Questions to Ask in a Research Interview
A research interview can be one of many in a qualitative study, an ethnographic interview in someone's own setting, or a single conversation with a person who knows the subject for a research paper, and the questions to ask differ for each. The 52 here run in the order a session does: consent and easy openers, ethnographic questions about the person's everyday world, specific episodes, their views, the source and fact checks a paper needs, and the close. 'This' stands for whatever you are studying, and nobody asks all of them in one sitting: pick the groups your project needs.
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The questions
Each question, and why to ask it
Opening
Before we start, is there anything you want to know about how this will be used?
Why ask it
Consent given as a signature is not the same as consent given with understanding. Answering this first also settles nerves that would otherwise flatten the opening ten minutes of the recording.
Is it all right if I record our conversation?
Why ask it
A signed form does not replace asking aloud on the day, and the spoken yes belongs on the recording itself, so say when the recorder goes on and when it goes off. Rules on recording a conversation differ by country, state and institution: find out what applies to you and what your instructor or ethics board requires before you book the interview.
How would you like to be identified in what I write: by name, by role, or not at all?
Why ask it
A source for a class paper often expects to be named with a title, while a participant in a study often expects a pseudonym, and neither should be assumed. Write the answer down in the person's own words and hold to it in every draft.
What is your role now, and how long have you been doing it?
Why ask it
In a paper, the answer becomes the clause that tells a reader why this person is worth quoting. In a study it tells you whether you are hearing a newcomer's account or a veteran's, which changes how you read everything after it.
Can you tell me how you first got involved with this?
Why ask it
Origin questions are easy to answer, and they produce a story where a question about the topic itself would produce an opinion. The answer also gives you a starting year, so the episodes you hear later can be placed on a timeline.
What made you say yes to this interview?
Why ask it
Someone with a grievance, someone doing a teacher a favor and someone who wants the record put straight will give three different interviews. The reason belongs in your notes, because it explains what the person chose to dwell on.
Is there anything you would prefer I did not ask about?
Why ask it
Ask it after the warm-up and before the first real topic. Knowing where the boundary is lets you steer round it instead of walking into it with the recorder running, and it does not close the subject for good: people sometimes raise it themselves once they have seen how you handle the rest.
Ethnographic
Could you describe a typical day here, from when you arrive to when you leave?
Why ask it
Ethnographers call this a grand tour question: broad on purpose, so that the person decides what is worth including. Keep a list of what they pass over quickly, because the skipped parts are where your next questions come from.
Could you show me around and tell me what happens in each place?
Why ask it
Walking through a setting prompts talk that sitting at a table never does, since objects and rooms remind people of things they would not think to mention. Ask before you photograph anything, and find out whether the site itself has to give permission as well as the person.
Can you take me through that one task step by step, as if I had to do it myself tomorrow?
Why ask it
This is the narrow version of the typical-day question, aimed at one activity the person has already named. 'As if I had to do it' draws out the steps done without thinking, which are exactly the ones an outsider cannot see.
What do people here call that, and is there a word outsiders use that you never would?
Why ask it
Insider terms are data, so write them down exactly and ask how they are spelled. The second half shows where the group draws its own line between members and everyone else, often with some amusement.
What are the different kinds, and how do you tell them apart?
Why ask it
Use it on any category the person has just named: kinds of customers, kinds of shifts, kinds of trouble. The sorting gives you a map of their world in their terms, and the telling apart gives you the criteria they actually apply.
What would a newcomer have to learn before they stopped standing out?
Why ask it
People who cannot state an unwritten rule can usually list a beginner's mistakes without effort. It also gives you a tactful way to learn which of those mistakes you have been making yourself.
Who do people go to when something needs sorting out, and is that the person officially in charge?
Why ask it
The distance between the organization chart and the person everyone really asks is a finding in itself. Follow up with how that person came to hold the position, since nobody appointed them.
What happens when someone does it the wrong way?
Why ask it
A rule shows itself most clearly when it is broken. Ask for a real occasion: who noticed, what was said, and whether it was put right in front of others or quietly afterwards.
How is today different from how things go when I am not here?
Why ask it
Your presence changes the scene, and the people in it know how better than you do. Asked lightly, this gets a frank account of what was tidied up or left out, and the answer goes into your field notes beside the observation.
What have I misunderstood so far about how things work here?
Why ask it
Save it for a second or third visit, when you have an interpretation to be wrong about. Correcting an outsider's reading comes more easily to most people than volunteering an explanation, so offer yours and let them fix it.
Episodes
Walk me through a recent time this came up for you.
Why ask it
A single episode yields concrete detail; a general question yields the participant's theory about themselves. Ask for the most recent instance rather than the most memorable one.
What was that like at the time?
Why ask it
This separates the experience from the explanation built around it afterwards. Participants tend to jump to the lesson, and the lesson is usually the least original part of a transcript.
Who else was involved, and what were they doing?
Why ask it
A story told in the first person tends to have one character in it. Filling in the supervisor, the relative or the office that was also there brings up relationships and institutions you had not thought to ask about.
What did you say, as near to the actual words as you can remember?
