Conducting interviews is one of several possible methodologies to collect data. It is applied in a large variety of academic fields, ranging from social sciences to medicine, psychology, business, marketing, engineering, or agriculture. Interviews are especially useful for studies which 1) want to investigate human behaviour or attitudes; or 2) rely on information held by specific persons.
During the workshop, participants will be introduced to qualitative (f.i. expert interviews) as well as quantitative interviews (f.i. surveys). It will be discussed what the researcher can measure with different interview types and the formulation of questions will be exercised. Possible challenges, such as data bias, will be tackled and, eventually, participants will design their own questionnaire.
By the end of the workshop, participants will be able to:
- distinguish between different interview types and know their respective strengths
select among different question types and formulate good questions
conceptualize a questionnaire and conduct an interview
- critically reflect on data, numbers, and statistics in other studies
Necessary tools/materials: laptop & beamer, flip chart, white boards (ideally), space for 4 groups to brainstorm