Methodological Memo
At this point in my academic career, I have engaged in quite a few interviews for various projects. While I would never have considered myself to be an excellent interviewer, I would hardly consider myself to be a novice. Unfortunately, when I interviewed Sydney that is how I felt. I was nervous, my voice cracked, and I felt as if I incessantly jumbled my questions. Furthermore, as I was nervous, I literally read most of my questions straight off the interview protocol. Doing such made me sound canned and artificial. Twice, I asked a follow-up question, and then realized it was close-ended the second it left my mouth. To somehow “fix” my mistake, I would add a pithy remark like, “in a few sentences” at the end. Once, I accidentally walked Sydney into the response for which I was looking. Thankfully, as I asked her to provide an example to elaborate on the issue, the exchange had a satisfactory outcome.
As I reflect on my first interview for a “real” qualitative project, I embrace this experience as one of great learning. Overall, the interview was great. There were a number of contributing factors that made it seem more unusual. Firstly, the interview was conducted over the phone. Though Sydney and I have not yet met in person, this was our first phone conversation as well. Secondly, as I am accustomed to providing non-verbal cues to demonstrate that I am listening, I struggled with how to do so over the phone. Hence, I almost “spoke over her” with my audible and much-too-often “mm hhhms.” I have to say, transcribing for me was a rather painful process—and it wasn’t the actual transcribing part I found difficult—it was listening to how stupid I sounded!
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