Why ask it
Remembered speech brings a scene back in a way that summary does not: 'I told him no' and the sentence itself are different material. Treat it as recollection and not as a transcript, and say so when you quote it.
What did you try, and what happened?
Why ask it
The attempts that failed are what a tidy account leaves out, so ask for each one in the order it happened. What someone did can be compared with other people's accounts of the same event in a way that their reasons cannot.
What were you weighing up when you made that choice?
Why ask it
It gets at reasoning without the defensive edge that 'why did you' carries. The options someone turned down often show the constraints they were under more plainly than the option they took.
What was the hardest part?
Why ask it
Difficulty is where practice diverges from policy. If the answer matches the official account word for word, you may be hearing a rehearsed version rather than an experience.
Was there a point where things changed?
Why ask it
Follow a yes with when it was, what happened that day and how they knew something had shifted. A turning point with a date on it lets you divide the account into before and after, which is how many people already tell it.
Who or what helped most at that point?
Why ask it
Push for a name, a form, a phone call: something specific enough that you could ask the next participant about it too. An answer that stays at 'people were supportive' may mean that nothing in particular was on offer, and that is worth one gentle follow-up.
What did you expect that turned out to be wrong?
Why ask it
Asking what someone believed beforehand rarely works, because hindsight has rewritten it. A surprise is easier to remember, and it shows both what the person assumed going in and what the setting taught them.
What do you do differently now because of that?
Why ask it
The event and its aftermath are often folded together in a single retelling, and this pulls them apart. A change in what someone does is firmer evidence that the episode mattered than their saying that it did.
Can you tell me about a time it went differently?
Why ask it
One story becomes the whole account unless you ask for another. A contrasting occasion shows which details were essential and which were accident, and it keeps your analysis from resting on a single telling.
Views
How do other people in your position see this?
Why ask it
Asking about others lets participants voice views they are reluctant to own, and it maps the range of opinion inside a group you may only sample thinly.
What do people outside get wrong about it?
Why ask it
People answer this one with energy, because being misread is an irritation they have had time to put into words. Listen for whether your own research question makes the mistake they are describing.
You used a word earlier that I want to be sure I understand. What does it look like in practice?
Why ask it
Put their word in: 'fair', 'supportive', 'professional'. Two participants can use the same abstract term for quite different things, and comparing their answers is only sound if you asked each of them what they meant.
How would you know things were going well?
Why ask it
The signs a participant watches for, such as a quiet phone or a client who comes back, are seldom the measures used in the studies you have read. Where the two differ, report theirs as they gave them instead of translating them into yours.
Has your view of this changed over time, and what changed it?
Why ask it
A position with a history is easier to analyze than one presented as always held. Whatever changed it, a person, an event or a new job, is usually a lead to follow in this interview or the next.
Is there a side of this you feel torn about?
Why ask it
Interview answers tend to come out tidier than the feelings behind them. Making explicit room for mixed feelings gets the untidy version, which is harder to code and usually nearer to how the person lives with the issue.
What would you want changed, and by whom?
Why ask it
Naming a responsible party turns a complaint into a finding. An answer that stops at the system is worth one more gentle probe.
What would you say to someone about to go through this?
Why ask it
Advice questions produce a compressed statement of what the participant considers most important, which is useful when comparing across interviews.
For a paper
How does what happens in practice differ from what the textbooks say?
Why ask it
This is what an interview adds that a library cannot. An answer with a concrete case in it gives you a paragraph no other paper in the class will have, and it may send you back to adjust your thesis.
Where do people who know this subject well disagree with each other?
Why ask it
A research paper needs a live argument, and overviews tend to smooth those away. Ask which side your source takes and who makes the case for the other, so that you can go and read the opposing view yourself.
Could you put that in plain terms, the way you would for someone outside the field?
Why ask it
A quotation full of jargon forces you to paraphrase, and a paraphrase is where a student's misreading gets in. Say the plain version back in your own words before moving on, so the source can correct you while you are still in the room.
Is that something you saw yourself, or something you heard from others?
Why ask it
Your paper has to say how the source knows what they claim, and firsthand knowledge, documents and hearsay carry different weight. Asked in a flat, curious tone it reads as care, not doubt.
Is there a figure, a date or a document I could check that against?
Why ask it
Memory rounds numbers and moves dates, and a paper that repeats a wrong one takes the blame for it. If nothing can be checked, attribute the detail plainly as the person's recollection.
What should I read on this that I might not find on my own?
Why ask it
One interview is one source, and an assignment usually asks for several. Someone who works in the area can name the trade report or the one good book that a catalog search buries, and that gives you published work to test the interview against.
If I only have room for one point from this conversation, which should it be?
Why ask it
An interview usually ends up in a paper as two or three quotations. Letting the source choose the main point protects you from presenting a passing remark as their central view.
Closing
Now that we have talked for a while, is there an earlier answer you would like to add to?
Why ask it
Asked late and without emphasis, this recovers what the participant was still deciding whether to trust you with in the first half hour. Name a topic if you can ('you mentioned your first year there') so that it sounds like interest and not like a hint that they held something back.
