“Practice Makes Perfect” could not be more true for interviewing. I have had my fair share of interviewing experience, mostly to evaluate a person for a position, but also as primary research for a class paper. I look back at that interview as successful due to a clear scope and an interviewee willing to talk about themselves. It was also easy thinking of unscripted questions to ask without straying off topic. So after that encounter, naturally I was excited to hear we would be conducting interviews for our semester project. But as I reflected on my first interview as I began to transcribe it, I realized just how different it had gone compared to the lone other research interview I had experience conducting. Even though I felt comfortable through being prepared and having a clear scope, as the interview went on, I could tell I was leading it with some bias. I obviously did not intend for this to happen, but that is what started to shine through. I also lacked in asking unscripted follow-up questions due to my reliance` on the interview guide. I was telling myself I had to ask improvised questions which I feel like distracted me from actually listening close enough to formulate ones on my own naturally.
I took my observations into my second interview and ended up having a much better and natural flowing conversation. However, due to themes I noticed in each interview, I decided the initial one would be better to transcribe for it still included helpful insight across the multiple different areas we were looking at. I felt interviewee two’s theme was giving up pleasure now to better prepare for med school in the future. Even much of his future aspirations evolved around just going to med school. Meanwhile Interviewee one’s themes were present throughout the entire interview and ended up being more helpful understanding key desires of her life. For example, she had answered about having a full kitchen and how it would be desirable to have to cook in the future. But she would go on to bring up some aspect of the kitchen numerous times throughout the interview, even when not prompted to talk about it. I feel like this shows a clear extensive desire to have a full kitchen compared to an in unit washer and dryer which she only mentioned once as desirable.
This exercise has been extremely beneficial in adding tools to my professional toolkit. The experience itself helps us understand how to communicate with others just as much as it helps us understand how to conduct primary research through interviewing. Both skills could prove very useful in our every day lives.