short, follow-up questions that encourage informants to
provide more detail, expand on their responses.
- They must be uncomplicated and have a direct focusing effect.
- Anticipated probes  questions prepared in advance to complement
essential questions from the interview guide.
- Spontaneous probes  probes you think of during the interview – but
avoid “why questions” – they put the informant into the defensive and,
responses may be unreliable.
- Do not probe immediately, give the respondent 5 seconds to think
about the question.
Types of probes (Gillham, 2000)
- Reflecting: Echo the informant's words to encourage them to elaborate
on a point. Example: Effective for deepening understanding.
 - Clarification: Express uncertainty to get a clearer explanation.
Example: “I’m not sure I understand.”
- Showing Appreciation or Understanding: Acknowledge the
informant's experiences. Example: “That must have been difficult for
you.”
- Justification: Probe into the reasoning behind someone's statement to
reveal deeper insights. Example: If someone says, “You can’t work well
here because of the atmosphere,” ask, “What makes you say that?”
- Relevance: Connect the informant’s thoughts even if they seem
unclear. Example: “I’m not sure how these two things connect—could
you explain?”

- Giving an Example: Request clarification by asking for examples.

Example: “Can you give me an example?” or “What do you mean by
‘irrelevant’?”
- Extending the Narrative: Encourage the informant to continue or
expand on a shortened story. Example: “What happened after that?”
- Accuracy: Verify the sequence of events and check for consistency.
Example: “I thought that was before you moved to your current
position.” Note: People may not fully grasp their motives, and their
behaviors may contradict their statements.
- Reflecting: Repeat what the informant said in their own words to help
them reflect on their statement.

Theoretical workshop 3 – Coding, data analysis & report writing

Coding (Gibbs & Taylor, 2010)

- Coding  the process of combing the data for themes, ideas and
categories and then marking similar passages of text with a code label so
that they can easily be retrieved at a later stage for further comparison
and analysis.
- Codes can be based on:
o Themes, topics
o Ideas, concepts
o Terms, phrases
o Keywords

First cycle of coding

- Data are labelled for the first time with a code.
- What characterises that particular piece of data? (Saldana, 2013)

Second cycle of coding

- Advanced ways of reorganising and reanalysing data coded through First
Cycle methods.
- Looking for patterns in the data by sorting the codes from the first cycle
of coding
- develop a sense of categorical, thematic, conceptual, and/or theoretical
organization from the array of First Cycle codes.
(Saldana, 2013)

Requirements for coding frames (Schreier, 2012)

- One-dimensionality: each category only captures one dimension.
 - Mutual exclusiveness: Each unit of coding belongs to one subcategory
of the same dimension only.
- Exhaustiveness: each unit of coding can be assigned “to at least one
subcategory of your coding frame”.
- Saturation: it (no category is “empty”).
Hierarchy of codes

Qualitative content analysis

1. Transcription
2. Unit of analysis
3. Categories and Coding Scheme
4. Testing Your Coding Scheme
5. Code all the text
6. Coding Consistency
7. Draw Conclusions
8. Report your methods and findings
(Zhang & Wildemuth, 2009)

Content analysis
- Studies the content of a communication (text, media…)
- Stable / objective meaning of the words, text and categories
- Coding scheme made based on theory OR developed from data (1 st & 2nd
cycle coding)

Thematic analysis
- Initial work with the data
- Develop main topical categories
- First coding process
- Compile all passages assigned to each of the main categories
- Determine sub-categories
- Second coding process: code all data using the elaborate category
system
- Category-based analysis and presentation of results
(Kuckartz, 2014, p. 70)
Critical discourse analysis
- Discourse  way of speaking about something
- Critical  having a normative perspective & looking at the data in a
critical way
- Theory or criterium based on which text is analyzed for discourse
- Studying how discourse influences and legitimates action (Jackson,
2007)
- “Terrorists” vs. “freedom fighters”
- Language and power
- “Us and Them”
- Labeling, propaganda
- Constructing security threats by defining problems as such