IX. Collecting Raw Data through Interviews and Surveys
Interviewing sources
Early in your research process you will be required to conduct an interview. Later, many of you will decide that conducting additional interviews is essential to your research effort.
Requesting an interview:
It’s important that you politely request interviews. To do that, you have to demonstrate that you know why the person you wish to interview is relevant, know a bit about what he/she does, and be able to link your project to their work. You need to e-mail them, using appropriate professional e-mail prose, and ask them to respond to an e-mail address that is professional looking. (Your BPS e-mail address is fine for this but your personal e-mail address may or may not be.) You need to be a bit formal, not casual or chummy, and you need to phrase your request in such a manner that your potential interview candidate wants to do the interview.
We’ve included a sample e-mail (see Appendix G) that gives you some idea of e-mail etiquette. Please don’t hesitate to ask for help as you draft your early e-mail requests; believe it or not, there are strategies to getting a response in a timely fashion.
Preparing your interview questions:
Your first task is to decide exactly what it is you hope you will learn from your interview. Start by defining your goals and the topics you want to cover. Let that guide every question that you write.
Keep in mind who you are interviewing. If your interviewee is an expert on your topic, then you want to know enough before the interview to ask intelligent and useful questions that will go beyond what you can learn from other sources. You want to draw on the expertise of your interviewee to extract material that you might have more difficulty finding. If your interviewee is someone directly affected by or a witness to what you are exploring, then you will want to focus on extracting information about his/her experience, thoughts, reflections, etc.
Keep your questions open-ended. If you ask, for example, “Did you like that?” and the result is a simple “yes” or “no,” then clearly the question needs to be more expansive. “Why did you like it?” Don’t be afraid to ask follow-up questions to your questions if the answers you are given are thought-provoking and naturally prompt additional questions. Or, if an answer doesn’t get you very far, rephrase, circle around and return it, and let your goal guide you.
In other words, even if you have a pre-prepared list of questions, you don’t want to simply stick to that list. The best interviews are usually the results of a good conversation. You want your interviewee to do most of the talking but you want to coax the talking and the topics from them through thoughtful questions.
It’s critically important that you listen closely. The biggest mistake that high school students make is to not listen to the responses they are getting from others. Don’t just ask the question, record or take notes on the answer, and then move onto another question on a completely different topic. Show your interviewee you’ve been listening! Stay with what the interviewee tells you, ask for further detail, inquire about what you don’t understand, and--again--make sure your underlying goal is fulfilled.
Remember: you came to the interview to get information; don’t leave without it!
The following is excerpted from Purdue University’s OWL site (an excellent site for the research process). Interviewing is a great way to learn detailed information from a single individual or small number of individuals. It is very useful when you want to gain expert opinions on the subject or talk to someone knowledgeable about a topic.
Types of Interviewing:
Several different types of interviews exist. You should choose one based on what kind of technology you have available to you, the availability of the individual you are interviewing, and how comfortable you feel talking to people.
Face to Face Interviews: Face to face interviews are when you sit down and talk with someone. They are beneficial because you can adapt your questioning to the answers of the person you are interviewing. You will need recording equipment for the interview, and it is highly recommended that you bring two recording devices with you in case one fails.
Phone Interviews: Phone interviews can be used when you need to interview someone who is geographically far away, who is too busy to meet with you to talk, or who does not want to use Internet technology. Check on your smartphone to see what you will need to do to record a conversation. Be certain that you have secured the permission of the person you are recording; that’s the law!
Email Interviews: Email interviews are less personal than face-to-face or phone interviews, but highly convenient for most individuals. You may not get as much information from someone in an email interview because you are not able to ask follow-up questions or play off the interviewee’s responses. However, email interviews are useful because they are already in a digital format.
Setting up an interview:
When setting up an interview, be sure to be courteous and professional. Explain to the person being interviewed who you are, what you want to talk them about, and what project you are working on. Don’t be discouraged if not everyone you contact is willing to be interviewed.
Interview do's and dont's:
When conducting interviews…
● Do be careful of the types of questions you ask. See the “Creating good survey and interview questions” section for more information.
● Do start the interview with some small talk to give both yourself and the person you are interviewing a chance to get comfortable.
