4.6 Data generation methods
4.6.1 Semi-structured interviews
Leedy and Ormrod (2001) opine that, through the use of interviews, an abundance of useful data can be generated. As stated earlier on, there are many possible ways of generating data from the participants (Bless & Higson-Smith, 2000). A defining aspect of interviews is that they involve direct contact with the participants who are asked to answer questions relating to the research problem being investigated (Bless & Higson-Smith, 2000). The interviews can be verified, as, when they are given to the same individuals again, they are likely to produce the
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same results (McNeill & Chapman, 2005). Cohen, Manion and Morrison (2011) assert that the research interview is a two-person conversation initiated by the interviewer for a specific purpose of obtaining research-relevant information. The researcher then focuses on the content specified by the research objectives of systemic description, prediction or explanation.
Similarly, Maree (2007) posits that an interview is a two-way conversation, which Cohen, Manion and Morrison (2011) define as not ordinary, everyday conversation, in which the interviewer asks the participants questions to generate data and to learn about the ideas, beliefs, views, opinions and behaviours of the participant. Greeff (2005) posits that interviewing is the predominant mode of data generation in qualitative research. Hence, I have decided to use semi- structured interviews for the purposes of accessing data in depth, since semi-structured interviews (Greeff, 2005) are allowing considerable flexibility in scope and depth.
Moreover, the advantage of using interviews is that they permit flexibility rather than fixity of sequence of discussions, allowing participants to raise and pursue issues and matters that might not have been included in a pre-devised schedule (Cohen, Manion & Morrison, 2011). Creswell (2009) contends that, in qualitative interviews, the researcher conducts face to face interviews with the participants by telephone or engages in focus group interviews with six to eight interviewees in each group. In the light of the foregoing, individual interviews were utilised in this study. Maree (2007) advocates three types of interviews, which are: open-ended interviews, semi-structured interviews, and structured interviews. The aim of qualitative interviews is to see the world through the eyes of the participant, and they are a valuable source data (Maree, 2007). In this study, semi-structured interviews were used. I chose semi-structured interviews on the grounds propounded by McNeill and Chapman (2005), that semi-structured interviews consider or adopt certain features of both structured and unstructured interviews and allows room for both open ended and closed questions. There was a set of predetermined questions schedule that I gave to my participants, which helped in generating appropriate data.
Meanwhile, semi-structured interviews were relevant in that, in this study, I intended to have a better understanding of a single case. Greeff (2005) argues that semi-structured interviews help researchers yield detailed data about the participants’ perceptions and beliefs of a researched topic. They further maintain that this is possible because semi-structured interviews use predetermined questions on an interview schedule. Cohen, Manion, and Morrison (2011) posit that the interviews serve three purposes. First, interviews can be used as the primary means of generating the data that has direct bearing on the research objectives. Secondly, it can be used
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to test hypotheses or to generate new ones. Thirdly, the interviews can be used in conjunction with other methods in a research undertaking. In this study, interviews were complemented /supported with document review as a data generating tool. Maree (2007) asserts that interviews provide the researcher with rich descriptive data that will help the researcher to understand the participants’ construction of the (epistemological assumptions) knowledge and (ontological assumptions) reality. Similarly, McMillan and Schumacher (2010) posit that the use of interviews helps the researcher to obtain data on participants’ meanings – how individuals conceive their world and how they explain and make sense of the important events in their lives.
Interview methods involve the presentation of oral verbal questions and responses in the oral form. The meeting between researcher and participant is face to face. There are three main types of interviews that are used in social research (McNeill & Chapman, 2005). There are first structured interviews, which are more formal or structured in nature. Their distinguishing feature is that a researcher has a list or a set of standardized questions, which may include either an interview schedule or questionnaire. This spectrum of interview is composed of closed questions that require structured or fixed responses from the participants. However, this form of interview spectrum is used mainly to produce quantitative data. The other end of the spectrum consists of unstructured or informal interviews. McNeill and Chapman (2005) asserts that the unstructured interview allow flexibility during questioning. The researcher in this case has a list of topic areas to be covered. Hence, there are no predetermined questions to be used during the interview process (McNeill & Chapman, 2005). These interviews are as an informal conversation between the two individuals. Therefore, the questions that are asked in this interview spectrum tend to be open-ended and the focus is on the participants speaking for themselves. That the participants are speaking for themselves qualifies these interviews as the production of qualitative data.
The other spectrum of interviews is semi-structured interviews. Semi-structured interviews are a combination of both structured and un-structured questions aimed at generating data that are factual and attitudinal (McNeill & Chapman, 2005). Interestingly, these interviews have the potential of producing the same data again and again from different sets of participants. McNeill and Chapman (2005) assert that semi-structured interviews are the most viable and reliable methodological tool to be used in generating qualitative data. Moreover, they argue that semi- structured interviews produce straightforward factual data relatively cheaply.
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Interviews are one of the most commonly used forms of qualitative research methods (Mason, 2002). Furthermore, qualitative interviewing tends to be seen as involving the construction and reconstruction of knowledge more than the excavation of it (Mason, 2002). Good qualitative interviewing requires hard, creative, and active work. Therefore, it is a much more difficult and exhausting exercise to plan and carry out a qualitative interview. As qualitative interviewing is loosely structured or semi-structured, the fact that it flows as an informal conversation does not mean that extensive planning is necessary. Mason (2002) further argues that qualitative interviewers should work even harder on the structure and flow of the interview. Moreover, a qualitative research should be able to make on-the-spot decisions about the content and sequence of the interview as it progresses, and to keep everything running smoothly.
As this study sought to elicit the ethical leadership practices of school principals and educators in multiple-challenging township contexts, semi-structured interviews were deemed most appropriate as participants shared with me their stories as they experienced, and there was an opportunity for me to probe where I needed more clarity. Cohen, Manion and Morrison (2011) posit that the popularly used interview method in qualitative research is the semi-structured interview, where a schedule is prepared that is sufficiently open-ended to enable the contents to be registered, digressions and expansions to be made, new avenues to be included and further probing to be undertaken.