Interviewing

Interviewing has played a significant role in evaluation methodologies. From the question a doctor might pose a patient to the widespread use of opinion polling in social research, people have relied on question and answer exchanges to gather and share information, opinions, feelings, ideas, and experiences. Interviewing in the context of evaluation is a form of instrumentation used in both quantitative and qualitative study designs to collect data. Interviewing can occur through the mail, over the telephone, in person, or in groups. Most evaluation designs employ several types of interviews.

Interviews are often defined as being either structured or unstructured. However, all interviews have structure in that they involve purposeful thinking on the part of the interviewer and a desired outcome from the exchange. Whether to understand the lived experiences of a subject, as in phenomenological interviewing; contrast perceptions on a common topic, as in focus group interviewing; or construct joint understandings of a social practice, as in ethnographic interviewing, all interviewing is based on some assumption about human interaction.

In structured interviews, the interviewer generates a series of questions that she or he will ask all the respondents the same way and in the same order, with little follow-up probing. The interviewer is expected to remain detached and “neutral” so that the responses provided by the interviewee can be objectively compared and contrasted with other interviewees' responses.

In unstructured interviewing, the interviewer does not believe the interview can or should be neutral, and she or he constructs the interview around the personal and unique perspective of each respondent. The outcome of the interview is understood to be a jointly constructed and contextually imbued response.

A shared feature, however, in all forms of interviewing is that they are social relationships and therefore filled with the power dynamics, inequalities, social norms, and expectations inherent in such relationships. In fact, it is the social nature of these interactions that provides the opportunity for meaningful exchanges between individuals as well as creating a variety of methodological, ethical, and epistemological issues for evaluators.

Current dilemmas in the field of evaluation include how to reach hard-to-reach stakeholders; what to do with contextual factors, such as gender, social class, educational level, personal experience, and ethnicity, within both the interview contexts and the program being evaluated; and the basic question: For what purpose, ultimately, do we interview?

Evaluation is meant to serve the interests of the public, and in this task, it is still evolving. The social practice of interviewing has provided evaluators with the means to shift the process of evaluating programs from a detached and technical approach that often relies on externally developed tests and measures to an approach that builds an understanding of the [Page 211]program values, beliefs, assumptions, and processes of the participants within the program context itself. Interviewing, especially in groups, opens up opportunities for questioning and engagement, understanding and empathy, critique and consensus, action and praxis. It is because evaluators understand the power and potential of human conversation that stakeholder-based, responsive, collaborative, participatory, and deliberative democratic approaches to evaluation have emerged.

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