● Do bring redundant recording equipment in case something happens to one of your recording devices.
● Do pay attention to what is being said during the interview and follow up responses that sound interesting.
● Do come to the interview prepared. You should learn as much as you can about the person you are going to interview before the interview takes place so that you can tailor your questions to them.
● Don't pester or push the person you are interviewing. If he or she does not want to talk about an issue, you should respect that desire.
● Don't stick to your questions rigidly. If an interesting subject comes up that relates to your research, feel free to ask additional questions about it.
● Don't allow the person you are interviewing to continually get off topic. If the conversation drifts, ask follow-up questions to redirect the conversation to the subject at hand.
Source: https://owl.english.purdue.edu
As part of conducting an interview and ensuring that you have the right to use quotes from the interview and cite it, you must obtain a release. Minors who are interviewed are required to have parent/guardian signatures. We have created a general release for Capstone projects; you may have to adapt it slightly for your project. See Appendix H for the general release.
Surveys
Early in your research process you will be required to create and distribute a survey to a small sample of individuals. Later in your process many of you will determine that you need a sense of public opinion in order to measure views on an aspect of your topic. To do this, you may well design a survey to collect data from a sizeable sample of individuals.
Designing a survey may seem intuitive but it’s not. There has actually been quite a bit of research on designing a survey and how to word and order questions so that they elicit the information you hope to measure. Here is an excellent site, designed by the Pew Research Center for the People and the
Press, that offers some good advice on how to design and implement a survey:
http://www.people-press.org/methodology/questionnaire-design/
Designing good questions is key to the success of your survey. Purdue University’s OWL site (https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/559/06/) has some excellent points to consider as you plan your questions. Here are types of questions that you will want to avoid (this material is excerpted from the OWL site):
Biased questions:
Biased questions are questions that encourage your participants to respond to the question in a certain way. They may contain biased terminology or are worded in a biased way.
Biased question: Don't you agree that campus parking is a problem?
Revised question: Is parking on campus a problem?
Questions that assume what they ask:
These questions are a type of biased question and lead your participants to agree or respond in a certain way.
Biased question: There are many people who believe that campus
parking is a problem. Are you one of them?
Revised question: Do you agree or disagree that campus parking is a problem?
Double-barreled questions:
A double-barreled question is a one that has more than one question embedded within it. Participants may answer one but not both, or may disagree with part or all of the question.
Double-barreled question: Do you agree that campus parking is a problem and that the
administration should be working diligently on a solution?
Revised question: Is campus parking a problem? (If the participant responds yes): Should
the administration be responsible for solving this problem?
Confusing or wordy questions:
Make sure your questions are not confusing or wordy. Confusing questions will only lead to confused participants, which leads to unreliable answers.
Confusing questions: What do you think about parking? (This is confusing because the
question isn't clear about what it is asking-parking in general? The person's ability to
park the car? Parking on campus?) Do you believe that the parking situation on campus is
problematic or difficult because of the lack of spaces and the walking distances or do you
believe that the parking situation on campus is ok? (This question is both very wordy and
leads the participant.)
Revised question: What is your opinion of the parking situation on campus?
Questions that do not relate to what you want to learn:
Be sure that your questions directly relate to what it is you are studying. A good way to do this is to ask someone else to read your questions or even test your survey out on a few people and see if the responses fit what you are looking for.
Unrelated questions: Have you ever encountered problems in the parking garage on
campus? Do you like or dislike the bus system?
Source: https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/559/06/
A few more pointers: there are many companies out there in the real world who design and implement surveys for a living. One of them, Qualtrics, shared some tips on designing these that might be useful to you: http://www.qualtrics.com/blog/creating-surveys/
It should be your goal in designing and executing a survey to have a low margin of error. A margin of error is an analytical technique that allows for a number of acceptable errors in an investigation. A low margin of error is desirable if your findings are to be considered persuasive. If you are unsure about how many people you need to have a low margin of error, take a look at this useful Wiki on creating a survey and assessing the numbers of responses you would need: http://www.wikihow.com/Create-a-Survey
Finally, know that you can use Google docs to create a survey and tabulate the results through a number of analytical tools and graphs. But if you do this then you are going to want to think about how to use those graphs, bar charts, etc. that will be generated to present clear and visually decipherable findings.