Is there something I should have asked and did not?
Why ask it
Early in a study this is how an interview guide gets fixed. Several participants pointing the same direction means there is a hole in your instrument.
Is there anything you said today that you would rather I did not quote?
Why ask it
People say more than they planned to once they relax. What a participant may withdraw, and until when, depends on your consent form and your institution's rules, so know your own before you make a promise here.
Can I check the spelling of your name, your title and the names you mentioned?
Why ask it
A misspelled name is the first error a source notices and the easiest to prevent. In an anonymized study, skip the name and confirm that the description you plan to use, such as 'a nurse with ten years on the ward', would not identify them.
How did it feel to talk through this today?
Why ask it
It catches distress you missed while you were watching your question sheet, and it is the only feedback on your interviewing you are likely to get. If the subject is a painful one, find out beforehand what your supervisor or ethics board expects you to do when someone leaves upset.
Is there anyone else you think I should speak to?
Why ask it
Many small samples are built one referral at a time, and the names offered show whom this person treats as an authority. Ask whether you may say who sent you, because in a confidential study that would reveal they took part.
Would it be all right to contact you again if I find a gap when I listen back?
Why ask it
You will find one, because transcribing exposes the vague answer you nodded through at the time. Agree on how and roughly when, and keep the follow-up to the gap instead of running a second interview by email.
Would you like to see what I write, or a summary of what I find?
Why ask it
Sharing results is a courtesy, and in some studies checking your reading with participants is part of the method. Promise only what you can deliver: a copy of a class paper is easy, while a thesis or article may be months away or limited in who can see it.
Running a Qualitative Interview
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Fitting the List to Your Project
An interview for a research paper
This is usually one conversation of twenty to forty minutes with someone who knows the subject firsthand. Take two or three questions from Opening, a few from Episodes so that you leave with a concrete story, most of For a paper, and the quoting and spelling questions from Closing. How to cite a personal interview, and whether the source has to be named, varies by citation style and by course, so ask your instructor before you write it up.
An ethnographic interview
It usually takes place in the person's own setting and happens more than once, alongside time spent watching and taking part. Start with the broad Ethnographic questions and let the answers run long, then come back on later visits to narrow in on the terms and categories you were given. Keep field notes on what you saw as well as what was said, since the difference between the two is often the finding.
A thesis or a study you hope to publish
Many universities require an ethics review before you interview anyone for research that will be shared beyond a classroom. What needs approval, what form consent takes and how long recordings may be kept differ by country and by institution, and a class assignment is sometimes exempt and sometimes not. Ask your supervisor or the review office how it works where you are before you recruit a single participant.
How much of the list to bring
An hour has room for far fewer prepared questions than this page holds, because follow-ups should take most of the time. Choose around ten, mark the three you cannot leave without asking, and treat the rest of the list as a reserve for when an answer runs dry.
Interviewing Craft
Ask for episodes, not opinions
"Tell me about the last time" produces detail you can code. "How do you generally feel about" produces a summary the participant has already given other people, usually more than once.
Let silence do the work
Counting to five before speaking again is uncomfortable and highly productive. The second half of an answer often arrives in that gap, after the polite version has been delivered.
Use their words, not yours
If a participant says pressure, do not paraphrase it as stress. Repeating their term back keeps the meaning theirs and avoids importing your framework into the transcript.
Ask what, not why
Why questions invite people to defend themselves. What happened next, what did you do, and what did you say get you the same causal information with much less self-presentation attached.
Probes That Keep an Answer Going
- Can you give me an example of that?
- What happened just before that?
- You said it was complicated. Complicated how?
- Who was in the room?
- How did you find out?
- What did you do next?
- Is that typical, or was that time unusual?
Practical Setup
Recording and consent
Confirm consent on the recording itself, say when you are starting and stopping, and tell participants they can ask you to pause. Whether they can have something struck afterwards depends on your consent form, so read it before you offer. Carry a second recorder, because primary devices fail in the middle of the best interview of a study.
Order of questions
Put easy factual openers first, sensitive material in the middle third once rapport exists, and something calm at the end so nobody leaves in the middle of a difficult subject.
Time and place
Allow half again as long as you booked, and choose somewhere the participant can speak without being overheard by a colleague, a manager or a family member.
Notes immediately afterwards
Write your impressions within the hour: what surprised you, where the participant hesitated, what the room was like. Those notes will not survive the week otherwise, and they are what make the transcript legible later.
Common Pitfalls
Leading without noticing
Questions like "so that must have been frustrating" hand the participant an answer. Ask what it was like and let them supply the adjective.
Filling silence with a second question
Stacking two questions together means you get an answer to one of them, usually the easier one. Ask one and wait. Where a question on this page has two halves, ask the first and keep the second as your follow-up.
Interviewing your hypothesis
If every probe follows the material that supports your expectation, the transcript will confirm it. Deliberately follow the answer that does not fit.
Ending abruptly when the time runs out
The last five minutes often produce the most candid material. Leave room for the closing questions rather than cutting them when the clock forces a choice.