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P17: “The first interview establishes the context of the of the participant’s experience. The second allows participants to reconstruct the details of their experience within the context in which it occurs.  And the third encourages the participants to reflect on the meaning their experience holds for them.”

P 19: “Each interview comprises a multitude of decisions that the interviewer must make.  The open-ended, in-depth inquiry is best carried out in a structure that allows both the participant and the interviewer to maintain a sense of the focus of each interview in the series.”

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Seidman stresses the importance of adhering to the structure of the 3-step process, this includes the interviewer not allowing the participant to diverge from the specific focus of each interview, i.e., the first interview focuses on reconstructing the past, the second interview focuses on a detailed description of present experiences, and the third interview focuses on the participant reflecting on the meaning of their experiences.

I am concerned about the potential to miss out on valuable information because the structure does not permit the participant to share something outside the parameters of that specific interview.  People don’t traditionally think in such rigid formats, i.e., to strictly focus on the past, or can only describe the present, etc.  For example, while discussing the details of their current experiences, the participant could remember something of significance from their past, but the 3-step process would discourage the interviewer from allowing the participant to share that as it outside the purview of the second interview.  This troubles me both in terms of restricting the participant from sharing something of interest or importance to them, as well as losing valuable data.

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Based off the concerns noted above, I can see two possible challenges that I will face as an interviewer.  The first is keeping the participant on task by not allowing them to diverge from the focus of the interview.  While I understand there is a “logic” to this process, I fear that I will struggle to fully honor it as it seems a little disrespectful to the participant, i.e., not allowing them to share something of interest/importance to them.  It also seems a little counter-intuitive, i.e., censoring the data collection because it does not fit within the rigid structure of the process.

On a similar note, I am also concerned about the time-restraints of the interview process.  Seidman cautions against going beyond the allotted time frame, even when the participant has information s/he wants to share.  Again, this seems disrespectful to the participant and counter-productive for data gathering.  While I appreciate his point about “diminishing returns,” it seems that preventing the participant from sharing something of importance to them could yield diminishing returns of its own.

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"The first interview establishes the context of the participants' experience. The second allows participants to reconstruct the details of their experience within the context in which it occurs. And the third encourages the participants to reflect on the meaning their experience holds for them." (p. 21)

"Therefore, in the process of conducting three interviews, the interviewer must maintain a delicate balance between providing enough openness for the participants to tell their stories and enough focus to allow the interview structure to work." (p. 25)

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Seidman says, "as yet there are no absolutes in the world of interviewing" (p. 25). This leaves me to wonder how to choose one interviewing strategy over another. How does a researcher determine the best course of action for their inquiry?

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If the three interview model is the way to go, I now understand that I need to spend time with the participants at the outset understanding their personal story before digging into their lived experience relative to the topic of study. In the interviews we have conducted so far, I did not take this approach. I am wondering now if doing so would have provided different, richer, more telling information.

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P. 16: “People’s behavior becomes meaningful and understandable when placed in the context of their lives and those around them.”

P. 17: “The first interview establishes the context of the participant’s experience. The second allows participants to reconstruct the details of their experience within the context in which it occurs. And the third encourages the participants to reflect on the meaning their experience holds for them.”

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If you don’t adhere to the three-step structure, how does that impact the significance of the data? What do you do if a participant gives a response that falls outside the focus of the step? What do you do with that information? What do you do to reframe or restart the interview?

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Keeping the participant’s focus requires lots of preparation and focus from the interviewer. You need to be very clear about what you want to learn and have a series of questions prepared that will keep the participant on task and have intentional framing of your questions to elicit relevant and informative responses. Reflecting on the interviews last semester, I had good questions but I hadn’t constructed them just right.

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Being quiet! Let the person being interviewed complete their story prior to saying anything.

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What if more time passes than a week between interviews?  Like in our second interview we are currently planning; it has been months.  What, if any, techniques can you invoke to have that second interview be a success like only having one week in between them?

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1.    There is no solid, unmovable platform upon which to base our understanding of human affairs. They are in constant flux. Heisenberg’s principle of indeterminacy. (p. 26)

2.    The structure of the three interviews, the passage of time over which the interviews occur, the internal consistency and possible external consistency of the passages, the syntax, diction, and even nonverbal aspects of the passage, and the discovery and sense of learning that I get from reading the passage lead me to have confidence in its authenticity. (p. 26)

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P. 19 " Even though it is in the third interview, that we focus on the participants' understanding of their experience, through all three interviews participants are making meaning.  The very process of putting experiences into language is a meaning-making process."

P. 17: “The first interview establishes the context of the participant’s experience. The second allows participants to reconstruct the details of their experience within the context in which it occurs. And the third encourages the participants to reflect on the meaning their experience holds for them.”

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Seidman raises the question (p.23) of "Whose meaning is it? Considering Validity and reliability" - The point is offered that despite deliberate efforts to 'regulate' or 'try to account for' for the relative influence occurring between the interviewer/participant during the structured interviews, it is not possible to separate the influence of the interviewer on the participant and meaning-making. I am still confused about how to assess for reliability and validity using qualitative methods? I can see how this 3-interview process, intentional and highly structured process does offer some checks and balances, though my quantitatively trained brain still struggles with whether or not sufficient objectivity exists within this model to suggest validity/reliability or both. How or when are one's discoveries actually considered, 'generalizable'? What is meant by this sentiment: "Many qualitative researchers disagree with the epistemological assumptions underlying the notions of validity. They argue for a new vocabulary and rhetoric with which to discuss validity and reliability." I do not understand?