Interviewing sources
Early in your research process you will be required to conduct an interview. Later, many of you will decide that conducting additional interviews is essential to your research effort.
Requesting an interview:
It’s important that you politely request interviews. To do that, you have to demonstrate that you know why the person you wish to interview is relevant, know a bit about what he/she does, and be able to link your project to their work. You need to e-mail them, using appropriate professional e-mail prose, and ask them to respond to an e-mail address that is professional looking. (Your BPS e-mail address is fine for this but your personal e-mail address may or may not be.) You need to be a bit formal, not casual or chummy, and you need to phrase your request in such a manner that your potential interview candidate wants to do the interview.
We’ve included a sample e-mail (see Appendix G) that gives you some idea of e-mail etiquette. Please don’t hesitate to ask for help as you draft your early e-mail requests; believe it or not, there are strategies to getting a response in a timely fashion.
Preparing your interview questions:
Your first task is to decide exactly what it is you hope you will learn from your interview. Start by defining your goals and the topics you want to cover. Let that guide every question that you write.
Keep in mind who you are interviewing. If your interviewee is an expert on your topic, then you want to know enough before the interview to ask intelligent and useful questions that will go beyond what you can learn from other sources. You want to draw on the expertise of your interviewee to extract material that you might have more difficulty finding. If your interviewee is someone directly affected by or a witness to what you are exploring, then you will want to focus on extracting information about his/her experience, thoughts, reflections, etc.
Keep your questions open-ended. If you ask, for example, “Did you like that?” and the result is a simple “yes” or “no,” then clearly the question needs to be more expansive. “Why did you like it?” Don’t be afraid to ask follow-up questions to your questions if the answers you are given are thought-provoking and naturally prompt additional questions. Or, if an answer doesn’t get you very far, rephrase, circle around and return it, and let your goal guide you.
In other words, even if you have a pre-prepared list of questions, you don’t want to simply stick to that list. The best interviews are usually the results of a good conversation. You want your interviewee to do most of the talking but you want to coax the talking and the topics from them through thoughtful questions.
It’s critically important that you listen closely. The biggest mistake that high school students make is to not listen to the responses they are getting from others. Don’t just ask the question, record or take notes on the answer, and then move onto another question on a completely different topic. Show your interviewee you’ve been listening! Stay with what the interviewee tells you, ask for further detail, inquire about what you don’t understand, and--again--make sure your underlying goal is fulfilled.
Remember: you came to the interview to get information; don’t leave without it!
The following is excerpted from Purdue University’s OWL site (an excellent site for the research process). Interviewing is a great way to learn detailed information from a single individual or small number of individuals. It is very useful when you want to gain expert opinions on the subject or talk to someone knowledgeable about a topic.
Types of Interviewing:
Several different types of interviews exist. You should choose one based on what kind of technology you have available to you, the availability of the individual you are interviewing, and how comfortable you feel talking to people.
Face to Face Interviews: Face to face interviews are when you sit down and talk with someone. They are beneficial because you can adapt your questioning to the answers of the person you are interviewing. You will need recording equipment for the interview, and it is highly recommended that you bring two recording devices with you in case one fails.
Phone Interviews: Phone interviews can be used when you need to interview someone who is geographically far away, who is too busy to meet with you to talk, or who does not want to use Internet technology. Check on your smartphone to see what you will need to do to record a conversation. Be certain that you have secured the permission of the person you are recording; that’s the law!
Email Interviews: Email interviews are less personal than face-to-face or phone interviews, but highly convenient for most individuals. You may not get as much information from someone in an email interview because you are not able to ask follow-up questions or play off the interviewee’s responses. However, email interviews are useful because they are already in a digital format.
Setting up an interview:
When setting up an interview, be sure to be courteous and professional. Explain to the person being interviewed who you are, what you want to talk them about, and what project you are working on. Don’t be discouraged if not everyone you contact is willing to be interviewed.
Interview do's and dont's:
When conducting interviews…
● Do be careful of the types of questions you ask. See the “Creating good survey and interview questions” section for more information.
● Do start the interview with some small talk to give both yourself and the person you are interviewing a chance to get comfortable.
● Do bring redundant recording equipment in case something happens to one of your recording devices.