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Essentially, I think my biggest challenge could be not overthinking this whole thing. As a trained therapist we are taught specific ways of interviewing, tracking, tempo, timing, structure, deliberate self-disclosure strategies, and elements/ways of being with people that create space for meaning-making to emerge within our clinical sessions. We are taught to recognize our conscious/unconscious efforts at blocking what is possible to know/learn from the client. Sometimes I read aspects of interviewing in the context of qualitative research and it sounds second nature. Other times I read a different portion of qualitative interviewing and I think this type of interviewing is counter-intuitive to all that I have learned thus far. I can't decide if all of this is the same, the opposite, or some combination of both - to that which I have been practicing professionally all of these years.

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1) “Dolbeare and Schuman (Schuman, 1982) designed the series of three interviews that characterizes this approach and allows the interviewer and participant to plumb the experience and to place it in context. The first interview establishes the context of the participants’ experience. The second allows participants to reconstruct the details of their experience within the context in which it occurs. And the third encourages the par- ticipants to reflect on the meaning their experience holds for them.” pg.17

2) “Furthermore, each interview provides a foundation of detail that helps illumine the next. Taking advantage of the interactive and cumula- tive nature of the sequence of the interviews requires that interviewers adhere to the purpose of each. There is a logic to the interviews, and to lose control of their direction is to lose the power of that logic and the benefit from it. Therefore, in the process of conducting the three interviews, the interviewer must maintain a delicate balance between provid- ing enough openness for the participants to tell their stories and enough focus to allow the interview structure to work. (See McCracken, 1988, p. 22, for further discussion of this delicate balance.)“ pg.19

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I wonder if the questions for the interview would be crafted by an individual or a group and if there is one designated interview or many. A single interview would provide consistency and multiply interviews might provide a subtle variation which could create a wider perspectur and perhaps more complex data. It seems that crafting the open-ended questions are foundational to this technique and would be critical to the effectiveness of the interviews. The questions would need to guide the conversation but not direct it. In my limited experience, it is extremely challenging to write questions for a conversation rather than allow a conversation to evolve. This is discouraged in this technique and I understand why, and that makes the decisions about the questions even more important.

I wondered about the question in the section about meaning, “How do we know that what the participant is telling us is true?” It seemed out of place, my understanding of this technique is in the context, reconstruction, and reflection of an individual. I read this to mean that these are the remembrances of an individual, it is their story, memory, and meaning. I found the section interesting and an important discussion about validity, reliability, and generalization but we don’t know whether a participant is telling the “truth” but is that of interest? Is it true that did the participant share such statements, yes.

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My challenge is going to be maintaining the structure of the interview, I need to learn how to engage by listening. I think this technique is a tool that will help me to do this, yet it will still be a challenge. I remember our first interviews, I found myself engaging in a conversation instead of asking prepared questions. I am easily distracted and enjoying talking about topics of interest to me. I need to work on reigning in my natural enthusiasm and interest in people to focus on the goal of a project. I expect this to be a struggle for me but think this technique will help. It provides a rationale, that makes sense to me, for sticking to the plan. This technique establishes specific steps and clear guidelines that I can follow to reduce distractions. The explanation of the technique provides an explanation as to why it is so important to follow a script. I think I have a tendency to try to connect with people and I need to use the predetermined questions to establish a very specific type of connection rooted in the interview process.

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"A phenomenological approach to interviewing focuses on the lived experiences of participants and the meaning they make of that experience," (16).

"The goal...would be to come as close as possible to understanding the true "is" of our participants' experience from their subjective point of view," (17).

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I am wondering about this rigid structure versus letting people talk. I have found you learn so much more when you just let people go and wonder what affect it has on this process? Can you code it to the process if you stray from the 3-steps?

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Definitely discipline to stick tot eh topic of the interview and not let interviewees wander off topic and talk about their lives. I find people interesting and love to just hear about experiences.

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“The purpose of the second interview is to concentrate on the concrete details of the participants present lived experience in the topic area of the study… in an 8-hour day w are involved in perhaps 30,000 events. In this second interview, then, our task is to strive, however incompletely, to reconstruct the myriad details of our participants’ experiences in the area we are studying.” (pg 18)

One major difference, however, between qualitative and quantitative approaches is that in in-depth interviewing we recognize and affirm the role of the instrument, the human interviewer. Rather than decrying the fact that the instrument used to gather data affects the process, we say the human interviewer can be a marvelously smart, adaptable, flexible instrument who can respond to situations with skill, tact, and understanding” (pg 23, citing Lincoln and Guba, 1985, pg 107)

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If, as Seidman says, “there is no solid, unmovable platform upon which to base our understanding of human affairs” and they are in “constant flux”, and this system of interviewing requires “skill, tact, and understanding” then how does this system guard against like minded interviewers choosing like minded interviewees and allowing the fluctuating understanding of human affairs to shift into ever further polarized camps of understanding?

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Crafting questions that focus toward a theme or perspective but are open ended enough to encourage a variety of answers. It’s very easy for me to know what I want them to say.

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"In the process of conducting the three interviews, the interviewer must maintain a delicate balance between providing enough openness for the participants to tell their stories and enough focus to allow the interview structure to work."

"As yet there are no absolutes in the world of interviewing."

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My main question about in-depth, phenomenological interviewing is whether the longer and more in-depth the interview, the more potential there is for the interviewer to bias/impact the data? It seems to me that would be the case., and I'm curious about the thoughts of others or whether there are ways to mitigate.

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I don't have a poker face, so that is something that can effect interviewing experiences.