● Do pay attention to what is being said during the interview and follow up responses that sound interesting.
● Do come to the interview prepared. You should learn as much as you can about the person you are going to interview before the interview takes place so that you can tailor your questions to them.
● Don't pester or push the person you are interviewing. If he or she does not want to talk about an issue, you should respect that desire.
● Don't stick to your questions rigidly. If an interesting subject comes up that relates to your research, feel free to ask additional questions about it.
● Don't allow the person you are interviewing to continually get off topic. If the conversation drifts, ask follow-up questions to redirect the conversation to the subject at hand.
Source: https://owl.english.purdue.edu
As part of conducting an interview and ensuring that you have the right to use quotes from the interview and cite it, you must obtain a release. Minors who are interviewed are required to have parent/guardian signatures. We have created a general release for Capstone projects; you may have to adapt it slightly for your project. See Appendix H for the general release.
Surveys
Early in your research process you will be required to create and distribute a survey to a small sample of individuals. Later in your process many of you will determine that you need a sense of public opinion in order to measure views on an aspect of your topic. To do this, you may well design a survey to collect data from a sizeable sample of individuals.
Designing a survey may seem intuitive but it’s not. There has actually been quite a bit of research on designing a survey and how to word and order questions so that they elicit the information you hope to measure. Here is an excellent site, designed by the Pew Research Center for the People and the
Press, that offers some good advice on how to design and implement a survey:
http://www.people-press.org/methodology/questionnaire-design/
Designing good questions is key to the success of your survey. Purdue University’s OWL site (https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/559/06/) has some excellent points to consider as you plan your questions. Here are types of questions that you will want to avoid (this material is excerpted from the OWL site):
Biased questions:
Biased questions are questions that encourage your participants to respond to the question in a certain way. They may contain biased terminology or are worded in a biased way.
Biased question: Don't you agree that campus parking is a problem?
Revised question: Is parking on campus a problem?
Questions that assume what they ask:
These questions are a type of biased question and lead your participants to agree or respond in a certain way.
Biased question: There are many people who believe that campus
parking is a problem. Are you one of them?
Revised question: Do you agree or disagree that campus parking is a problem?
Double-barreled questions:
A double-barreled question is a one that has more than one question embedded within it. Participants may answer one but not both, or may disagree with part or all of the question.
Double-barreled question: Do you agree that campus parking is a problem and that the
administration should be working diligently on a solution?
Revised question: Is campus parking a problem? (If the participant responds yes): Should
the administration be responsible for solving this problem?
Confusing or wordy questions:
Make sure your questions are not confusing or wordy. Confusing questions will only lead to confused participants, which leads to unreliable answers.
Confusing questions: What do you think about parking? (This is confusing because the
question isn't clear about what it is asking-parking in general? The person's ability to
park the car? Parking on campus?) Do you believe that the parking situation on campus is
problematic or difficult because of the lack of spaces and the walking distances or do you
believe that the parking situation on campus is ok? (This question is both very wordy and
leads the participant.)
Revised question: What is your opinion of the parking situation on campus?
Questions that do not relate to what you want to learn:
Be sure that your questions directly relate to what it is you are studying. A good way to do this is to ask someone else to read your questions or even test your survey out on a few people and see if the responses fit what you are looking for.
Unrelated questions: Have you ever encountered problems in the parking garage on
campus? Do you like or dislike the bus system?
Source: https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/559/06/
A few more pointers: there are many companies out there in the real world who design and implement surveys for a living. One of them, Qualtrics, shared some tips on designing these that might be useful to you: http://www.qualtrics.com/blog/creating-surveys/
It should be your goal in designing and executing a survey to have a low margin of error. A margin of error is an analytical technique that allows for a number of acceptable errors in an investigation. A low margin of error is desirable if your findings are to be considered persuasive. If you are unsure about how many people you need to have a low margin of error, take a look at this useful Wiki on creating a survey and assessing the numbers of responses you would need: http://www.wikihow.com/Create-a-Survey
Finally, know that you can use Google docs to create a survey and tabulate the results through a number of analytical tools and graphs. But if you do this then you are going to want to think about how to use those graphs, bar charts, etc. that will be generated to present clear and visually decipherable findings.